Best movies like Meeting Andrei Tarkovsky

In a small Russian town at the turn of the century, three sisters and their brother live but dream daily of their return to their former home in Moscow, where life is charming and stimulating meaningful. But for now they exist in a malaise of dissatisfaction. Soldiers from the local military post provide them some companionship and society, but nothing can suffice to replace Moscow in their hopes. Andrei marries a provincial girl, Natasha, and begins to settle into a life of much less meaning than he had hoped. Natasha begins to run the family her way. Masha, though married, yearns for the sophisticated life and begins a dalliance with Vershinin, an army officer with a sick and suicidal wife. Even Irina, the freshest, most optimistic of the sisters, begins to waver in her dreams until, finally, tragedy strikes.

In a small Russian town at the turn of the century, three sisters (Olga, Irina, and Masha) and their brother Andrei live but dream daily of their return to their former home in Moscow, where life is charming and stimulating meaningful. But for now they exist in a malaise of dissatisfaction. Soldiers from the local military post provide them some companionship and society, but nothing can suffice to replace Moscow in their hopes. Andrei marries a provincial girl, Natasha, and begins to settle into a life of much less meaning than he had hoped. Natasha begins to run the family her way. Masha, though married, yearns for the sophisticated life and begins a dalliance with Vershinin, an army officer with a sick and suicidal wife. Even Irina, the freshest, most optimistic of the sisters, begins to waver in her dreams until, finally, tragedy strikes.

Arrogant, self-centered movie director Guido Contini finds himself struggling to find meaning, purpose, and a script for his latest film endeavor. With only a week left before shooting begins, he desperately searches for answers and inspiration from his wife, his mistress, his muse, and his mother.

Scientists Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss travel the globe promoting a scientific worldview and the rational questioning of religious belief.

Surrounded by fans and skeptics, grizzled director J.J. "Jake" Hannaford returns from years abroad in Europe to a changed Hollywood, where he attempts to make his innovative comeback film. This film was started in 1970 but never completed during Welles lifetime.

In this film made over ten years, filmmaker Barbara Sonneborn goes on a pilgrimage to the Vietnamese countryside where her husband was killed. She and translator (and fellow war widow) Xuan Ngoc Nguyen explore the meaning of war and loss on a human level. The film weaves interviews with Vietnamese and American widows into a vivid testament to the legacy of war.

Jesus Camp follows children at a Christian summer camp as they hone their "prophetic gifts" and are schooled in how to "take back America for Christ." The film is a first-ever look into an intense training ground that recruits born-again Christian children to become an active part of America's political future.

When loved ones are murdered, Elijah’s beliefs are compromised as he considers revenge. But a visit with Joseph and Mary may offer a new perspective.

When his brother disappears, mentally disabled Langston Bellows (Gbenga Akinnagbe) is left without a protector in Brooklyn's housing projects. Now under the control of his abusive mother (Alfre Woodard) Langston must take his future into his own hands. He sets out to find the one doctor he believes can cure him, a celebrity magazine columnist who touts questionable prescription drug cocktails. If Langston can become "mentally excellent", it will mean moving into an apartment of his own with his girlfriend, who may herself be a creation of his wishful thinking. Landing in the unscrupulous world of pharmaceutical marketing, the search for his mysterious doctor and hero leads to some unwanted discoveries. Langston strives for independence from his prior life; from his mother, from his neighborhood and from his fractured mind - while all around him people are not who they seem.

A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.

While the rest of America slept, DIY filmmaker/musician Giuseppe Andrews has made over 30 experimental features. Set in some demented alternate universe (i.e. Ventura, California), they are populated by real-life alcoholics and drug addicts, trash-talking senior citizens and trailer park residents dressed in cow outfits and costume-shop wigs. Director Adam Rifkin creates a wildly surreal, outrageously funny and strangely touching portrait of a truly Outsider Artist inhabiting a world few of us even know exists.

We live in a world where the powerful deceive us. We know they lie. They know we know they lie. They do not care. We say we care, but we do nothing, and nothing ever changes. It is normal. Welcome to the post-truth world. How we got to where we are now…

World-renowned director Martin Scorsese narrates this journey through his favorites in Italian cinema.

Alexander, a journalist, philosopher and retired actor, celebrates a birthday with friends and family when it is announced that nuclear war has begun.

A look at Fellini's creative process. In extensive interviews, Fellini talks a bit about his background and then discusses how he works and how he creates. Several actors, a producer, a writer, and a production manager talk about working with Fellini. Archive footage of Fellini and others on the set plus clips from his films provide commentary and illustration for the points interviewees make. Fellini is fully in charge; actors call themselves puppets. He dismisses improvisation and calls for "availability." His sets and his films create images that look like reality but are not; we see the differences and the results.

Did Jesus exist? This film starts with that question, then goes on to examine Christianity as a whole.

THE AUTEUR follows formerly renowned porn director Arturo Domingo (Five Easy Nieces, Requiem for a Wet Dream) through a bizarre weekend as he receives a lifetime achievement award at a film festival in Portland, OR. Encountering crazed fans, former collaborators, bitter enemies and free-loving hippies, Arturo attempts to put the pieces of his broken career and personal life back together.

On location in Portugal, a film crew runs out of film while making their own version of Roger Corman's The Day the World Ended (1956). The producer is nowhere to be found and director Munro attempts to find him in hopes of being able to finish the film.

"Revealing Ukraine" by Igor Lopatonok continues investigations on of the ongoing Ukrainian crisis following "Ukraine on Fire". In addition, it analyzes the current political backstage and its dangerous potential for the world.

The film is a study of Anton Szandor LaVey, leader of a cult of devil worshipers in San Francisco. He and his Church of Satan are shown performing a black mass, in which a nude woman serves as an altar and a boa constrictor wraps itself around a naked witch. Newsreel footage is included in which LaVey's neighbors are interviewed about the lion which he kept in his house until complaints resulted in the animal's removal to a zoo. The ideology of the Church of Satan is discussed--guilt rejection, sexual freedom, and self-indulgence.

Spoiled rich girl, Claire Rivers, hires a camera crew to document her journey as she attempts to shed her ego and attain enlightenment.

The Devil Never Sleeps is a “whodunit” documentary about family secrets. Filmmaker Lourdes Portillo received a phone call informing her of the mysterious death of her wealthy Mexican uncle Oscar. Officially ruled a suicide, Portillo’s relatives claimed murder, offering several possible suspects including a business partner, a ranch hand, and Oscar’s young widow who stood to inherit everything. Traveling to Mexico, Portillo attempts to learn the truth about her powerful uncle. Using interviews, old snapshots and home movies, she finds a complicated web of family secrets, intrigue, rumor and betrayal that makes her enigmatic uncle’s murder seem ever more likely, yet ever more obscure. As the Mexican saying goes, “When evil is lurking, the devil never sleeps.”

It is 1953, Stalin has just died. It is a troubled and uncertain period for the whole of the Soviet Union, particularly for the state security services. In the Institute, a secret research facility, the scientists continue their theoretical and experimental work. Every night they strain their ears to listen for footsteps in the dark corridors: who have they come for this time? Who has reported on who? Having survived the fear and humiliation of an interrogation, the Head of the Theoretical Department, Andrei Losev, refuses to cooperate with the security services, only to face a new ordeal back in his own home.

A spiritual search for answers leads the filmmaker to a California workshop run by a guru who promotes sexual adventure -- and the existence of aliens.

With his life back East upended, a young man escapes to the electric anonymity of Las Vegas. When an intriguing offer puts him on an unexpected path, he learns how easily things left unresolved find a way of forcing their own resolution.

Although it was shot on the set of director Mel Gibson's controversial epic The Passion of the Christ, this thought-provoking documentary is not about the making of the movie. Rather, filmmakers Francesco Cabras and Alberto Molinari delve into the nature of divinity and spiritual beliefs through revealing interviews with Gibson and members of his cast and crew -- including stars Jim Caviezel and Monica Bellucci.

Three artists struggling against the grid of society find spiritual renewal.

An enigmatic mental patient who claims to be the second coming of Jesus Christ changes the life of a psychiatrist who has lost his faith.

"The Search for the Meaning" is a collective experience, carried out with the audiovisual contribution of countless people who record their testimonies and spiritual experiences in 19 countries, to show a new spirituality that is being born...

Fiona Shaw narrates this exploration of Russia's medieval origins through to its bloody expansion to become the biggest country in the world. It's a tale that set the scene for one of the world's most enigmatic figures, and his vision of modern Russia. From a tyrannical grip on ordinary citizens to rampant corruption at the highest level, this film reveals the secrets behind holding the world's largest country together in a narrative that takes in the KGB and its ancestors as well as Stalin, murder and gulags.

All over the world, people are asking the same questions: Why is there so much pain and suffering in the world? What does it mean to be happy? Is there such a thing as evil? Does God really exist? This September, through the brilliant minds and personal struggles of two of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century, PBS presents an emotional and intellectual journey into the meaning of life.

A pragmatic PhD candidate must let go of her logic when she finds a list of items to give away written by the late mother she never knew. With the encouragement of her enthusiastic new mentor, she attempts to return everything on the list and begins to encounter unexplainable coincidences that lead her to understand the world’s smallest marvels have the greatest meaning.

There are situations in which the love of close ones does not reach the limits achieved in personal development. Tenzin, who has grown up in a Tibetan community in Canada, has reached the milestone of his twenties and finds himself standing at a bewildering crossroads of life. The previously unwavering belief in fighting for the eternal preservation of the Tibetan people collapses when Tenzin’s brother decides to set himself on fire in the course of a protest held in China. How do you feel pride and gratitude for your brother’s suicide together with others? Unable to find answers in the fields of meaning of spirituality, Tenzin sets out to seek these in the madness of the modern culture.

The Man Without a World is credited to the legendary (and imaginary) 1920s Soviet director, Yevgeny Antinov. But the film is anything but old. In fact, Antinov himself is the creation of contemporary filmmaker Eleanor Antin. Her film is a moving, comic melodrama set in a typical shtetl (village) in Poland. The Jews’ struggle against poverty and racial hatred is complicated by their own division into hostile political factions of the religious orthodoxy, assimilationists, socialists, Zionists, anarchists and survivors. While the Jews of the shtetl pursue their loves, politics, religion, business and dreams for the future, the Angel of Death is ever near...

A debate rages over the credibility of the Bible. Most archaeologists today have concluded that there's no evidence that the Exodus of Israelite slaves from Egypt ever happened. Filmmaker Timothy Mahoney faces a crisis of faith: "Is this foundation event of the Bible really just a myth?" He embarks on a 12-year journey around the world to search for answers. Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus unlocks the mystery of this ancient saga, combining a scientific investigation with a retelling of the Exodus story to reveal an amazing pattern of evidence matching the biblical account that may challenge our understanding of history. It features stunning animations, narration by Kevin Sorbo (God's not dead, Hercules: The Legendary Journey), interviews with leading archaeologists such as Israel Finkelstein, Kent Weeks, and David Rohl, and guest appearances by Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu and Shimon Peres.