Best movies like Once Upon a Time in Calcutta

Set in the turbulent 1930s, this is the story of a poor Chinese hawker selling his merchandise, Chinese silk, in the streets of Calcutta. This was the time when China was repulsing a brutal attack of militarist Japan and when an outraged Rabindranath Tagore wrote to his friend in Japan, the great poet Noguchi: “I wish your countrymen, whom I love so much, not success but remorse”. This film holds the dubious distinction of being the first to be banned (though temporarily) in independent India.

Ganga Singh lives near Gangotri with her brother, Karam. One day she comes to the assistance of a young man, Narendra Sahay, who has come with a group of Calcutta-based college students to study the source of the holy river Ganga, and to get some holy water for his wheelchair-bound paternal grandma. Both are attracted to each other, and on the next Puran Mashi get married, and spend the night in close intimacy. Narendra leaves, but promises Ganga that he will be back soon. Months go by, but he does not return. She gives birth to a son, and as soon she is able to, she starts her journey to Alipor, Calcutta, to confront Narendra and ensure a better future for their son.

A young musician and a fatso model have the same dream together, and they meet and fall in love at a bookstore. When their relationship starts to fall apart, an out-of-work magician steps in.

Animesh Mitra is simpleton who arrives at Calcutta from Jalpaiguri, during hostile times (1967), to study at the Scottish Church College. He is scheduled to take refuge at the residence of his father’s friend Mr. Debabrata, but he accidentally gets shot in the limb and ends up at the Calcutta Medical College. Eventually things move on and Animesh develops a deep friendship with Debabrata’s daughter Neela. He takes admission in the B.A classes of Scottish Church College on Bengali Literature and ultimately becomes intertwined with the unresting times of the youth intellect.

Apu is a jobless ex-student dreaming vaguely of a future as a writer. An old college friend talks him into a visit up-country to a village wedding...

Kanchan, all of eight years old, is always up to pranks and mischief in his village home. He finds his father a cruel demon who keeps his mother oppressed and imprisoned. In his dreams, the big city is El Dorado, until he reaches there.

When he was cutting "Phantom India," Louis Malle found that the footage shot in Calcutta was so diverse, intense, and unforgettable that it deserved its own film. The result, released theatrically, is at times shocking—a chaotic portrait of a city engulfed in social and political turmoil.

The spirit of a condemned 20-year-old student wanders through time, linking together four stories of people struggling for survival in this gritty meditation on poverty, natural disaster and political strife in India. A middle-class family's home is no match for the monsoons, while another clan's morality is compromised when famine strikes. Young boys smuggle rice, and politicians pity the poor while living in the lap of luxury.

Calcutta News (2008) is a Malayalam romantic drama film written and directed by Blessy. The film stars Dileep, Meera Jasmine, Indrajith and Vimala Raman. The music is by Debojyoti Mishra. The film deals with the issue of trafficking in women and how a middle-class girl from Kerala gets caught in it. It showcased Blessy's yet another different genre film and successfully provided Dileep a different character unlike his usual comic

Fort St. David, Cuddalore, southern India, 1748. While colonial empires battle to seize an enormous territory, rich in spices and precious metals beyond the wildest dreams, and try to gain the favor of the local kings, Robert Clive (1725-1774), a frustrated but talented clerk who works for the East Indian Company and struggles to earn his fortune, makes a bold decision that will change his life forever.

Rags follows the story of Charlie Prince, an orphan living with his acerbic and unloving stepfather and spoiled, simple-minded stepbrothers. Charlie's dream is to be a singer, and while he is vocally talented and can write music, he can't seem to catch a break. Kadee Worth, on the other hand, is the daughter of music mogul Reginald Worth and is an international pop phenomenon. While the world knows her as a glamorous superstar, she is secretly frustrated with singing other people's songs and wearing clothes other people choose for her. Kadee wants the world to hear and see her true talent. Despite every obstacle that gets thrown in their way, once Charlie and Kadee find one another, they each finally get what they have been looking for – a voice, a stage, an audience and each other.

Siddhartho Chowdhury, a brilliant medical student, is forced to leave his studies after his father's sudden demise. He is forced to navigate the high unemployment rate and the communist socio-political climate of 1960s Calcutta in search of a job.

Avinash(Anil Kapoor) went to Calcutta for no reason. After meeting with Reema (Rani Mukherjee), he starts having flashbacks about his past and his son. His inquiries take him to Bombay via the Calcutta Mail, and this is where he will find out whether his son is alive or not, or he has been trapped.

Based on real events, 'Burning Calcutta' tells the story of a French NGO worker and a nurse at AMRI Hospital in Dhakuria, Kolkata who are affected by the ghastly incident, that occurred in the early morning of 9 December 2011.

In this story, Horton discovers there is a microscopic community of intelligent beings called the Who's living on a plant that only he can hear. Recognising the dangers they face, he resolves to keep them safe. However, the other animals around him think Horton has gone crazy thinking that there are such beings.

Kizie and Manny, two ordinary people brought together by a tragic twist, embark on a bittersweet and extraordinary journey into the heart of that crazy little thing called 'life'.

A singer marries a famous composer, and after a while she gets the itch to go back on the stage. However, her husband won't let her. When she hears that a popular French singer named "Raquel" is coming to New York, she decides to go to Raquel with a plan--unbeknownst to her husband, "Raquel" is actually her sister, and her plan is for them to switch places so she can fulfill her dream of going back on the stage. However, things don't go quite as planned.

Madison O'Hara owns a busy event company where she performs as a singing elf for Christmas parties with her best friend Cooper. Her real dream is to be a singer-songwriter and to find the perfect man but things seem to be slipping away when she breaks up with her successful boyfriend Luke. But when a wise Santa suggests perhaps there's a perfectly 'Un-Perfect' match for her right before her eyes, Maddy takes a whole new look at her life and the people in it.

Beth Prince has always loved fairytales and now she feels like she's finally on the verge of her own happily ever after; a dream job in a charming independent cinema by the seaside and a gorgeous boyfriend. There's just one problem - no man has ever told her they love her. Desperate to hear their crucial three little words for the first time Beth takes matters into her own hands - and wishes she hasn't. Written by Jamie Patterson

Bhupati, the King of a sleepy town called Ballavpur, owns a huge but dilapidated royal palace and 7 acres of land. But Bhupathi, crippled by a huge debt, dreams of moving to Calcutta after selling his palace- once he gets rid of the ghost that haunts it.

Armaan's (Arshad Warsi) life is picture perfect; a loving girlfriend and a great job as a fashion photographer. The truth is that he hears voices - voices that torture him, voices that don't let him have his peace, and voices that nobody else can hear. What is even more puzzling is the fact that he talks to himself...or rather, to people, whom no one can see!

'Colkatay Columbus' is a satirical film which is set in present day, modern Kolkata. Where people are busy with their own lives and struggles, which leaves them in constant need of a rescuer or a hero who will be there for them in their time of need. In Colkatay Columbus, writer and director Saurav Palodhi has shown how everyone, from the ordinary person to a legend, is in search of something. The story unfolds through an encounter of Columbus and two boys in Kolkata. When Columbus somehow lands up in Kolkata in 2016, he is surprised to see that everyone is in search of something. He is in search of roads that would lead him back home while the boys are in search for Columbus to get him to offer tips on attaining success. Columbus starts doling out suggestions to the boys but is also put off by the “competition”.

The most ambitious dramatic feature film ever made depicting the amazing story of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, one of the few canonized saints of our day. We discover her through the eyes of Kavita, a young English woman who’s been abandoned by her boyfriend after she’s found to be pregnant. Kavita journeys to Calcutta to escape her pain and soon discovers that even holy people like Mother Teresa have to face life’s challenges and, in fact, struggle through years of spiritual crisis known as the “dark night of the soul”. Inspired by Mother Teresa’s example of perseverance and compassionate love, Kavita rediscovers hope and purpose. A rare, powerfully acted, inspirational film that shows how we overcome our troubles by helping others with theirs.

A freak accident jolts 15 year-old Shelby Carson (Jahnee Wallace) from her peaceful world of silence and seclusion to the center of a world of chaos, confusion and imminent danger. As she struggles to cope with her new found circumstances, Shelby battles with what she learns about the people around her; complete strangers and her dearest loved ones. What seems to be a blessing from God on the surface, could very well be a curse that will rock her family to the core. Relationships are tested, secrets revealed, in this untold story of family, faith and the resolve of a young girl in spite of her circumstances.

Set in the crumbling environs of Calcutta, Labour of Love is a lyrical unfolding of two ordinary lives suspended in the duress of a spiralling recession.

After an old college friend offers him a job at an iron foundry, the upright and honest Ishwar leaves a shanty town on the outskirts of Calcutta where he lives with a group of refugees from East Bengal. With plans to forge a solid living for himself, sister Sita and Abhiram, an orphaned boy he offers a home to, Ishwar is accused of selling out and deserting his people.

When Bijoy comes to Calcutta for higher studies, he meets Roopa and instantly falls in love with her. However, he is unaware that she is his friend Rana's sister.

Hunted by his Dad, Cameron and his Mom move into an isolated farmhouse where Cameron sees and hears things that aren't possible. He begins to question everything and must uncover the secrets before they tear him apart.

The full soundtrack to Marguerite Duras' 1975 film India Song, about a French ambassador's wife in 1930s India, is here repurposed with all new cinematography. As we hear all the dialogue of a bygone movie, we travel visually through images of absence and decay, bereft of life. It's the ghost of a film, and a further commentary on colonialism.

She, Sohini, poet and young journalist, decides to look for her childhood love, Sagnik. He, everlasting student, gets mixed up with gambling debts. A lovers' hide and seek game in the crowded maze of Calcutta.

Burning with a desire to be a journalist, a young man gets his chance when a publisher -- the father of a friend -- suggests that he write a story on the daily life of the people in his house (several families worth of people). The material turns out to be too incohesive and abundant to work into a pointed, thematic article, and just when he is about to give up, his younger brother asks him a simple question: "How many coal burners are there in Calcutta?" This triggers an idea for a story about Calcutta's pollution -- and the aspiring journalist dreams of myriads of burner-toting citizens invading the publisher's home demanding redress. Maybe he is finally on the way to a story that matters.

Carrying his son on his back, a man travels from place to place looking for a doctor to treat the sick boy. As they journey, the indio father tells the boy stories to keep him distracted. These stories reveal the life of native peoples in Mexico, both in the countryside and in cities, and they shed light on characteristic beliefs and rituals.

An affair that begins one rainy evening on a lonely Calcutta street. And ends on yet another rainy evening in the Andaman Islands. A journey dotted by love, jealousy and destiny, it is loosely inspired by the works of William Shakespeare.

Drawing inspiration from the romantic classics of yesteryear, Simanaheen is the tale of an eternal search for love told through two relationships in two different eras.

Rahmat, a middle-aged Afghan man, whose heart overflows with fatherly love for a little girl Mini, in the bustling city of Calcutta set in the year of 1965.