Best movies like The Good Life

Happily married with a daughter, Marc is a successful real estate agent in Aix-en-Provence. One day, he has an appointment with a woman to view a traditional country house. A few hours later, Marc finally puts a name to her face. It's Cathy, the girl he was in love with growing up in Oran, Algeria, in the last days of the French colonial regime. Marc hurries to her hotel. They spend the night together. Then she's gone again. And Marc's mother tells him Cathy never left Algeria. She was killed with her father in a bombing just before independence...

After losing their family home in Algeria in the 1920s, three brothers and their mother are scattered across the globe. Messaoud joins the French army fighting in Indochina; Abdelkader becomes a leader of the Algerian independence movement in France and Saïd moves to Paris to make his fortune in the shady clubs and boxing halls of Pigalle.

A former All-American football star, now working as a steel mill supervisor in New Jersey, falls in love with the mill owner's wealthy, very spoiled daughter.

Once upon a time in 2012, three brothers lived happily. One day their mom fell into a coma. So Henri, Philippe, and Louis suddenly started wondering about the meaning of their lives and were swamped by a wave of existential doubts. An entirely new situation for this bourgeois trio in their forties, one which opened a door to the novel and indeed the forbidden... and to the big bad wolf!

After witnessing a brutal crime, things are finally starting to look up for 17 year old high school dropout Chelsea. She's fallen madly in love with Jeff, an older and accomplished man who is promising to give her the life she can only dream of; there's only one hitch...he's still married! To make matters worse, Chelsea finds out she is pregnant and Jeff wants nothing to do with the baby.

In World War II France, American soldier Michael Blake captures, then loses Nazi-collaborator art thief Paul Rona, who leaves behind a gem studded gauntlet (a stolen religious relic). Years later, financial reverses lead Mike to return in search of the object. In Paris, he must dodge mysterious followers and a corpse that's hard to explain; so he and attractive tour guide Christine decamp on a cross-country pursuit that becomes love on the run...then takes yet another turn.

Milo Terkel's life is never the same after he is willed a dog named Joe. Milo buys his wife a diamond necklace for their anniversary, but when he returns home he finds a note saying she is attending a charity affair. He decides to celebrate alone, taking Joe along for company. After two "mystery gardenias" at the Florida Club, he meets gorgeous Miss Gilmore who spots the necklace and asks to try it on. Milo is punched in the nose by Miss Gilmore's boyfriend, Louie. But Milo's troubles really begin when his dog starts to talk to him, and ONLY to him! He tells Milo to act tough, like Humphrey Bogart. It's a laugh-a-minute as Milo changes from lamb to lion and is innocently caught by his wife with the shapely Miss Gilmore. When his wife sues for divorce he tells the judge about Joe being his advisor. The judge can only suggest that Milo and his wife take a long vacation to work out their problems. Everyone knows a dog simply can't talk!

A young British girl journeys to Paris to go to college, and is determined to find the man of her dreams and fall madly in love. However, things don't work out quite the way she planned.

Reporter Charles Wills, in Paris to cover the end of World War II, falls for the beautiful Helen Ellswirth following a brief flirtation with her sister, Marion. After he and Helen marry, Charles pursues his novelistic ambition while supporting his new bride with a deadening job at a newspaper wire service. But when an old investment suddenly makes the family wealthy, their marriage begins to unravel — until a sudden tragedy changes everything.

DNA revolves around a woman with close ties to a beloved Algerian grandfather who protected her from a toxic home life as a child. When he dies, it triggers a deep identity crisis as tensions between her extended family members escalate revealing new depths of resentment and bitterness.

The scene is set during the Second Empire. Captain Bitterlin watches jealously over his lovely daughter Madeleine but he cannot prevent nature from demanding its rights and Madeleine soon finds herself a suitor in the person of Mario, a dashing young songwriter. Bitterlin, who wishes his daughter to "evade the grip" of the young man, takes her away to Monte Carlo. There, the captain does what he had sworn he would never do, he gambles in a casino. And even more upsetting: Mario might well be hereabouts...

The story of an immigrant woman struggling against old world traditions. Zouina leaves her homeland with her three children to join her husband in France, where he's been living for the past ten years. In a land and culture foreign to her, Zouina struggles against her mother-in-law's tyrannical hand and her husband's distrustful bitterness in an attempt to adjust to her life in exile.

A former singer, who was drafted and fought in the Algeria war, is demobilized and wants to make a come back, which is not easy when you've been gone for twenty-seven months; meanwhile, his kid brother falls in love with his music teacher and is involved in very bad things .Arrested, he is released thanks to the teacher's evidence who provides him with an alibi before leaving him for good.

This French farce chronicles one special day in the lives of a married pair of Parisian architects, Fabienne and Bruno, as they anxiously await the results of an important architectual contest they have entered. Unable to handle the stress of waiting, both turn to sexual liason's to ease their tension. Bruno ends up enacting a dark sexual fantasy with a stranger while Fabienne eventually succumbs to the advances of Bruno's friend Simon, a fortyish Lebanese businessman and part-time drug dealer. The comedy takes on overtones of psycho-drama when the contest winner announced and the couple discovers the truth of each other's actions. A cache of drugs, discovered in an apartment only adds to their troubles.

The stuffy manager of lovely opera singer Vicki Cassel and her uncle, a classical conductor, is determined to close down the noisy nightclub next door to the Cassels' home. The club's owners--Steve, a handsome ladies' man, and Jeff, his clownish sidekick--hatch a plan to keep the club open. Steve arranges to meet--and woo--Vicki and then invite her and her uncle to the club. When Vicki's snobbish aunt and the manager discover that Vicki now favors popular music over the classics, they arrange to get the club closed. But that doesn't keep Steve and Jeff down. Instead, they decide to put on a Broadway show if they can get a backer. They find their "angel" in Vicki's uncle who agrees to finance the show only if Vicki is the leading lady. But again, Vicki's aunt and manager may be the spoiler in everyone's plans.

Bertrand, an accountant employed by a large London firm, is called to the office of the Managing Director, Dreuther, to explain a mistake in the accounts. Dreuther is highly impressed by the young accountant's skilful explanation of the error and, hearing that Bertrand is soon to marry his spirited young fiancée, tells him to spend the honeymoon not in Bournemouth, but Monte Carlo at the company s expense! However, events in the fabulous Mediterranean paradise do not work out quite as Bertrand had envisaged...

When Hannah Pinkham's fiancé writes he's finally shipping home, her mother makes a fairy tale wedding dress, but while she's fitting it the knock on the door is not him, but the dreaded officer-messenger. Years later she sends it to her nephew, photographer Travis Cleveland, but his model-bride Cass only pretends to like it to get rid of his loyal assistant. After he walks off with it, his car gets stolen with the dress in it... And it keeps passing on from person to person, but will anybody actually get married in it or does it just keep bringing bad luck to couples?

A town mayor ends his life on Devil's Bridge.

Sandrine, a woman in her thirties gets tired of life in Paris and decides to leave her work in computers and become a farmer. She takes the required practice for two years, and after that she buys an isolated farm from Adrien, an old farmer who decides it's time to retire. However, Adrien wants to stay a few more months before moving away from the farm, and the rough winter finds them together...

As a little girl, Melanie Hogan wished to find her own prince charming just like her parents found true love. Now an adult, Melanie is running her own bakery and dating a handsome CEO, Justin. Although things seem perfect when Justin asks Melanie to spend the holidays together at his beautiful lake house upstate—and meet his mother. Melanie finds herself spending more time with Justin’s best friend and loyal assistant, Dean, who just might be harboring a secret crush on her. When complications arise that throw Melanie and Dean together over the holiday, will the two realize they're meant to be?

A sportswriter jilted by his globe-trotting girlfriend marries a woman jilted by her boyfriend.

Life changes for Shawn much more then he ever anticipated! Faced with the hard peer pressures of an ungodly environment, he finds himself experiencing extraordinary times in history, making life just a little worse in ancient times! And if the past doesn't kill him in the process, he'll need it to make for a brighter future, where his greatest challenge awaits.

East is East writer Ayub Khan-Din returns with another funny, tender-hearted portrait of family strife. Based on his popular play Rafta, Rafta (itself inspired by Bill Naughtons 1960s classic All in Good Time), the film is set in Bolton where Atul and Vina are celebrating their marriage. However, a honeymoon spent with his parents was not part of their plans. Thoughtless patriarch Eeshwar seems determined to emasculate and embarrass his son. As the weeks pass, consummating their union becomes an impossibility that threatens the couples entire future. A breezy mixture of heartbreak and hilarity, All in Good Time also offers peerless performances from original stage stars Harish Patel and Meera Syal.

June 14, 1940. The German Army marches into Paris. France is an occupied country. Through exclusive amateur footage, personal stories, and popular songs from the time, this fi lm recounts life with the enemy during the occupation, as seen by the French... and the Germans! Despite the Nazis and the troubled war times, day-to-day life in occupied France went on. People learnt to live with the rationing, the cues, the curfew... Many try to forget the hard times, mainly thanks to the movies in which big stars provide a little dream and lead a privileged life. These stars don't actually collaborate, butadapt and give the impression of normal life during the war. After all, is it necessarily shameful to shake the hand of an enemy?

Has everything really been said about the Algerian war? Although the archives are opening up, almost fifty years after the signing of the Evian Agreements (March 18, 1962), direct witnesses are beginning to disappear. They are, however, unique bearers of history, often the only ones able to illustrate the harsh reality of a long-hidden period. Gérard Zwang, surgeon of the contingent between May 1956 and June 1958, is one of these essential witnesses who help us discover an original history of the Algerian War. During his service, in charge of treating the most atrocious wounds of his fellow soldiers, he sees the war from the side of its victims. He did not fight with a machine pistol in his hand, but behind the closed doors of an operating room where life gives way to death in a matter of seconds.

It's the unforgivable story of the two hundred thousands harkis, the Arabs who fought alongside the French in the bitter Algerian war, from 1954 to 1962. Why did they make that choice? Why were they slaughtered after Algeria's independence? Why were they abandonned by the French government? Some fifty to sixty thousands were saved and transferred in France, often at pitiful conditions. This is for the first time, the story of this tragedy, told in the brilliant style of the authors of "Apocalypse".

Algeria, the 1930s. Younes is nine years old when he is put in his uncle's care in Oran. Rebaptized Jonas, he grows up among the Rio Salado youths, with whom he becomes friends. Emilie is one of the gang; everyone is in love with her. A great love story develops between Jonas and Emilie, which is soon unsettled by the conflicts troubling the country.

In 1956, the professional army of France lacks the manpower to keep the peace in Algeria, the colony which the country is determined to hold on to at any price. For this reason, reservists are called up and subject to an intense period of training before being sent to the front. Rémy March, Alain Charpentier and Raymond Dax are three such young men who have no interest in the military escapade and are reluctant conscripts. What they witness in Algeria will appall and transform them. Rape, torture, executions... there is no end to the atrocities in which they become unwilling participants. No wonder the French military are so willing to proclaim that there is nothing to report...

Anne, a beautiful free-lance photographer, meets with the French medical student Carlo and falls in love. After a passionate love affair Anne becomes pregnant. Now the formerly free-wheeling Carlo finds himself facing a difficult situation. Carlo decides that Anne should abort the child. To raise enough cash Carlo sleeps with a wealthy older woman. Then Ann decides to annul the abortion.

In the mist of the Algerian events, a man finds a fugitive happiness beside a local woman.

A shady Parisian tries to take advantage of a family of French-descended Algerians forced to move to France.

A "Reformed Colonel" is found dead in Paris, a couple of decades after Algeria's struggle for independence was won from France. Lieutenant Galois is assigned the investigation of this murder. She receives the diary of Lieutenent Guy Rossi who served under The Colonel in Algeria in 1956, and has been reported as missing in action since 1957. The revelations found in Rossi's diary go far beyond The Colonel's actions in Algeria, and give an insight on how dirty Algeria's War for Independence really was.

1957. For several months, Henri Charlègue, the ex-director of the newspaper "Alger democratic", banned, has been living in hiding. Suspected of belonging to the FLN, he is actively sought by paratroopers.

Author Jean Dorset has suffered from a bad case of writer's block since his first novel became a bestseller. He lives in a small apartment in Paris with his wife Michelle and, in spite of their ostensible success, the couple are having trouble making ends meet. One day they receive the utterly unexpected news that they are the sole inheritors of a wealthy neighbor, M. Guillemet, whom they have never met. Guillemet has left them his old townhouse along with all of his belongings, but with two conditions -- the first is that the dead man's papers be left untouched, and the second is that his live-in maid Clemence Richbourg remain employed at the estate. The Dorsets soon learn why they were the recipients of such strange generosity. Guillemet had set up a camera with a massive zoom lens pointing to their bedroom window. The couple is shocked and disgusted, but not enough to give up their new tony digs.

Camille returns from a business trip. Young and rich heiress of a cosmetics company, Cosmos, which she has taken over since the death of her father, she discovers that Vincent, the man who shares his life, took advantage of his absence to leave and move his business without even leaving him a word of farewell. Determined to win back her former lover, she finds an unexpected ally in the person of Zac, Lena's betrayed fiancé, whom she met fortuitously at the Bois de Boulogne, while both were in the process of to spy on their ex. Zac is a broke writer, lacking inspiration: they make common cause to recover their lost loves ...