Best movies like Sweet Smell of Spring
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Sweet Smell of Spring Starring Zied Ayadi, Sara Hanachi, Zied Touati, Fatima Ben Saïdane, and more. If you liked Sweet Smell of Spring then you may also like: Year of the Gun, The Nile Hilton Incident, As I Open My Eyes, Barefoot in the Park, High-Rise 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.
In 2011 Tunisia, as the Arab Spring awakens, unemployed graduate Aziz, nicknamed Zizou (Zied Ayadi), travels from his Saharan village to the big city of Tunis in search of a job. From television aerial installation to political intrigue, this fresh-faced young Candide will learn the ways of the world, fall in love with the ravishing Aicha (Sara Hanachi), and become famous.--Eddie Cockrell, FilmFest DC
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The Nile Hilton Incident
Cairo, 2011. A police officer investigates the murder of a woman in a luxurious hotel in the days leading up to the Egyptian revolution.
As I Open My Eyes
Tunis, summer 2010, a few months before the Revolution: Farah, 18 years old, has just graduated and her family already sees her as a future doctor. But she doesn't have the same idea. She sings in a political rock band, has a passion for life, gets drunk, discovers love and her city by night against the wishes of her mother Hayet, who knows Tunisia and its dangers all too well.
Barefoot in the Park
In this film based on a Neil Simon play, newlyweds Corie, a free spirit, and Paul Bratter, an uptight lawyer, share a sixth-floor apartment in Greenwich Village. Soon after their marriage, Corie tries to find a companion for mother, Ethel, who is now alone, and sets up Ethel with neighbor Victor. Inappropriate behavior on a double date causes conflict, and the young couple considers divorce.
The Dove's Lost Necklace
This second feature in Nacer Khemir's Desert Trilogy is a visually ravishing folktale reminiscent of "The Thousand and One Nights." The story revolves around Hassan, who is studying Arabic calligraphy from a grand master. Coming across a fragment of manuscript, Hassan goes in search of the missing pieces, believing that once he finds them, he will learn the secrets of love. With the help of Zin, a lovers’ go-between, he meets the beautiful Aziz, Princess of Samarkand. After encountering wars, a battle between false prophets and an ancient curse, he learns that an entire lifetime would not suffice for him to learn the many dimensions of love.
Even the Rain
As a director and his crew shoot a controversial film about Christopher Columbus in Cochabamba, Bolivia, local people rise up against plans to privatize the water supply.
F@ck This Job
In 2008, Natasha, a newly rich woman, decides to open an independent TV station in Russia and builds an open-minded team of outcasts. By 2020, Natasha has lost everything to Russia's war between Propaganda and Truth.
Halfaouine: Boy of the Terraces
Twelve-year-old Noura dangles uncertainly in that difficult netherworld between childhood and adulthood. His growing libido has gotten him banned from the women's baths, where his mother took him when he was younger, but he's not yet old enough to participate in grown-up discussions with the men of his Tunisian village. Noura's only real friend is a troublemaker named Salih -- the village political outcast.
The Trial of the Chicago 7
What was supposed to be a peaceful protest turned into a violent clash with the police. What followed was one of the most notorious trials in history.
The Year That Trembled
The Year That Trembled is a coming-of-age story set in 1970 in the shadow of Kent State that focuses on a group of young people facing the Vietnam Draft Lottery.
Medium Cool
John Cassellis is the toughest TV news reporter around. After extensively reporting about violence and racial tensions in poor communities, he discovers that his network is helping the FBI by granting them access to his footage to find suspects.
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
Based on Michael Chabon's novel, the film chronicles the defining summer of a recent college graduate who crosses his gangster father and explores love, sexuality, and the enigmas surrounding his life and his city.
The Source
A comedy/drama set in a village and centered on a battle of the sexes, where women threaten to withhold sexual favours as long as the men refuse to install a water pipe.
The Square
The Square looks at the hard realities faced day-to-day by people working to build Egypt’s new democracy. Cairo’s Tahrir Square is the heart and soul of the film, which follows several young activists. Armed with values, determination, music, humor, an abundance of social media, and sheer obstinacy, they know that the thorny path to democracy only began with Hosni Mubarak’s fall. The life-and-death struggle between the people and the power of the state is still playing out.
Strip Search
Strip Search follows several parallel stories examining personal freedoms vs. national security in the aftermath of 9/11; two main subplots involve an American woman detained in China and an Arab man detained in New York City.
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
A lost cat, a giant talkative frog and a tsunami help a bank employee without ambition, his frustrated wife and a schizophrenic accountant to save Tokyo from an earthquake and find a meaning to their lives.
Anarchy TV
A group of anarchists use their public-access TV show to satirize the government until a right-wing preacher attempts to shut them down.
The Season of Men
An 18 year old on the island Djerba, Aicha, is married to Said, who works in Tunis for much of the year. Aicha breaks with tradition and decides to join Said in Tunis, weaving rugs to make money. Said asks that she give him a son, so Aicha lives under the rule of her mother-in-law.
The String
Malik has a lot on his plate when he returns home to Tunisia after living in France. He's processing his father's death, he can't come out to his mother, and his childhood anxieties have resurfaced. But all of Malik's problems seem to fade away when he falls for Bilal, the dreamy houseboy at his mother's bourgeois estate.
Land of the Free
A politician's campaign manager (Speakman) discovers that the candidate (Shatner) is a front for a military organization plotting a political overthrow of the government. In trying to expose the candidate's right-wing activities, he puts himself and his family in danger of being killed.
Goha
As far as can be determined, Goha was Tunisia's first entry in the Cannes Film Festival. Omar Sharif stars as a naïve young man who is taken for granted by friends and family. Little do they know that he has more intelligence, tenacity and imagination than all of them put together. The story takes an unexpectedly dramatic turn when the man falls in love with the young wife of his village's elderly "wise man". Based on an ancient Tunisian folk tale, Goha boasts impressive production values and sure-handed direction (by Jacques Baratier).
The Grad Job
Teenagers, in their last year of High School, steel the subjects of the Baccalaureate from the education exam division in order to succeed at the exam.
Free the Nipple
An army of passionate women launch a revolution to "Free the Nipple" and decriminalize the female body. Based on a true story, this mass movement of topless women, armed with First Amendment lawyers, graffiti installations and national publicity stunts, invade New York City to protest the backwards censorship laws in the USA.
Half Moon Street
Dr. Lauren Slaughter, a research fellow at the Arab-Anglo Institute in London is utterly frustrated by her job. To supplement her income, she starts moonlighting at the Jasmine Escort Service, where she has more control over men and money than she does at the office. On one of her 'dates', Lauren meets the politician Lord Bulbeck who is trying to mediate a peace accord between the Arabs and Israelis. Bulbeck falls in love with his escort, and unwittingly, Lauren becomes a pawn in some very dirty politics.
The Three Deaths of Marisela Escobedo
After the death of her daughter at the hand of her boyfriend, Marisela Escobedo began to fight for justice not only against the murderer but also against the corrupt Mexican judicial system.
True Love Blooms
Spring is in full bloom when urban gardener Vicki fights to save her community garden from a handsome real estate developer. Both are caught off guard when it's not just the flowers that are blooming, but also love.
Arab Blues
Selma, a psychoanalyst, deals with a cast of colorful new patients after returning home to Tunisia to open a practice.
A Tale of Love and Desire
Ahmed, 18, is French of Algerian origin. He grew up in the Parisian suburbs. On the benches of the university, he meets Farah, a young Tunisian full of energy recently arrived from Tunis. While discovering a body of sensual and erotic Arabic literature that he never knew existed, Ahmed falls deeply in love with this girl, and although literally overwhelmed by desire, he will try to resist it.
Two Tickets to Broadway
A young woman (Janet Leigh) leaves her small hometown in Vermont and travels to New York City with hopes of becoming a Broadway star.
Tickling Giants
The Arab Spring in Egypt: From a dictator to free elections, back to a dictatorship. One comedy show united the country and tested the limits of free press. This is the story of Bassem Youssef, a cardiologist turned comedian, the Jon Stewart of Egypt, and his show "The Show".
Year of the Gun
In this thriller, American novelist David Raybourne (Andrew McCarthy) accidentally becomes entangled in the Red Brigade's terrorist plan to kidnap Italian Premier Aldo Moro during a research trip to Rome. As the terrorists attempt to kill David, he and his photojournalist friend (Sharon Stone) must struggle to stay alive.