20 best movies like The Wind Journeys (2009)

The true story of Rocco Granata, an Italian coal miner's son who followed his passion for music against his father's wishes and social barriers.

Lisbon Story is Wim Wenders' homage to Lisbon and films. A sound engineer obtains a mysterious postcard from a friend who at the moment is filming a film in Lisbon. He sets out across Europe to find him and help him.

After an accidental drug overdose, a talented teenage DJ goes to live with his estranged father in a small Army town, where he gets to the bottom of his own pain and learns empathy for others.

David Sinclair seems to have everything going for him: he's smart, musically talented, and very successful. To top off his senior year in high school, his band is trying to get a recording session. Therefore, David's suicide leaves everyone, especially his best friend and band-mate, Chris, with a lot of questions.

It is 1984. Frank (Layke Anderson) is a determined English teenager who runs away from high school to find an alternative gay lifestyle in Amsterdam. He finds a home and a job at the "House of Boys", a bar-cum-brothel run by a strict Madame (Udo Kier) who has an eye for what his punters crave. Frank works his way up from barman to on-stage dancer and falls in love with some of his housemates Jake (Ben Northover). The first intimations of what is described as 'the gay cancer', casts a long shadow over Frank's tight-knit group of friends. Yet despite the troubles that cloud the hopes and dreams of young Frank, his perseverance, along with support from a willing doctor (Stephen Fry), will carry him through. House of Boys is a glamorous, colourful coming-of-age story that lifts the lid on an exciting world of sex and music, where deep passions suddenly turn into a struggle for courage.

19-year old Belle practices playing the violin diligently, but is unable to impart her music with a sensitive undertone. Her life changes when she discovers that sexual desire stimulates passion in her music.

Stet, a troubled and angry 11-year-old orphan from a small Texas town, ends up at a Boy Choir school back East after the death of his single mom. Completely out of his element, he finds himself in a battle of wills with a demanding Choir Master who recognizes a unique talent in this young boy as he pushes him to discover his creative heart and soul in music.

A washed up Vegas lounge singer, Jack Satin (Hamilton von Watts), has no money, no job, and delusional aspirations of fame. When Jack is forced to leave Vegas, he packs up his old Cadillac and hits the road for Atlantic City. But his car dies in the desert and Jack is left stranded in the small town of Lost Springs. There, Jack meets jazz legend turned mechanic, Doc Bishop (Robert Guillaume), who helps him with his car trouble. Although Jack is far from the stage, he begins to find himself feeling at home in the small town. When he meets local bar owner, Lauren Wells (Melissa Joan Hart), Jack starts to see there is more to life than chasing fame and fortune. Doc encourages Jack to explore his true love of music, while Lauren provides the audience he has always wanted. But as Jack realizes this town has more to offer him than the bright lights of the big city, his Vegas past catches up with him -- what unfolds is comedy at the crossroads of life.

Biographical story of the rise from nowhere of singer Ritchie Valens whose life was cut short by a plane crash.

The story of the late jazz musician and classical pianist Nina Simone including her rise to fame and relationship with her manager Clifton Henderson.

A biography of Woody Guthrie, one of America's greatest folk singers. He left his dust-devastated Texas home in the 1930s to find work, discovering the suffering and strength of America's working class.

A glimpse at the life of French singer Serge Gainsbourg, from growing up in 1940s Nazi-occupied Paris through his successful song-writing years in the 1960s to his death in 1991 at the age of 62.

Anya, a young academic raised in an orphanage, is on the cusp of success when she’s accused of drug possession. While in limbo hiding from the police, she hits the road with Kristina, another orphan several years Anya’s junior, in search of her possibly mythical grandmother.

Before Snowfall starts with a dramatic escape: Eighteen year-old Nermin runs away from her wedding in a village in Iraqi Kurdistan. Being the elder of the family, her younger brother Siyar becomes responsible for finding her and restoring the family reputation. The mission proves a dangerous one for the inexperienced Siyar. First stop is Istanbul, where he meets Elvin, a young girl who becomes his travel companion. On the way from east to west, through Europe and all the way to Norway, Siyar comes to realize his own need for respect, and for love.

Howard Spence has seen better days. Once a big Western movie star, he now drowns his disgust for his selfish and failed life with alcohol, drugs and young women. If he were to die now, nobody would shed a tear over him, that's the sad truth. Until one day Howard learns that he might have a child somewhere out there...

Follows four friends in their quest to form a punk band. As workers protests sweep across the country, Janek and Staszek, the sons of a navy man, the rebellious Kazik, and the affluent Diabel gel as a band, but their disparate lives are touched by social turmoil and outside perceptions.

A chronicle of three weeks in the lives of several high school teachers, administrators and students through the eyes of substitute teacher, Henry Barthes. Henry roams from school to school, imparting modes of knowledge, but never staying long enough to form any semblance of sentient attachment.

An agoraphobic hip-hop prodigy and a disgraced former music manager cross paths in Chicago’s South Side and help each other face demons of their pasts.

When 17-year-old Ben visits his father Heinrich in Marrakech, it is the start of an adventurous journey through a foreign country with a picturesque charm and a rough beauty where everything appears possible — including the chance that father and son will lose each other for good, or find one another again.

Three musically talented children look to the future, but their hopes crumble when Germany and Russia enter into war.

Quiet 10-year-old Zsofi has just changed schools. Feeling out of place at first, she is quickly admitted to the school’s famous choir and befriends her popular classmate Liza. Soon, they have to stand up united against their choir master, who isn’t quite the friendly and inspirational teacher they first thought she was.

School nurse Alice Goodwin lives with her husband and two daughters on a dairy farm in a small Wisconsin community. After an accident on her property involving a friend's child, the town turns against her and Alice finds herself fighting charges of child abuse.

Dean and Sal are the portrait of the Beat Generation. Their search for "It" results in a fast paced, energetic roller coaster ride with highs and lows throughout the U.S.

A fictionalised exploration of Beethoven's life in his final days working on his Ninth Symphony. It is 1824. Beethoven is racing to finish his new symphony. However, it has been years since his last success and he is plagued by deafness, loneliness and personal trauma. A copyist is urgently needed to help the composer. A fictional character is introduced in the form of a young conservatory student and aspiring composer named Anna Holtz. The mercurial Beethoven is skeptical that a woman might become involved in his masterpiece but slowly comes to trust in Anna's assistance and in the end becomes quite fond of her. By the time the piece is performed, her presence in his life is an absolute necessity. Her deep understanding of his work is such that she even corrects mistakes he has made, while her passionate personality opens a door into his private world.

In a story fueled by rhythm and blues, a young boy's life is shaped by love and the stories of a cast of characters in the boarding house where he lives in 1960s Lackawanna, New York.

In this biographical drama, Selena Quintanilla is born into a musical Mexican-American family in Texas. Her father, Abraham, realizes that his young daughter is talented and begins performing with her at small venues. She finds success and falls for her guitarist, Chris Perez, who draws the ire of her father. Seeking mainstream stardom, Selena begins recording an English-language album which, tragically, she would never complete.

Legendary trumpeter Art Hazzard teaches young Rick Martin everything he knows about playing, so Rick becomes a star musician, but a troubled marriage and the desire to play pure jazz instead of commercial swing songs cause him problems.

The story of a virtuoso piano player who lives his entire life aboard an ocean liner. Born and raised on the ship, 1900 (Tim Roth) learned about the outside world through interactions with passengers, never setting foot on land, even for the love of his life. Years later, the ship may be destroyed, and a former band member fears that 1900 may still be aboard, willing to go down with the ship.

Cult classic starring Ralph Macchio as a want-to-be blues guitar virtuoso who seeks a long-lost song by legendary musician Robert Johnson.

Due to the economic recession, the orchestra is shut down. The members hear later that the orchestra will be reformed. Only some of the members, who have not yet been rehired, gather for the orchestra. For the first time since they disbanded the orchestra plays together, but they sound horrible. At that time, the conductor Tetsusaburo Tendou appears in front of them.

The drama tells the story of Lennon's teenage years and the start of his journey to becoming a successful musician. The story also examines the impact on his early life and personality of the two dominant females in his childhood

Sadie looks up to her older sister Georgia, a successful folk singer who's happily married with children, but can't break out of the bar-band circuit and hit the big time she desperately covets. It's in part due to her attraction to drugs and booze, and also to her own unwise choice in men. Finally, though, Sadie's Achilles heel is a rough, unlovely voice very different than her sister's crowd-pleasing singing.

A star is born in a time of both celebration and instability in this historical drama with music from director Christophe Barratier. In the spring of 1936, Paris is in a state of uncertainty; while the rise of the Third Reich in Germany worries many, a leftist union-oriented candidate, Léon Blum, has been voted into power, and organized labor is feeling its new power by standing up to management.

Heli must try and protect his young family when his 12-year-old sister inadvertently involves them in the brutal drug world. He must battle against the drug cartel that have been angered as well as the corrupt police force.

A small Egyptian police band travels to Israel to play at the inaugural ceremony of an Arab arts center, only to find themselves stuck in the wrong town.

A drama centered on a rebellious girl who is sent to a Southern beach town for the summer to stay with her father. Through their mutual love of music, the estranged duo learn to reconnect.

A look at what goes on backstage during the last broadcast of America's most celebrated radio show, where singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty, a country music siren, and a host of others hold court

Matt Ryder is convinced to drive his estranged and dying father Benjamin Ryder cross country to deliver four old rolls of Kodachrome film to the last lab in the world that can develop them before it shuts down for good. Along with Ben's nurse Zooey, the three navigate a world changing from analogue to digital while trying to put the past behind them.

A long lost music producer finds a singer-songwriter right about the moment he has given up all hope on life.

The epic story of the first contact, encounter, approach, betrayal and, eventually, life-transcending friendship, between Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman, last survivor of his people, and two scientists that, over the course of 40 years, travel through the Amazon in search of a sacred plant that can heal them. Inspired by the journals of the first explorers of the Colombian Amazon, Theodor Koch-Grunberg and Richard Evans Schultes.

Despite his fame, Taillandier has suddenly stopped painting. Deeply depressed, the sixty-year-old decides to go away. He has no clear goal and explains nothing to his close friends. During his travels, he has a strange encounter with Marylou, a wild teenager who was rejected by her mother. The lost girl and the man at the end of his tether will travel together awhile. Finally living like a father and daughter, at peace.

Epic story about two families and their friendship and common destiny in Sweden's Gothenburg in the 1940s and 1950s. Told from the perspective of young Simon Larsson, who learns that he's an adopted child who has a Jewish father from Germany. After WWII Simon travels to explore his roots - a journey that leads to the basic mysteries of the human life. After the bestselling novel by Marianne Fredriksson.

From his childhood in Russia to his last days in California, the tumultuous ininerary and bathed in melancholy of the legendary pianist and composer Serguei Rachmaninov. This film is based on the legend that Rachmaninoff received a bouquet of lilacs from an unknown admirer after every performance. He emigrated to the United States, and after an interval, began to receive the mysterious lilacs again.

The daughter of a right-winger, schoolgirl Jing Qiu (Zhou Dong-Yu) is sent to the countryside for reeducation, and tasked to help write a textbook. There she meets Lao San (Shawn Dou), a young soldier with a bright future ahead. Despite the class divide and parental disapproval, romance blooms against turbulent times.

A drama based on Jimi Hendrix's life as he left New York City for London, where his career took off.

The loss of their young daughter threatens to destroy the love and faith of two married musicians.

Lore leads her four younger siblings across a war-torn Germany in 1945. Amidst the chaos she encounters a mysterious refugee who shatters her fragile reality with hatred and desire.

When an aging matriarch starts showing signs of dementia, her dysfunctional family in Istanbul must navigate a minefield of unresolved issues to care for her.

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 nine-year-old boy’s preening obsession with straightening his hair elicits a tidal wave of homophobic panic in his hard-working mother, in this tender but clear-eyed coming-of-age tale.