Best movies like Ararat

In 1919, Australian farmer Joshua Connor travels to Turkey to discover the fate of his three sons, reported missing in action. Holding on to hope, Joshua must travel across the war-torn landscape to find the truth and his own peace.

Follow a group of international journalists into the heart of the once cosmopolitan city of Sarajevo—now a danger zone of sniper and mortar attacks where residents still live. While reporting on an American aid worker who’s trying to get children out of the country, a British correspondent decides to take an orphaned girl home to London.

The story of the rape of Nanking, one of the most tragic events in history. In 1937, the invading Japanese army murdered over 200,000 and raped tens of thousands of Chinese. In the midst of this horror, a small group of Western expatriates banded together to save 250,000. Nanking shows the tremendous impact individuals can make on the course of history.

Internationally known director Carla Garapedian follows the rock band System of a Down as they tour Europe and the US pointing out the horrors of modern genocide that began in Armenia in 1915 up though Darfur today.

Lillie, a determined American woman, ventures overseas to join Dr. Jude at a remote medical mission in the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey). However, Lillie soon finds herself at odds with Jude and the mission’s founder, Woodruff, when she falls for the titular military man, Ismail, just as the war is about to erupt.

A true-story account of a German businessman who saved more than 200,000 Chinese during the Nanjing massacre in 1937-38.

A teenage orphan fights against the Red Army at the end of WWII and in the aftermath is 'adopted' by a Commissar. Years later he is sent to London during the Cold war to work for the KGB, where he questions his life.

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

When his family moves from their home in Berlin to a strange new house in Poland, young Bruno befriends Shmuel, a boy who lives on the other side of the fence where everyone seems to be wearing striped pajamas. Unaware of Shmuel's fate as a Jewish prisoner or the role his own Nazi father plays in his imprisonment, Bruno embarks on a dangerous journey inside the camp's walls.

The historical recreation of the 1942 Wannsee Conference, in which Nazi and SS leaders gathered in a Berlin suburb to discuss the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question". Led by SS-General Reinhard Heydrich, this group of high ranking German officials came to the historic and far reaching decision that the Jews of Europe were to be exterminated in what would come to be known as the Holocaust.

In 1915 a man survives the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire, but loses his family, speech and faith. One night he learns that his twin daughters may be alive, and goes on a quest to find them.

A mother's last wishes send twins Jeanne and Simon on a journey to Middle East in search of their tangled roots. Adapted from Wajdi Mouawad's acclaimed play, Incendies tells the powerful and moving tale of two young adults' voyage to the core of deep-rooted hatred, never-ending wars and enduring love.

Inspired by true events, this film takes place in Rwanda in the 1990s when more than a million Tutsis were killed in a genocide that went mostly unnoticed by the rest of the world. Hotel owner Paul Rusesabagina houses over a thousand refuges in his hotel in attempt to save their lives.

Set in the 1980s, an American journalist covering the Salvadoran Civil War becomes entangled with both the leftist guerrilla groups and the right-wing military dictatorship while trying to rescue his girlfriend and her children.

1991. Harrison Lloyd, a renowned photojournalist covering the war in Yugoslavia, is reported missing. Sarah, his wife, convinced that he is not dead, decides to go to Bosnia to find him.

A small mountain community in Canada is devastated when a school bus accident leaves more than a dozen of its children dead. A big-city lawyer arrives to help the survivors' and victims' families prepare a class-action suit, but his efforts only seem to push the townspeople further apart. At the same time, one teenage survivor of the accident has to reckon with the loss of innocence brought about by a different kind of damage.

An American army intelligence officer discovers corruption and murder by American soldiers in Vietnam.

A dramatization of one man's rescue of Jewish refugees in the Nazi-occupied Polish city of Lvov. In Darkness tells the true story of Leopold Soha who risks his own life to save a dozen people from certain death. Initially only interested in his own good, the thief and burglar hides Jewish refugees for 14 months in the sewers of the Nazi-occupied town of Lvov (formerly Poland).

During the Bosnian War, Danijel, a soldier fighting for the Serbs, re-encounters Ajla, a Bosnian who's now a captive in his camp he oversees. Their once promising connection has become ambiguous as their motives have changed.

In 1918, a young, disillusioned Adolf Hitler strikes up a friendship with a Jewish art dealer while weighing a life of passion for art vs. talent at politics

Henri Verneuil was born Achod Malakian of Armenian parentage on October 15, 1920, in Rodosto, Turkey, and his family fled to France and settled in Marseilles when he was a young child. He later recounted his childhood experience in the novel Mayrig, which he dedicated to his mother and made into this 1991 film with the same name.

A hardened mercenary in the Foreign Legion begins to find his own humanity when confronted with atrocities during the fighting in Bosnia.

Canadian Lt. General Romeo Dallaire was the military commander of the UN mission in Rwanda and this movie is personal and, all too true, story of his time there during the genocide of 1994. It is not quite as moving as the earlier Hotel Rwanda and is less geared to drama and emotional manipulation, but it is still grim and upsetting.

Two brothers are divided by marriage and fate during the 100 horrifying days of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Although liberated from Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, Levi did not reach Turin until October 19 of that year. After spending some time in a Soviet camp for former concentration camp inmates, he embarked on an arduous journey home in the company of Italian former prisoners of war from the Italian Army in Russia. His long railway journey home to Turin took him on a circuitous route from Poland, through Russia, Romania, Hungary, Austria and Germany.

The Turkish Passport tells the story of diplomats posted to Turkish embassies and consulates in several European countries, who saved numerous Jews during the Second World War. Whether they pulled them out of camps or took them off trains that were taking them to concentration camps, the diplomats, in the end, ensured that the Jews, who were Turkish citizens, could return to Turkey and thus be saved. Based on the testimonies of witnesses, who traveled to Istanbul to find safety, the Turkish Passport also uses written historical documents and archive footage to tell this story of rescue and bring to light the events of the time.

A photographer and his wife travel across Armenia photographing churches for a calendar project. Travelling with them is a local man acting as their driver and guide. As the project nears completion, the distance between husband and wife grows.

A child escapes from Poland during World War II and first heads to Greece before coming of age in Canada.

The deportation of 4000 Jews from Budapest to Auschwitz in July 1944, as told by George Tabori, and how the narrator’s mother escaped it, owing to coincidence, courage and some help from where you’d least expect it.

Georg Laschen leaves his family in West Germany to go work as a war correspondent in Beirut during the fights between Christians and Palestinians.

A married fisherman struggles to reconcile his devotion to his male lover within his town's rigid traditions.

This heroic story follows the life of Karol Wojtyla, a Polish Roman catholic who ascends the throne of St. Peter as Pope John Paul II. As a young boy, Karol is a bright and talented student. Archbishop Sapieha recognizes the very special, moving qualities Karol possesses and encourages him to consider the priesthood. Although determined to study Polish literature, Karol turns to the church; he is ordained and studies in Italy, France, and Belgium. Torn by fear and repression in post-Stalin Eastern Europe, Karol becomes a poisonous thorn in the communists' side. His deer reverence and commitment return him to Poland as Pope John Paul II.

Based on the popular World War I novel by author William March, director Robert Clem's COMPANY K follows a veteran of the first great conflict as he finishes a book about his wartime experiences and reflects on how a man's true character is revealed through his actions on the battlefield. From the German soldier who visits him in dreams to the camaraderie that is forged by fighting together and the true gravity of laying down your life for a greater cause, World War I veteran Joe Delaney will attempt to exorcise his demons through writing while struggling to readjust to small-town life following the trauma of war.

Drama set in the 1950s, based on a true story, about a young girl, Sung Neng Yee, who is brought as part of a wealthy Chinese family. She is eager to become part of Mao Tze Tung's "new society", but soon becomes disenchanted by the economic misery the changes bring to her family. Before long, the authorities become aware of Neng Yee's feelings and she is taken to a labour camp, overseen by the sadistic Colonel Cheng.

Nick is a writer in New York when he gets posted to a bureau in Greece. He has waited 30 years for this. He wants to know why his mother was killed in the civil war years earlier. In a parallel plot line we see Nick as a young boy and his family as they struggle to survive in the occupied Greek hillside. The plot lines converge as Nick's investigations bring him closer to the answers.

Against a plain, unchanging blue screen, a densely interwoven soundtrack of voices, sound effects and music attempt to convey a portrait of Derek Jarman's experiences with AIDS, both literally and allegorically, together with an exploration of the meanings associated with the colour blue.

A woman struggles with the death of her lover. He was killed by South-American fascists.

André Demester secretly and painfully loves Barbe, his childhood friend, accepting from her the little that she gives him. He leaves home to be a soldier in a war in a far off land. Barbarity, camaraderie and fear turn him into a warrior. As the seasons go by, Barbe, alone and wasting away, waits for the soldiers to return. Will Demester’s boundless love for Barbe save him?

American journalists in Sudan are confronted with the dilemma of whether to return home to report on the atrocities they have seen, or to stay behind and help some of the victims they have encountered.

In the Jewish tradition of arguing with God, Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz decide to put God on Trial.

It is the real story of Giorgio Perlasca (Luca Zingaretti). During the 1920s he was an Italian Fascist supporter, fighting in Africa an in the Spanish civil war where he deserved a safe conduct for Spanish embassies. After some years, disillusioned by fascism, he is a fresh supplier for the Italian army. In the war years he is in Budapest for his business. He lives an easy life there, well introduced into the Hungarian high society, without any problem coming from the war situation. When the Nazi occupied Hungary, in 1944, instead to leave (Italy had already surrendered to the Allies) he escaped to the Spanish embassy in Budapest using his old safe conduct and becoming a Spanish citizen, changing name into Jorge Perlasca. He starts working as a diplomat here. When Sanz Briz (Geza Tordy), the Spanish consul, is removed, Perlasca immediately substitutes him, like if he was officially appointed from Spanish authorities... Written by 1felco

Set during the last days of the Ottoman Empire, a love triangle develops between Mikael, a brilliant medical student, the beautiful and sophisticated artist Ana, and Chris, a renowned American journalist based in Paris.

Produced, written and directed by Yılmaz Güney within his own personal experiences of capital offense, he dedicates Duvar to male teenagers aged 13 to 19 living behind the bars under diabolical treatments. These teenagers get barbaric corporal punishments, injurious harrows, tortures and sexual abuses just for taking the responsibility of their destiny on a wrong turn.

Saroyanland is a docu-drama focusing on the journey of famous writer William Saroyan to the birthplace of his Armenian family Bitlis, in Turkey in 1964. While retaking the same road, the film aims to understand Saroyan's unique attitude to belonging, witnessing the self-discovery of a man who followed the traces of his Armenian ancestors.

The film is dedicated to the Armenian monk and genius composer Komitas, and the 2 million victims on his people in Turkey in 1915. The final 20 years of Komitas life were spent in various mental hospitals. The destiny of Komitas? This is the magic beauty of Armenian culture and the abhorrent brutality of Armenian history. A cultural and artistic world that was slaughtered with a curved knife. A humanity that doggedly advances towards an apocalyptic catastrophe, that does not recognize its own original purpose, eradicates its own memory, its final roots.

Aram, an ex-soldier from the Armenian cause, has come to France to close an arms deal under secret service surveillance. Held responsible and banished by his faher for his brother's injuries in a terrorist ttack, he's also come to seek revenge for the drama that has marked his family and his life.

Turkey's history has been shaped by two major political figures: Mustafa Kemal (1881-1934), known as Atatürk, the Father of the Turks, founder of the modern state, and the current president Recep Tayyıp Erdoğan, who apparently wants Turkey to regain the political and military pre-eminence it had as an empire under the Ottoman dynasty.

The Lark Farm is set in a small Turkish town in 1915. It deals with the genocide of Armenians, looking closely at the fortunes, or rather, misfortunes of one wealthy Armenian family.

Aram, a young man from Marseille of Armenian origin, blows up the Turkish ambassador's car in Paris. Gilles, a young cyclist who was passing at that precise moment, is seriously injured. Aram's mother feels guilty and feels the need to visit Gilles at the hospital and beg for his forgiveness, something that Gilles does not understand. Against the advice of his comrades in Beirut, Aram decides to go meet his victim.

This family drama is the sequel to director Henri Verneuil's autobiographical film, Mayrig. It takes place some forty years after the end of the previous film. In the earlier film, a young man has moved with his family to Marseilles from Armenia and is adapting to his new country to the best of his ability. This tends to put him in conflict with his traditional Armenian family. Nonetheless, they are all hardworking and loving. Now, forty years later, the lead character has changed his name to Pierre Zakar, because it is easier for the French to pronounce and relate to. He has also become a very successful playwright.