Best movies like Letters from Baghdad

Beautiful, funny, passionate, and calculating, Becky is the orphaned daughter of a starving English artist and a French chorus girl. She yearns for a more glamorous life than her birthright promises and resolves to conquer English society by any means possible. A mere ascension into the heights of society is simply not enough. So Becky finds a patron in the powerful Marquess of Steyne whose whims enable Becky to realise her dreams. But is the ultimate cost too high for her?

Fictionalized portrait of one of history's great literary couples: Stein & Toklas. Summer 1930s France, Alice tends to ailing Gertrude; they visit Fernande Olivier, Guillaume Apollinaire, others; and Hemingway pops in.

A film with no spoken dialogue, just follows the music and lyrics of Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem, which include WWI soldier poet Wilfred Owen's poems reflecting the war's horrors. It shows the story of an Englishman soldier (Wilfred Owen) and a nurse (his bride) during World War I. It also includes actual footage of contemporary wars (WWII, Vietnam, Angola, etc.)

A tragic-comic tale with surrealistic tendencies about a lost 23-year-old who is haunted by her disappointed 13-year-old self.

On a remote, isolated, unnamed Lebanese village inhabited by both Muslims and Christians. The village is surrounded by land mines and only reachable by a small bridge. As civil strife engulfed the country, the women in the village learn of this fact and try, by various means and to varying success, to keep their men in the dark, sabotaging the village radio, then destroying the village TV.

This documentary recounts the life and work of one of most famous, and yet reviled, German film directors in history, Leni Riefenstahl. The film recounts the rise of her career from a dancer, to a movie actor to the most important film director in Nazi Germany who directed such famous propaganda films as Triumph of the Will and Olympiad. The film also explores her later activities after Nazi Germany's defeat in 1945 and her disgrace for being so associated with it which includes her amazingly active life over the age of 90.

People and life can be cruel, and in their face, Fannette is cool: toward an old acquaintance, to her daughter, to colleagues. Beneath the surface, she roils with passion for a lost love, Philippe. She watches "An Affair to Remember" again and again, and when she receives a letter from Philippe asking her to meet him atop the Empire State Building, she swoons. She's writing a book on an aged painter, so she organizes a trip to New York ostensibly to secure photographs of some of his pieces. The publisher assigns her a photographer, Matt, on the surface spontaneous and flip, but also aggressive about his attraction to her. Will she be with the one she loves? Will she smile? Written by

The true story of John Romulus Brinkley, a small-town Kansas doctor who discovers in 1917 that he can cure impotence by transplanting goat testicles into men. And that’s just the tipping point in this stranger-than-fiction tale. With the balls of a P.T. Barnum, the gonads of goats, and the wishful dreams of flaccid men, Brinkley amassed a fortune, was almost elected Governor of Kansas, invented junk mail and the infomercial, and built the world’s most powerful radio station. By the time all of the twists and turns of Brinkley’s story are revealed, Nuts! certainly earns its title.

A chronicle of Gertrude Bell's life, a traveler, writer, archaeologist, explorer, cartographer, and political attaché for the British Empire at the dawn of the twentieth century.

Now one of the world’s most celebrated artists, Yayoi Kusama broke free of the rigid society in which she was raised, and overcame sexism, racism, and mental illness to bring her artistic vision to the world stage. At 88 she lives in a mental hospital and continues to create art.

Bulldog Drummond is a British WWI veteran who longs for some excitement after he returns to the humdrum existence of civilian life. He gets what he's looking for when a girl requests his help in freeing her uncle from a nursing home. She believes the home is just a front and that her uncle is really being held captive while the culprits try to extort his fortune from him.

A chronicle which provides a rare window into the international perception of the Iraq War, courtesy of Al Jazeera, the Arab world's most popular news outlet. Roundly criticized by Cabinet members and Pentagon officials for reporting with a pro-Iraqi bias, and strongly condemned for frequently airing civilian causalities as well as footage of American POWs, the station has revealed (and continues to show the world) everything about the Iraq War that the Bush administration did not want it to see.

In the aftermath of WWI, a young German who grieves the death of her fiancé in France meets a mysterious French man who visits the fiance’s grave to lay flowers.

France, WWI. Landru, the father of four Children, contacts Parisian women through newspapers, seduces and eventually kills them in order to feed his little family.

A destitute WWI veteran is hired to help carry out restoration work on a medieval mural in a rural Yorkshire church. While living in the quiet village, he forms a close friendship with an archaeologist and begins to come to terms with his trauma.

Through a series of twenty six short stories, a girl describes the childhood events that shaped her ideas about fatherhood, family relations, work and play. As the stories unfold, a dual portrait emerges: that of a father who cared more for his career than for his family, and of a daughter who was deeply affected by his behavior. Working in counterpoint to the forceful text are sensual black and white images that depict both the extraordinary and ordinary events of daily life. Together, they create a formally complex and emotionally intense film.

A meek Belgian soldier (Harry Langdon) fighting in World War I receives penpal letters and a photo from "Mary Brown", an American girl he has never met. He becomes infatuated with her by long distance. After the war, the young Belgian journeys to America as assistant to a theatrical "strong man", Zandow the Great (Arthur Thalasso). While in America, he searches for Mary Brown... and he finds her, just as word comes that Zandow is incapacitated and the little nebbish must go on stage in his place.

The makers of the world's most controversial video series have done it again. Guaranteed the world's gnarliest hardcore video in existence, these graphic and shocking images might be the sickest ever put to film. You'll see smuggled video of Iraqi executions, firing squads, amputations, suicide bombings, gangland slayings, knife fights, animal maulings, hostage killings, and terror attacks. Witness first hand the scary truth about the world in which we live.

As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.

Pioneering comedy legend Max Linder wrote, produced, directed and starred in Seven Years Bad Luck. Hilarious misadventures begin when Max' butler, chasing a maid, breaks an expensive full-length mirror. The butler persuades the cook, who somewhat resembles Max, to stand behind the frame and be Max's reflection. This gag, developed by Max, has become a classic of film and even television borrowed by everyone from the Marx Brothers to Abbott and Costello to Red Skeleton.

A documentary with many excerpts from the films of French movie pioneer Max Linder, narrated by his daughter.

With suicide rates among active military servicemen and veterans currently on the rise, this documentary brings urgent attention to the invisible wounds of war. Drawing on personal stories of American soldiers whose lives and psyches were torn asunder by the horrors of battle and PTSD, the documentary chronicles the lingering effects of combat stress and post-traumatic stress on military personnel and their families throughout American history, from the Civil War through today's conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The story of the post World War II Jewish refugee situation from liberation to the establishment of the modern state of Israel.

A private security contractor in Iraq rejects the official explanation of his friend's death and decides to investigate.

"The Trials of Darryl Hunt" is a feature documentary about a brutal rape/murder case and a wrongly convicted man, Darryl Hunt, who spent nearly twenty years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Both a social justice story and a personally driven narrative, the film chronicles this capital case from 1984 through 2004. With exclusive footage from two decades, the film frames the judicial and emotional response to a chilling crime - and the implications that reverberate from Hunt's conviction - against a backdrop of class and racial bias in the South and in the American criminal justice system.

On an archaeological dig in Iraq, author Agatha Christie uncovers a series of murders.

A documentary that details the process of restoring 270 of the 520 lost films of pioneering director Georges Méliès, all orchestrated by a Franco-American collaboration between Lobster Films, the National Film Center, and the Library of Congress.

They started out as average, unexceptional men of their time. Fishermen, farmers, local magistrates. But their dedication to a prophetic Jewish preacher in the backwaters of the Roman Empire transformed them into revolutionaries and, in the process, changed the world itself in ways that would reverberate across time for two thousand years. Now, discover the extraordinary, untold stories of the men chosen by Jesus to bring God’s plan to the world. Among them: Peter, the rock upon which Christ would build His new religion; James and John, the fiery-tempered “sons of thunder”; Matthew, the tax collector later murdered by cannibals; Simon the Zealot, the anti-Roman fanatic eventually “cut to pieces” preaching in Spain; and Judas Iscariot, whose betrayal would be paid for with silver and suicide.

First Invasion: The War of 1812, a History Channel documentary that first aired in 2004, portrays a young United States of America "on the brink of annihilation" as it battles the largest and most powerful empire on earth. Critics say the documentary is far too pro-American, and that it ignores or downplays crucial elements of the War of 1812. Others praise First Invasion for its compelling presentation of a far too neglected period of history.

Never before has the extraordinary life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo been framed in relation to the full spectrum of the historical and cultural influences that shaped her. THE LIFE AND TIMES OF FRIDA KAHLO explores the 20th century icon who became an international sensation in the worlds of modern art and radical politics.

Ten families read letters from their loved ones killed during Operation Iraqi Freedom in this powerful and moving HBO documentary by Oscar and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Bill Couturie (Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam). Photos of the soldiers in military and civilian life are shown as family members read the final correspondence received from Iraq and share their thoughts and memories about the fallen troops and the realities of war.

The final hours/days, events and people leading up to the end of WWI.

An illiterate seamstress has a powerful fetish for silk which gets her into trouble. The psychiatrist sent to help her becomes fascinated by her case and when he returns to France from World War One they fall in love, an affair that can only end in tragedy.

Amidst financial pressures and the uncertainties of WWI, Pastor Frederick Lehman begins to write a song about the love of God. When he gets stuck on the third verse, ten-year-old Blynn comes to the rescue by calling a sibling council and laying out a strategy to help Papa write the song. Along the way they waste a lot of paper, explore an old asylum, meet a real Jewish Rabbi, and learn about events that took place more than eight centuries earlier. Faced with failure and grief, Blynn is left grappling with a desire to love God. Can Papa help Blynn discover the truth about God’s love? Featuring the vocals of Guy Penrod.

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