Best movies like Paper Birds

April, 1940. Manolo, 16 years old, and Jesus, who is just 8, are taken by their older brother Pepe, a lieutenant in the Army, to a sanatorium for children suffering from tuberculosis, situated on the border with Portugal. Once in the sanatorium, Manolo, surrounded by boys all much younger than he is, feels a bit like the cock of the walk since the only other man around is the handyman Emilio who looks after the gardens and does whatever needs to be done about the place. His wife, Rafaela, is the cook. Manolo meets Irene, a falangist who runs the sanatorium, and the school teacher, Miss Transito, a crabby spinster. He has his first sexual experience, albeit as a voyeur, with his nurse Vicenta. When she has to leave, her place is taken by a girl from the village, Maria Jesus, with whom Manolo falls hopelessly in love. A relationship grows up between them which will mark them both for ever.

Axl wants to find his long-lost father and rediscover his past. Vera just wants to forget hers as she tries to move on from heartbreak. Their stories come together in the melting-pot of 21st century London.

During the summer of 1955, seventeen-year-old Eric Hansen embarks on a journey in his new town, a journey which will change his life forever.

One day in Europe shows stories set in four European countries. All of them involve thievery in some way or the other. The protagonists are strangers in the respective country. For none of them their stay turns out as planned.

A retired entertainer makes his living as a street musician on the streets of London. Two young children befriend the old musician, brightening his otherwise colorless life

In the harsh post-war years' Catalan countryside, Andreu, a child that belongs to the losing side, finds the corpses of a man and his son in the forest. The authorities want his father to be made responsible of the deaths, but Andreu tries to help his father by finding out who truly killed them. In this search, Andreu develops a moral consciousness against a world of adults fed by lies. In order to survive, he betrays his own roots and ends up finding out the monster that lives within him.

The film centres on Moncho and his coming-of-age experience in Galicia in 1936. Moncho develops a close relationship with his teacher Don Gregorio who introduces the boy to different things in the world. While the story centres on Moncho's ordinary coming-of-age experiences, tensions related to the looming Spanish Civil War periodically interrupt Moncho's personal growth and daily life.

Lem Siddons is part of a traveling band who has a dream of becoming a lawyer. Deciding to settle down, he finds a job as a stockboy in the general store of a small town. Trying to fit in, he volunteers to become scoutmaster of the newly formed Troop 1. Becoming more and more involved with the scout troop, he finds his plans to become a lawyer being put on the back burner, until he realizes that his life has been fulfilled helping the youth of the small town.

A young teenage rapper must use his musical talent to help his friend out and win the girl of his dreams by going through several events of betrayal, trust and agreement while his religious parents have strictly dislike his interests.

At the age of 13, Rafael Bregman has already lost his virginity, but has never kissed a girl. With his pimple-riddled face, his dysfunctional family, and a lowered self-esteem, getting this much anticipated first kiss proves trickier than expected. It's now time for Rafa to build up some self confidence and attract the attention of his class mate, Nicole...

Spain, 1939. In the last days of the Spanish Civil War, the young Carlos arrives at the Santa Lucía orphanage, where he will make friends and enemies as he follows the quiet footsteps of a mysterious presence eager for revenge.

Havoc is created in a small Southern community when a 12-year-old shows up, causing a couple 13-year-old friends to fall in love with her, thus possibly jeopardizing their friendship.

In the Pacific Northwest during the 1950s, two young sisters whose mother has abandoned them wind up living with their Aunt Sylvie, whose views of the world and its conventions don't quite live up to most people's expectations.

A girl in the 1970s dreams of becoming a ballerina while struggling with the divorce of her kooky parents.

The story of a unique young boy genius, Bruno, whose expression of his own individuality leads his family and community along an emotional journey.

In the 1980s a group of foreign-born Korean teenagers who meet at a Seoul summer camp to learn what it means to be Korean. The three boys, from the U.S., Mexico, and Germany, then meet three girls who rock their world.

Lovelife is a 1997 romantic comedy film written and directed by Jon Harmon Feldman. The ensemble cast includes Matt Letscher, Sherilyn Fenn, Saffron Burrows, Carla Gugino, Bruce Davison, Jon Tenney and Peter Krause. Lovelife was nominated for a Feature Film Award at the 1997 Austin Film Festival, and won an Audience Award at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival. The film was winner of the screenplay award at the L.A. Indie fest.

This is the story of Spalding Gray and his attempt to write a novel. It is a first person account about writing and living, and dealing with success while trying to be successful.

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.

Salamanca, Spain, 1936. In the early days of the military rebellion that began the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), writer Miguel de Unamuno supports the uprising in the hope that the prevailing political chaos will end. But when the confrontation becomes bloody, Unamuno must question his initial position.

Spain, 1938, during the Spanish Civil War. Carol, a 12-year-old Spanish-American girl, arrives in her mother's hometown and transforms the secretive family environment. Her innocence and rebellious nature drive her at first to reject a world that is at once foreign and completely new.

A Spanish writer finds an old coffer with photographs of an Argentine man who fought and died in the Spanish Civil War, and of a woman. Her quest for answers brings Vera to the Argentine Patagonia.

A New Jersey teen faces her impending adulthood, dreaming of a life as a successful New York artist. But when she gets caught up in the carefree sport of pre-AIDS sex and drugs, her future becomes less certain.

A group of old actors and filmmakers tries to resist the efforts of a young couple to kick them out of their mansion.

A company of Spanish movie makers leaves Franco's Spain and moves to Hitler's Germany to make a film in co-production. Soon some problems start to arise...

A teenage girls life gets turned upside down when a new school friend turns out to be a popstar.

Three life-long friends work the bars in 1980s Atlantic City performing the songs of the 1960s girl groups.

When a young rock group called The Mystery gets its first gig at a club, it's an opportunity to see what life is all about. Fresh out of high school, the rockers are hired by an exclusive beach resort thanks to a faded '60s songwriter. There, they meet with romance and adventure. But street-smart lead singer Jennie Lee faces a dilemma: pursue her budding career or finish high school.

In 1985 a summer vacation in Ocean City, Md., changes the life of a shy white teen who's obsessed with table tennis and hip-hop music.

After Elizabeth's husband dies, she begins to play her tenor saxophone again, and remembers when she was 15 and a member of the Blonde Bombshells, an all-girl (with one exception) swing band. Accompanied by the exception and urged on by her grand-daughter, Elizabeth hunts up all the old members of the band and urges them to perform, and in doing so, learns more than she knew about the band, its members, the roses on the drum set, and herself--the last of the Blonde Bombshells.

A celebrated actress discovers six runaway children living on her country property.

In 1960, Martín and Marcos are forced by their difficult personal circumstances to travel to Switzerland in search of work, leaving their families in the Madrid of Franco's Spain. But they undertake more than a simple journey; they begin the road to a new life.

A group of friends and family reunite at the fancy new holiday home of a woman who is about to turn 40.

Thirteen-year-old Ramon is on the verge of many adolescent discoveries -- and the confusion that goes along with them. Shy and awkward, he's moved from town to town throughout his childhood and believes that life is about winning and losing. But he soon learns it's all about survival. Like Ramon, Spain is in transition (President Francisco Franco is about to die); it's a time of social upheaval marked by change, illusion and struggle.

A fourteen year old lad discovers his first love at the point of his pencil whilst drawing the portrait of a sickly but coquettish fifteen year old girl. In the neighbourhood an old freedom-fighter pits himself against bad types, a pretty cinema-ticket girl takes to the streets at night and a young anarchist dedicates himself to telling tall stories. Far away, in Shanghai, a hero of the Republic meets a beautiful femme fatal with oriental eyes. Reality and fiction become fused in an embrace.