Best movies like ...And the Earth Did Not Swallow Him

In the 1890s, 10-year-old Yohan is sent away from home to survive on his own as a child laborer. He experiences hardships and overcomes his fears by relying on bravery and hope to make the best of his circumstances.

When a Chicago teen is arrested for drug possession, the ensuing investigation reveals that he has had sexual contact with an older man. Discovering his sexual encounter, other students start shunning him and call for his expulsion from school. His father as his conservative blue-collar dad also rejects him, while his mother does try to offer support.

While I Run This Race is a 1967 American short documentary film about poverty in the United States directed by Edmond Levy. The film follows VISTA (Volunteers In Service To America) working in two Arizona migrant community groups. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

A streetwise man flees South Central Los Angeles, heading to the suburbs and his lottery-winner uncle and cousin, to avoid a neighborhood thug with a grudge who has just escaped from prison.

A heart-stirring meditation on time, memory and mortality, “Of Time and the City” is Terence Davies’ poetic, conflicted ode to his birthplace of Liverpool, England. The visual content of the film consists largely of archival clips of the city from the 1940s to the 1960s, their nostalgic charm darkened by accompanying music and the counterpoint of Davies’ dry, at times dyspeptic, voice-over narration. His voice thickens with emotion as he recalls the delights of juvenile movie-going or the ritual of a holiday trip to New Brighton, across the River Mersey, and hardens with contempt when he turns his gaze on the hoopla surrounding Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953. The film is a powerful evocation of the director's youth in post-war Britain and a reflection on how his home city has changed over the years.

Desperate, broken men chase their dreams and run from their demons in the North Dakota oil fields. A local Pastor's decision to help them has extraordinary and unexpected consequences.

During the depths of the Great Depression a hitch-hiker Steve Talbot and jukebox-joint hostess Lola Mears stumble into Cat-Tail Florida where farmers and pickers struggle under the buyer who rules by monopoly, dirty contracts and violence. Steve helps organize against the buyer, leading to further escalation ending in a lynch mob.

After the birth of his first child, Roberto, a young Mexican man, slips across the border into the United States. Seeking work to support his family back home, he finds that working hard is not enough.

A young Anatolian Greek, entrusted with his family's fortune, loses it en route to Istanbul and dreams of going to America.

A small-town Oregon teacher and her brother, the local sheriff, discover a young student is harbouring a dangerous secret that could have frightening consequences.

Based on the classic novel by William Faulkner, first published in 1930, "As I Lay Dying" is the story of the death of Addie Bundren and her family's quest to honor her last wish to be buried in the nearby town of Jefferson.

Forced to run from the Texas Rangers after a heated misunderstanding leads to the death of a lawman, Mexican American farmer Gregorio Cortez sets off in desperate flight, evading a massive manhunt on horseback for days.

A writer returns to his hometown where he faces the childhood nemesis whose life he ultimately ruined, only the bully wants to relive their painful past by torturing him once again.

Eugene, a young teenage Jewish boy, recalls his memoirs of his time as an adolescent youth. He lives with his parents, his aunt, two cousins, and his brother, Stanley, whom he looks up to and admires. He goes through the hardships of puberty, sexual fantasy, and living the life of a poor boy in a crowded house.

The stories of four Hispanic immigrants living in New York City.

Come Back, Africa chronicles the life of Zachariah, a black South African living under the rule of the harsh apartheid government in 1959.

In 1971 Salford fish-and-chip shop owner George Khan expects his family to follow his strict Pakistani Muslim ways. But his children, with an English mother and having been born and brought up in Britain, increasingly see themselves as British and start to reject their father's rules on dress, food, religion, and living in general.

In 1916, a Chicago steel worker accidentally kills his supervisor and flees to the Texas panhandle with his girlfriend and little sister to work harvesting wheat in the fields of a stoic farmer.

The impressionistic story of a Texas family in the 1950s. The film follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father. Jack finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith.

A young farmer in rural Yorkshire numbs his daily frustrations with binge drinking and casual sex, until the arrival of a Romanian migrant worker.

Traces over three generations an immigrant family's trials, tribulations, tragedies, and triumphs. Maria and Jose, the first generation, come to Los Angeles, meet, marry, face deportation all in the 1930s. They establish their family in East L.A., and their children Chucho, Paco, Memo, Irene, Toni, and Jimmy deal with youth culture and the L.A. police in the '50s. As the second generation become adults in the '60s, the focus shifts to Jimmy, his marriage to Isabel (a Salvadorian refugee), their son, and Jimmy's journey to becoming a responsible parent.

Bud is a lonely and quiet boy whose moments of solace occur when he sits in rapture at the local cinema, watching towering and iconic figures on the movie screen. The movies give Bud the strength to get through another day as he deals with his oppressive school environment and his burgeoning homosexuality.

This documentary follows 8 teens and pre-teens as they work their way toward the finals of the Scripps Howard national spelling bee championship in Washington D.C.

A hermit farmer discovers his late father's secret journal containing plans to a magnetic powered machine that could change the world, while unexpectedly becoming custodian of his gifted 6 year old nephew, after his mom's untimely death.

James, down on his luck and desperate for some quick cash, agrees to drive a small truck across country. He soon realizes that he's made a huge mistake and has inadvertently become involved in a dangerous human trafficking ring. The unlikely hero risks it all to shut down the trafficking ring and save the woman he is falling in love with.

Los Angeles teenager Ritchie Valens becomes an overnight rock 'n' roll success in 1958, thanks to a love ballad called "Donna" that he wrote for his girlfriend. But as his star rises, Valens has conflicts with his jealous brother, Bob, and becomes haunted by a recurring nightmare of a plane crash just as he begins his first national tour alongside Buddy Holly.

The Weaver Brothers and Elviry have migrated from their usual hard-scrabble digs in the Ozarks and have taken up truck-farming.

In the 1980s, and after the death of his mother, Sam is struggling with family, friends, school, and the most evil being he can imagine - The Bloody Man, who is unknowingly summoned and will stop at nothing to destroy everything Sam holds dear.

Set in a near-future, militarized world marked by closed borders, virtual labor and a global digital network that joins minds and experiences, three strangers risk their lives to connect with each other and break the barriers of technology.

Proud, though poor, Bob wants his little girl to have a beautiful (and costly) brand-new dress for her First Communion. His stubbornness and determination get him into trouble as he turns to more and more questionable measures, in his desperation to raise the needed money. This tragic flaw leads him to risk all that he loves and values, his beloved family, indeed even his immortal soul and salvation, in blind pursuit of that goal.

At an isolated log cabin in the harsh wilderness of Indiana circa 1817, the rhythms of love, tragedy, and the daily hardships of life on the developing frontier shaped one of our nation’s greatest heroes: Abraham Lincoln. Abe is a thoughtful and quiet boy who spends his days at the side of his beloved mother while learning to work the land from his stern father. When illness takes his mother, Abe's new guardian angel comes in the form of his new stepmother, who sees the potential in the boy and pushes for his further education.

A family embarks on an annual tormenting journey along with 200 other million peasant workers to reunite with their distant family, and to revive their love and dignity as China soars as the world's next super power.

In this documentary, the director follows the day-to-day activities of his retarded, middle-aged cousin Philly, over a three-year period.

A high school girl from a wealthy family falls for a fellow student from a poor family. Both families disapprove, and, unable to stand the pressure, the couple quit school and flee to Mexico.

La Patagonia, southern Argentina. After his mother's death, Nahuel, a violent teenager, meets his biological father, Ernesto, a skillful hunting guide; but their reunion is harsh, since their souls are only ruled by pride and resentment.

A Southern stock-car driver puts his rising career in the hands of a race promoter.

Melodrama about the inhuman treatment of migratory workers in California vineyards by the boss, and the formers' rebellion against him.

A lawyer defends a migrant worker in a sensational murder trial.

It's Christmas Eve in Wales. A young boy named Thomas is excited about the holiday, but he's also disappointed because it's raining instead of snowing. His grandfather gives him an old snow globe as an early Christmas present and starts telling colorful, amusing stories about his childhood Christmases that are shown in flashback. Thomas keeps asking his grandfather more questions because he likes the stories and because he doesn't want to go to bed. His parents finally insist that he go to bed, and his grandfather tells him one last story about going to bed on Christmas night while listening to his family singing carols downstairs. After Thomas falls asleep at last, his grandfather opens the bedroom window and sees falling snowflakes.

A young boy, his family, and the migrant workers they hire to work their cotton farm struggle against difficult odds to raise and sell the crop. Meanwhile, the boy dreams of living in better conditions. However, with this particularly tough farming season, the boy learns that his challenges guide him in discovering who he really is.

Dolores Huerta bucks 1950s gender conventions by starting the country's first farm worker's union with fellow organizer Cesar Chavez. What starts out as a struggle for racial and labor justice, soon becomes a fight for gender equality within the same union she is eventually forced to leave. As she wrestles with raising 11 children, three marriages, and is nearly beaten to death by a San Francisco tactical police squad, Dolores emerges with a vision that connects her new found feminism with racial and class justice.

A look at the lives of migratory farm workers, focusing on one family.

A widow (Natalie Grant) sends her son (Michael Rosenbaum) to spend the summer in Tennessee with his estranged granddad (Billy Dean) to help the teen cope with his father's death.

The Weaver family buys some farmland in California, but the headmaster of a nearby boys school doesn't want them as neighbors, and before long the boys at the school are causing trouble for the Weavers.

A biography of the civil-rights activist and labor organizer Cesar Chavez. Chronicling the birth of a modern American labour movement, Cesar Chavez tells the story of the famed civil rights leader and labour organiser torn between his duties as a husband and father and his commitment to securing a living wage for farm workers. Passionate but soft-spoken, Chavez embraced non-violence as he battled greed and prejudice in his struggle to bring dignity to working people.

In the early 1900s, the legendary Joe Hill emigrates with his brother to the United States. But after a short time, he loses touch with his brother. Joe gets a few jobs but is struck by all the injustice and tragedy going on. He becomes active in the forbidden union IWW, a union for workers without trades. It is forbidden to demonstrate and to speak in public but Joe gets around that by singing his manifests with the Salvation Army. He manages to get more and more people to go on strike with him but he also makes powerful enemies doing that. Finally he gets connected with a murder and during the trial he fires his lawyer and takes upon himself to become his own defender.

The film tells the story of an imigrant to Argentina who works for the railway company of this land. Being a witness to the history of the land of silver in this century the film is also a shortcut of the changes in Argentina during the last 100 years.

A poor country girl from Vermont travels to New York City to attend a theatrical school.

Elizabeth Leroy devotes her life to serving God but her faith is tested over the years as she has to overcome many hardships and sorrows.

After being raised in an Oklahoma orphanage, 15 year-old Donald makes his way to California during the depression. He meets Emogene, the daughter of poor migrant farm laborers, and together they set out to break the cycle of poverty and ignorance.