Best movies like Commune
Peace and love are only half the story.
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Commune Starring Peter Coyote, and more. If you liked Commune then you may also like: Zardoz, Viva, Wanderlust, Willow Creek, Revolution 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.
In 1968, Elsa and Richard Marley founded an alternative-living community, named Black Bear, in the remote Northern California wilderness with the motto "Free Land for Free People." This film tells the story of that intended utopia. Through archival footage and interviews with former residents, director Jonathan Berman explores the problems and realities of communal living and the evolution of a community that endured FBI harassment, cult leadership and more.
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Viva
Abandoned by her husband, Barbi is dragged into trouble by her girlfriend, who spouts women's lib as she gets Barbi to discard her bra and go out on the town. Barbi becomes a Red Riding Hood in a sea of wolves, and quickly learns a lot more than she wanted to about nudist camps, the hippie scene, orgies, bisexuality, sadism, drugs, and bohemia.
Wanderlust
Rattled by sudden unemployment, a Manhattan couple surveys alternative living options, ultimately deciding to experiment with living on a rural commune where free love rules.
Willow Creek
A young couple ventures into the woods to capture footage of the elusive Bigfoot.
Revolution
The San Francisco scene in 1967-68. Documentary about hippies shot during the height of the movement . Viewpoints from many kinds of people. Music by Steve Miller Band, Mother Earth, Quicksilver Messenger Service and others.
Kusama: Infinity
Now one of the world’s most celebrated artists, Yayoi Kusama broke free of the rigid society in which she was raised, and overcame sexism, racism, and mental illness to bring her artistic vision to the world stage. At 88 she lives in a mental hospital and continues to create art.
Manson's Lost Girls
Linda Kasabian falls prey to the hypnotic charms of Charles Manson and his self-proclaimed "family" during the drug-fueled summer of 1969.
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
After saving a Black Panther from some racist cops, a black male prostitute goes on the run from "the man" with the help of the ghetto community and some disillusioned Hells Angels.
Elysia, Valley of the Nude
James Mack, a reporter for the International News Bureau, is assigned by his editor to do a story on the phenomenon of nudist colonies.
Accidental Incest
Milton and Kendra fall for each other. The problem is that they are half-brother and half-sister.
Manson: Music From an Unsound Mind
The untold story of Charles Manson's obsession to become a rock star, his rise in the LA music scene, the celebrities who championed his music, his tragic friendship with The Beach Boys' Dennis Wilson and his descent into violence and chaos once his dreams fell apart.
Earth Mama
A pregnant single mother, with two children in foster care, embraces her Bay Area community as she fights to reclaim her family.
Medium Cool
John Cassellis is the toughest TV news reporter around. After extensively reporting about violence and racial tensions in poor communities, he discovers that his network is helping the FBI by granting them access to his footage to find suspects.
The Strawberry Statement
A college student joins a group of revolutionaries to meet girls but ends up committed to their goals.
The Sacrament
Two journalists set out to document their friend's journey to reunite with his estranged sister. They track her to an undisclosed location where they are welcomed into the remote world of "Eden Parish," a self-sustained rural utopia composed of nearly two hundred members and overseen by a mysterious leader known only as "Father." It quickly becomes evident to the newcomers that this paradise may not be as it seems. Eden Parish harbors a twisted secret. What started as just another documentary shoot soon becomes a fight for survival.
The Source Family
A feature documentary film set in Hollywood, examining a radical experiment in '70s utopian living. The Source Family were the darlings of the Sunset Strip until their communal living, outsider ideals and spiritual leader Father Yod's 13 wives became an issue with local authorities. They fled to Hawaii, leading to their dramatic demise.
House of Manson
An unflinching chronicle of Charles Manson, the ex-con who was able to amass a dedicated following of young people in the late 1960s. The era of peace and love was ultimately brought to its knees following his orchestration of the notorious Sharon Tate and LaBianca murders, which sent a shockwave throughout the U.S.A and the world. To this very day, Manson remains a fascinating figure in today's world and remains incarcerated... Prepare to enter the mental and depraved world of Charles Manson.
Glen and Randa
Teenagers Glen and Randa are members of a tribe that lives in a rural area, several decades after nuclear war has devastated the planet. They know nothing of the outside world, except that Glen has read about and seen pictures of a great city in some old comic books. He and Randa set out to find this city.
Happiness Runs
The neglected child of parents living on a commune, Victor is helpless to resist the atmosphere of sex and drugs that permeates his world, but he's smart enough to know that if he is going to survive, he has to get out.
Marley
Bob Marley's universal appeal, impact on music history and role as a social and political prophet is both unique and unparalleled. Directed by Academy Award-winning director Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland), MARLEY is the definitive life story of the musician, revolutionary, and legend, from his early days to his rise to international superstardom. Made with the support of the Marley family, the film features rare footage, incredible performances and revelatory interviews with the people that knew him best.
A Huey P. Newton Story
The story of how the radical Huey P. Newton developed the Black Panther Party based on his 10-point program for social reform.
Ever Since the World Ended
Twelve years ago, a plague swept through, wiping out most of the population; in San Francisco, only 186 people remain. Two of them use jury-rigged batteries to power a camera and make a documentary. We see a variety of approaches to survival, from the artist and engineer who trade for their needs, to the surfers and woodsmen who fish and hunt, to the scavengers, and a communal farm. We also see how the community deals with those who threaten it, and how the youth are growing up with different values from those who knew our world.
American Commune
In 1970, hundreds of hippies followed Stephen Gaskin on a journey from San Francisco to Tennessee, where they founded a legendary commune known as the Farm. Within this self-sustaining society based on non-violence, vegetarianism and respect for the earth, members willingly took a vow of poverty, lived in converted buses, grew their own food and home-delivered babies. Born and raised in this alternative community, filmmakers and sisters Rena and Nadine return for the first time since leaving in 1985. Finally ready to face the past after years of hiding their upbringing, they chart the rise and fall of America’s largest utopian socialist experiment and their own family tree. The nascent idealism of a community destroyed, in part, by its own success is reflected in the personal story of a family unit split apart by differences. American Commune finds inspiration in failure, humour in deprivation and, most surprisingly, that communal values are alive and well in the next generation.
The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin
The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin celebrates one of the world’s most beloved storytellers, following his evolution from a conservative son of the Old South into a gay rights pioneer whose novels inspired millions to reclaim their lives.
The Baby Maker
Tish Gray had a baby and gave it up for adoption. She is contacted by a second childless couple who want her to have the husband's baby because of the wife's inability to have children. She accepts but finds that knowing the parents, and developing a relationship with them for the entire pregnancy complicates the simple arrangement.
Bukowski: Born Into This
Director John Dullaghan’s biographical documentary about infamous poet Charles Bukowski, Bukowski: Born Into This, is as much a touching portrait of the author as it is an exposé of his sordid lifestyle. Interspersed between ample vintage footage of Bukowski’s poetry readings are interviews with the poet’s fans including such legendary figures such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Joyce Fante (wife of John), Bono, and Harry Dean Stanton. Filmed in grainy black and white by Bukowski’s friend, Taylor Hackford, due to lack of funding, the old films edited into this movie paint Bukowski’s life of boozing and brawling romantically, securing Bukowski’s legendary status.
Psych-Out
Jenny, a deaf runaway who has just arrived in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district to find her long-lost brother, a mysterious bearded sculptor known around town as The Seeker. She falls in with a psychedelic band, Mumblin' Jim, whose members include Stoney, Ben, and Elwood. They hide her from the fuzz in their crash pad, a Victorian house crowded with love beads and necking couples. Mumblin' Jim's truth-seeking friend Dave considers the band's pursuit of success "playing games," but he agrees to help Jennie anyway.
Alice in Acidland
Cute and perky college student Alice is invited to a "pool party" by Freida, a female teacher who is actually a lesbian and has designs on Alice. At the party Alice gets drunk, takes acid and immediately becomes a lesbian, taking a bath with Freida. Later Alice gets mixed up with LSD-addicted hippies, rape, more lesbians, more LSD, orgies, suicide, and having sex with guys in boxers.
Sweet Angel Mine
Paul, a young man from London, arrives in the small Nova Scotia town of Milestone, where his long lost father was last seen years earlier. Paul is eager to find out what brought his father to this remote community. He meets Rauchine, a young, beautiful and unaffected girl who lives with her unstable mother and domineering grandmother on a nearby island, who is eking out a harsh and isolated living. Paul finds himself enmeshed in a web of jealousy, bitterness and fear as his attraction to Rauchine begins to grow. After a failed attempt to leave the island with Paul, Rauchine must make a crucial decision and break the cycle of violence and death that has marked her life.
Satanis: The Devil's Mass
The film is a study of Anton Szandor LaVey, leader of a cult of devil worshipers in San Francisco. He and his Church of Satan are shown performing a black mass, in which a nude woman serves as an altar and a boa constrictor wraps itself around a naked witch. Newsreel footage is included in which LaVey's neighbors are interviewed about the lion which he kept in his house until complaints resulted in the animal's removal to a zoo. The ideology of the Church of Satan is discussed--guilt rejection, sexual freedom, and self-indulgence.
The Outwaters
Four travelers encounter menacing phenomena while camping in a remote stretch of the Mojave Desert.
Cult Killer
On January 7th 2005, 29 year old Rick Rodriguez murdered his former nanny and then killed himself on a lonely desert highway. Hours earlier he had videoed his suicide note and this final message provided a remarkable insight into a deeply damaged life. It also lifted the lid on one of the most notorious religious cults to emerge out of the 1960s counter culture: The Children of God sect.
Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power
Through first person accounts and searing archival footage, this documentary tells the story of the local movement and young Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizers who fought not just for voting rights, but for Black Power in Lowndes County, Alabama.
Assata aka Joanne Chesimard
Through dramatic re-creation, archival newsreel footage and revealing interviews, director Fred Baker's docudrama explores the controversial murder case centered on Black Panther activist and political exile Assata Shakur. In 1977, Shakur was dubiously convicted for the shooting death of a New Jersey state trooper and was sentenced to life in prison, only to escape two years later and seek refuge in Cuba.
Back to the Garden, Flower Power Comes Full Circle
In 1988, filmmaker Kevin Tomlinson filmed & interviewed a group of back-to-the- land "hippies"--living off-grid, insulated from mainstream culture. In 2006 he tracked down his subjects again to find out what had become of their families' utopian plans and dreams.
Alex in Wonderland
Bohemian Alex Morrison has just finished directing his first feature length movie. In its previews, the movie is considered a critical, artistic and surefire commercial success. As such, Alex seemingly has his choice of what his next project will be. As he makes the rounds both in the Hollywood community and European movie centers for ideas, he fantasizes about movie scenarios of those everyday situations he is in.
The Hippie Temptation
CBS TV news special hosted by Harry Reasoner explores the way-out world of the Hippies and the Haight-Ashbury psychedelic 1960s LSD scene. Footage of LSDs users experiencing bummer trips. The Diggers, the Oracle and cool street and Golden Gate Park scenes with hippies tripping out. The Grateful Dead are interviewed and are shown performing "Dancin' in the Streets" on a flatbed truck in Golden Gate Park. The Hippie Temptation!
Black Power Salute
A film about one of the most iconic images of the 20th century, the moment when the radical spirit of the 1960s upstaged the greatest sporting event in the world. Two men made a courageous gesture that reverberated around the world, and changed their lives forever. This film is about Tommie Smith and John Carlos' protest at the 1968 Olympics.
Slaves in Paradise
A close look at the Austrian far-left Friedrichshof Commune which was set up in 1972 by artist Otto Muehl. It was dissolved in 1990 when Muehl was convicted of the abuse of teenagers who lived in the commune.
Sexual Heat
Andy and his new girlfriend Sasha go to Matt and Kim’s house for Matt’s birthday. When the guys begin to reminisce about all the one night stands they had in college, Sasha states that one night stand sex is the hottest on the “sexual heat” scale. Grace arrives and joins the conversation about which types of relationships have the best sex, with everyone sharing erotic tales about people they know to illustrate their points. As the debate heats up, it slowly becomes apparent that Grace and Andy used to date, which leads to lots of cattiness between Sasha and Grace, forcing Andy to make a decision.
Burn Motherfucker, Burn!
An in-depth and provocative look at the 1992 Los Angeles riots exploring the roots of civil unrest in California and the relationship between African Americans and LAPD.
Zardoz
In the far future, a savage trained only to kill finds a way into the community of bored immortals that alone preserves humanity's achievements.