Best movies like Leila

An enterprising Saudi girl signs on for her school's Quran recitation competition as a way to raise the remaining funds she needs in order to buy the green bicycle that has captured her interest.

The year is 1938, and Mahatma Gandhi's groundbreaking philosophies are sweeping across India, but 8-year-old Chuyia, newly widowed, must go to live with other outcast widows on an ashram. Her presence transforms the ashram as she befriends two of her compatriots.

Clara and Nikolai meet at a sweat-soaked rave and end their night at his apartment. The first part of the film is an erotic and candid portrait of their lovemaking. When Clara tries to sneak out without saying goodbye, this typical hookup takes an unexpected turn...

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.

Eager to provide a better future for her son, Fadi, divorcée Muna Farah leaves her Palestinian homeland and takes up residence in rural Illinois -- just in time to encounter the domestic repercussions of America's disastrous war in Iraq. Now, the duo must reinvent their lives with some help from Muna's sister, Raghda, and brother-in-law, Nabeel.

BELLE is inspired by the true story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the illegitimate mixed race daughter of a Royal Navy Admiral. Raised by her aristocratic great-uncle Lord Mansfield and his wife, Belle's lineage affords her certain privileges, yet the color of her skin prevents her from fully participating in the traditions of her social standing. Left to wonder if she will ever find love, Belle falls for an idealistic young vicar's son bent on change who, with her help, shapes Lord Mansfield's role as Lord Chief Justice to end slavery in England

Camille is a courtesan in Paris. She falls deeply in love with a young man of promise, Armand Duval. When Armand's father begs her not to ruin his hope of a career and position by marrying Armand, she acquiesces and leaves her lover. However, when poverty and terminal illness overwhelm her, Camille discovers that Armand has not lost his love for her.

After leading a jury to wrongly sentence a man, Abigail enters her new teaching job at the law school with a newfound commitment to ethics. When she takes over her new class, it includes Vincent, an intensely ambitious student who will do anything for an A. When Abigail fails him for academic dishonesty, Vincent threatens that he will stop at nothing to get what he wants. As Vincent's devious plot begins to unravel, she must take her life into her own hands, or Vincent will take it himself.

A young law student, Abby Porter, suspects that her sister, a stripper, may have been murdered. She discovers an illegal network of cross border plastic surgery centers providing crude, but inexpensive cosmetic surgery to young women in the United States.

In post-revolution Libya, a group of women are brought together by one dream: to play football for their nation. But as the country descends into civil war and the utopian hopes of the “Arab Spring” begin to fade, can they realise their dream? And is there even a country left to play for? Freedom Fields is a film about hope and sacrifice in a land where dreams seem a luxury. Through the eyes of these accidental activists we see the reality of a country in transition, where the personal stories of love, struggle and aspirations collide with History.

Algiers, 1997. The country is in the hands of terrorist groups, seeking to establish an Islamic and archaic state. Women are particularly affected and oppressed by primitive diktas, who seek to take control of their bodies and control their passage through the public space. While a frenzied hunt for women unveiled is launched, Nedjma, a young student passionate about fashion, is determined to federate the girls of her campus to organize a fashion show braving all the forbidden.

On a university scholarship, a good natured student from the midwest gets a crash course in city life while dealing with three evil roommates. He befriends a virtually homeless college student whom he falls for, but she's dating a nasty professor.

The Nazi occupation of Tunisia strains the bonds of friendship between a Muslim woman and a Sephardic Jewess who are both preparing for their marriages.

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

Ivan Cohen is a young boy living in Palo Alto, California. Unsatisfied by his slacker group of friends, his love for a girl who doesn't know he exists and a dysfunctional family life, he is struggling to find his place in the world. Based on the book Palo Alto by James Franco.

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin is raised by his father and his grandfather because his mother dies when he's still very little. He works as a handyman, studies the law at a university and travels the country as an actor before he becomes the celebrated playwright Molière who impresses firstly the Duke of Orleans and then even King Louis XIV.

The ghost of a music teacher pushes a young mechanic to start a career in music.

Alex is the definition of loser. He has no, nor has he ever had, friends. His life has no direction and he has a stupid haircut. While attending the Venice Beach Art School, he meets Lizzy, Patrick and Gnome, who become his friends. When Alex figures out he should make a movie, he decides to do an "alternative political documentary in black and white" about Gnomes struggle to free Hawaii. He hires some brain dead film students and meets the girl of his dreams and he's all ready to make his movie. Until the first scheduled shooting date when Gnome, who has the budget, turns up missing.

A rebellious teenager forced to repeat her last year of high school is caught between adolescence and adulthood - and between two very different male admirers.

Underwater Dreams, narrated by Michael Peña, is an epic story of how the sons of undocumented Mexican immigrants learned how to build underwater robots. And go up against MIT in the process.

The whole family is reunited when Sofia comes back for his father's funeral. Quickly, inner problems are revealed.

Believing he can elude justice, a California law student murders an elderly pawnbroker, then matches wits with the detective on the case.

A young Palestinian schoolteacher gives birth to her son in an Israeli prison where she fights to protect him, survive and maintain hope.

What happens when a law student breaks the law to pay for law school? Graduation is only a "slip" away...

Born in Brooklyn to Palestinian refugee parents, Soraya (Suheir Hammad) decides to journey to the country of her ancestry when she discovers that her grandfather's savings have been frozen in a Jaffa bank account since his 1948 exile. However, she soon finds that her simple plan is a complicated undertaking — one that takes her further from her comfort zone than she'd imagined.

Sofia, 20, lives with her parents in Casablanca. Suffering from pregnancy denial, she finds herself breaking the law by giving birth to a baby out of wedlock. The hospital gives her 24 hours to provide the father's papers before informing the authorities…

A young 15 year old girl, Lamia, lives in a southern Lebanese village on the border with Israel. She is given in marriage to her cousin on the other side of the border. As Lamia crosses the barbed wire she also passes from childhood into adulthood, as brutal as our countries and the events that are to follow.

In the turbulent aftermath of the Tunisian revolution, young Samia flees her homeland. She braves hostile seas in the crossing to France, but once there she finds that her struggles have only just begun. With no friends, no family, and — most crucially — no immigration papers, Samia has to figure out how to make a life and a living in a foreign land. She meets a young man, Imed, and soon finds work in the employ of the elegant Leila. But her presence in Leila's middle-class household triggers a shift in its dynamics, and soon Samia is enmeshed in a web of sexual tension.

The story takes place in Haifa, Israel, in 1979, during three days before the Shabbat. A young woman trying to raise three children, work from home, and observe the strict Moroccan traditions of her family finds herself at constant odds with her husband and her brothers, who want her to stay married and leave behind the notions of being loved and free.

A Palestinian family living in the north of Galilee gathers to celebrate the wedding of one of their daughters, as war rages between Israel and Lebanon. Internal conflicts explode between the family - secrets are revealed and lies are unmasked. The battles between different family members become as merciless as the outside war once their father falls into a coma and inches toward death.

Hitparkut (Dissolution) combines an almost surreal fairy-tale energy with brutal black and white realism to explore the condition of violence which permeates contemporary Israeli society. Shot is Yafo (the predominantly Arab area of Tel Aviv), the movie follows the moral collapse and first glimmer of redemption, of a young, morose Israeli Jew, played by Israeli actor Didi Fire

When the charismatic and eccentric art teacher Tatty falls in love with Amy, one of his students, he believes he has met the love of his life. Unfortunately Amy dies in an accident. Distraught and blaming himself, Tatty loses all focus on his own life and drinks heavily. In a state of delirium he creates a statue of Amy that he places in the dark interior of a haunted, burnt-out church. Tatty lives there, protecting his creation, and devoted to her for the next 13 years. On New Year s Eve, a magical night with the sky lit with fireworks, a clubhouse burns. Cal is on the run and takes refuge in the church and accidentally breaks the statue. The magic of the night and the mystery of the church combine to cast a spell and Amy comes alive. However, in order to remain alive, Amy must kiss the first man she sees.

The daughter of an Arab sheik falls in love with a French naval officer, thus breaking the strict rule of social law of her people, as well as her religion.

Documentarians Justine Shapiro and B.Z. Goldberg traveled to Israel to interview Palestinian and Israeli kids ages 11 to 13, assembling their views on living in a society afflicted with violence, separatism and religious and political extremism. This 2002 Oscar nominee for Best Feature Documentary culminates in an astonishing day in which two Israeli children meet Palestinian youngsters at a refugee camp.

The director follows a Sunni Arab doctor as he prepares to run for the early 2005 elections in Iraq.