Best movies like Happiness

How do you reconcile a commitment to non-violence when faced with violence? Why do the poor often seem happier than the rich? Must a society lose its traditions in order to move into the future? These are some of the questions posed to His Holiness the Dalai Lama by filmmaker and explorer Rick Ray. Ray examines some of the fundamental questions of our time by weaving together observations from his own journeys throughout India and the Middle East, and the wisdom of an extraordinary spiritual leader. This is his story, as told and filmed by Rick Ray during a private visit to his monastery in Dharamsala, India over the course of several months. Also included is rare historical footage as well as footage supplied by individuals who at great personal risk, filmed with hidden cameras within Tibet.

One of Bob Hunt's neighbours' electricity is cut off because she cannot pay the bill. She is assisted by contributions, and the bill is paid entirely in pennies, though the clerk is belatedly told that payment is not accepted in such a large quantity of coins. Unfortunately, the electric company fails to reconnect the power due to a communications snafu, and the elderly woman is taken to hospital suffering hypothermia. Hunt sets off on a vendetta of revenge, sabotaging assorted support systems.

A biker gang visits a monastery where they encounter black-robed monks engaged in worshipping Satan. When the monks try to persuade one of the female bikers, Helen, to become a satanic sacrifice the bikers smash up the monastery and leave. The monks have the last laugh, though, as Helen, as a result of the satanic rituals, is now possessed and at night changes into a werewolf, with dire results for the biker gang.

Mr. Miyagi decides to take Julie, a troubled teenager, under his wing after he learns that she blames herself for her parents' demise and struggles to adjust with her grandmother and fellow pupils.

A group of travelers, including a monk, stay in a lonely inn in the mountains. The host confesses the monk his habit of serving poisoned soup to the guests, to rob their possessions and to bury them in the backyard. The story unfolds as the monk tries to save the guest's lives without violating the holy secrecy of the confession.

The Tibetans refer to the Dalai Lama as 'Kundun', which means 'The Presence'. He was forced to escape from his native home, Tibet, when communist China invaded and enforced an oppressive regime upon the peaceful nation. The Dalai Lama escaped to India in 1959 and has been living in exile in Dharamsala ever since.

A kindly English botanist and a gruff American promoter lead an expedition to the Himalayas in search of the legendary Yeti.

Summoned from an ashram in Tibet, Ace finds himself on a perilous journey into the jungles of Africa to find Shikaka, the missing sacred animal of the friendly Wachati tribe. He must accomplish this before the wedding of the Wachati's Princess to the prince of the warrior Wachootoos. If Ace fails, the result will be a vicious tribal war.

Austrian mountaineer, Heinrich Harrer journeys to the Himalayas without his family to head an expedition in 1939. But when World War II breaks out, the arrogant Harrer falls into Allied forces' hands as a prisoner of war. He escapes with a fellow detainee and makes his way to Llaso, Tibet, where he meets the 14-year-old Dalai Lama, whose friendship ultimately transforms his outlook on life.

While the World Cup is being played in France, two young Tibetan refugees arrive at a monastery in India. The atmosphere of serene contemplation is soon disrupted by soccer fever, as the two students desperately seek a TV to watch the final.

Born to a poor farming family in Brittany, Bécassine finds work as a nanny with the Marquise de Grand-Air who has recently adopted a lovely baby named Loulotte. A strong bond develops between Becassine and Loulotte, and life is sweet, until the Grand-Airs are threatened with financial ruin… Can Bécassine save the day? Naïve, funny, dreamy, optimistic, loving, Bécassine is also inventive, courageous and always ready to handle any situation in her own unique way – a superheroine like no other. César-winner Bruno Podalydès returns with a family movie adapted from the beloved French comic book Bécassine.

When the townspeople of a small Mexican village start disappearing, the locals point the suspicion at two young visitors. The only solution is for the two to unearth the legend of a madman in this supernatural thriller.

The dazzling new film from Bhutanese lama and filmmaker Khyentse Norbu (The Cup, Travellers and Magicians) chronicles a sacred jungle ritual whose masked, anonymous participants seek after complete self-knowledge — or descend into thievery, violation, and murder.

As the denizens of a Tibetan village prepare for their arduous annual trek to exchange salt for grain, the community's allegiances are split between aging chieftain Tinle (Thilen Lhondup) and rebellious young Karma (Gurgon Kyap). Tinle tries to maintain his clout and preserve obedience to ancient customs when Karma challenges the old man's power.

A teacher, in search of inspiration, travels to the most remote school in the world, where he ends up realizing how important his job is and appreciating the value of yak dung.

Monk Dawson is a film that was released in 1998, directed and produced by Tom Waller and starring John Michie, Benedict Taylor, Rhona Mitra and Paula Hamilton. It was based on the novel of the same name written by Piers Paul Read. The film is about Eddie Dawson, a monk who has led a sheltered existence at a Benedictine monastery, but when he is expelled from his order he has to learn to deal with the harsh realities of everyday life, including falling in love, and the betrayal of a friend.

Harassed by classmates who won't accept his shocking appearance, a shy young man known as "Powder" struggles to fit in. But the cruel taunts stop when Powder displays a mysterious power that allows him to do incredible things. This phenomenon changes the lives of all those around him in ways they never could have imagined.

A love story situated in the Himalayas. A Buddhist monk can't choose between life and the way of the Buddha.

A young government official, named Dondup, who is smitten with America (he even has a denim gho) dreams of escaping there while stuck in a beautiful but isolated village. He hopes to connect in the U.S. with a visa out of the country. He misses the one bus out of town to Thimphu, however, and is forced to hitchhike and walk along the Lateral Road to the west, accompanied by an apple seller, a Buddhist monk with his ornate, dragon-headed dramyin, a drunk, a widowed rice paper maker, and his beautiful daughter, Sonam.

Buddhist monks open up about the joys and challenges of living out the precepts of the Buddha as a full-time vocation. Controversies swirling within modern monastic Buddhism are examined, from celibacy and the role of women to racism and concerns about the environment.

Milarepa depicts the humble beginnings of the man who was to become Tibet's greatest saint. A true story based on centuries-old oral traditions, a youthful Milarepa is propelled into a world of sorrow and betrayal after his father's sudden death. Destitute and hopeless, he sets out to learn black magic - and exact revenge on his enemies - encountering magicians, demons, an enigmatic teacher and unexpected mystical power along the way. But it is in confrontation with the consequences of his anger that he learns the most. Photographed in the stunning Lahaul-Spiti region of Northern India, Milarepa offers a provocative parallel to the cycle of violence and retribution consuming today's world.

Stefano is a shy and sensitive teenager who has just completed his studies in Switzerland and is considering becoming a monk. But his father, a rich Milanese publisher, who had the ambition to see his son succeed him, refuses and takes him on a cruise with a young woman to take this idea out of his mind...

In the Seventeenth Century, while Hungary is fighting the Turks, the population of a small village in...

In the 17th century, an order of monks in Italy capture and entomb a demon that has possessed a member of their group. 400 years later, school teacher Elizabeth Magrino visits the monastery in order to do some research. What she and the current monks do not realize is that the evil hiding within the catacombs has unwittingly been released.

In 2014, Tsai Ming-Liang was invited to make a film for the MarseilleFID, Marseille International Film Festival. Since he was not familiar with Marseille, he decided to make a film as tourist, capturing the beautiful Mediterranean sunshine in the late summer of that year. He also invited famous French actor, Denis Lavant, to appear alongside Lee Kang-Sheng playing Xuanzang. "Journey to the West" was invited to be the opening short film at the Berlin International Film Festival the same year.

A guard on the Soviet-Chinese border who, after surviving a deadly attack, decides to become a monk but must continually prove along the way that he's capable of becoming the enlightened man he set out to be.

During a wild night of debauchery, a gang of vengeful women plot to massacre a monastery full of corrupt monks who sold their loved ones as slaves. Their plan comes unstuck when a gang of marauding Vikings arrive with an army of vicious, tree-like demons on their tail..

In the valleys of the Himalayas, an orphan boy saves a Bengal tiger cub from the ruthless poachers who killed the tiger's mother. Together they set out in the Himalayan mountains to the Taktsang monastery in Bhutan known as "The Tiger's Nest" where Buddhist monks took refuge after the 1950 Chinese invasion of Tibet and protect the big cats. A new great film for the whole family that talks about the importance of defending animals through the story of the friendship between two orphans, a tiger cub and a child, in a tale of brotherhood and the discovery of life.

Quebec, 1956. The impulsive and headstrong Nelly Maloye, a novice private eye, joins the methodical and pragmatic Simon Picard, a research scientist in a dubious quest to prove the existence of the elusive Yeti. The brave-hearted heroes come face-to-face with countless dangers during their trek through the heart of the Himalayas.

Stephanie’s brother Gregor is about to make the biggest decision of his life. He has joined the Catholic order of the Steyler Missionaries to become a monk. If he doesn’t have a change of heart, he will take his final vows in a year’s time and commit to a life of chastity, poverty, obedience and service to the Catholic Church. Stephanie is highly critical of his choice. They come from a Catholic background, but Stephanie had her own reasons to break with the family tradition. They haven’t spoken in ten years. This film is Stephanie’s quest to understand her brother’s extreme decision and explore his world that lies behind the thick monastery walls. What she discovers may prove to be far more than she bargained for.

A naive chicken farmer from New Jersey moves to Greenwich Village to open a coffee house.

Serge Renart, a television journalist who's now a has-been, and Natacha Bison, a war reporter who has been laid off because she posed too much of a danger to her colleagues, find themselves forced to investigate a story together, which will take them to Thailand, in search of one of the best kept secrets of contemporary history. What really happened during the televised broadcast of the Apollo 11 mission, when man first walked on the moon?

A wealthy American on the quest for a perfect brandy runs afoul of petty criminal monks and falls in love with an impostor.

A puffing steam train climbs into the Himalaya, a rolling rumble echoes over the holy waters of the Ganges, an astonishing five million commuters rush daily through the Bombay Victoria Terminus - join National Geographic as we journey on one of the world's largest railways. Since 1853, India's railway has been a unifying force. Not only did it physically link distant regions, it also connected the myriad of castes, languages, and religions that comprise India. It's a rich history, riding the sumptuous Palace on Wheels through Rajasthan or the "toy train" to Darjiing, but sadly, the age of steam is dying. At the Black Beauty contest, the beloved steam engines are admired for the last time. From the driver in the steaming locomotive to the station master in the sleepy village, from the family traveling to a wedding to the commuters in the large cities, this great institution reflects the country itself. Many are the faces, and varied are the stories, on THE GREAT INDIAN RAILWAY.

At an altitude of nearly 4,000 meters, Sking is one of the most isolated villages in the Himalayan region of Zanskar. In just three months, from August to October, the Zanskaris have to harvest and store all their food for the coming year. All the women-young and old alike-work nonstop, from dawn to dusk, and worry about the arrival of winter. Filmed from the point of view of a subjective camera by a young female ethnologist, Land of Women offers a sensitive and poetic immersion in the life of four generations of women during harvesting season. We share their rare intimacy and gradually grow attached to them.

Kingdom of Bhutan, 2006. Modernization has finally arrived. Bhutan becomes the last country in the world to connect to the internet and television, and now the biggest change of all: democracy. To teach the people how to vote, the authorities organize a mock election, but the locals seem unconvinced. Travelling to rural Bhutan where religion is more popular than politics, the election supervisor discovers that a monk is planning a mysterious ceremony for the election day.

Ambrosio is a monk who is sexually tempted by an emissary of the Devil, a young girl in monk's robes. After he has committed numerous crimes, it appears that he will be caught and punished by the Inquisition. Instead, he signs up on the Devil's team and wins his freedom.. and eventually, the papacy.

Sijou is a small boy who lives in the village of Saikhonguri, a village in Baksa near the Indo-Bhutan border. He lives with his father. One day, his life takes a drastic shift when he becomes a victim of the Feudal Land Tenure System which was in practice in Bhutan till 1958. Gradually, his life takes drastic turns which eventually turn him into a monk.

Sara (Amber Jaeger) suffers from agoraphobia, an obsessive fear of open spaces that renders her a virtual captive of her own home. When her husband, Mark (Kieron Elliott), disappears unexpectedly, Sara unravels emotionally and begins to panic. Turning to her estranged sister (Kristine Sullivan) and a psychiatrist (Andrew Qamar) for support, Sara soon begins to wonder whether the doctor is trying to help her or is plotting her demise.

Story of four young monks left alone in their remote monastery in Myanmar. Shot entirely in newly-opened Myanmar with non-actors, the film bridges spirit, cinema, and traditional Burmese storytelling to open a view onto an unseen world.

In Madrid at the time of the Inquisition, the monk Ambrosio is renowned for his faith and his strength of will, a saint in the eyes of the populace. But when he discovers the beautiful Matilda hidden in his own monastery, all his repressed passions begin to show themselves, and he is soon using the girl, and her powers, in his lust for more innocent prey.

Sangai, a teenage girl living with her father in a village of inland Bhutan, is not happy with her father, who makes wooden phalluses, believed to have mysterious power, and playing a festival clown with a red mask at a local festival. She reluctantly delivers the phalluses to neighbors but she is followed by dozens of men with red masks and costumes when walking through the hill. Conflict and tension grows between the father, who has concerns about his successor, and Sangai, who has a clandestine relationship with a married man.

A dreamy film in which two women are transported from a beach in France to New York City. Separated and lost, they frantically search for one another.

Sebastian, a novice in a post-apocalyptic Brazilian monastery, prepares to be ordained while struggling with intense doubts. Before priesthood, he must confess his greatest secrets: his rape as a child and the passion he has for another monk. He turns to penance and martyrdom to relieve his guilt.

Set in the 1970s, the story follows brother and sister Kuenphen and Jamyang where in a remote Bhutanese village, they learn traditional archery from their old warrior grandfather. Their mothers sudden sickness gives Kuenphen the opportunity to explore the world outside the village, while sister Jamyang must stay home to weave, cook and get married. Filmed entirely on location in the breathtaking Himalaya mountains, the actors are made up of local highland village people. The 'ordinary' current traditional medieval life in tiny isolated Bhutan is fascinating and anything but ordinary from a modern western point of view.

Albert is a Franciscan monk and a medical orderly at a monastery in France. Although he is German, the kindly monk helps hide French resistance members. Albert tries to maintain the delicate balance between the warring factions by helping out the afflicted and not getting involved in political ideology.

Mateho, an officer of the Inquisition and rational man of science, visits a remote monastery to investigate a bizarre murder of a monk. And you guessed it: something evil is afoot. But is the terror man-made or the result of witchcraft?

A small village lies peacefully nestled in the hills beneath the Provence sun... until the arrival of an odd group of vacationers. Who are these gorgeous young women from the big city strolling on the village square under the watchful eye of a chaperone as beautiful as she is authoritarian? Scandal arises when it’s learned these dreamy creatures are none other than the employees of a Marseille brothel come to enjoy the good clean air of the country. All hell breaks loose as the villagers take a stand for or against the presence of these "ladies of pleasure". The mayor is called on to relay women of the moral rules of the region to the women. But the fact remains, they can’t be forced to leave: while they have no intention of plying their trade, no law exists to bring their country retreat to a premature end. Different mentalities are revealed, passions unbridled, love kindled... and doesn’t love always solve everything in the end?

In the remote Bhutan, an undercover detective investigates the case of a missing Buddhist nun and falls into a risky alliance with his only suspect, an alluring young woman known as the village "demoness".

Going beyond the occasional news clip from Burma, the acclaimed filmmaker, Anders Østergaard, brings us close to the video journalists who deliver the footage. Though risking torture and life in jail, courageous young citizens of Burma live the essence of journalism as they insist on keeping up the flow of news from their closed country.