Best movies like El Lazarillo de Tormes

Grimes, an amoral chimney sweep, occasionally likes to steal valuables from his clients. One day, on the verge of being caught, he frames his young apprentice, Tom, for the crime. Tom runs away and jumps into a river where, instead of drowning, he finds himself transformed into a mystical aquatic creature. Swimming and breathing effortlessly, he discovers a colorful underwater world replete with creatures both cruel and kind.

An ambitious Indian driver uses his wit and cunning to escape from poverty and rise to the top. An epic journey based on the New York Times bestseller.

Listening in to a conversation between his doctor and parents, 10-year-old Oscar learns what nobody has the courage to tell him. He only has a few weeks to live. Furious, he refuses to speak to anyone except straight-talking Rose, the lady in pink he meets on the hospital stairs. As Christmas approaches, Rose uses her fantastical experiences as a professional wrestler, her imagination, wit and charm to allow Oscar to live life and love to the full, in the company of his friends Pop Corn, Einstein, Bacon and childhood sweetheart Peggy Blue. Written by American Film Market

Charlotte Bronte's classic novel is filmed yet again. The story of the Yorkshire orphan who becomes a governess to a young French girl and finds love with the brooding lord of the manor is given a standard romantic flare, but sparks do not seem to happen between the two leads in this version.

Italian historical drama portraying the story of the sixteenth century Italian noblewoman Beatrice Cenci.

To save her father, a girl who always puts others before herself promises to live her life in a lavish castle with a strange beast.

Forced to face the cruel side of life, a devastated, bankrupt merchant chances upon the enchanted castle of a hideous creature, the mere sight of it chills the bone to the marrow. There, a fate worse than death awaits the poor father-of-six, who, after plucking a sweet-scented rose from the repulsive master's verdant garden, must do the impossible: permit his compassionate daughter, Belle, to take his place and pay for the sins of her parent. Now, an impenetrable mystery shrouds the haunted mansion, and, as repugnance gradually turns into affection, only true love could break the spell.

Musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, a classic tale of an orphan who runs away from the workhouse and joins up with a group of boys headed by the Artful Dodger and trained to be pickpockets by master thief Fagin.

A very free adaptation of Marlowe's 'Doctor Faustus', Goethe's 'Faust' and various other treatments of the old legend of the man who sold his soul to the devil. A nondescript man is lured by a strange map into a sinister puppet theatre, where he finds himself immersed in an indescribably weird version of the play, blending live actors, clay animation and giant puppets.

Celestine, the chamber-maid, has a new job in the country, at the Lanlaires. She has decided to use her beauty to seduce a wealthy man, but Mr. Lanlaire is not a right choice: the house is firmly controlled by Madame Lanlaire, helped by the strange valet Joseph. Then she tries the neighbour, former officer Mauger. This seems to work. But soon the son of the Lanlaires comes back. He is young, attractive and does not share his mother's antirepublican opinions. So Celestine's beauty attracts Captain Mauger, young Georges Lanlaire, and Joseph. Three men, from three different social classes, with three different conceptions of life. Will Celestine be able to convince Georges of her sincerity?

As a shocking truth about a couple's families emerges, the two lovers discover they are not so different from each other. Tessa is no longer the sweet, simple, good girl she was when she met Hardin — any more than he is the cruel, moody boy she fell so hard for.

Irving travels to Andalusia passionate about the idea of visiting the Alhambra, there Dalgoruki meets a Russian friend who becomes his traveling companion. Everything is complicated when they accidentally meet Carmen. The girl is the last descendant of Boabdil, a Moorish king. She tells of an important prophecy that will defeat the evil Ali, who betrayed the king Boabdil to achieve mastery of the land. But the only way to get the power is for the last descendant of Boabdil to die.

The emotional story of a boy, his grandfather, and his dog. The boy's dream of becoming a great classical painter appears shattered when his loving grandfather dies.

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.

A French girl is kidnapped and sold as slave to the sultan of the Ottoman Empire.

This film, adapted from a work of fiction by author Tracy Chevalier, tells a story about the events surrounding the creation of the painting "Girl With A Pearl Earring" by 17th century Dutch master Johannes Vermeer. A young peasant maid working in the house of painter Johannes Vermeer becomes his talented assistant and the model for one of his most famous works.

A film adaptation of the classic Alexandre Dumas novel. Edmond Dantes is falsely accused by those jealous of his good fortune, and is sentenced to spend the rest of his life in the notorious island prison, Chateau d'If. While imprisoned, he meets the Abbe Faria, a fellow prisoner whom everyone believes to be mad. The Abbe tells Edmond of a fantastic treasure hidden away on a tiny island, that only he knows the location of...

In 1841, in the small Morovian village of Skalni Hradec, a judge makes his much younger wife witness the public humiliation of an unfaithful wife who is bound with ropes to a wooden half-cross. He then tells her he'll kill her if he ever catches her being unfaithful. Things get tense when she falls for another man.

In wartime England, a railway official learns that the chairman of the line had sexually abused his wife as a child, then given him the job so he could continue having sexual access to her. The husband and wife kill him together, but are seen by a train driver, who also has problems of his own. The wife tries to divert suspicion by implicating another driver and befriending the witness, but it doesn't go that smoothly.

A boy tells his parents that a bus conductor turned him off the bus home for not having a ticket. The story gets out of control and the conductor, a war veteran with memory problems, is harassed until events take a tragic turn.

In the sixteenth century, Miguel de Cervantes, poet, playwright, and part-time actor, has been arrested, together with his manservant, by the Spanish Inquisition. They are accused of presenting an entertainment offensive to the Inquisition. Inside the huge dungeon into which they have been cast, the other prisoners gang up on Cervantes and his manservant, and begin a mock trial, with the intention of stealing or burning his possessions. Cervantes wishes to desperately save a manuscript he carries with him and stages, with costumes, makeup, and the participation of the other prisoners, an unusual defense--the story of Don Quixote.

John Simm stars in this adaptation of Dostoyevsky's tragic masterpiece - a profound drama of redemption and a thrilling detective story of the soul.

This 2003 performance of Georges Bizet's 19th century opera Carmen was produced and directed by filmmaker and stage director Franco Zeffirelli, best known to many for the Academy Award-winning big-screen adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Shot at the Arena di Verona, the production features Marina Domashenko in the title role and music by the Orchestra of the Arena di Verona under conductor Alain Lombard.

The first screen adaptation of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel to star a black man in the title role.

A bawdy story of how a poor damsel surrenders her virtue again and again to get to the top of society.

In the 18th century were born two siamese brothers on Corsica who paradoxically carry different feelings of hate and reconciliation in their blood.

In this animated version of Charles Dickens' classic novel, we see the story of young Oliver Twist, a boy orphaned at birth and left to grow up under the cruel tutelage of Mr. Bumble, the local parish beadle.

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.

Set in a pawnshop, this cinéma vérité masterpiece tells the story of the unlikely friendship between a cynic pawnbroker and his sweet but psychopathic assistant. "Broke" is a complex, powerful cinéma vérité account of day-to-day life in a pawnshop. The documentary gives us an intimate glimpse into a world most of us luckily do not have to know. Although often as funny and surprising as a sitcom, it bluntly points to the hardships and desperation of the marginalized. As the pawnbroker states: "You don't see it in your rarefied living conditions, you don't see how the poor people live, unless you come here. Tragic, some of it."

Set in a rustic English village in the mid 19th century, Under The Greenwood Tree tells the story of a poor young man who falls for a middle-class schoolteacher and attempts to win her over.

Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl who lives with her family in a small hut on a mountain in Nepal. When the Himalayan monsoons wash away all that remains of the family's crops, Lakshmi's father says she must leave home and take a job to support her family. He introduces her to a glamorous stranger who tells her she will find her a job as a maid in the city. Glad to be able to help, Lakshmi journeys to India and arrives at "Happiness House" full of hope. But she soon learns the unthinkable truth: she has been sold into prostitution...

The story tells of a 16-year-old girl who is sent to live with her long-lost, and off-the-grid, father in the Canadian wilderness. When he’s murdered by men from his past, the girl and her dog are forced to survive on their own. Things get even more complicated when the men return, and the girl has a chance to exact vengeance.

Notre Dame de Paris tells the story of Quasimodo, the hunchbacked bell-ringer of the cathedral of Notre-Dame and of his impossible and tragic love for Esmeralda, a beautiful gypsy. A love condemned by injustice and hypocrisy. Quasimodo forced by his ugliness to look at the world from the top of a tower one day he falls madly in love with Esmeralda who sees dancing and singing on the square in front of the cathedral. But Esmeralda is in love with Febo, the handsome captain of the King's guards. Febo is fiancé of Fiordaliso, a young and rich bourgeois, but the exotic and sensual beauty of the gypsy does not leave indifferent the man who immediately falls in love with her. Even Frollo, the archdeacon of the cathedral, is attracted by the gypsy and spying on the moves of the two lovers in a raptus of jealousy and repressed carnal desire to get rid of the rival stabbing Febo behind.

The film tells the story of a love affair between a poor poet and an equally poor seamstress in 19th century Paris.

A young man is hired to take care of two orphaned siblings in a remote seaside mansion and soon realizes that someone... or something from the past is out to get the children.