Best movies like Esau

In Jerusalem's orthodox neighborhoods, it's Succoth, seven days celebrating life's essentials in a sukkah, a temporary shack of both deprivation and hospitality. A devout couple, Moshe and Mali, married nearly five years and childless, are broke and praying for a miracle...

Saar is an HIV positive gay man living in London, where he found refuge from the religious kibbutz where he grew up in Israel. Ever since he was diagnosed with HIV, Saar has craved his family's love, while they struggle with fears and prejudices.

High school student Wendy has an odd relationship with her five friends: They're openly sexual with each other, swapping partners every week. But this is all thrown into turmoil when she meets Sean, a new student in school who has a crush on her. Wendy wants to be with Sean, but doesn't want to disappoint her friends, whom she has known since grade school. When she does decide to leave them, her best friend, Billie, threatens revenge.

Or shoulders a lot: she's 17 or 18, a student, works evenings at a restaurant, recycles cans and bottles for cash, and tries to keep her mother Ruthie from returning to streetwalking in Tel Aviv. Ruthie calls Or "my treasure," but Ruthie is a burden. She's just out of hospital, weak, and Or has found her a job as a house cleaner. The call of the quick money on the street is tough for Ruthie to ignore. Or's emotions roil further when the mother of the youth she's in love with comes to the flat to warn her off. With love fading and Ruthie perhaps beyond help, Or's choices narrow.

Red Cow is a coming-of-age film that takes place in the days leading up to the assassination of Rabin and depicts the life of Benny, 16, orphaned from mother at birth and the only child of Joshua - a religious, right-wing extremist, in those critical junctures when she is forming her sexual, religious and political awareness.

When a couple of American young adults fly to Israel to visit the city of Jerusalem, a biblical nightmare falls upon the city.

The year 2000 approaches in Jerusalem's Orthodox Mea Shearim quarter, where the women work, keep house, and have children so the men can study the Torah and the Talmud. Rivka is happily and passionately married to Meir, but they remain childless. The yeshiva's rabbi, who is Meir's father, wants Meir to divorce Rivka: "a barren woman is no woman." Rivka's sister, Malka, is in love with Yakov, a Jew shunned by the yeshiva as too secular. The rabbi arranges Malka's marriage to Yossef, whose agitation when fulfilling religious duties approaches the grotesque. Can the sisters sort out their hearts' desires within this patriarchal world? If not, have they any other options?

After the death of her husband, a mother takes her kids off to live with their grandparents in a huge, decrepit old mansion. However, the kids are kept hidden in a room just below the attic, visited only by their mother who becomes less and less concerned about them and their failing health, and more concerned about herself and the inheritence she plans to win back from her dying father.

Fifteen-year-old Charlotte Flax is tired of her wacky mom moving their family to a different town any time she feels it is necessary. When they move to a small Massachusetts town and Mrs. Flax begins dating a shopkeeper, Charlotte and her 9-year-old sister, Kate, hope that they can finally settle down. But when Charlotte's attraction to an older man gets in the way, the family must learn to accept each other for who they truly are.

Jerusalem, Israel. Professors Eliezer and Uriel Shkolnik, father and son, have dedicated their lives to the study of the Jewish scriptures. Eliezer is a stubborn and methodical scholar who has never been recognized for his work; Uriel is a rising star, someone admired and praised by his colleagues. The fragile balance that has kept their personal relationship almost intact is broken in an unexpected way by a simple phone call.

When one of the brothers (Ohayn) dies, all the whole family comes for Shiva (Jewish tradition,when the family sits seven days at the home after the death one of their family). A large family with a lot of problems and conflicts between them.

A love story set in 1930s England that follows 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain, and the fortunes of her eccentric family, struggling to survive in a decaying English castle. Based on Dodie Smith's 1948 novel with the same name.

Set over three days, two different couples - each comprising of a teacher and a student - spend a life-changing weekend at the seaside resort town of Scarborough to seek an escape from the constraints of every day life.

Set on a lush Greek island, the story concerns a sister (Bo Derek) and brother (Peter Hooten), who return home after years abroad. Falling under the island's erotic spell, the girl and boy discover that their love goes beyond filial. The incestuous nature of the story evaporates when it is discovered that the two aren't actually related after all.

After discovering that his father has lied to him for years about his estranged sister and his mother, 14-year-old Ilan runs away from home and ends up living with his sister, Dalia, who works on a cruise ship and is having an affair with a married man. While Dalia is at work, Ilan explores her down-and-out neighborhood and discovers and befriends Avram, an elderly holdout Communist living in an abandoned building with his weapons cache and marijuana-growing business, biding his time for the ultimate battle against the capitalists.

A Canadian doctor finds her sympathies sorely tested while working in the conflict ravaged Palestinian territories.

Haim-Aaron is a bright, ultra-orthodox religious scholar living in Jerusalem. His talents and devotion are envied by all. One evening, following a self-imposed fast, Haim-Aaron collapses and loses consciousness. The paramedics announce his death, but his father takes over resuscitation efforts and, beyond all expectations, Haim-Aaron comes back to life. After the accident, try as he might, Haim-Aaron remains apathetic to his studies. He feels overwhelmed by a sudden awakening of his body and suspects this is God testing him. He wonders if he should stray from the prescribed path and find a way to rekindle his faith... The title means "Rectify" in Hebrew; nevertheless the movie is called Tikkun in the English-speaking world.

A Protestant World War II pilot and a Jewish girl fall in love in Jerusalem, even though their diverse backgrounds threaten to pull them apart.

Eighteen-year-old Shira is the youngest daughter of the Mendelman family. She is about to be married off to a promising young man of the same age and background. It is a dream come true, and Shira feels prepared and excited. On Purim, her twenty-eight-year-old sister, Esther, dies while giving birth to her first child, Mordechay. The pain and grief that overwhelm the family postpone Shira's promised match. Everything changes when a match is proposed to Yochay-Esther's late husband-to a widow from Belgium. Yochay feels it's too early, although he realizes that sooner or later he must seriously consider getting married again. When the girls' mother finds out that Yochay may marry the widow and move to Belgium with her only grandchild, she proposes a match between Shira and the widower. Shira will have to choose between her heart's wish and her family duty. She will find out that the void which she must choose exists only within her heart.

The year is 1968. To a small town in the south of Israel, mostly inhabited by Moroccan immigrants, a few families from India arrive, searching for a better life in the west. The instinct driven Moroccans patronize the "black" Indians, while the quiet Indians see the Moroccans as Ignorant and coarse. In this cultural war two girls, Moroccan and Indian, discover the sexual revolution of the 60's.

16-year old Arielle's world is rattled when her mother mysteriously returns, driving a wedge into the seemingly perfect relationship she has with her father while unraveling family secrets hidden long ago on their isolated foothills farm.

Thomas, a young German baker, is having an affair with Oren, an Israeli married man who has frequent business visits in Berlin. When Oren dies in a car crash in Israel, Thomas travels to Jerusalem seeking for answers regarding his death. Under a fabricated identity, Thomas infiltrates the life of Anat, his lover’s newly widowed wife, who owns a small Café in downtown Jerusalem. Thomas starts to work for her, creating German cakes and cookies that bring her Café to life. Thomas finds himself involved in Anat’s life in a way far beyond his anticipation. To protect the truth he will stretch his lie to a point of no return.

Old feelings of betrayal resurface, renewing a bitter rift between two girlfriends when one learns that the other seduced her son

When his increasingly depraved behavior spirals out of control, Marcus retreats to his family home along the New England coast. But instead of finding solace, Marcus is haunted by his darkest fears and deepest desires.

During a session with his psychoanalyst, Alexander Portnoy rants about everything that is bothering him. His complaints include his childhood and his family with an emphasis on his mother, his sexual fantasies and the problems that he has with women, and his obsessive feelings about his Judaism.

Pop culture writer and aspiring novelist Vanessa Sills lands the interview of a lifetime with the illustrious, elusive and reclusive mystery author Martin Clayborne in his quaint rural town only to realize her own aspirations, dreams and romantic life have taken a back seat along the way. When Vanessa returns home to Portland and a mysterious gift arrives from Martin, she then makes a surprise decision, and finally takes her own advice to “go boldly in the direction of your dreams and live the life you imagine.”

RJ is a new angel, who is given the chance to address his one regret, that he didn’t help his sisters reconcile while he was still alive. Returning to earth as a stranger, he gets each of them to revive The Holiday Stocking, their parent’s old tradition to encourage charity at Christmas.

When their family bakery may have to close its doors right before Christmas, rival sisters Kim and Gina must team up in a national baking competition to win the grand prize. Thrown into a world of fierce competitors and a ticking clock, it will take a Christmas miracle to save the bakery, though they may discover a prize much larger than they had hoped for.

The year is 1983 and Yaakov Cohen, the owner of a Jerusalem printing press, is tired from being pushed around. It seems that he was born on the wrong side, with the wrong family name and in a moment's decision he decides to establish a Sephardic-ultra-Orthodox list that will run to the Jerusalem municipality. He gathers two friends, and together they improvise a campaign - no means, no connections, no money, but with much rage, passion and a sense of justice.

A bittersweet coming-of-age film, Foreign Letters is itself a love letter to the unshakeable bond between friends. Set in the pre-email era of the 1980s, young Ellie, newly arrived to the US from Israel, anxiously waits for letters from her best friend back home. Suffering from homesickness, language difficulties and rejection at school, life brightens when she meets Thuy, a Vietnamese refugee her age. As the two bond and become inseparable, they eventually hurt each other, and Ellie must find a way to restore their trust. Based on director Ela Thier's personal immigration experience, Foreign Letters is a film about poverty, prejudice, shame, and the healing power of friendship.

An angel returns to Earth to help a Broadway producer put on a show, so a struggling young actress will have a job.

In Israel, a joint French-Israeli scientific mission is set to unearth the secrets of the hill of Kiryath-Jearim (or Kiryat Ya’arim), converted to the site of a Catholic convent, where, according to the Bible, the Ark of the Covenant was kept for at least twenty years before being brought to Jerusalem by King David, father of King Solomon, who would eventually build the Holy of Holies inside the First Temple to house it.

This story centers on the Jewish practice that requires an unmarried brother to marry the childless widow of his dead brother. In this story the younger brother is only 12 years old when his brother dies. The requirement is avoided by a legal fiction, but as time passes in the story, the situation changes.

After experiencing a tragedy, Irish brothers Dara and Eoin move to rural France, where they become friends with young Bella, whose beauty and charm bewitches the emotionally unstable Dara.

An ambitious project manager is offered the career opportunity of a lifetime in London. But when she returns to her hometown to help the family business in an emergency and meets the perfect guy, her passion and talent for painting is rekindled, giving her a new outlook on life and love.