Best movies like Paper Lives

A mentally unhinged factory worker must decide whether to listen to his talking cat and become a killer, or follow his dog's advice to keep striving for normalcy.

A retelling of the biblical book of Hosea set against the backdrop of the California Gold Rush of 1850.

A profile of Istanbul and its unique people, seen through the eyes of the most mysterious and beloved animal humans have ever known, the Cat.

British documentarian Nick Broomfield creates a follow-up piece to his 1992 documentary of the serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a highway prostitute who was convicted of killing six men in Florida between 1989 and 1990. Interviewing an increasingly mentally unstable Wuornos, Broomfield captures the distorted mind of a murderer whom the state of Florida deems of sound mind -- and therefore fit to execute. Throughout the film, Broomfield includes footage of his testimony at Wuornos' trial.

The teenager Madison McBride is traumatized by the loss of her deranged father when she was nine years old and the suicide of her beloved brother Brandon one year ago. She decides to join the Richard Miller University, where Brandon committed suicide, to overcome her demons. While walking to her dorm, she meets the weird janitor Wilbur Mackey that tells her that the place is haunted.

The story of a dangerous little girl who is reunited with her natural mother after living with her controlling grandparents in a rural farmhouse in seclusion.

Encouraged by her lover, Danielle kills her husband and goes on the lam with her infant daughter Cali. But the cops catch her and, en route to prison, she agrees to give custody of Cali to her arch rival, her sister Nikki. But on release from prison, Danielle will stop at nothing to get Cali back from Nikki's safe and healthy home.

A woman's past comes back to haunt her when the pimp she helped put behind bars is released and after revenge.

Based on a true story. Liz Murray is a young girl who is taken care of by her loving, but drug-addicted parents. Liz becomes homeless at 15 and after a tragedy comes upon her, she begins her work to finish high school.

Inspired by actual events, about a young girl and her mother, Laren Sims, a con-artist and master of disguises who steals the identities of other women and then turns to murder to protect her secrets.

Shay is a young African-American college student whom is forced to take a year off from school to return to her hometown where she struggles with her anger and insecurity when she's forced to confront her alcoholic mother, Nona, whom is currently in AA and a churchgoer, over her entire childhood of abuse and neglect which Shay is both unwilling and unable to let go of.

After destroying his older brother's motorbike in retaliation for his constant bullying, 11-year-old Krishna is sent to a traveling circus to earn money to pay for the bike's repairs, but soon winds up in the streets of Bombay's poorest slums. There, he befriends the drug dealer Chillum and young prostitute Sola Saal, while trying to make enough money at a neighborhood tea stall to repay his debt to his family.

After running away from her abusive mother, a streetwise teen seeks refuge with her father, but he rejects her when he learns that she's pregnant.

Two teenagers, both newcomers to London, forge an unlikely friendship over the course of a hot summer. Tomo (Thomas Turgoose) is a runaway from Nottingham; Marek (Piotr Jagiello) lives in the district of Somers Town, between King's Cross and Euston stations, where his dad is working on a new rail link.

An aimless adolescent joins several itinerant misfits who live on the fringe of society and welcome at-risk youths into their fold.

Francesco and Marta run a husband-and-wife design company in Rome. When Francesco's aunt dies in Instanbul he travels there to sort out the hamam turkish steam bath that she left him. He finds a love and warmth in his realtives' Instanbul home that is missing from his life in Italy.

In seaside Italy, a Holocaust survivor with a daycare business takes in a 12-year-old street kid who recently robbed her.

When an aging matriarch starts showing signs of dementia, her dysfunctional family in Istanbul must navigate a minefield of unresolved issues to care for her.

This documentary about teenagers living on the streets in Seattle began as a magazine article. The film follows nine teenagers who discuss how they live by panhandling, prostitution, and petty theft.

When motocross and heavy metal obsessed, 13-year-old Jacob's delinquent behavior forces CPS to place his little brother Wes with his aunt, Jacob and his emotionally absent father must finally take responsibility for their actions and each other in order to bring Wes home.

This is a movie within a movie, about a director, Muzaffer, who goes back to his hometown to make a film using a cast of local people (based on the director Ceylan's first feature, Kasaba). While Muzaffer is around, his mother complains about simple health problems, his father is in a legal fight against the government for his land, his cousin leaves his job to help Muzaffer who promises to find him work in Istanbul, and his little cousin Ali tries to carry an egg in his pocket for forty days so that he'll get the watch of his dreams. In the meantime, they form the cast for Muzaffer's movie as well.

When a New York lawyer returns to his Boston hometown to reunite his dying friend with his young son, he is forced to finally confront a childhood trauma.

Decorated army veteran Jason Hill is on a routine visit to the local VA hospital when organized terrorists infiltrate the building and take hostages, including a decorated general, and Hill’s wife. The highly trained veteran is outnumbered and the last line of defense, taking on a building full of armed insurgents before it’s too late.

Inspired by a true story, “Beyond the Blackboard” is about a 24-year-old first-time teacher who makes a difference in the lives of the homeless children she teaches in a shelter’s makeshift classroom. Set in 1987 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, this movie tells the story a brand-new teacher and Mom who is given a tougher than expected teaching job and winds up teaching homeless children in a school that is housed in a room and called, literally, The School with No Name. She has some personal prejudicial hurdles to cross before she is able to be a true teacher for these children and of course there are hurdles like the lack of books and supplies.

A college professor is pursued by a stalker two years after her actions led to a young woman's death.

Bringing Up Bobby is the story of a European con-artist and her son Bobby, who find themselves in Oklahoma in an effort to escape her past and build a better future. Olive and Bobby blithely charm their way from one adventure to another until Olive's criminal past catches up with her. Consequently, she must make a choice: continue with a life of crime or leave the person she loves most in an effort to give Bobby a proper chance in life.

Mica is born smelling of fish that soap and doctors can't remove. Problems increase starting school as no one'll be his friend. He sees a therapist. His life seems doomed until he meets Laura.

EKAJ is a love story between two drifters, a naive teenager and a hustler. Ekaj meets Mecca who takes him under his care. Mecca has AIDS and multiple problems of his own. He is high all day but still manages to be the only voice of reason in Ekaj’s hopeless world. They cruise the city together looking for money and places to stay. Although Ekaj makes some money as a prostitute, he finds himself discarded, and lacking what it takes to survive in the city. Their mutual loneliness leads to genuine friendship.

Upon turning eight-teen, Salih leaves the orphanage to find his lost family and begins working in a Serbian farm. Suddenly, at the most unexpected moment he has found a home. Will he ever be able to let go of the ghosts of his past and be happy in this new life? As tension escalates disquieting secrets surface. A gripping tale of family, love and identity, My Mother's Wound follows Salih as he searches for a trail of hope amongst war-torn lives.

A teenage girl, Jessica, befriends a teenage boy called Tom, who is bullied by a local gang. She is abused by Jack, who is both her neighbour and school teacher, and Tom is sexually abused by his father. Together they bond in the woods, creating a private reality that no-one else can enter.

Doug and Robbie are about to set sail on a long trip when they unexpectedly find themselves foster parenting a group of troubled teenage boys. The experience changes their lives for the better, and they decide to stay in town and run the foster home for boys permanently.

Umay is a young woman of Turkish descent, fighting for an independent and self-determined life in Germany against the resistance of her family. Her struggle initiates a dynamic, which results in a life-threatening situation.

Adrift in the lush, nocturnal urban landscape of THE GRAFFITI ARTIST, Nick (Ruben Bansie-Snellman) is a post-modern urban hero asserting his anarchistic agenda on the endless maze of virgin exterior walls that comprise downtown Seattle and Portland. For this iconoclastic young visionary, the vast wall surfaces of deserted alleys and train yards are at once a daunting symbol of capitalist oppression and a texturally rich, seamless tableau ripe for exploitation to amplify his artistic dialectic of anger and rebellion.

Euphoria brings together two intersecting road stories about the same person - a little girl called Lily who is taken away from home by her mother Celeste, and a young woman, Michelle, who journeys home to unravel the truth about her mysterious past.

Children Underground follows the story of five street children, aged eight to sixteen who live in a subway station in Bucharest, Romania. The street kids are encountered daily by commuting adults, who pass them by in the station as they starve, swindle, and steal, all while searching desperately for a fresh can of paint to get high with.