Best movies like Freda

In a small Russian town at the turn of the century, three sisters (Olga, Irina, and Masha) and their brother Andrei live but dream daily of their return to their former home in Moscow, where life is charming and stimulating meaningful. But for now they exist in a malaise of dissatisfaction. Soldiers from the local military post provide them some companionship and society, but nothing can suffice to replace Moscow in their hopes. Andrei marries a provincial girl, Natasha, and begins to settle into a life of much less meaning than he had hoped. Natasha begins to run the family her way. Masha, though married, yearns for the sophisticated life and begins a dalliance with Vershinin, an army officer with a sick and suicidal wife. Even Irina, the freshest, most optimistic of the sisters, begins to waver in her dreams until, finally, tragedy strikes.

The Unwritten Code is an offbeat, better-than-average Columbia wartime "B" picture. Though Ann Savage and Tom Neal are top-billed, the central character is supporting-actor Roland Varno. He plays a Nazi spy who sneaks into the U.S., hoping to release hundreds of German prisoners. He fails, but not until plenty of bullets have been spent. The most interesting aspect of The Unwritten Code is the casting of Savage and Neal as the "good" characters: in 1945, these two cult favorites would play the decidedly unsavory protagonists of the film noir classic Detour.

After finding love and success in Italy, French actress Camille returns to Paris, the city she fled three years ago. She secretly dreads confronting her ex-boyfriend Pierre. Her new lover Ugo also has a secret, as he’s meeting with the intriguing Dominique while on his quest for an unpublished manuscript.

The true story of Jimmy Adams, a V.P. of a $30 billion hedge fund, who loses his job and winds up working as a waiter at a waffle shop. Amidst the greasy madness of the 24-hour diner, Jimmy befriends Edward, an ex-con grill master who serves up hard lessons about life, finance, and grits.

NOIR chronicles the lives of four people living in a neighborhood plagues by poverty and violence, aspiring to freedom and happiness. Kadhafi, a 26 year old aspiring rapper and ex-member of a street gang, just out of prison, wants to steer clear of troubles. Fleur, a 17 year old Haitian mother in an abusive and passionate relationship with her daughter's father, dreams of leaving the ghetto and becoming a nurse. Suzie, a 20 year old stripper who falls for a gang member. Dickens, 16 year old Haitian wants to be part of the street gang controlled by his older brother.

Masato is a young ramen chef in Japan. When he finds his late mother's journal after the sudden death of his emotionally distant father, he takes it with him to her native country, Singapore, hoping to piece together the story of his family and his life.

Ali, Kwita, Omar and Boubker are street kids. The daily dose of glue sniffing represents their only escape from reality. Since they left Dib and his gang, they have been living on the portside of Casablanca. They live in constant fear of Dib's revenge. Ali wants to become a sailor - when he was living with his mother, a prostitute, he used to listen to a fairy tale about the sailor who discovered the miracle island with two suns. Instead of finding his island in the dream, Ali and his friends are confronted with Dib's gang. Matters are getting serious.

Reena is a young Indian American lesbian who lives and works in New York. Her sister Sarita, who is happily married, discovers that she is infertile. Reena offers to be a surrogate mother for her sister's baby, hoping to improve her relationship with their mother, who disapproves of Reena's sexual orientation. Reena has second thoughts when her girlfriend Lisa feels left out.

In 1971 Salford fish-and-chip shop owner George Khan expects his family to follow his strict Pakistani Muslim ways. But his children, with an English mother and having been born and brought up in Britain, increasingly see themselves as British and start to reject their father's rules on dress, food, religion, and living in general.

A son longs to escape from his stifling home, where his genteel mother worries about the future prospects of his lame, shy sister.

Inspired by the gripping true story of a man who would do anything for his family—and for freedom. When Peter, an enslaved man, risks his life to escape and return to his family, he embarks on a perilous journey of love and endurance.

Manny, Joel and Jonah tear their way through childhood and push against the volatile love of their parents. As Manny and Joel grow into versions of their father and Ma dreams of escape, Jonah, the youngest, embraces an imagined world all his own.

Totonel (10) and his sisters, Andreea (14) and Ana (17), are waiting for their mother to come back home from prison. As they grow up, each of them learns how to survive on their own, hoping that when their mother returns, the family will be reunited.

Mary Ann Taylor loves the comforts of her hometown in Mercury, Texas. She has a steady job as a waitress in her father's diner, yet she can't help but feel unfulfilled by a life of pouring coffee and grilling hamburgers. Mary Ann's real passion is photography, but pursuing her dream of becoming a photographer means leaving Mercury behind.

Disguised aliens set up a pet shop in a dusty Arizona town, hoping to lure local children with their adorable extraterrestrial critters.

In post-Taliban Kabul, two lost children, brother and sister whose parents are in prison, try to survive every day by scavenging for food. At night, they join their imprisoned mother.

Shirin is struggling to become an ideal Persian daughter, politically correct bisexual and hip young Brooklynite but fails miserably in her attempt at all identities. Being without a cliché to hold onto can be a lonely experience.

At an isolated log cabin in the harsh wilderness of Indiana circa 1817, the rhythms of love, tragedy, and the daily hardships of life on the developing frontier shaped one of our nation’s greatest heroes: Abraham Lincoln. Abe is a thoughtful and quiet boy who spends his days at the side of his beloved mother while learning to work the land from his stern father. When illness takes his mother, Abe's new guardian angel comes in the form of his new stepmother, who sees the potential in the boy and pushes for his further education.

An autobiographical film taken from the experiences of writer-director Rob Moretti, CRUTCH is a coming-of-age tale about a young man's struggle with family problems and substance abuse. Behind a facade of suburban middle class perfection, David's home life is falling apart. As he tries to cope with the impossible situation, the troubled and impressionable teenager falls under the spell of Kenny, a georgous, thirty-something, has-been actor turned theatre coach. When Kenny's "support" escalates into seduction, David slowly decends into an abyss of drinking and drug addition from which he must escape if he is to survive. CRUTCH is a dramatic tale of the confusion of youth and the difficulties in finding oneself.

Early 1960s Haiti during 'Papa Doc' Duvalier's dictatorship seen through the eyes of a young girl whose family has suffered heavily.

Babs Comet is employed by the classified ad department of the daily paper and uses her looks and position to get a husband.

This drama portrays a day in the life of a Palestinian family during a curfew announced by the Israeli army in a Palestinian refugee camp on the Gaza Strip in 1993. From that point on, they must live behind closed shutters, barred from their daily lives and needs.

Terry hasn't seen or spoken with her family in 2 years. When she shows up unannounced on her father's doorstep - with her fiancé and a plan to get married in 5 days - she learns that she's not the only one with secrets.

Alejandro, a tough and ambitious Latino street orphan on the verge of adolescence, lives and works in an auto-body repair shop in a sprawling junkyard on the outskirts of Queens, New York. In this chaotic world of adults, young Alejandro struggles to make a better life for himself and his 16-year-old sister, Isamar.

With their beloved mother only a few days to live, her children decide to give her a surprising parting gift: bring Dave, a lifelong fan, to her bedside in the Ardennes. But even though everyone adores her, brothers, sister and brother-in-law are not on the best of terms and cooperation is not their strong point. For her sake, however, they will overcome their resentments, drawing from their love the energy and the madness necessary to carry out their project. Finding Dave and luring him to the Ardennes will be no easy task.

Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman lives in New York. Filmed images of the City accompany texts of Akerman's loving mother back home in Brussels. The City comes more and more to the front while the words of the mother, read by Akerman herself, gradually fade away.

An adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play about a restless young warehouse worker and would-be poet, Tom Wingfield, his fragile, reclusive sister, Laura, and his colorful but overbearing mother, Amanda, all living together in a shabby apartment in St. Louis during the Depression and struggling to dilute the grim realities of daily living by way of memories, fantasies, and grandiose dreams about the future.

Set in the Dominican Republic, Leticia Tonos Paniagua’s uniquely Caribbean retelling of Romeo and Juliet chronicles the love between a kind-hearted teenager, ostracized for his mixed Haitian-Dominican descent, and the beautiful sister of a local drug kingpin he’s hired to protect.

A passive mother who dedicates her life to her husband and children. Stuck in daily, repetitive, mundane chores, she has made herself as little as she possibly could. When a magic trick goes wrong at her 4-year-old son's birthday party, an avalanche of coincidental absurdities befalls the family. The magician turns her husband, the authoritarian father, into a chicken. The mother is now forced to come to the fore and take care of the family while moving heaven and earth to bring her husband back. As she tries to survive, she goes through a rough and absurd transformation.

After losing his restaurant, chef CLAY MAGUIRE must start his career all over--at the bottom. Pushing forty with no "corporate skill-set", Clay enters the strange world of the Unemployable Interviewees of America. Clay and his fellow job-seekers strive for dignity, success, or at least a job taking customer service calls from prison inmates for minimum wage. A hilarious, insightful look at job interviews, finding the courage to start all over, and life at the ENTRY LEVEL.

A focus on life in a gang, Boulevard Nights portrays the dangers of street violence. Richard Yniguez plays a young Chicano who tries to get out of the gang, but he keeps finding himself drawn back into it.

Marc, a troubled teenager, is bored in his native, depressing city of Sete. One day, a simple phone call makes him aware of the existence of Stephanie, a sister he has never met. Armed with a pistol his mother found, he goes out to find her. He steals money from a perfume shop, and is then stopped by a policeman who wants to search him. In the car, Marc threatens the policeman with his gun, demanding that he helps him find his sister...

Ever since Margaret was six years old, she has been haunted by the memory of watching her sister drown during an explosive fight between her parents. As a young woman, she slides further into her twisted inner life, ultimately finding herself on the brink of suicide. Through an epic journey down the smokiest and scariest corridors of her imagination, she tries to exorcise the demons pushing her closer and closer to the edge.

The Ancient Romans believed that the soul escaped one's body with the last breath. It was believed that last breath held the power to cure disease and prolong life. In 1930's, Dr. Robert Kaminsky devoted his life to finding out how to harness the power in the last breath. Susan Jordan owns a local novelty shop. One item in her shop, an antique box once owned by Doctor Kaminsky, draws the interest of two men: Raif Collins who hopes it's contents can save his dying sister, and Alex Poe whose motives are more mysterious. Susan quickly finds herself in a perilous struggle to protect the box and the secrets that it holds.

A young woman's dream of leaving Africa hoping for a better life is shattered on the eve of her departure when her mother and sister and brutally murdered. With nothing else to lose, what begins as a search for the truth quickly turns into violence and uncanny exposés. In a world full of lies and deception, can she get the answers she is looking for.