Best movies like Golden Door
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Golden Door Starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, Vincenzo Amato, Aurora Quattrocchi, Francesco Casisa, and more. If you liked Golden Door then you may also like: The Voyage, Waiting for Happiness, Washington Square, The Widow of Saint-Pierre, Brides 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.
The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century in Sicily. Salvatore, a very poor farmer, and a widower, decides to emigrate to the US with all his family, including his old mother. Before they embark, they meet Lucy. She is supposed to be a British lady and wants to come back to the States. Lucy, or Luce as Salvatore calls her, for unknown reasons wants to marry someone before to arrive to Ellis Island in New York. Salvatore accepts the proposal. Once they arrive in Ellis Island they spend the quarantine period trying to pass the examinations to be admitted to the States. Tests are not so simple for poor farmers coming from Sicily. Their destiny is in the hands of the custom officers.
Golden Door
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Waiting for Happiness
Before immigrating to the West, Abdallah travels to the coastal city of Nouadhibou, Mauritania, to visit his mother. Although he grew up there, Abdallah feels anything but at home in his old neighborhood: He can no longer speak the local dialect, and he wears western clothes that immediately cast him as an outsider. But, as Abdallah spends time with a young boy and an elderly electrician, he can't help but feel a sense of loss for the life he's abandoning.
Washington Square
Set in 1870's New York, a spinster heiress is courted by a much younger, penniless man, much to the chagrin of her over-protective father, and must decide whether to spend the rest of her life alone, or marry a man who is interested in her only because of her inheritence.
The Widow of Saint-Pierre
In 1850, on the isolated French island of Saint-Pierre, a murder shocks the natives. Two fishermen are arrested. One of them, Louis Ollivier, dies in custody. The other, Neel Auguste, is sentenced to death by the guillotine. The island is so small that it has neither a guillotine nor an executioner. While those are sent for Auguste is placed under the supervision of an army Captain.
Brides
A young female character, Nikki Douka, from Samothraki, is sailing to the U.S. to fulfill a marriage contract and save her family honor. Her skills as a seamstress keep her busily sewing throughout the voyage to alter wedding dresses for the third-class voyagers. But along the way, she meets a young American photographer who is returning from the Middle East where he was snapping shots of the war in Smyrna, 1922. Her honesty, pride, and beauty attract the attention of the American who falls in love with her. Tribulations abound during the voyage, following the dramas of several unfortunate young women upon whom nasty characters preyed, as Nikki struggles with her feelings for the photographer.
Respiro
Grazia is a free-spirited mother-of-three married to shy fisherman Pietro and living on the idyllic but isolated island of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean Sea. She shows signs of manic depressive behavior — one moment she's laughing wildly and swimming half-naked in the sea, while the next she's curled in a ball on her bed. Out of her earshot, the adult members of her extended family vaguely discuss sending her to a facility of some sort in Northern Italy.
Cold Showers
Mickael's family is struggling (they don't have enough money to pay for hot water) however his life is full with Judo and his girlfriend Venessa. Then Mickael makes a decision to open up his relationship to include Clement his rich-kid Judo partner, starting a chain of events.
Colossal Youth
After the Portuguese government demolishes his slum and relocates him to a housing project on the outskirts of Lisbon, 75-year-old Cape Verde immigrant Ventura wanders between his new and old homes, reconnecting with people from his past.
The Mosquito Coast
Allie Fox, an American inventor exhausted by the perceived danger and degradation of modern society, decides to escape with his wife and children to Belize. In the jungle, he tries with mad determination to create a utopian community with disastrous results.
I Never Sang for My Father
Hackman plays a New York professor who wants a change in his life, and plans to get married to his girlfriend and move to California. His mother understands his need to get away, but warns him that moving so far away could be hard on his father. Just before the wedding, the mother dies. Hackman's sister (who has been disowned by their father for marrying a Jewish man) advises him to live his own life, and not let himself be controlled by their father.
Sense and Sensibility
The Dashwood sisters, sensible Elinor and passionate Marianne, whose chances at marriage seem doomed by their family's sudden loss of fortune. When Henry Dashwood dies unexpectedly, his estate must pass on by law to his son from his first marriage, John and wife Fanny. But these circumstances leave Mr. Dashwood's current wife, and daughters Elinor, Marianne and Margaret, without a home and with barely enough money to live on. As Elinor and Marianne struggle to find romantic fulfillment in a society obsessed with financial and social status, they must learn to mix sense with sensibility in their dealings with both money and men.
The Story of My Wife
A sea captain makes a bet in a cafe with a friend that he will marry the first woman who walks in.
Edges of the Lord
A 12-year-old Jewish boy hides with a family of Catholic peasant farmers to escape the Nazis.
Flipper
Sandy Ricks is sent by his mom to Coral Key, a rustic island in the Florida keys, to spend the summer with his uncle Porter Ricks. Sandy dislikes everything about his new environment until a new friend comes into his life, a dolphin named Flipper, that brings uncle and nephew together and leads Sandy on the summer adventure of a lifetime.
For Those in Peril
Aaron, a young misfit living in a remote Scottish fishing community, is the lone survivor of a strange fishing accident that claimed the lives of five men including his older brother. Spurred on by sea-going folklore and local superstition, the village blames Aaron for this tragedy, making him an outcast amongst his own people. Steadfastly refusing to believe that his brother has died, he sets out to recover him and the rest of men.
The Scent of Green Papaya
In 1951, a young Vietnamese girl arrives at a Saigon household as their new servant.
A Taste of Honey
Jo is a neglected 16-year-old girl whose promiscuous mother marries a dandy. Jo gets pregnant after a tryst with a black cook, who leaves her over his impending responsibilities of fatherhood, and she only finds support in a gay male friend.
The Immigrant
1921 New York. An immigrant woman is tricked into a life of burlesque and vaudeville until a dazzling magician tries to save her and reunite her with her sister who is being held in the confines of Ellis Island.
Hester Street
A Russian emigre prides himself on the way he's molded himself into a real Yankee in the USA, though the world he lives in, New York's Lower East Side in the late 19th century, is almost exclusively populated by other Jewish immigrants. When his wife finally arrives in the New World, however, she has a lot of assimilating to do.
Partition
Determined to leave the ravages of war behind, 38 year old Gian Singh resigns from the British Indian Army to a quiet life. His world is soon thrown in turmoil, when he suddenly finds himself responsible for the life of a 17 year old girl, traumatized by the events that separated her from her family.
Pushing Hands
Mr. Chu is an elderly widower who teaches tai chi chuan in Beijing. He moves to America to live with his son's family, but finds the cultural adjustment difficult. Since his daughter-in-law is a white woman who does not speak Chinese, Mr. Chu's son, Alex, must mediate.
Shadow Magic
Beijing, 1902: an enterprising young portrait photographer named Liu Jinglun, keen on new technology, befriends a newly-arrived Englishman who's brought projector, camera, and Lumière-brothers' shorts to open the Shadow Magic theater. Liu's work with Wallace brings him conflict with tradition and his father's authority, complicated by his falling in love with Ling, daughter of Lord Tan, star of Beijing's traditional opera. Liu sees movies as his chance to become wealthy and worthy of Ling. When the Shadow Magic pair are invited to show the films to the Empress Dowager, things look good. But, is disaster in the script? And, can movies preserve tradition even as they bring change?
Sweet Land
Set in 1920, Inge travels from Germany to rural Minnesota in order to meet the man destined to be her husband.
The Tree of Wooden Clogs
Peasant life in a feudal farm in rural Italy at the end of the 19th century.
Night Sun
Based on Leo Tolstoy's novel, Father Sergius, Night Sun stars Julian Sands as Sergio, a nobleman in 18th-century Italy who is expected to marry a duchess, Nastassja Kinski. Upon learning that she was previously the King's mistress, Sergio turns his back on society and becomes a monk. While at the hermitage he tries to resist all sexual temptations before him and soon becomes known as a miracle worker. Eventually he succumbs to a young seductress and knowing he is undeserving of the adulation, leaves the hermitage to travel around as a homeless beggar.
Live and Become
In 1980 the black Falashas in Ethiopia are recognised as genuine Jews and are secretly carried to Israel. The day before the transport the son of a Jewish mother dies. In his place and with his name (Schlomo) she takes a Christian 9-year-old boy.
Three-Step Dance
Four separate-but-interconnected stories - one for each season - about life in Sardinia.
Innocent
17-year-old Eric follows his parents to immigrate to Canada and is thus forced to confront different emotional and cultural problems. He must not only adjust to the new environment, but also come to terms with his homosexuality. Standing at the brink of adulthood, he encounters a series of potential romantic interests - his handsome cousin, a schoolmate, a middle aged lawyer and finally a kitchen helper. They represent different stages in Eric's development, from infatuation, sex, love to a sense of responsibility.
Here and There
Pedro returns home to a small mountain village in Guerrero, Mexico after years of working in the US. He finds his daughters older, and more distant than he imagined. His wife still has the same smile. Having saved some earnings from two trips to the US, he hopes to now finally make a better life with his family, and even to pursue his dreams on the side by starting a band: Copa Kings. He cherishes the everyday moments with his family. The villagers think this year's crop will be bountiful. There is also good work in a growing city an hour away. But the locals are wise to a life of insecurity, and their thoughts are often of family members or opportunities far away, north of the border. While working in the fields, Pedro meets and begins to mentor a teenager who dreams of the US. That place somehow always feels very present, practically knocking at the door. "Aquà y Allá" is a story about hope, and the memories and loss of what we leave behind.
Fanny
Almost 19-year-old Marius feels himself in a rut in Marseille, his life planned for him by his cafe'-owning father, and he longs for the sea. The night before he is to leave on a 5-year voyage, Fanny, a girl he grew up with, reveals that she is in love with him, and he discovers that he is in love with her. He must choose between an exciting life at sea, and a boring life with the woman he loves. And Fanny must choose between keeping the man she loves, and letting him live the life he seems to want.
Before the Rains
Set in southern India in the late 1930s, this provocative tale traces the story of three people caught in an inexorable web of forbidden romance and dangerous secrets. After a British spice planter falls in love with his alluring servant, an idealistic young man finds himself torn between his ambitions and his family, his village and his past.
Heat Wave
One hot afternoon in the south of France, several paths are converging towards a tragic conclusion. Those involved are: Stéphane and Luigi, two cousins who have just emerged from adolescence; Georges, a retired old man; Amélie, Luigi’s girlfriend; and Amélie’s mother Anne. Little do they know how their lives, scarred by fear, humiliation and weariness, will become intertwined and propel them to a terrible outcome...
The Weeping Meadow
Two Greek refugees fall in love, but their relationship is devastated by dictatorship and war.
The Perez Family
In the midst of the Mariel boat lift -- a hurried exodus of refugees from Cuba going to America -- an immigration clerk accidentally presumes that dissident Juan Raul Perez and Dorita Evita Perez are married. United by their last name and a mutual resolve to emigrate, Dorita and Juan agree to play along. But it gets complicated when the two begin falling for each other just as Juan reunites with his wife, Carmela, whom he hasn't seen in decades.
The Last Sin Eater
In seeking her own redemption from the one man of whom she is most afraid, 10-year-old Cadi Forbes discovers a secret sin haunting her community of Welsh immigrants in 1850s Appalachia.
Terraferma
A Sicilian family deals with the arrival of a group of immigrants on their island.
Shun Li and the Poet
A study of the friendship between a Chinese woman and a fisherman who came to Italy from Yugoslavia many years ago, who live in a small city-island in the Veneto lagoon.
No Dogs or Italians Allowed
Early 20th century, in the Ughetto family's home village, Ughettera, Northern Italy. Life in the region had become very difficult and the Ughettos dreamed of a better life abroad. Legend has it that Luigi Ughetto crossed the Alps and started a new life in France, thus changing his beloved family's destiny forever. His grandson retraces their story.
Daisy Miller
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.
Wedding Fever in Campobello
When Jan decides to marry his girl-friend Sara, he is not aware of his opponent: her father, who is an Italian.
The Dust of Time
A, an American film director of Greek ancestry, is making a film that tells his story and the story of his parents. It is a tale that unfolds in Italy, Germany, Russia, Kazakhstan, Canada and the USA. The main character is Eleni, who is claimed and claims the absoluteness of love. At the same time the film is a long journey into the vast history and the events of the last fifty years that left their mark on the 20th century. The characters in the film move as though in a dream. The dust of time confuses memories. A searches for them and experiences them in the present.
The Man Who Will Come
A group of Italian villagers struggle to survive during a tumultuous time in 1943, debating how much assistance to give the partisans with the impending arrival of the Germans. Based on True Events.
The Voyage
The charming Adriana gets sick after her husband's death. Her brother-in-law takes her on a journey to meet a doctor, while love overwhelms them.