20 best movies like The Icon of a Season (2013)

The volatile intersections of contemporary Moscow and the intimate lives of five people.

Igor, a Russian oligarch gets into a heated argument with Eva, his estranged daughter whilst traveling on his private jet. Igor orders the plane to land. As the plane touches down Eva disappears into the Goan jungle. Thus begins Igor's desperate search for his only daughter. A search that will bring him and Eva into contact with various characters who in turn are trying to find their own paths through life. Makar, a guy from Novosibirsk, who is desperately searching for enlightenment. Alexey and Kristina are ending their marriage here, while Dimon and Lenya are raising hell and pushing Goa to its partying limits. Kosmos the Guru ("just don't call him that") dispenses the chemicals that in a bat of an eyelid will take you to an alternate reality. There are different destinies here. There are a myriad of people. But all of them have one Motherland, which is easy not to love as long it is close to you

Devoted to the last days of Soviet writer, poet, and Gulag survivor Varlam Shalamov, this film follows the efforts of two of Shalamov’s most devoted admirers to preserve the author’s legacy. Having lost his sight and hearing and living in a retirement home, he carried on doing the only thing that mattered to him — writing — until his final breath. This film is a testament to the value of writings that tell the unpalatable truths of the 20th century. To evoke the gritty texture of the Soviet world, Sententia is shot on 16mm black and white film.

We don't have an overview translated in English. Help us expand our database by adding one.

We don't have an overview translated in English. Help us expand our database by adding one.

One day, Tamara went out to throw out the garbage and met Pasha at the entrance with a bottle of wine and a desire to talk. After a visit, the man gets into the apartment of a new acquaintance, and she tells him how much she loves her husband Lenechka, who took her "rejected" from the village, planted her at home for a sewing machine and called "gupeshka" - in honor of an aquarium fish, submissive , silent, unwittingly devoted to the owner.

She is a healer. A hermit. A Fool-in-God. She is a little over forty years old. She doesn’t disdain alcohol. She can be ridiculous, humiliated, offended. She has long been indifferent about herself. Everybody avoids her and is afraid of her, but secretly at night they all hurry to her home. After all, only she can get rid of their illnesses. For her, this is a damnation, and each time she swears that she won’t help people any more, but each time she is unable to refuse them. She knows that her gift will ruin her some time, but she continues to be the only chance of salvation for people.

Award-winning Iranian filmmaker Rakshan Banietemad ends her eight-year hiatus from feature filmmaking with this ingenious, mosaic-like narrative, which knits together the stories of seven characters to create a microcosm of Iranian working-class society.

A well-known civil servant from the Mayor's Office in a provincial Russian town receives a note: You'll soon die. He takes no notice, and gets ready for his normal Sunday – family problems, his personal life, work, other matters… But this Sunday turns out very far from normal. From the very start things come crashing down, smiting everything in its path, including all plans, external composure, and even his own life.

The protagonist Mikhail Nosov is a simple worker. His life consists of work at the machine tool and loneliness in a small rented apartment, TV, the Internet and visiting cheap night clubs. Once Nosov gets acquainted with a prostitute by the name of Diana. Nosov likes Diana and hires her as escort. Diana should live in his apartment. However, Diana turns out completely different to what Nosov imagined her to be, and his life takes an abrupt turn: unexpectedly he goes against his firm principles, changes priorities and understands that life is not as one- dimensional as it seemed to him from the conversations with colleagues and news programmes.

A story of a successful businessman who falls in love with a silent movies actress and starts to look everywhere for a woman who looks exactly like her.

In a small town everything is visible. However much you try to hide something, some disturbing signals will reach the family sooner or later. And then you have to make a choice: start a new life in the same place with your new “half” or confess to the old half and return to the usual flow of life. The film’s heroes stand before such a choice.

We don't have an overview translated in English. Help us expand our database by adding one.

A story about a simple school literature teacher, Fedorov, who thought his life couldn't become more boring and pointless until he met a strange girl, who stormed into his very ordinary day, accused him of bringing her girl-friend to suicide and turned his life completely.

Judas, a seasoned thief, finds himself in the market square where Christ is giving a sermon and his apostles are collecting alms. He follows them and steals their money, only to be caught red-handed. Nevertheless, the Teacher forgives him. What is more, He invites the thief to become one of His followers and offers him a position as the group’s treasurer. Shocked by Christ’s unexpected offer, Judas decides to join the apostles, if only to figure out what is going on. He gradually starts to comprehend Christ’s message, but feels that the apostles are blindly following their teacher. Judas argues with them, and tries to defend his right to divine the truth of God. But when he fails to make them understand, he realizes that Christ’s teachings may sink into oblivion without benefiting humanity. His solution is to betray Christ. “By killing a man, have I not saved a God?”

Yakutia, the 1930s. Old Mikipper and his wife Oppuos live their days in thick taiga. Cows, hunting, fishing make up the simple everyday life of the old people. Once early in the winter an eagle flies into their garden. The old people dare no drive it away because eagles are sacred. All through the winter they feed the bird so that it does no attack their cattle. Gradually they grow accustomed to each other. On a cold Christmas day the eagle makes its way into the house and occupies the honorary place in the corner on the shelf next to the icons. From then on the people and the bird start their life together in one house.

After the bizarre death of her brother, Johana Burwood must return home after four years, to face her strange siblings, her out of touch father and her very touchy past.

Alevtina Romanova is a warden in the woman's colony, and the only thing that is different from her «iron lady» image is her voice - a voice which even a notable opera diva would envy. However, Alevtina has been ashamed of her talent since the times she was a kid and nowadays, preliminarily making sure no one's around, she rarely sings for herself. Despite the fact that Alevtina is trying to stay invisible, one of the prisoners secretly records her singing on video by a cellphone and puts it online. The tape becomes a real sensation, and soon Alevtina is invited to Moscow to participate in the main singing show on national television. A sincere desire to change her life awakens inside Alevtina but she's not ready to compete in the show at all. The only person who could train her voice and prepare her for the performance is that very prisoner, who recorded the video, who turns out to be a singer in the past.

A famous movies director tries to understand why his life started to change so drastically.

At a predominantly white Ivy League college, a diverse group of students navigate various forms of racial and other types of discrimination.

Single mom Laura, along with her awkward 14 year-old son Henry is forced to drive Jack, her estranged, care-free pot dealing father across country after he's kicked out of yet another nursing home.

A story based on love between Anton Chekhov and a young writer Lidiya Avilova.

An estranged family gathers together in New York for an event celebrating the artistic work of their father.

The main character of the movie is a young man from downtown Moscow. He got everything from his father - his money, car, university. Sasha wants to live his life differently, but doesn't know how... He dreams of being Tsoi or van Gogh. One day Sasha meets Masha, an extraordinary and complex woman. Her mother, an aged actress, is an alcoholic and trying to take her own life. Sasha decides to help the girl

The history of Levon and Armen, whose roads had diverged 16 years ago, but one casual encounter reveals the secrets of the past. Will they return the lost?

The fates of two people - adult and teenager - are crossing paths when both of them are on a crossroads of their lives.

Paris, France, December 1897. The young playwright Edmond Rostand feels like a failure. Inspiration has abandoned him. Married and father of two children, desperate and penniless, he persuades the great actor Constant Coquelin to perform the main role in his new play. But there is a problem: Coquelin wants to premiere it at Christmas and Edmond has not written a single word.

The drama based on hidden implicit faith in miracle unfolds between the members of the family with an unhappy love story of a desolate teenage girl who tries to withstand this family madness after their devotee grandmother came to their flat from upcountry.

Inspired by global phenomenon of military wives choirs, the story celebrates a band of misfit women who form a choir on a military base. As unexpected bonds of friendship flourish, music and laughter transform their lives, helping each other to overcome their fears for loved ones in combat.

A young couple Andrei and Nadya get lost in a deep Siberian forest. It’s where they start their thorny way of fighting inner fears and working on the mistakes they made in the past. The forest is a metaphor of life where this couple has gone astray. Or maybe it’s the garden of Eden to which the persecuted have finally found their way back.

Four novels: "Spring", "Summer", "Autumn", "Winter" - four very different love stories...

A romantic drama set in 1961 that follows a young studio extra's ambitious efforts to reunite with the French girl he loves after being separated by the construction of the Berlin Wall.

A young woman leaves the city to return to her hometown in the countryside. Seeking to escape the hustle and bustle of the city, she becomes self-sufficient in a bid to reconnect with nature.

A Hollywood-set romantic tale of a guy who is content to live his life without a job yet with the love of his life, a young actress.

15 minutes of fame destroys the life of a man who works as a clapper in television.

Since early childhood Peter has been obsessed with the world of puppets, but his greater obsession is with a real girl, Lisa. He crafts his perfect woman out of her. But Lisa isn't a docile marionette. She's a living human being and she rebels against her creator. Based on the critically-acclaimed, brilliant and poignant novel by one of the best contemporary Russian writers, Dina Rubina, "Petrushka Syndrome" is a multidimensional metaphor, where a sense of duality pervades everything. People and dolls, life and art, the Creator and the creation depend on one another. And where does one draw the line between them?

Dorottya is a young Hungarian actress with a burning desire: to make it on the English stage. Legendary actor, Sir Michael Gifford suffers from an incurable disease, and has one desire: be left alone. When Dorottya becomes his carer they both hope their wish will be fulfilled.

Immigrants from around the world enter Los Angeles every day, with hopeful visions of a better life, but little notion of what that life may cost. Their desperate scenarios test the humanity of immigration enforcement officers. In Crossing Over, writer-director Wayne Kramer explores the allure of the American dream, and the reality that immigrants find – and create -- in 21st century L.A.

What price are you willing to pay for success? Since childhood, dreaming of becoming a rock star Lisa comes an offer from America, and she leaves the family - husband Artem and little daughter Vita. They once dreamed to go to America to make music with Artyom, but after the birth of their daughter they had to forget about creativity. Now Artem raises her daughter alone, interrupted by odd jobs. Once he is forced to speak with covers of Russian pop music at corporate parties. He takes Vita with him, and she unexpectedly rescues his father — he sings a song for him, the words of which he does not know. Their extravagant performance hits the Internet, collects millions of views, and attracts the attention of a famous producer. He promises to make them true stars. But Vita does not want to be a star at all - she wants her mother to come back ...

Liuba Vasnetsova lives in a provincial boarding school, dreams of finishing it sooner rather than later and go to St Petersburg to become a stewardess. The future seems bright: after boarding school she receives the keys to a new apartment, with a new life ahead. But on the day of her graduation she learns that she is not an orphan: her father is alive and not dead, as she was told earlier. The girl is shaken and decides to find him.

After his family is evicted from their home, proud and desperate construction worker Dennis Nash tries to win his home back by striking a deal with the devil and working for Rick Carver, the corrupt real estate broker who evicted him.

The story of Joseph a man plagued by violence and a rage that is driving him to self-destruction. As Joseph's life spirals into turmoil a chance of redemption appears in the form of Hannah, a Christian charity shop worker. Their relationship develops to reveal that Hannah is hiding a secret of her own with devastating results on both of their lives.

Yesterday's Leningrad schoolgirl Masha Yablochkina, after a fierce blockade winter of 1941-1942, comes to the railway courses hoping to survive and gain strength. From there, the girl is sent to the construction of the Shlisselburg highway, which connects the city with the mainland and is in direct sight of German artillery. So the heroine gets into the 48th locomotive column of the special reserve NKPS, which, at the cost of the deadly risk, will have to deliver 75% of all cargo and military equipment to Leningrad.

A Romanian police officer teams up with a small crew of bank robbers to pull off a heist by convincing everyone at the scene of the crime that they are only filming a movie.

Writer and expatriate Marina receives an invitation to meet graduates. Resigned to the nostalgic impulse, she flies from Europe to Novustoinovsk - a district city in the middle of the country, which has long ceased to exist. There, in the provincial hinterland of the past, her memories and old friends live, all of them ephemeral as television programs from another life. This is a life story about fate of ordinary people, about quarrels, spiritual growth and decline, about hope and changeable memory.

Engeyum Eppodhum revolves around a group of passengers traveling in two different buses, each having their own past and a reason for their travel. The most prominent among these passengers is the love track between Kathiresan (Jai), Manimegalai (Anjali) and the other between Vinay (Saravanandh) and Amudha (Ananya).Jai is a responsible young person who works as a mechanic and secretly loves his neighbour Anjali, but Anjali is an extremely practical girl and believes that love alone doesn't suffice life. The evolution of their love through these forms the crux of their relationship....

For Sebastian Silverberg life is all about his appearance, partying and his enormous ego. Things are going smoothly when an accident leaves him blind, forcing him to re-evaluate his life and to seek meaning beyond appearances.

A young Israeli man absconds to Paris to flee his nationality, aided by his trusty Franco-Israeli dictionary.

A woman named Kit moves back to her parent's house, where she receives a mysterious invitation that would fulfill her childhood dreams.

François, a young thirty-year-old Asian, has not been back in his family for 10 years after a violent dispute with his father Meng. Since then, he has always tried to avoid questions about his origins, until he lies to believe that he has been adopted. But when he learns that he is going to be a father, he realizes that he will have to reconnect with his past and his origins. Pushed by his companion Sophie, he decides to reconnect with his family and returns to his XIIIth native district to announce the good news, accompanied by his best friend Bruno. François is welcomed with open arms by his family, with the exception of his father and his younger brother. The return to his community is not going to be so simple .