8 best movies like When the Trees Were Tall (1961)

Ivan Mirosnikov, a cheeky young man in the Gorbachev era, is trying to figure out what to do with his life (he's not in college, and the 2-year mandatory military service is looming large ahead of him). Meanwhile, he lives with his divorced mother, and works as a courier at a Russian newspaper. Through his job, he meets patronizing Professor Kuznetzov and his rebellious daughter Katya. To annoy the professor, Ivan claims to have an affair with Katya. To his surprise, Katya backs his story up.

Anna Georgievna Smirnova is a serious, businesslike and judicious person. It was these strengths of her character that helped the woman achieve high career results. Anna is a deputy and director of a textile factory in the Moscow region, who has long put an end to her personal life. She lives with her elderly mother. Her husband died, and her only daughter, Irina, is married. But suddenly, in a sanatorium in the southern resort of Anna, she meets a man named Volodya. He is a Muscovite, a former pilot, and now a driver. Volodya is younger than Anna, behind him two unsuccessful marriages. Between already middle-aged people a feeling of mutual sympathy erupts.

A group of Russian teenagers spend their summer at a summer camp. Mitia falls in love and gets so occupied with his own problems that he forgets about everything else.

Two friends are army officers, and the turbulent times throw them from the Civil War in the early 20s to the Soviet conflict in Finland, from China to the Urals.

The war is over. Once a young sculptor, and now a soldier, he returned home. Married, there were children. In search of work, he was hired to make grave monuments. Time passed... At one time, visiting a cemetery with friends, he saw with different eyes all his work done over the years...

Eugénie Grandet is set in the town of Saumur. Eugénie's father Felix is a former cooper who has become wealthy through both business ventures and inheritance (having inherited the estates of his mother-in-law, grandfather-in-law, and grandmother all in one year). However, he is very miserly, and he, his wife, daughter, and their servant Nanon live in a run-down old house which he is too miserly to repair. His banker des Grassins wants Eugénie to marry his son Adolphe, and his lawyer Cruchot wants Eugénie to marry his nephew President Cruchot des Bonfons, both parties eyeing the inheritance from Felix. The two families constantly visit the Grandets to get Felix's favour, and Felix in turn plays them off against each other for his own advantage.

In a Carpathian village, Ivan falls in love with Marichka, the daughter of his father's killer. When tragedy befalls her, his grief lasts months; finally he rejoins the colorful life around him, marrying Palagna. She wants children but his mind stays on his lost love. To recapture his attention, Palagna tries sorcery, and in the process comes under the spell of the sorcerer, publicly humiliating Ivan, who then fights the sorcerer. The lively rhythms of village life, the work and the holidays, the pageant and revelry of weddings and funerals, the change of seasons, and nature's beauty give proportion to Ivan's tragedy.

A story about a difficult life of three women during the years after WWII.