Best movies like Akenfield

Change comes slowly to a small New Hampshire town in the early 20th century. We see birth, life and death in this small community.

A retelling of the biblical book of Hosea set against the backdrop of the California Gold Rush of 1850.

Rose Plays Julie is the story of a young woman searching for her biological mother. Set against a backdrop of misogyny, revenge, and longing, Rose undertakes a journey that leads her to revelations that are both devastating and dangerous.

In this Puppetoon animated short film (an Academy Award Best Short Subject, Cartoons nominee), legendary American folklore figure John Henry (voice of Rex Ingram) goes to work for the C&O Railroad, which shortly thereafter buys an automatic steel-driving engine, The Inky-Poo. John Henry matches his strength against the engine, saying that any man can beat a machine because a man has a mind. Can he prevail? In 2015 this film, deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Voiced by Elijah Wood, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and others, this film features Tom Thumb and Thumbelina, the tiny, famed fairy-tale favorites, who are together for the first time in this heartwarming, magical musical story about courage and friendship. After 15 years, the two reunite and remember when their village was destroyed by a giant. Soon, they find out that they have neat powers they can use for good.

It took Anna 10 years to recover from the death of her husband, Sean, but now she's on the verge of marrying her boyfriend, Joseph, and finally moving on. However, on the night of her engagement party, a young boy named Sean turns up, saying he is her dead husband reincarnated. At first she ignores the child, but his knowledge of her former husband's life is uncanny, leading her to believe that he might be telling the truth.

The Foreign Legion marches in to Mogador with booze and women in mind just as singer Amy Jolly arrives from Paris to work at Lo Tinto's cabaret. That night, insouciant legionnaire Tom Brown catches her inimitably seductive, tuxedo-clad act. Both bruised by their past lives, the two edge cautiously into a no-strings relationship while being pursued by others. But Tom must leave on a perilous mission: is it too late for them?

Depressed single mom Adele and her son Henry offer a wounded, fearsome man a ride. As police search town for the escaped convict, the mother and son gradually learn his true story as their options become increasingly limited.

A newly single New Yorker must re-locate to Florida for her dream job. She drives south with her widowed dad, her mom's ashes in a coffee can, and a GPS with a mind of its own.

Bathsheba Everdine, a willful, flirtatious, young woman, unexpectedly inherits a large farm and becomes romantically involved with three widely divergent men.

Five medical students, hoping to understand the mystery of what lies beyond life, embark on a dangerous experiment. When their hearts are stopped for a short period of time, they have a near-death experience…

A man who was a confidant of Adolf Hitler dies and leaves a fortune to make amends for his Nazi past—but his son has to search the world to find it.

While watching for a planet that may collide with earth, scientists stationed in Scotland are approached by a visitor from outer space.

Modern relationships are examined in this comedy drama.

On Ironbound Island, native Fiona McKay arrives from Europe with her teenage daughter Clair, hoping that the peace of the island will help the girl get over the death of her boyfriend. The girl finds comfort in the company of a visiting American girl and more so in the stories of Celia, a crazy old local who weaves enchanting tales which cleverly combine her own experiences on the island with mystifying legends.

When a single mother begins to experience symptoms of the stigmata, she seeks the help of a local priest and nun to help her understand what is seen and unseen.

Is God really the giver of second chances? Can He take a worthless, selfish, self-serving and self-centered, drug addicted broken down life and restore it with forgiveness, mercy and love? Is he able to guide and direct someone facing hopelessly seeming impossible circumstances, and lead them through to amazing grace? TAKE TWO is the True Story about a decadent Hollywood film producer who bottoms out in Los Angeles California and loses everything. Frustrated that he continues to wake up every morning to his same failed life he decides to leave L.A. to seek a new life, only to quickly realize he has taken himself with him. In the beginning of his trek he meets a beautiful young woman in a small bar in Wyoming. Unaware that she is already married and has children, they have a one-night affair that leads to the birth of a baby girl.

Tom Andrews, his wife Kathy, their two children & Tom's Father Henry are all driving to a town called Silversprings on Christmas Eve to visit relatives. On the way, they decide to stop at a ghost town called Sutterville which by a strange coincidence Tom has had nightmares about every year around Christmas for his whole life. Tom's father is wary & begs them not to go; however Tom's car develops a mind of it's own & takes them there only to break down so that they can't leave. Meanwhile a man arrested for vagrancy by local police is identified as Clarence McCoughlin who supposedly died in Sutterville 40 years ago, not to mention he seems to have some sort of demonic power. As the Andrews family explore the town a feeling of unease starts to takeover, Clarence escapes jail & heads back to Sutterville for a sinister family reunion...

Four years into his first stable relationship, a man finds out that he is pregnant with his partner's baby.

Emma and Jesse are living the perfect life together, until Jesse disappears in a tragic helicopter crash on their first wedding anniversary. Four years later, Emma has found happiness again and is about to marry her best friend when Jesse resurfaces, turning her world upside down and leaving her torn between two great loves.

New York: Every night the mysterious "Night Owl" goes on the air with her moody radio show. She seems to have an inexplicable influence on some men; several of Julie's friends commit suicide while listening to her voice. She fears for her husband Harry, who becomes more and more distant from her.

A harsh if ultimately optimistic depiction of life in the unforgiving Hebrides, that includes documentary footage to add to the sense of realism. A woman weathers the conscription of her husband, destructive storms, a son who yearns to leave the family home and an outbreak of cholera before winning the man she truly loves.

All grown up and gunning for political power in a small North Wales community, Glen Marcus and his best mate harbour a dark secret which seems to be coming back to haunt them. But can the daughter of Tina Trent, a local woman just returned from Alaska, be the same girl the two lads buried fourteen years earlier? Only local policeman Max Bracchi can solve the case with the help of a wrongly accused tramp, Tin Man.

A woman leaves her seaside hometown to search for her long-lost brother, experiencing hallucinations brought on by her epilepsy during her trip.

Two years after her last failed relationship, Emily Vale has stopped believing in love. This brings her to the attention of Venus who sends her son Cupid down to Earth to pierce her with an arrow in the hope of changing her mind. Unfortunately, the handsome but hapless Cupid misses and the arrow strikes his own heart making him fall hopelessly in love with Emily. Thus he is granted temporary leave from paradise in order to pursue her. However, not only does he have a limited time on Earth, but also Emily's last boyfriend, the handsome but sleazy Ted has just shown up intent on winning her back. Which one will Emily choose? And is she ready to open her heart and accept love into her life once more?

Showtime's "In the 20th Century" is a millennium-related strand of feature-length documentaries in which famous directors take on major subjects of their choosing. In the last of the six films, "The American Tapestry," filmmaker Gregory Nava takes viewers on an uplifting and challenging journey through the memoirs of five immigrant families, each one on a quest for its own American Dream. Beautifully interweaving accounts from several generations, Nava composes an astonishing tapestry of personal triumphs and tragedies, as each story of courage unfolds. The American Dream is an elusive thing, and the lives of the people in Nava's film are both triumphant and tragic, teeming with optimism and sometimes despair. They expose the finest and worst in America as well as what we feel most magnificent and dreadful. They are part of the many contrasting threads that make up the American tapestry — a complex portrait of a nation at the turn of the millennium.

E.F. Bloodworth has returned to his home - a forgotten corner of Tennessee - after forty years of roaming. The wife he walked out on has withered and faded, his three sons are grown and angry. Warren is a womanizing alcoholic, Boyd is driven by jealousy to hunt down his wife and her lover, and Brady puts hexes on his enemies from his mamma's porch. Only Fleming, the old man's grandson, treats him with the respect his age commands, and sees past all the hatred to realize the way it can poison a man's soul. It is ultimately the love of Raven Lee, a sloe-eyed beauty from another town, that gives Fleming the courage to reject this family curse.

As things start to unravel in Ryan's (Stephen Baldwin) life, he is left feeling vulnerable, insignificant and wondering why. With his priorities on everything but God, he begins to isolate himself from those around him as his hardships multiply. In the midst of the big-picture perspective his struggles give him, God places people around him to help him more clearly understand the profound plan He has for our lives. He relearns how to truly rely on God through the suffering life brings and how to be confident in the intricate plan that threads together perfectly like a tapestry.

The idyllic, rural past of a Suffolk village comes to life through the memories of an old man who tends a country graveyard.

Beth Bradfield (Patty Duke) is a housewife with what appears to be a stable life in an American village. One day, her 24-year-old daughter Lori (Tracey Gold), who is married to Jesse Molina (Maurice Benard) and recently gave birth to his daughter Molly (Laura and Megan Jaime), unexpectedly collapses and is hospitalized. After several tests, she is diagnosed with leukemia. Her doctor (Erick Avari) reveals to Beth that Lori is in urgent need of a donor, though her rare blood type makes finding one a difficult task.

The story of Spencer Hayes, a washed-up childhood actor, determined to get back into the show business ventures to charming Franklin and Charleston, South Carolina for a new role as a small-town Southern man. Struggling between his desires as an actor and his longing to experience true connections and real love, catastrophic turns of event unleash, both past and future.

After the mysterious death of his Aunt, a confirmed skeptic lawyer, Bryan Becket, dismisses reports that her house is haunted and moves in. Immediately occurrences begin he cannot explain. And beyond the occurrences there is something about the house which gnaws at Becket - some strange connection he senses he has with the house's past. Soon, the haunting turns personal.

On the windswept Suffolk mudflats creaks a bird-hide, inside which hovers Roy Tunt, a prematurely aged, mildly obsessive-compulsive birder. With one more sighting - the elusive sociable plover - he will have 'twitched' the entire British List. Tunt has his shortwave radio, packed-lunch and a portrait of his ex-wife Sandra for company. Suddenly, in the midst of a conversation with Sandra's portrait, the hide door blows open and a bedraggled stranger - unshaven, edgy and bloodied introduces himself as Dave John, a fugitive from the storm. After a tense introduction, the two men discover that they have a good deal in common, sharing sandwiches, tea and personal exchanges which are frank, poignant and often funny. As the two men begin to form a close bond news of a police manhunt sets them both on edge driving their fragile relationship to a tragic conclusion.

While trying to reunite her grandfather with his lost love, Annika teams up with college sweetheart Ryan to create a book about the experience, documenting different love stories along the way.

Satellite dish salesman Gus (Stephen Ouimette) experiences some life-altering changes when he meets performance artist Lucy (Christie MacFadyen) in this visually poetic fantasy. After Lucy vanishes, leaving a puzzling note, Gus goes on a quest for the mysterious woman. Moving from his meticulous life in a technologically advanced world into the spontaneity of nature, Gus learns some important lessons and begins to trust his own instincts.