Best movies like Letters from the East

Based on an acclaimed 1935 novel about the War of Liberation (1918-1920) that ensured Estonia's independence, the film tells about a group of young schoolboys heading to the front to fight the army of Soviet Russia.

An American reporter falls in love with a Russian ballet dancer.

A journalist from Berlin, Germany, and a Swedish lawyer discover the truth behind the sinking of the "MS Estonia" in 1994, where more than 850 people drowned.

In August, 1991, Estonia reclaims its independence from the USSR and brings to its national bank nearly $1 billion in gold bullion hidden in Paris for 50 years. Russian mobsters have a bold plan to hijack the gold after shutting down the capital's power at midnight

The cavalry defend a small town from indians.

The reception for Finland's Independence Day is rudely interrupted when the presidential palace is attacked and the state leadership is taken hostage. Max Tanner of the Security Police is appointed as a negotiator in the hostage crisis, that unfolds as part of a bigger plan to undermine European security.

Jussi Ketola, returns to Finland from the great depression struck America only to face growing political unrest. One summer night of 1930, nationalist thugs violently abduct Ketola from his home. Beaten and forced to walk the Eternal Road towards a foreign Soviet Russia, where cruelty seems to know no end, his only dream is to return to his family cost it what it may. Hope dies last.

Fleeing from the Russian secret police, a young Estonian fencer is forced to return to his homeland, where he becomes a physical education teacher at a local school. The past however catches up and puts him in front of a difficult choice.

Unforgettable melodies, unique timbre and a memorable, soul-stirring voice. A mystery for women and authority for men, his talent was revered by the highest ranks of the Soviet Union and millions of ordinary people. Georg Ots took the stage when a huge country was recovering from the horrors of war, and his voice returned them faith in a bright future. Few people know what his life was really like.

A quiet Tarkovskian drama about an old man who lives alone on a deserted island which the Soviet fighter planes use for nighttime target practicing. A young mute boy is sent from the mainland to keep him company. Both are haunted by memories, the boy about his mother and the old man about his younger days as a missionary in Africa.

A humoristic coming-of-age story of Johannes who is born prematurely to a very young single mother. His destiny is to be always separated from his loved ones, to be “different”, to lose his hair because of pollution and to fall in love with a Chechen girl. All this during the turbulent times of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Ukrainian journalist Katya Soldak, currently living in New York City and working for Forbes magazine, chronicles Ukraine's history: its strong ties to Russia for centuries; how it broke away from the USSR and began to walk alone; the Orange Revolution, the Maidan Revolution, the Crimea annexation, the Donbass War; all through the eyes of her family and friends settled in Kharkiv, a large Ukrainian city located just eighteen miles from the Russian border.

A struggling, single mom with a precocious young daughter also has an unpaid mortgage. She falls back on her pool-playing skills to pay off her debts. But just as she plays her way into a big money tournament, a globe-trotting ladies' man threatens to disrupt her life with her daughter and her peace of mind. Suddenly, everything's riding on a single shot.

Most people don't think about singing when they think about revolutions. But song was the weapon of choice when, between 1986 and 1991, Estonians sought to free themselves from decades of Soviet occupation. During those years, hundreds of thousands gathered in public to sing forbidden patriotic songs and to rally for independence. "The young people, without any political party, and without any politicians, just came together ... not only tens of thousands but hundreds of thousands ... to gather and to sing and to give this nation a new spirit," remarks Mart Laar, a Singing Revolution leader featured in the film and the first post-Soviet Prime Minister of Estonia. "This was the idea of the Singing Revolution." James Tusty and Maureen Castle Tusty's "The Singing Revolution" tells the moving story of how the Estonian people peacefully regained their freedom--and helped topple an empire along the way.

A historical spy-thriller set in 1939 about an Estonian intelligence agent tasked with uncovering the Soviet double agent in their ranks.

U.S. spies catch a Moscow-born U.S. citizen helping spies, and they force him to counterspy.

Roman is a born proofreader from a family of proofreaders, a real intellectual from St. Petersburg who comes to Narva-Jõesuu, a small Estonian spa town, to find inspiration, tranquility, and silence. He does proofreading of the encyclopedia of the Baltic Sea Fishes, compiled in the same location by Professor Polyanski, winner of the Nobel Prize. This work is very important for Roman. He would have accomplished his task, but once he swam too far in the sea. It was then that Helena came into his life, to change his ideas about the world forever.

As a young Soviet student in 1978, Ieva could not have predicted that a holiday visit to her father, Imants Lesinskis, then working in the Soviet mission at the United Nations in New York City, would irreversibly split her life in two. Entangled in a dark spy game, Ieva is forced to leave her former life behind, never to see her mother or her homeland of Latvia again. Pulling back the curtain on the shady behind-the-scenes world of the Cold War, this film tells a daughter's dramatic story of her double-agent father, exploring their relationship against the backdrop of events which have their roots over four decades ago. In order to find herself and understand the game she was part of, Ieva sets out on a journey to the past, confronting family secrets, lies and betrayal.

A Chickasaw man survives great hardships and tragedy to establish a vast ranching empire along the famous cattle highway of the American West.

An Estonian student hiking group get caught up in a series of scary events unfolding in wintry Siberia. The unpopular group leader Olle, becomes disappointed in his companions during the trip and disappears on the last day in the mountains. His rival, liberal-minded and adventurous Eero guides the descending hikers into a Buryate village on the mountain to seek help. A weird and insane chain of events is unleashed which seems to be orchestrated by the missing Olle. In a foreign land and among people they do not know, the hikers are faced with a task which they at first do not want to undertake and later are unable to tackle.

In Soviet-era Estonia, three young mavericks drop everything and flee to Sweden, but soon learn the free world is not all it's cracked up to be.

After a nuclear war on Earth, the Soviet Union and the U.S. both establish outposts on the moon. When a murder occurs on the outpost, both U.S. and Soviet investigators are forced to work on the case together.

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.

CIA agents Palmer and Gagano are tasked with the perilous mission of destroying “The Soviet Union!" As they enter the system using a VR simulation, their mission quickly turns into a delirious trap, far more complex than expected, as the fabric of reality starts unraveling around them. A cornucopia of stylistic influences, virtuosic cinematic techniques, and set design (ranging from stop-motion animation to stylized live-action), Llanso’s latest blends inter-dimensional intrigue, spy-fi, kung-fu, and Philip K. Dick-esque mind-melting weirdness to achieve truly unclassifiable results.

A man must unravel the mystery of his own past to find his way back to 1989 and save his trapped teenage daughter from a bullying accident that is destined to claim her life.

In the midst of Stalinist tyranny, six-year-old Leelo's mother is sent to a prison camp. Haunted by her mother's last words telling her to be a good kid, Leelo vows to be on her best behaviour in the confusing grown-up world in the hope that it will bring her mother back.

A Swedish TV presenter's well-ordered life unravels when she finally confronts her domineering husband about an accusation against him. Her subsequent flight precipitates a chain of lies and paranoia in this taut psychological thriller.

When Mikhail Gorbachev rose to power in 1985, his reform policy sparked an independence movement in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. But as cries for help from the Baltic States were met with silence from the international community at large, two small nations – Iceland and Denmark – answered the call, motivated by the personal connections of their foreign ministers, Jón Baldvin Hannibalsson and Uffe Elleman Jensen.

The events of the war in 1944, from the Blue Hills to Sõrve Peninsula. Shown through the eyes of Estonian soldiers who had to pick sides and fight against fellow brothers. Choices have to be made, not only by the soldiers, but also by their loved ones.

In April of 1994, four women from different backgrounds and beliefs are trapped and hiding during the Rwandan genocide. Their fight for survival against all odds unites the women in an unbreakable sisterhood.

The Soviet Union teeters on the verge of collapse in 1990 and tiny Baltic nations struggle to take back their independence. A rising tide of public opinion opposes the Estonian national team's participation in the USSR's basketball championship. The team makes the unpopular choice to participate.

June 14, 1941, 3 a.m. Over 40000 people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are deported by Soviets to Siberia. Among them is a philosophy student Erna, a happily married mother of a little girl. Separated from her husband Erna and her daughter are dispatched together with other women and children to remote Siberian territories. Despite hunger, fear and brutal humiliation Erna never in next fifteen years loses her sense of freedom and hope of returning to homeland. The story is inspired by real events.

When his tribesmen begin killing off white settlers, Young Eagle is opposed to the carnage. In order to assure a lasting peace, however, the chief must deal with renegade Apache Black Wolf.

Seneca’s Day is set in the year 1989, the final period of the Soviet era in Lithuania. Eighteen-year old buddies establish the Seneca’s Fellowship with the motto “Live each day as if it was your last”. A love triangle breaks up the fellowship right at the time the nation experiences an exceptional sense of community via Baltic Chain.Twenty-five years later, the main character who at first glance appears to be accompanied by good luck, is disillusioned with himself. He has betrayed the ideals of his youth and become a cold observer of life.

Columbia's final release for 1950 was the Gene Autry western Indian Territory. Set during the Reconstruction Era, the story finds Autry working as an undercover agent for the U.S. cavalry. His mission: to neutralize a former Austrian army officer named Curt Raidler (Phil Van Zandt), who is leading a group of renegade Indians on a series of destructive raids.