Best movies like Border Café

Marcel and Francis are busy people. Marcel owns a café and spend all his nights running from meetings to meetings with members from the high society... at least, that's what he say to his barman! Francis leaves his home, loving wife and adorable daughter, frequently to attend meetings and demonstration with customers. His boss trusts him so much that his agenda is always full... at least, that's what he say to his wife! In fact, Marcel and Francis' incomes come from their night job: thieves! Here at least, they are professional. Troubles arise when, during one robbery, they encounter a young, high-pitched voice, candid girl who takes the decision to become their associate in crime... for the fun!

Masato is a young ramen chef in Japan. When he finds his late mother's journal after the sudden death of his emotionally distant father, he takes it with him to her native country, Singapore, hoping to piece together the story of his family and his life.

After twelve years of imprisonment by their own parents, two sisters are finally released by social workers to face the outside world for the first time.

An ambitious Mexican-American gets mixed up with the neurotic wife of his casino boss.

The story revolves around a blind boy named Mohammed who is released from his special school in Tehran for summer vacation. His father, shamed and burdened by Mohammed's blindness, arrives late to pick him up and then tries to convince the headmaster to keep Mohammed over the summer. The headmaster refuses, so Mohammed's father eventually takes him home.

Turtles can fly tells the story of a group of young children near the Turkey-Iran border. They clean up mines and wait for the Saddam regime to fall.

The subject of the film is male-female relationships. Composed of 7 vignettes, "20 Fingers" features Mania Akbari and Bijan Daneshmand as a contemporary Iranian couple. The film is an intense, bumpy series of conversations and sometimes quarrels reflecting the problems facing Iranian men and women and the struggle between modernism and tradition, liberalism and conservatism.

Torn straight from the headlines, Michael Winterbottom's compelling and prescient 'In This World' follows young Afghan Jamal and his older cousin Enayat as they embark on a hazardous overland trip from their refugee camp at Peshawar, north-west Pakistan. Entering Turkey on foot through a snowy, Kurdish-controlled pass, the pair again take their lives into their hands and face suffocation when they are locked in a freight container on a ship bound for Italy. From there they plan to travel on to Paris, the Sangatte refuge centre and ultimately asylum in London.

The master of a dorayaki pastry store hires a 76-year-old woman whose talents attract customers from all over. But she's hiding a troubling secret. Life's joys are found in the little details, and no matter what may be weighing you down, everyone loves a good pastry.

After their father dies, a family of five are forced to survive on their own in a Kurdish village on the border of Iran and Iraq. Matters are made worse when 12 year old Ayoub, the new head of the family, is told that his handicapped brother, Madi, needs an immediate operation in order to remain alive. This heartbreaking tale shows the lengths to which a family will go in order to survive in the harshest of conditions, where even the horses are fed liquor in order to work.

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon continue their travelogue series with a visit to Greece.

Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who has been barred from leaving the country, arrives at a village on the Iran-Turkey border to supervise a film based on a real-life couple seeking passports to Europe being shot in Turkey, but both his stay and the production run into trouble.

Hashem is a cab driver who finds an infant child in the back seat of his cab one night after he gives a ride to a young woman. Hashem and his girlfriend, Taji, try to cope with this unwanted child. Hashem insists on getting rid of the child, Taji on keeping him.

Mystery abounds when it is discovered that, one by one, the greatest Chefs in Europe are being killed. The intriguing part of the murders is that each chef is killed in the same manner that their own special dish is prepared in. Food critics and the (many) self-proclaimed greatest Chefs in Europe demand the mystery be solved.

Various women struggle to function in the oppressively sexist society of contemporary Iran.

A farmer and his wife live in a rural part of Inner Mongolia with their three children. Chinese population control policies prevent them from having any more. The farmer sets out for the nearest town to obtain birth control. He comes upon a Russian truck driver who has ended up in a lake. The farmer takes the man back to his farm, and after initially being appalled, the Russian becomes enchanted with the peaceful life of the countryside and decides to stay. But his presence presages big changes for the peasants.

A Chinese man who is living illegally in Japan bluffs his way into a job preparing traditional Japanese soba noodles.

From very different backgrounds, the two women bond over their shared love for their families. As the women grow closer, Maria reveals her concern for her precocious, but lonely daughter Bella, who she fears is being bullied at school. At Anna's urging, her teenage daughter Emily takes Bella under her wings. Maria's husband, Hector, loses his job, and his ability to provide for his family. He falls into despair as he's unable to find work, and turns back to drinking. When he finds Maria at the Sparrow's house, he assumes she is cleaning houses. His pride overcomes him and demands she leave with him. Anna agrees to watch Bella as Maria leaves with Hector, hoping to reason with him, make him understand how much she loves him, and that she knows he is always there for his family. As they weigh the impact on young Bella, Anna and Mike face one of the most important decisions of their lives.

After four years apart, Ahmad returns to his wife Marie in Paris in order to progress their divorce. During his brief stay, he cannot help noticing the strained relationship between Marie and her daughter Lucie. As he attempts to improve matters between mother and daughter Ahmad unwittingly lifts the lid on a long buried secret...

Rouhi, a young bride-to-be, is hired as a maid for an affluent family in Tehran. Upon arriving, she is suddenly thrust into an explosive domestic conflict. The wife is convinced her husband is having an affair and enlists Rouhi as a spy, to follow her husband, and confirm her suspicions. What Rouhi discovers, however, threatens not only their marriage but her own future.

It's 1875 and a young street urchin wants to see Queen Victoria...

The story is about the world of a small family with familiar dreams and not so remarkable problems. The mother is trying to lead everything to save her family, but small events disarrange all her plans.

Itinerant Kurdish teachers, carrying blackboards on their backs, look for students in the hills and villages of Iran, near the Iraqi border during the Iran-Iraq war. Said falls in with a group of old men looking for their bombed-out village; he offers to guide them, and takes as his wife Halaleh, the clan's lone woman, a widow with a young son. Reeboir attaches himself to a dozen pre-teen boys weighed down by contraband they carry across the border; they're mules, always on the move. Said and Reeboir try to teach as their potential students keep walking. Danger is close; armed soldiers patrol the skies, the roads, and the border. Is there a role for a teacher? Is there hope?

Alejandro, a tough and ambitious Latino street orphan on the verge of adolescence, lives and works in an auto-body repair shop in a sprawling junkyard on the outskirts of Queens, New York. In this chaotic world of adults, young Alejandro struggles to make a better life for himself and his 16-year-old sister, Isamar.

During the rule of Taliban in Afghanistan, about 3 million illegal Afghani immigrants entered Iran and caused numerous problems for the Iranian society to accept them. This film depicts the story of a 17 year old rural girl by the name of Mahi (Fish), who comes from a war-stricken family in southern Iran. Mahi falls in love with Heiran, an Afghan student who has come to their village to work. However, Mahi's family being strictly against her marriage to Heiran, force Mahi to choose one between her family and an Afghan boy.

For the young and fearless Setareh, there are no walls or boundaries she cannot overcome. Determined to provide for her family, Setareh takes a job as a bike rider in a theme park, following the tracks of her late father. When she becomes the first female to ride around 'The Wall', a wooden cylinder-shaped structure, the authorities intervene to prevent her from taking her rightful place on the wall of fame. With the successful show on the verge of being cancelled, Setareh struggles for her voice to be heard. An adventurous philosophical debate into gender equality.

Reza, the veteran worker of a print house whose sight is adversely affected because of his job, loses his mother. Finding the gloom reigning over the home beyond bearing, he departs to overcome his sorrows. He ends up at a hostel where he shares his room with a southern guy called Ahmad who has a group of orphan war-stricken children under his wing. After the initial inkling gives way to the friendship, Reza discovers that Ahmad's patron plies his trade in black-market. At the same time, Reza's sister is constantly beaten and humiliated by her husband for being infertile.

A head chef balances multiple personal and professional crises at a popular restaurant in London.

Oil wells in the south are the prey of fire, and American experts call fire extinguishers to the south. They need some nitroglycerin to put out the fire, which must be transported south. A number of drivers are being tested to bring two trucks carrying nitroglycerin to the fire station.

Uptight French chef, Sara Westbrook, gets fired up when her upscale café, Chez Varenne, is suddenly overshadowed by a new restaurant moving in next door run by a group of rowdy firemen. Led by handsome former fire fighter Gill Callahan and his friend Danny, The Five Alarm Grill is soon a big success while Sara and Patsy, her pastry chef, struggle to bring in customers. Sara suddenly softens when she meets Gill's ten-year-old daughter Hannah. Ignoring the obvious tension between her dad and Sara, Hannah is soon playing matchmaker. Can Gill and Sara's burgeoning romance survive the temptation to compete with each other, or will the heat of competition drive them apart?

The story is about a family of three brothers and a sister in the suburbs of the city's poverty. Their elder brother owns a drug-producing kitchen and presides over the group, like a shepherd for sheep.

Lawrence, an aging, lonely civil servant falls for Gina, an enigmatic young woman. When he takes her to the G8 Summit in Reykjavik, however, their bond is tested by Lawrence's professional obligations.

Elham is a young, divorced Iranian woman. Seeking to find herself after a near-fatal beating by her husband, she finds solace and salvation in the water and soon makes her mark as a formidable endurance swimmer. In the fight of her life, Elham faces political, religious, and personal obstacles in search of her goal: the Guinness World Record for swimming the longest distance with hands bound.

A non-traditional wife and mother, Azar (Karimi) is first seen racing her dirt bike over a hilly track while her husband Amir (Azarang) and young daughter cheer her on. Co-equal with her liberal-minded husband in marriage and in their fledgling business venture, a café with a thriving carryout trade, she is forced to meet an unequal challenge in which the strict pecking order of a family dominated by misogynist uncle, a business loan with strings attached, a black sheep son with a hidden agenda, and a tragic accident add up to a scenario in which Azar is targeted as the unwilling sacrificial victim. (Gene Siskel Film Center)

Filmmaker Saman Moghadam details the struggles of three women living in an antiquated district of Tehran in this emotionally resonant drama. Fabria's husband has been morally corrupted, and now it's up to her to take charge of the small café that proves the only source of income to the couple. Saloomeh is a beautiful young woman who dreams of marrying Ebi, but how will the couple survive on the salary of a simple mechanic? Lastly, middle aged Moluk has fallen for a much younger man, and her heart breaks when she discovers that her love is unrequited.