Best movies like Once Upon a Time in Rio

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Once Upon a Time in Rio Starring Thiago Martins, Vitória Frate, Cyria Coentro, Rocco Pitanga, and more. If you liked Once Upon a Time in Rio then you may also like: The Wee Man, Wuthering Heights, Wuthering Heights, Wuthering Heights, Adrift and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

Situated just above the awe-inspiring Ipanema beach in Rio is the Cantagalo slum. Every day, floods of Cantagalo residents make their way down the mountain, only to disappear into their surroundings as part of the invisible working-class that cleans apartments, works in restaurants, and sells food along the scenic, sun-drenched shores. Young Dé (Thiago Martins) is just such a man. Dé lives with his mother Bernadette (Cyria Coentro) in a cramped Cantagalo apartment, selling hot dogs on the beach in order to make the rent. His brother Beto was killed when Dé was just a young boy, and his adopted brother Carlão (Rocco Pitanga) has been jailed for a robbery that he didn't commit. One day, while working on the beach, Dé meets Nina (Vitória Frate). Nina is the only child of a successful lawyer named Evandro (Paulo César Grande), who's none to happy to discover that his daughter is dating a member of the lower class. How...

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The Wee Man

The true life story of the rise to power of Glasgow gangster Paul Ferris.

Wuthering Heights

The Earnshaws are Yorkshire farmers during the early 19th Century. One day, Mr. Earnshaw returns from a trip to the city, bringing with him a ragged little boy called Heathcliff. Earnshaw's son, Hindley, resents the child, but Heathcliff becomes companion and soulmate to Hindley's sister, Catherine. After her parents die, Cathy and Heathcliff grow up wild and free on the Moors and despite the continued enmity between Hindley and Heathcliff they're happy-- until Cathy meets Edgar Linton, the son of a wealthy neighbor. Written by Marg Baskin

Wuthering Heights

Yorkshire moorlands, northern England, in the late 18th century. Young Heathcliff, rescued from the streets of Liverpool by Mr. Earnshaw, the owner of Wuthering Heights, an isolated farm, develops over the years an insane passion for Cathy, his foster sister, a sick obsession destined to end tragically.

Adrift

A 1980s-set drama about a teenage girl undergoing her sexual awakening when she learns about her father's infidelities.

The Battle of the Villa Fiorita

Two British children travel to Italy in an attempt to break up their runaway mother's affair with an Italian concert pianist.

The Best Intentions

In this film about Ingmar Bergman's parents, Henrik Bergman is studying for the priesthood and trying to make ends meet when he encounters the lovely, affluent Anna. Despite their social differences, Henrik and Anna fall in love, wed and move to the country. They lead a quiet life as Henrik works as a priest, but it isn't long before the simple people and plain surroundings make Anna long for a more lavish lifestyle, which causes marital stress.

6.2 / 10 2003 Drama Romance
suggested by: sunnysideup

Tempted

The strain of juggling her responsibilities as wife, mother, and successful paralegal have worn Emma Burke out. Thus it is that Emma welcomes the opportunity to briefly take leave of her Boston home and head for sunny Hawaii. It is not, however, a pleasure trip: Having promised to honor the dying wishes of her Hawaiian-born surrogate mother. Leaving her husband, Mike, behind to care for their two children, Emma arrives in Hawaii for the first time since childhood, where she is reunited with her childhood friend Kala, the handsome son of her late surrogate parent.

4.7 / 10 2014 Romance Drama
suggested by: SonicSalamander

The Maid

An emotionally troubled teenager gets into a passionate relationship with the older French woman working in his father's house.

City of God

In the slums of Rio, two kids' paths diverge as one struggles to become a photographer and the other a kingpin.

Romeo & Juliet

In Verona, bad blood between the Montague and Capulet families leads to much bitterness. Despite the hostility, Romeo Montague manages an invitation to a masked ball at the estate of the Capulets and meets Juliet, their daughter. The two are instantly smitten but dismayed to learn that their families are enemies. Romeo and Juliet figure out a way to pursue their romance, but Romeo is banished for his part in the slaying of Juliet's cousin, Tybalt.

Daddy's Little Girls

Monty is a mechanic struggling to make ends meet as he raises his three young daughters. When the court awards custody of his daughters to his shady ex-wife, Monty desperately tries to win them back with the help of Julia, a beautiful, Ivy League-educated attorney. Monty and Julia couldn't be less alike, but a flame is ignited...touching off a firestorm of love and conflict.

Good Deeds

Businessman Wesley Deeds is jolted out of his scripted life when he meets Lindsey, a single mother who works on the cleaning crew in his office building.

Casa Grande

As a privileged teenager living in an affluent suburb of Rio de Janeiro, Jean has little to worry about beyond games, grades and girls. But as his overbearing father drags the family into debt, Jean is forced into a change of lifestyle which opens his eyes to the world beyond his 'casa grande' - not least that of the feisty, mixed-race firecracker Luiza. Cultures, classes and generations collide in this engrossing coming-of-age drama from Brazil.

Square Dance

An awkward 13-year-old leaves her cranky grandfather in rural Texas, to live with her mother in Fort Worth.

Steel Magnolias

In an updated contemporary version of the beloved stage play and 1989 film, "Steel Magnolias" chronicles the lives and friendship of six women in Louisiana. Supporting each other through their triumphs and tragedies, they congregate at Truvy’s beauty shop to ponder the mysteries of life and death, husbands and children - and hair and nails - all the important topics that truly unite and celebrate women.

Explicit Ills

The film follows four inter-connecting stories revolving around love, drugs and poverty in Philadelphia

6.2 / 10 2009 Drama Romance
suggested by: user393kra7eixh

Don't Let Me Drown

In a post-September 11th world overflowing with fear and hate, two Latino teens discover that sometimes the only thing that can keep them from drowning is love.

True Love

On the surface, Kate and Jack, late 20's, are happy. But like everyone, they carry secrets that neither of them is prepared to reveal. After their wedding, they wake from a deep, dark sleep, each alone in a sealed room with no doors or windows, just a projection screen and a monitor with two buttons: one for “yes”, one for “no”. As the horror of their situation unfolds, surveillance films showing their life together, appear on the screen as the monitor asks questions, each more strange and terrifying that the last. It soon becomes apparent that a bizarre test of their relationship is underway, and the secrets revealed lead them deeper and deeper into what could not just destroy their love, but threaten their very lives…

Two for the Seesaw

Jerry Ryan wanders aimlessly around New York after giving up his Nebraskan law practice. His wife asks for a divorce. He meets Gittel, a struggling dancer from Greenwich Village and they try to sort out their lives. An extended conversation piece with a static camera, but reflects the moral climate of the time.

The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond

Tells the story of Fisher Willow, the disliked 1920s Memphis débutante daughter of a plantation owner with a distaste for narrow-minded people and a penchant for shocking and insulting those around her. After returning from studies overseas, Fisher falls in love with Jimmy, the down-and-out son of an alcoholic father and an insane mother who works at a store on her family's plantation.

Talk of Angels

This is the story of a young Irish woman who comes to Spain to escape from the pressures she feels about her impending marriage to a political activist in Ireland. But in Spain in the 1930's, taking a job of governess in a wealthy family, she finds the same kinds of political unrest. In fact, it isn't long before she finds herself attracted to a married man who is similarly involved in the struggle against fascism and Franco. This awakens her to her nature that brings her to such men and resolves for her what she must do about the life she left in Ireland

Meet My Valentine

When Tom learns that he has terminal brain cancer, he decides to find a replacement husband for his wife and a father to his daughter, before it is too late. Unbeknownst to his wife Valentine, Tom sets up an on-line dating profile for her, and realizes that he doesn't know much about her anymore. Tom endeavors to get to know Valentine, and learns why he fell in love with her all those years ago... just in time to say goodbye.

The Playboys

A young woman, Tara Maguire (Robin Wright) scandalizes her provincial Irish village in the 1950s by having a baby out of a wedlock, and refusing to name the father. She has a rare beauty and every man in town desires her, especially Sergeant Hegarty (Albert Finney). The arrival of a dramatic troupe stirs things up even more, especially when she falls in love with one f the "Playboys", Tom Casey (Aidan Quinn).

Tropical Snow

New York is the dream city of Tavo and Marina, where the lovers hope to start a better life; at home in Bogota they have to work as pocket pickers at the airport to support their families. Dealer Oskar can persuade them to smuggle drugs in their stomachs on plane to New York - although both know of the risks, since Marina's sister died on a similar journey. However on arrival at the airport in New York they show nerves and all their dreams start to shatter.

A Cooler Climate

Iris is broke after her divorce and takes a job working as a housekeeper for a wealthy woman named Paula. When Paula and her husband separate, an unlikely friendship blossoms between the women.

A Mother's Courage: The Mary Thomas Story

The story of Mary Thomas, the mother of basketball star Isiah Thomas, and how she fought to keep her family together and her sons out of trouble despite the surroundings of poverty, drugs, crime and violence of their ghetto neighborhood.

Ballast

A single mother and her embattled son struggle to subsist in a small Mississippi Delta township. An act of violence thrusts them into the world of an emotionally devastated highway store owner, awakening the fury of a bitter and longstanding conflict.

Oliver's Story

Oliver Barrett IV is emotionally devastated by the death of his wife Jenny, and, while he tries to lose himself in his work as a lawyer, the long hours don't ease his pain, especially when he finds that his leftist views conflict with those of the senior partners at the firm. Eventually, Oliver's inconsolable grief begins to alienate those around him, until he finds new love with Marcie Bonwit, the wealthy and beautiful heiress to the Bonwit Teller fortune. Despite his affection for her, Oliver finds it difficult to leave the memory of Jenny behind, which causes major problems in their relationship.

The Fifteen Streets

In northern England around 1900, the worker John O'Brien lives near poverty in a small house in the worker's district. He falls in love with Mary, the teacher of his highly intelligent younger sister Kathy and daughter of a rich family. Their love is doomed by the social difference, but the vigorous Mary refuses to allow outer circumstances destroying their love.

Mango Yellow

In a poor neighborhood in Recife, the lives of exotic and bizarre characters entwine in a bar and in a very low-budget hotel. The queer Dunga works in the hotel and has a crush on the butcher Wellington that is married with the religious Kika and has an affair with his mistress Dayse. The sick necrophiliac Isaac owns a yellow Mercedes Benz and wants to have sex with Lígia that owns of Bar Avenida.

The Affair

A crippled lady songwriter meets an older lawyer who becomes her first love.

Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas

A woman discovers the truth about her former lover from the diary that his first wife wrote to their son, Nicholas.

Zelly and Me

A young orphan who lives with her grandmother in a large Virginian home infatuates herself with the voices of Joan d'Arc. Her French nanny seeks out the help of a rich suitor to take her and the orphan away when she realizes that the grandmother cannot offer the orphan the love that she needs.

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