Best movies like Ballad of the Little Soldier

A young boy, in an effort to have a normal childhood in 1980s El Salvador, is caught up in a dramatic fight for his life as he desperately tries to avoid the war which is raging all around him

Somewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa, Komona a 14-year-old girl tells her unborn child growing inside her the story of her life since she has been at war. Everything started when she was abducted by the rebel army at the age of 12.

The new film from celebrated documentarian Alanis Obomsawin (Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance) chronicles the events following the filing of a human-rights complaint by a group of activists, which charged that the federal government's woefully inadequate funding of services for Indigenous children constituted a discriminatory practice.

Not My Life comprehensively depicts the cruel and dehumanizing practices of human trafficking and modern slavery on a global scale. Filmed on five continents, in a dozen countries, Not My Life takes viewers into a world where millions of children are exploited through an astonishing array of practices including forced labor, sex tourism, sexual exploitation, and child soldiering.

A documentary exploring why African cult/militia leader and indicted war criminal fugitive Joseph Kony needs to be arrested by the end of 2012.

Vignettes weaving together the stories of six individuals in the old West at the end of the Civil War. Following the tales of a sharp-shooting songster, a wannabe bank robber, two weary traveling performers, a lone gold prospector, a woman traveling the West to an uncertain future, and a motley crew of strangers undertaking a carriage ride.

Based on the experiences of Agu, a child fighting in the civil war of an unnamed, fictional West African country. Follows Agu's journey as he's forced to join a group of soldiers. While he fears his commander and many of the men around him, his fledgling childhood has been brutally shattered by the war raging through his country, and he is at first torn between conflicting revulsion and fascination.

An ex-mercenary turned smuggler. A Mende fisherman. Amid the explosive civil war overtaking 1999 Sierra Leone, these men join for two desperate missions: recovering a rare pink diamond of immense value and rescuing the fisherman's son, conscripted as a child soldier into the brutal rebel forces ripping a swath of torture and bloodshed countrywide.

They've ridden dusty miles without end and fought fierce battles. Yet when these brave African-American cavalrymen enter a scraggly frontier town, they must walk through it instead of ride. The town dishonors them but the soldiers' Native-American foes do not. Apache leader Victoria and other warriors give the horsemen a name of honor and strength: "Buffalo Soldiers". The troopers' daring hunt for Victorio frames this stirring tribute to the former slaves and other African-Americans of the 9th and 10th U.S. Calvary Regiments. Danny Glover, Mykelti Williamson, Glynn Turman, Carl Lumbly and Michael Warren star in an adventure bringing to light that largely unknown story and the unique moral dilemma the men faced. Atten-hut! "Buffalo Soldiers are riding" through town.

A Glasgow man visits war-torn Nicaragua with a refugee tormented by her memories.

A World War II satire that follows a lonely German boy whose world view is turned upside down when he discovers his single mother is hiding a young Jewish girl in their attic. Aided only by his idiotic imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler, Jojo must confront his blind nationalism.

Navy SEAL Lieutenant A.K. Waters and his elite squadron of tactical specialists are forced to choose between their duty and their humanity, between following orders by ignoring the conflict that surrounds them, or finding the courage to follow their conscience and protect a group of innocent refugees. When the democratic government of Nigeria collapses and the country is taken over by a ruthless military dictator, Waters, a fiercely loyal and hardened veteran is dispatched on a routine mission to retrieve a Doctors Without Borders physician.

After a cavalry group is massacred by the Cheyenne, only two survivors remain: Honus, a naive private devoted to his duty, and Cresta, a young woman who had lived with the Cheyenne two years and whose sympathies lie more with them than with the US government. Together, they must try to reach the cavalry's main base camp. As they travel onward, Honus is torn between his growing affection for Cresta.

Two years after the discovery of "Sue," the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton found to date, government officials seize the remains and claim that "Sue" was stolen from federal land.

Ezra, jeune ex-soldat Sierra-Léonais, essaie tant bien que mal de retrouver des repères pour revenir à une vie normale après la guerre civile qui a ravagé son pays. Son quotidien est partagé entre un centre de réhabilitation psychologique et un tribunal de réconciliation nationale organisé sous l'égide de l'ONU. Durant le procès en réhabilitation auquel Ezra participe, il doit affronter sa soeur qui l'accuse du meurtre de leurs parents. Ezra, qui a traversé cette violente guerre civile complètement drogué et alcoolisé, ne se souvient de rien. Ezra reconnaîtra-t-il l'horreur et par ce fait, permettra-t-il à sa soeur et à sa communauté villageoise d'accéder au pardon ?

Confederate super-spy Johnny and his partner in crime Steve travel to San Francisco near the end of the Civil War, masquerading, respectively, as a singer/guitar instructor and a magic-elixir vendor. Once there, Johnny dons a fake wig, beard and mustache, and steals Union gold to bring back to the South, aided by a guitar that doubles as a gun.

A reporter becomes the target of a vicious smear campaign that drives him to the point of suicide after he exposes the CIA's role in arming Contra rebels in Nicaragua and importing cocaine into California. Based on the true story of journalist Gary Webb.

FREEWAY: CRACK IN THE SYSTEM tells the story of broken dreams, drug dealers, dirty cops, and government complicity—more compelling than fiction, it’s the real story behind America’s longest war. This documentary by award-winning filmmaker Marc Levin (SLAM, Mr. Untouchable, Brick City) exposes how the infiltration of crack cocaine destroyed inner-city neighborhoods across the country. At the center of it all is the rise, fall and redemption of Freeway Rick Ross, a street hustler who became the King of Crack, and journalist Gary Webb, who broke the story of the CIA’s complicity in the drug war. Featuring exclusive interviews with Freeway Rick Ross, not to be confused with the rapper who took his name Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Gary Webb, his source Coral Baca, and wife Susan Webb former Los Angeles Deputy Sheriff Roberto Juarez drug trafficker Julio Zavala and many more.

The true story of Sam Childers, a former drug-dealing biker who finds God and became a crusader for hundreds of Sudanese children who've been kidnapped and pressed into duty as soldiers.

A concert film documenting Talking Heads at the height of their popularity, on tour for their 1983 album "Speaking in Tongues." The band takes the stage one by one and is joined by a cadre of guest musicians for a career-spanning and cinematic performance that features creative choreography and visuals.

This documentary about teenagers living on the streets in Seattle began as a magazine article. The film follows nine teenagers who discuss how they live by panhandling, prostitution, and petty theft.

Seeking a new place to call home, former Confederate soldier Ben Lassiter (Victor Mature) and his daughter meet Beth (Elaine Stewart), whose fiancé is a Union soldier. Lassiter falls for Beth, and when Indians attack, they head to a cavalry camp where Lassiter must battle the Indians as well as Beth's fiancé.

A Chickasaw man survives great hardships and tragedy to establish a vast ranching empire along the famous cattle highway of the American West.

In this tense and immersive tour de force, audiences are taken directly into the line of fire between powerful, opposing Peruvian leaders who will stop at nothing to keep their respective goals intact. On the one side is President Alan Garcia, who, eager to enter the world stage, begins aggressively extracting oil, minerals, and gas from untouched indigenous Amazonian land. He is quickly met with fierce opposition from indigenous leader Alberto Pizango, whose impassioned speeches against Garcia’s destructive actions prove a powerful rallying cry to throngs of his supporters. When Garcia continues to ignore their pleas, a tense war of words erupts into deadly violence.

Long before he played the corpulent Goldfinger, German actor Gert Froebe was a scarecrow-skinny comedian. In Berliner Ballade, Froebe makes his screen debut as Otto, a feckless Everyman who tries to adjust to the postwar travails of his defeated nation. Stymied by black-market profiteers and government bureaucrats, Otto begins fantasizing about a happier life at the end of that ever-elusive rainbow. Director R. A. Stemmle doesn't have to strive for pathos: he merely places his gangly star amidst the ruins of a bombed-out Berlin, and the point is made for him. Filmed in 1948, Berliner Ballade was later released in the U.S. as The Berliner.

The life of peaceful rancher John Benedict is torn apart when his family is massacred by a gang of marauding outlaws and his farm is destroyed. He assembles a team of mean, lawless convicts to act as his posse as he pursues the gang responsible for the deaths of his loved ones.

Documentary about a group of Americans who go to Nicaragua to learn about the conflict between the Contras and the Sandinistas.

A documentary by Charlie Minn about the McDonalds Massacre from 1984, when a man walked into a McDonald's restaurant in San Diego armed with guns and shot 40 men, women, and children. It took law enforcement 77 minutes to end the siege. This documentary focuses on the victims of the attack and its effects.

The true story of a young female soldier who comes of age during the Eritrean civil war.

All interviews in this documentary were shot over a long weekend at a 1984 hacker conference by the Whole Earth Catalog editors Stewart Brand and Kevin Kelley in Sausalito, California. The event itself (the hacker conference) was inspired by Steven Levy's classic book "Hackers - Heroes of the Computer Revolution"

Culloden, Scottish Highlands, April 16th, 1746. It was one of the most mishandled and brutal battles ever fought in Great Britain. Its aftermath was tragic. The men responsible for such a disaster must be exposed. The men, women and children who suffered because of it must be remembered.

The fighting between the Sandinista government in Nicaragua and the Contra rebels backed by U.S. money and expertise is the focus of this pro-Sandinista film by Haskell Wexler. On a secret mission to help the U.S. Special Forces train Contra rebels in the jungles of Nicaragua, American soldier Eddie Guerrero begins to question the morality of the task at hand and consider how his actions may influence the fate of a nation.

A story of a boy, forced to grow mature before his time and to die too early because of the cruel war circumstances. This film is dedicated to all the children who have died during the National Liberation War.

Documentary chronicling the government relocation of 10,000 Navajo Indians in Arizona.

This political documentary illustrates the turbulent history of El Salvador from the 1920s-1970s, and the role of the U.S. government in that history. The most comprehensive film introduction to that country, examines the civil war there in light of the Reagan administration's decision to "draw the line" against "communist interference" in Central America. Archival material offers an overview of U.S. military and economic policy in Central America since 1948, while footage drawn from sources in the U.S., Mexico, and Europe provides extensive background to the current political and military situation.