Best movies like East of Sweden

When Continuation War started in Summer 1941, German soldiers arrived to Oulu. With their charm they conquered women and town boys. Finnish boys communicated with them on many levels: had trades, worked as interpreters, rotated business, spied on German love adventures and fought with each other about the favor of soldiers. In autumn 1944, the war was ending. Germans left Oulu by leaving behind fragile relationships, bastard kids and unfinished businesses. The most shocking of all was the faith of young Jake...

John, an ambitious but undisciplined New York City office worker, meets and marries Mary. They start a family, struggle to cope with marital stress, financial setbacks, and tragedy, all while lost amid the anonymous, pitiless throngs of the big city.

Scripted by Ingmar Bergman, this very personal film is about a destructive affair which wrecks the marriage of an actress (Marianne) and musician (Markus). Wanting to continue the affair, Marianne moves in with her lover. But she is tormented by Markus' decision not to let her have custody of their daughter. Finally Markus announces he may have a solution to the stalemate, but this leads to deception, lies and ultimately, tragedy.

Two 18-year old girls from a christian fundamentalist community flee to a city for a summer job.

December 1942. Two young soldiers leave their posts at checkpoint 83 in North Värmland, Sweden and make their way through the ice cold winter night towards the Nazi-occupied Norwegian border. Sweden stands on the brink of invasion and they want to see the enemy everybody's talking about. But the adventure ends in disaster and soon thereafter Lieutenant Aron Stenström finds out that his brother Sven is one of the missing soldiers. With the odds stacked against him he is forced to go behind enemy lines on a secret rescue mission. Deep inside the Norwegian forests Aron realizes that a completely different kind of line must be crossed if they're to come out alive.

A 14-year-old boy in a stifling Helsinki slum takes some unwise life lessons from his soon-to-be-incarcerated older brother.

Matti and Niila, growing up in the mid-sixties in the harsh and conservative environment of a Finnish-speaking part of Tornedalen in Swedish Laponia, close to the Finnish border. Their big dream is to become rock stars. In the present the now grown-up Matti feels guilt for the death of his drug-addicted rock star friend Niila.

Early in the 20th century, middle-aged lawyer Fredrik Egerman and his young wife, Anne, have still not consummated their marriage, while Fredrik's son finds himself increasingly attracted to his new stepmother. To make matters worse, Fredrik's old flame Desiree makes a public bet that she can seduce him at a romantic weekend retreat where four couples convene, swapping partners and pairing off in unexpected ways.

Trying to escape her broken past, Sarah O’Neill is building a new life on the fringes of a backwood rural town with her young son Chris. A terrifying encounter with a mysterious neighbour shatters her fragile security, throwing Sarah into a spiralling nightmare of paranoia and mistrust, as she tries to uncover if the disturbing changes in her little boy are connected to an ominous sinkhole buried deep in the forest that borders their home.

After a recent and difficult divorce, Alice hasn't seen her children in two months as she awaits a custody verdict. When her son calls her in the middle of the night, Alice takes action, abducting the children on an illicit charter trip to the Canary Islands.

One night at a hot-dog stand in Finnish Lapland, a commitment-phobic party animal, Aurora, meets Iranian Darian. Darian suddenly asks her to marry him. Darian needs to marry a Finnish woman to get an asylum for himself and his daughter. Aurora turns him down, as she is busy working as a nail technician and plans to move to Norway, away from her shit life. However, after meeting his sweet daughter, Aurora agrees to help him. As Aurora introduces numerous women to Darian, the two of them grow close. When the perfect wife candidate comes along, Darian and Aurora are faced with a difficult choice: pretend to be happy or to finally stop running.

Little Wing tells the story of 12-year-old Varpu, who's quickly growing to adulthood, and about her mother, who doesn't want to grow up. Varpu lives with her mother and has never met her father. One night Varpu has enough of her riding buddies and her mother. She steals a car and drives up north in search of her father, of whom she only knows the name. But her father is not exactly what she had expected. Meeting him trigger something in Varpu and mother's life, making them realize their role in each other's lives, and in the world.

Looking to outrun the horrors of his past, a tormented cabbie flees Helsinki for an apartment complex in the suburbs, only to discover that new neighbors bring new problems. What ensues is a raw, realistic tragedy with an unwaveringly humane core.

Mark is a struggling actor stuck between the life he once knew and the one waiting for him. When the mother of his two-year-old son suddenly passes away, Mark is forced to confront his shortcomings. Their fates, now intertwined, hang in the balance as Mark grapples with his ability to grow up. When he meets Lydia, a young mother, he is no longer able to live in the comfort of denial.

A retiring policeman gets caught up in between two younger men trying to kill each other. A modern borderline western taking place on both sides of the northern Finnish-Swedish border.

Nisse’s wife Leila has just died but he feels he’s done enough mourning. Friends and family are overrun by Nisse who just wants the funeral to be over and done with. No fuss and no mourning here! Nisse demands to be left alone. So, there he is, with the only thing remaining – the sorrow. Nisse grows to understand that even a deep loss is no excuse to eliminate everyone and everything.

Follow Cesar Millans rise from impoverished illegal immigrant to celebrity dog trainer to international superstar. Join Cesar as he embarks on his live world speaking tour, films his new television series in Spain and leads thousands of dogs and owners on a Pack Walk in Washington, D.C. Cesar reflects on his humble past, his family life and his ever-evolving philosophy, which inspires people to improve their relationships with their dogs while becoming the pack leader of their own lives.

Antti Pasanen is working as a journalist. His life is on the right tracks; his wife Pia is just about to give birth. Until - in the front of the Maternity Hospital everything changes. Antti, with the sniffling baby in his arms, sees the taxi´s taillights fading out. Pia is sitting on the backseat; their future as a nuclear family is disappearing. The new life with the baby´s terms begins and Antti has no idea what that’s all about.

A young boy begins to have fantasies when he learns his parents are planning to divorce. Director Peter Godfrey's 1948 drama stars Ted Donaldson, Alexis Smith, Robert Douglas, Cecil Kellaway, John Hoyt, Mary Wickes and Harry Davenport.

A nightmarish accident that leads to an elderly man’s death one night after getting drunk with his best friend Yves. Neither chooses to confess just yet. Yves, the brasher member of the duo, succeeds in living on with his life, but Gabriel, more shy and honest, feels the guilt choking him as days turn into weeks and weeks become months...

Jed (19) walks out on his former life, without destination, without explanation, and gets on a train. He ends up by happenstance in a small eastern town in Finland where he soon comes face to face with the daily rigors of independent life. Coping becomes a challenge for him almost to the point of being an obsession. Of all the people in town, Jed seems to constantly run across the prickly and quick-witted Lulu (17). Gradually, without either of them admitting it, their relationship changes from bickering, picking on each other and a battle of wills to friendship, and as can happen, finally to love.

A love story set in the world of theater. Romeo and Juliet is to be the season's grand premiere. Noora, the female lead in the play, breaks her leg at the kickoff party, and Laura, an actress who due to her debilitating stage fright has ended up as the prompter for the play, gets a chance of a lifetime. There are 8 days to the premiere.

In Soviet-era Estonia, three young mavericks drop everything and flee to Sweden, but soon learn the free world is not all it's cracked up to be.

Kiia and Lauri, speeding toward the hospital overnight. Kiia in pain, holding the wheel with one hand and another in his stomach - the birth has started ahead of schedule. Surprisingly, the vehicle collides with something. Kiia fright and brakes, the car swerves before coming to a stop. Lauri rises to the car to check the situation and says he did not see anything. Kiia give birth to a healthy child in the hospital and befriends Hannah with. Hanna's husband has been in the same region hit by a car and drove onto the driver fled from the scene.

In an apartment a single and psychotic mother locks in herself and her daughter. Here, the demons are in control. Ti can hear her mother talking to the demons, and she sees her changing and confined face. But the demons that the mother speaks with Ti can neither hear nor see. Outwards, Ti is forced to keep a straight face to protect her mother, while she herself is going under.

In the 1930s, middle-aged museum curator Tauno Saarinen yearns for a young beautiful maid and writes a lengthy confession about his feelings which he gives his wife Elisabet to read. Elisabet shows the writings to her husband's sister Naimi, an art critic who tries to reconcile with her ex-husband despite a spiteful mother-in-law. Meanwhile, things gets worse between Tauno and Elisabet when the young maid, seduced by Tauno, becomes pregnant. Based on a novel by Helvi Hämäläinen, first published in 1941 but partly censored until 1995 because allegedly based on true incidents involving well-known people.

Armi Ratia is the woman behind the legendary design company Marimekko and a worldwide celebrity. A theatre company has taken on the task of trying to portray the life and work of this complex person. The sets mainly consist of the well-known patterns that we all have grown to love. Armi is a brave, risk-taking businesswoman and her passion for her company repeatedly takes its toll on her employees, finances and family. The company grows while Armi's personal life is shaken by suicide attempts and turbulence. In Armi Alive!, Oscar-nominated film producer and director Jörn Donner portrays a fascinating woman with fervent ideas about the new Finnish man, her company, fabrics and clothes.

The story follows a group of people who are kidnapped from the street and held hostage in an underground prison to await deportation. Will they escape? What will be the cost of freedom?

Blowfly Park is a psychological thriller which follows Christian Kretschmann, a day-nursery teacher, who may have committed a violent murder. This is the film debut of choreographer Jens Östberg.

Evakko is a portrayal of Soviet-Finnish winter war of 1939/40 and the associated evacuations in different parts of the country. It tells the story of a Karelian family along with their whole village who were forced to leave their homes because of the war. The film has a surprisingly perky tone for the subject matter.

After finding his wife in the arms of another man, an army officer kills his rival and then goes by train to Finland to fight in the Winter war.

A guy goes on a date that he has been dying to go to for years.

In this somber, psychological drama about the conflict between a man's innermost feelings and a society that puts these feelings in a strait jacket, the mood is ruminative and depressing throughout. Alone, Viktor (Sven Wolter) heads off for his usual summer vacation to some islands where he can ostensibly look for antiques for his wife's shop in Stockholm. His marriage is a failure or worse -- he raped his wife before he left home, and he is obsessed by erotic imaginings. Once on the islands, he makes friends with a little girl whose mother is mentally disturbed and is kept by her husband in a locked room. The islanders are as tight-lipped as Viktor, and any communication is stiff and artificial. Viktor's own alienation begins to slip as he takes surprising, violent action to turn around the imprisoned mother's life -- but it does not work, nothing seems to work -- and his last actions indicate that he may not be willing to simply give up.

13-year-old Jackie and her best friend Nova do most things together. They hang out in the horse paddock, drive Epa tractors, and take drugs. At a farewell party for one of their friends, they buy some pink pills from the local dealer and mail carrier, Casper. Jackie encourages them to try the drug, which leads to disastrous consequences when Nova dies. In the aftermath, Jackie must not only cope with the loneliness and grief of losing her best friend but also deal with the guilt she feels.