Best movies like A Buddha

How do you reconcile a commitment to non-violence when faced with violence? Why do the poor often seem happier than the rich? Must a society lose its traditions in order to move into the future? These are some of the questions posed to His Holiness the Dalai Lama by filmmaker and explorer Rick Ray. Ray examines some of the fundamental questions of our time by weaving together observations from his own journeys throughout India and the Middle East, and the wisdom of an extraordinary spiritual leader. This is his story, as told and filmed by Rick Ray during a private visit to his monastery in Dharamsala, India over the course of several months. Also included is rare historical footage as well as footage supplied by individuals who at great personal risk, filmed with hidden cameras within Tibet.

Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1983. In the last and turbulent days of the military dictatorship, Alicia, a high school history teacher, begins to ask uncomfortable questions about the dark origins of Gaby, her adopted daughter.

Joaquín Góñez, a novelist in his sixties recalls his emotions, his wild years in Buenos Aires, the memories of old friends, the meaning of loyalty and the intimate relationship with his mother, Roma.

In 1976, Argentina fell into the hands of a de facto government. Thousands of citizens are persecuted and kidnapped. This is the case of the parents of two children, who, knowing they are wanted, decide to hide.

The Tibetans refer to the Dalai Lama as 'Kundun', which means 'The Presence'. He was forced to escape from his native home, Tibet, when communist China invaded and enforced an oppressive regime upon the peaceful nation. The Dalai Lama escaped to India in 1959 and has been living in exile in Dharamsala ever since.

In a rundown area of Buenos Aires, at the dawn of the 1980s, Adrian LeDuc owns both a struggling movie theater and a shabby apartment building filled with eccentric, squabbling tenants. To make ends meet, Adrian takes in a roommate, Jack Carney, but soon begins to suspect that the quiet American is responsible for a series of political assassinations that are rocking the city.

Freddy emigrates to Buenos Aires in search of a more prosperous life. In his native country, Bolivia, he left his family. But the capital of Argentina is not the paradise he dreamed of, and much less for illegal immigrants like himself. But even with that, he gets a job as a griller in a restaurant.

Kelly Halligan has moved with her 17-year-old niece from New York to California to start her new business venture. When her niece tries out for the soccer team, the two meet the athletic and handsome new coach, Dominic. They also become acquainted with the attractive, but somewhat unstable, student Maddie who is also on the girl's high school soccer team. While Kelly and Dominic develop a romance, Dominic becomes the unwanted center of attention for Maddie, who becomes obsessed with her new coach and proceeds to sabotage his life and Kelly's after he refuses her sexual advances.

Louise, an unfulfilled divorced woman with regrets, gets the chance to relive her past when she meets a young man who bears an uncanny resemblance, in name and appearance, to her high school sweetheart who died many years before.

Austrian mountaineer, Heinrich Harrer journeys to the Himalayas without his family to head an expedition in 1939. But when World War II breaks out, the arrogant Harrer falls into Allied forces' hands as a prisoner of war. He escapes with a fellow detainee and makes his way to Llaso, Tibet, where he meets the 14-year-old Dalai Lama, whose friendship ultimately transforms his outlook on life.

Fabián, a magician from Buenos Aires, saves his money from weddings, birthdays, and bar mitzvahs, and uses a hidden camera to document a week-long trip to the Falkland Islands where he has a patriotic plan: to impregnate a British woman. If 500 Argies do this annually, the islands will soon be overrun with children belonging to both cultures. He spends his first couple of days in Stanley doing reconnaissance, setting his sights on Camila, whom he's first seen in church. He chats her up at an Internet café. They go out for drinks, then dinner, then to the see the King penguins and a 1982 battlefield. Back home, editing his Dogma 95 film, he receives a final message from Camila.

Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory, apparently playing themselves, share their lives over the course of an evening meal at a restaurant.

A sexy Spanish siren named Elvira schools a young man in tantric lovemaking.

In London, eccentric piano instructor Madame Sousatzka takes on a new prize protégé, Manek, a teenage Bengali immigrant who displays incredible talent. Manek forms a close bond with his teacher, but soon discovers that she expects her pupils to become disciplined in all areas of life, and not just behind the piano

Mario and Ana, in voluntary exile from Buenos Aires, live in a remote Argentine valley with their 12-year-old son Ernesto. Mario runs a school and a wool cooperative; Ana, a doctor, heads a clinic with Nelda, a progressive nun. Into this idealistic family comes Hans, a jaded Spanish geological engineer -- surveying the land for the local patron, to see if it can be dammed for hydro-electric power, which would drive the peasants from the land into the cities.

As the denizens of a Tibetan village prepare for their arduous annual trek to exchange salt for grain, the community's allegiances are split between aging chieftain Tinle (Thilen Lhondup) and rebellious young Karma (Gurgon Kyap). Tinle tries to maintain his clout and preserve obedience to ancient customs when Karma challenges the old man's power.

Set during the unsettling disappearances in Buenos Aires during the dictatorship of the 1970s, the film involves theater director Carlos Rueda and his wife Cecilia. Shortly after Cecilia writes an editorial commentary questioning the mysterious abductions, she is herself abducted and taken into police custody.

After the death of Lama Dorje, Tibetan Buddhist monks find three children — one American and two Nepalese — who may be the rebirth of their great teacher.

The story of a young Marine, fresh from Camp Pendleton, who is forced to confront the complexities of adulthood and a volatile home life during a four-day Thanksgiving leave.

Roque starts University in Buenos Aires but he is not particularly interested in attending classes or working towards a degree. Instead, he dedicates his time to one of the many groups vying for control of the university, motivated less by grand political ideals than by a wish to get close to Paula, an attractive young teacher heavily involved in internal university politics.

Salamanca, Spain, 1936. In the early days of the military rebellion that began the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), writer Miguel de Unamuno supports the uprising in the hope that the prevailing political chaos will end. But when the confrontation becomes bloody, Unamuno must question his initial position.

Buddhist monks open up about the joys and challenges of living out the precepts of the Buddha as a full-time vocation. Controversies swirling within modern monastic Buddhism are examined, from celibacy and the role of women to racism and concerns about the environment.

An NYC Professor spends the week reconnecting with his family while defending his reputation over controversial behavior at his college. Meanwhile, his family is determined to make an around-the-clock effort to support their matriarch when she’s admitted to New York’s Presbyterian Hospital and is expected to die within a few days.

The story of G.I. Gurdjieff an Asian mystic who after a lifetimes study developed a form of meditation incorporating modern dance.

In Buenos Aires, the twenty-something Jewish-Argentinean Ariel Makaroff ditches the University of Architecture and spends his time wandering through the downtown gallery where his mother has a lingerie shop and his brother runs an importation business. Ariel has never understood why his father left him when he was a baby, but when his dad returns to Argentina, that will soon change.

A naive young man from the countryside moves to the big city to study art. Soon he has some strange experiences: His roommate turns out to be the bodyguard-protected son of a mafia boss, his fellow student is desperate to initiate him into love, and his attractive art professor also seems to have it in for him.

A former child actress attends college in search of independence and ends up becoming romantically involved with a female professor. Their relationship thrives until an opportunity to return to acting forces her to make life-altering decisions.

Rubén is a middle-aged Argentinian truck driver transporting timber between Paraguay and Buenos Aires. One day, at a truck stop, he picks up a young Paraguayan woman, Jacinta, whom his employer had told to take to Buenos Aires. To Rubén's surprise, Jacinta brings along her five-month-old daughter, Anahí.

A semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story set in the Cotswolds during and immediately after the First World War.

Roberto is a bored young man living in the suburbs of Buenos Aires who begins a relationship with an older man named Raúl. Their romance takes a disturbing turn after Raúl catches Roberto with another man and turns increasingly abusive.

A Spaniard in Argentina becomes aware of his approaching death while staying at a hospital, so he decides to run away from Buenos Aires and start a trip up North, heading nowhere in particular.

Marcus and his brother Antoine head to Argentina for their cousin’s wedding. They plan to explore all that Buenos Aires has to offer before making the trip to Mendoza in the west. Marcus is thrilled to be on the road and determined to have fun, while Antoine is depressed after being dumped by his wife, who refused to come with them at the last minute. Marcus will do anything it takes to cheer up his little brother. After a very caliente evening in the capital, they hit the road, discovering Argentina vineyard’s and making unlikely encounters –with a crackpot receptionist, a divine beauty, a pregnant ewe, and a guy afflicted by Stendhal syndrome –until, at the end of their journey, the two brothers find peace.

She Wolf is a serial killer who traps her men in the subway in Buenos Aires. She seduces, has sex with them and kills them. But one of those men is a police officer who is investigating her crimes. Running away from him she meets a dealer with whom she stars a relationship. This romance unravels a war between her three personalities: the monster woman, the sensual woman and the human woman who can still love.

This documentary presents an awakening inspired by the life of the Benedictine monk Henri Le Saux. After living in a monastery in Brittany for 20 years, he left for South India with the objective of bringing the best of Christian monastic life with him. To achieve his goal, he believed it important to first open himself to the spiritual heart of India. In doing so he encountered Ramana Maharshi, one of the great sages of his time, at the foot of the sacred mountain Arunachala. The impact of this meeting on him was so powerful that Le Saux’s initial plan was turned upside down. In the presence of this mystical mountain, and its Sage, Le Saux began a spiritual adventure that would lead to his own rebirth.

Based on a real event, this is the spectacular escape of seven prisoners in 1991 from the Villa Devoto prison in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In the process of digging a tunnel to escape, they make a bizarre and frightening discovery just as they are about to break through to freedom. One escapee promises to report their findings when they are all free and once out, he pays his debt to "the tunnel of bones,"sharing their macabre story with a local journalist, and ultimately the world.

A spiritual adventure film chronicling the discovery of ancient scrolls in the rainforests of Peru. The prophecy and its nine key insights predict a worldwide awakening, arising within all religious traditions, that moves humanity toward a deeper experience of spirituality.

A conflicted animation filmmaker travels to Argentina chasing after a girl he met online, only to end up living with her and her intimidating boyfriend on an isolated island on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

Pedro, a humble beekeeper who lives in the mysterious Argentinian region of the Delta del Tigre, travels to Buenos Aires to visit his twin brother Agustín, a successful but troubled pediatrician with marital issues, to give him bad news and ask him for a favor hard to fulfill, a unexpected arrival which will change Agustín's life forever.

This documentary for PBS by award-winning filmmaker David Grubin and narrated by Richard Gere, tells the story of the Buddha’s life, a journey especially relevant to our own bewildering times of violent change and spiritual confusion. It features the work of some of the world’s greatest artists and sculptors, who across two millennia, have depicted the Buddha’s life in art rich in beauty and complexity. Hear insights into the ancient narrative by contemporary Buddhists, including Pulitzer Prize winning poet W.S. Merwin and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Join the conversation and learn more about meditation, the history of Buddhism, and how to incorporate the Buddha’s teachings on compassion and mindfulness into daily life.

Nico is a famous actor in Argentina, but in New York, nobody takes notice. He needs to juggle bartending, babysitting and odd jobs to keep himself afloat. But when old friends from Buenos Aires come to visit, he needs to juggle the image of his old life with the reality of the struggling actor in New York City.

A beautiful Argentine activist receives preferential treatment from a man supposed to torture her.

Marcelo, 50 years old, has dedicated his life to teaching philosophy at the Public University and suddenly his mentor and boss, Professor Caselli, dies. Disoriented in this new landscape, Marcelo assumes that he will inherit the position left vacant by his mentor. What he doesn't expect is that Rafael Sujarchuk, a charismatic and pedantic philosopher trained in the best European universities, also covets the position. Between his multiple jobs as a philosophy professor in the local slums, at the university and privately with an 80-year-old millionaire, he must also prepare to run for office against this strong opponent who seems to have everyone on his side. Marcelo's clumsy efforts don't seem to be enough to get the job, but is that really what he wants?

It’s the late 1950s, and in an affluent and quietly respectable part of Buenos Aires, young Sulamit Löwenstein strikes up a friendship with her next-door neighbour Friedrich over the whereabouts of her family dog. She is the daughter of German-Jewish immigrants to Argentina, he is the son of a senior SS officer, a tragic political legacy from whose shadow both characters struggle to escape over the next three decades. Following the teenaged Friedrich to Germany, Sulamit finds him caught up in the radical politics of late-1960s student life; and she’s forced to make important decisions about her attitude to her homeland when Friedrich returns to Argentina to join the fight against the military junta.

Anita is the story of a young woman with Down syndrome who lives a happy, routine life in Buenos Aires, being meticulously cared for by her mother Dora. One tragic morning in 1994, everything changes when Anita is left alone, confused and helpless after the nearby Argentine Israelite Mutual Association is bombed (the deadliest bombing in Argentina's history). As Anita wanders through the city, she learns not only to care for herself, but touches the lives of those around her, from an alcoholic to a family of Asian immigrants.

Story of four young monks left alone in their remote monastery in Myanmar. Shot entirely in newly-opened Myanmar with non-actors, the film bridges spirit, cinema, and traditional Burmese storytelling to open a view onto an unseen world.

A long night's journey into day: Victor, a street hustler in the Santa Fe and Pueyrredón neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, from the evening of November 1, All Saints Day, to the dawn of November 2, All Souls Day. Victor's odyssey takes him from clients to friends to a gay gym then a hotel room and an all-night café. He plays pick-up soccer with kids whose parents are going through trash or waiting in parks. A vendor gives him a chrysanthemum. It seems he's being followed, and on the night streets, death is close at hand. Can Victor survive until dawn?

Buenos Aires is in a deep recession. As the money runs out, the relationship between an employer and her live-in maid changes dramatically.

Buenos Aires at the outskirts of XIX century. A society rigid in patriarchal rules. A war between brothers of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. Two young and very much in love youngsters, fight for their right to be together. Obeyance and fear sets them apart along more than ten years. When they are finally reunited, will they be able to overcome the pain and tragedy that haunts them?

A young man from rural Argentina arrives in Buenos Aires to present his graphic novel at a book fair. He gets into a taxi and discovers that he is sitting in a car bomb: the vehicle is packed with explosives. Driver and passenger are now prisoners of one another...

A Zen priest in San Francisco and cookbook author use Zen Buddhism and cooking to relate to everyday life.