Best movies like Candide or The Optimism in the 20th Century
Based on the classic novel
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Candide or The Optimism in the 20th Century Starring Jean-Pierre Cassel, Daliah Lavi, Pierre Brasseur, Louis de Funès, and more. If you liked Candide or The Optimism in the 20th Century then you may also like: The Virgin and the Gypsy, Voltaire, Rebel High, A Royal Scandal, Alice and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.
The film is a 20th-century adaptation of Voltaire's 1759 social satire novel Candide, ou l’Optimisme.
Candide or The Optimism in the 20th Century
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Rebel High
Rebel High is a 1987 social satire film about the chaos and mayhem that modern western cities' high schools became. It is based on a US novel by Evan Keliher.Made in Canada, most of the cast is relatively unknown and in many cases uncredited.
A Royal Scandal
Catherine the Great falls in love with an army officer who is plotting against her.
Alice
A quiet young English girl named Alice finds herself in an alternate version of her own reality after chasing a white rabbit. She becomes surrounded by living inanimate objects and stuffed dead animals, and must find a way out of this nightmare- no matter how twisted or odd that way must be. A memorably bizarre screen version of Lewis Carroll’s novel ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’.
The Balcony
The Madam of a brothel satisfies the erotic fantasies of her customers, while a revolution is sweeping the nation.
Clueless
Shallow, rich and socially successful Cher is at the top of her Beverly Hills high school's pecking scale. Seeing herself as a matchmaker, Cher first coaxes two teachers into dating each other. Emboldened by her success, she decides to give hopelessly klutzy new student Tai a makeover. When Tai becomes more popular than she is, Cher realizes that her disapproving ex-stepbrother was right about how misguided she was -- and falls for him.
The Dinner Game
For Pierre Brochant and his friends, Wednesday is “Idiots' Day”. The idea is simple: each person has to bring along an idiot. The one who brings the most spectacular idiot wins the prize. Tonight, Brochant is ecstatic. He has found a gem. The ultimate idiot, “A world champion idiot!”. What Brochant doesn’t know is that Pignon is a real jinx, a past master in the art of bringing on catastrophes...
Far from the Madding Crowd
This powerful adaptation of Thomas Hardy's classic novel spins a story of passion and destruction set in the nineteenth century. The proud, flighty and bewitching Bathsheba Everdene finds herself entangled into the passions of three men and her impulsive nature pushes her into a web of deceit and destruction.
Martin Eden
The tale of an individualist proletarian in a time marked by the rise of mass political movements. In early 20th-century Italy, illiterate sailor Martin Eden seeks fame as a writer while torn between the love of a bourgeois girl and allegiance to his social class.
The House of Mirth
A woman risks losing her chance of happiness with the only man she has ever loved.
Wuthering Heights
In this adaptation of Wuthering Heights set in the south of France in the 1930s, Guillaume wars with his sister Catherine over her affections for their farmhand Roch, of whom he is jealous. A romantic choice, destined for tragic results.
Poetical Refugee
Like a Candide dreaming of Eldorado, Jallel lands in France, hoping to try his luck. From encounter to encounter, hostel to social welfare group, Jallel will make his way through a Paris of outcasts. Although failing to achieve his hopes, he discovers and shares in the solidarity felt by the destitute. –uniFrance
A Tale of Two Cities
The exciting story of Dr. Manette, who escapes the horrors of the infamous Bastille prison in Paris. The action switches between London and Paris on the eve of the revolution where we witness 'the best of times and the worst of times' - love, hope, the uncaring French Aristocrats and the terror of a revolutionary citizen's army intent on exacting revenge.
Bulldog in the White House
"Bulldog in the Whitehouse" takes political satire to obscene new heights: portraying the Bush administration as a cabal of lustful and traitorous gay men who are too busy having sex to notice the empire crumbling down around them. An explosive and darkly comic adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos' novel Dangerous Liaisons, the film's web of sex and deceit centers on Bulldog, a hustler who seduces his way into the Washington press corps to gain access to the halls of the political elite. At the bidding of his puppet master, a corpulent and power mad Karl Rove, Bulldog engages in manipulative trysts with Whitehouse hotties like the demure press secretary, the religious leader and the confused, imbecilic good ol' boy president himself.
The Prize of Peril
In a futuristic society, contestants pit their survival skills against each other in a fight to the death for cash prizes, and the contest is aired live on television.
Brave New World
In a futuristic totalitarian utopian society, babies are created through genetic engineering, everyone has a predestined place in society and their minds are conditioned to follow the rules. A tragic outsider jeopardizes the status quo.
Rabbit on the Moon
Though around them a criminal world seethes, Julie and Antonio are a young and loving couple with a new baby and a solid, white-collar sense of stability. But when a loose social connection suddenly ties them to a major political assassination, the two become innocents desperately trying to adapt to a world of murderous politicians and police that, moment to moment, threatens their lives
Confessions of a Sociopathic Social Climber
Social satire based on the best-seller by Adele Lang humorously chronicles the life of Katya Livingston, a self-centered, obnoxious and conceited 28-year-old ad sales exec who won't let anything or anyone stand in her way in getting to the top of the San Francisco social ladder.
Goodbye First Love
A 15-year-old discovers the joys and heartaches of first love with an older teen, but in the ensuing years, cannot seem to move past their breakup.
Sanctuary
In 1920s rural Mississippi, Nancy Mannigoe, an African-American servant, is placed on death row for the murder of Temple Drake's infant child. Temple, the daughter of the governor, pleads with her father to exonerate Nancy of the charges, explaining that Nancy acted in haste to prevent her from resuming her affair with a roguish Cajun called Candy Man. Details of Temple's sordid past are uncovered as she begs mercy for her faithful servant.
Belle du Seigneur
English-language adaptation of Albert Cohen's epic Swiss tale of a tortured love affair between a high-ranking Jewish official and the Protestant wife of one of his employees.
I Am Not an Easy Man
The chauvinist Damien wakes up in a world where women and men have their roles reversed in society, and everything is dominated by women.
Timon of Athens
Timon loves to give parties and objects to friends, but when he cannot pay his creditors, his "friends" refuse to help him, and he becomes a misanthropic hermit.
My Fake Boyfriend
A young man in a tricky situation follows the advice of his unconventional best friend and uses social media to create a fake boyfriend to keep his awful ex-lover out of his life. But everything backfires when he meets the real love of his life, and breaking up with his fake boyfriend proves hard to do.
Daisy Miller
Despite mixed emotions, Frederick Winterbourne tries to figure out the bright and bubbly Daisy Miller, only to be helped and hindered by false judgments from their fellow friends.
The Young Visiters
The Young Visiters, written in twelve days by nine-year-old Daisy Ashford in 1890, is a surreal blend of naiveté, precocious perception and inadvertent social satire.
Teli and Toli
This down-to-earth story that takes place in the mountains of North Caucasus, between two adjacent villages – Ossetian Toli and Georgian Teli – tells us about simple and naïve people that governments try to divide today by an official state border. These people wish to live in peace and harmony, in spite of ethnic differences, as their ancestors lived for hundreds of years. They are accustomed to solve all the conflicts peacefully, following Caucasian customs – around a great table, with wine and songs…
The Immortal Story
An aged, wealthy trader plots with his servant to recreate a maritime tall tale, using a local woman and an unknown sailor as actors.
Voltaire et l'affaire Calas
A Protestant businessman, Jean Calas, is tortured to death for allegedly killing his son to stop him becoming a Catholic. Voltaire launches a Europe-wide campaign to win rehabilitation for Calas and compensation for his family.
Heathcliff
The Musical adaptation of Emily Bronte's Classic novel "Wuthering Heights". When his childhood love abandons him for a man of higher social rank, Heathcliff seeks vengeance.
The Virgin and the Gypsy
Film adaptation from the novel by D.H. Lawrence, discovered after the celebrated author's death in 1930, a romantic love story tells of a prim young English girl who is sexually attracted to a seductively virile gypsy. The climatic dam burst is linked with the consummation of her desire.