Best movies like The Illusion of Control

Violet realizes that her entire life is built on fear-based decisions, and must do everything differently to become her true self.

Water Birds is a 1952 short documentary film directed by Ben Sharpsteen. The film delves into the still waters of lagoons and marshes to the wild blue wilderness of the vast oceans, to experience the beauty and variety of their majestic birds, each perfectly designed for its habitat. It won the Oscar for Best Short Subject, Two-Reel.

A strange alien captures Porky Pig and Sylvester's entire campsite as a sample to take back to its planet, but only Sylvester figures out what is really going on.

Shin Dong-Huyk was born on November 19, 1983 as a political prisoner in a North Korean re-education camp. He was a child of two prisoners who had been married by order of the wardens. He spent his entire childhood and youth in Camp 14, in fact a death camp. He was forced to labor since he was six years old and suffered from hunger, beatings and torture, always at the mercy of the wardens. He knew nothing about the world outside the barbed-wire fences. At the age of 23, with the help of an older prisoner, he managed to escape. For months he traveled through North Korea and China and finally to South Korea, where he encountered a world completely strange to him.

A couple hires a live-in nanny to watch the offspring while they work. At first, everything goes perfectly, but when an unsafe incident means the parents no longer want the nanny around, they find out this nanny is savvy at not being evicted from her live-in situation. So savvy, in fact, that she can make these parents' lives a true nightmare.

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.

Three old high school friends meet in a Michigan motel room to dissect painful memories from their past.

Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory, apparently playing themselves, share their lives over the course of an evening meal at a restaurant.

The efforts of test pilot John Mitchell to make a better life for his wife Mary and their two children seem doomed to failure and he blames himself. At the Conway Aero-Manufacturing Company of Wolverhampton, Mitchell is to take the company's new rocket-propulsion transport plane up for tests, fully loaded and carrying two important passengers - Ministry official Crabtree and buyer's representative Ashmore. Mitchell learns from his boss, Reg Conway, that if Ashmore does not recommend the plane, the company will be out of business and Mitchell out of a job, since the plane is not even insured as the firm's entire capital is tied up in the plane. Aloft, an engine catches fire and the passengers and other crew bail out, but Mitchell refuses to obey orders to jettison the plane in the Irish Sea.

Nude men in rubber suits, close-ups of erections, objects shoved in the most intimate of places—these are photographs taken by Robert Mapplethorpe, known by many as the most controversial photographer of the twentieth century. Openly gay, Mapplethorpe took images of male sex, nudity, and fetish to extremes that resulted in his work still being labelled by some as pornography masquerading as art. But less talked about are the more serene, yet striking portraits of flowers, sculptures, and perfectly framed human forms that are equally pioneering and powerful.

Two childhood friends are recruited for a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.

A young writer is interrogated by a sadistic secret policeman. She is accused of embedding political messages in her children's stories. The entire movie takes place in one room, with only the two actors. The movie is set in an unidentified, modern police state.

After childhood abuse by her step-father and eight years in a juvenile psychiatric lockup, Amanda Lear is released. Her shrink is also her lover, who surreptitiously pays her rent on a nice house for a year. She moves in, takes one look at her neighbor Richard, and dispatches her doctor. To cover her tracks and to begin her seduction, she gets Richard's help with a security system. Soon she's bugging his calls and spying on him with hidden cameras, taking advantage of a rift between Richard and his wife who's in Nashville cutting a record. Amanda will stop at nothing to get Richard's exclusive attention. Will this good neighbor wise up before the hot tub overheats?

The story of a small-town high school football team in rural Ohio destined to play their cross-town rival, a perennial powerhouse, while standing up for an entire community.

Two sides, one known as the Alphas and the other the Rebels, struggle in a brutal war on Earth and in outer space. When a habitable planet is discovered in orbit around a star that is on the far side of a dangerous wormhole, the two sides mysteriously set aside their differences and send a joint mission to explore the planet. The mission of the starship Scylla is soon beset by political intrigue and treachery, jeopardizing not only the mission, but the lives of the entire crew

In 1914, with men gone to war, Marcel Proust hired Céleste Albaret as his attendant. More than eight years later, she was at his side when he died. During this entire time, she only entered his room when he rang for her, sleeping from 9 AM to 3 PM to wait during the night while he wrote. Marcel uses her as more than a servant: she is his muse, telling stories of her childhood to stir his remembrance of things past; she's in cahoots with him as he manipulates those he wants to draw on for his writing; she listens appalled to his descriptions of the underside of Paris. Hers is a life of love and sweet devotion as he races time to finish his work before death.

An intimate portrait of the superb actress Gena Rowlands, icon of independent cinema. Together with her husband, legendary director John Cassavetes (1929-89), she lived an unusual life beyond the dream factory, a life in which reality and fiction were so perfectly intertwined that it made possible films that still today seem incredibly real.

A couple get into an argument at their cocktail party that escalates until it brings an abrupt end to the festivities. They and their guests decide to re-create the entire night again and again to determine who was right.

Dr. Kate Lawrence, a celebrity relationship expert, plans to publicly announce her engagement to Bryan, a handsome and perfectly polished businessman. As Kate prepares to share the news, Bryan shocks her by breaking up with her and calling off the wedding. Wanting to save her from humiliation and protect her public image, Lucas Wright, Kate's childhood friend steps in and pretends to be Kate's fiancé.

Desperate to get her life back to normal after a surprisingly uncommon medical diagnosis, Ashley Jones is forced to examine what "normalcy" really means in a world of mistaken identities, very old, old friends, and poisoned meatballs.

Madison O'Hara owns a busy event company where she performs as a singing elf for Christmas parties with her best friend Cooper. Her real dream is to be a singer-songwriter and to find the perfect man but things seem to be slipping away when she breaks up with her successful boyfriend Luke. But when a wise Santa suggests perhaps there's a perfectly 'Un-Perfect' match for her right before her eyes, Maddy takes a whole new look at her life and the people in it.

This lighthearted romp through Royal India presents a world of Maharajas, palaces, imperiled art objects, and the foreign collectors who will stop at nothing to possess them. Peggy Ashcroft and Larry Pine star as two rapacious art collectors who come to the decaying Art Deco palace of a young Maharaja (Victor Banerjee) to examine a legendary collection of Indian miniature paintings. While vying with each other to get the pictures away from the royal couple—nicknamed Georgie and Bonnie as children by their Scottish governess—they must also divine the true motives of the Indian curator of the collection (Saeed Jaffrey), who, in league with the Maharaja’s beautiful sister (Aparna Sen), may be working against them. Amidst the backdrop of lavish tourist entertainments, Christmas parties, fireworks, and even an English ghost, a desperate game of palace intrigue will determine the ultimate resting place of the priceless paintings.

A middle-American teenage boy who is affected by 9/11, terrorism, and the war in Iraq becomes involved in an isolated high school altercation that escalates into a hate crime that shocks the entire nation.

A disgraced children’s puppeteer returns to his childhood home and is forced to confront his wicked stepfather and the secrets that have tortured him his entire life.

Ruby and David have been on-and-off for 8 years. Six months after Ruby last ran out on him, she has returned. But Ruby has more in store than just a reunion.

Madeline is 13 years old, as are her two friends, and nothing looks the same to her. Her sister is leaving to study medicine, and there's Freddy who's looking at her as no one has before. But she still doesn't want to become an adolescent. A tragic accident and the help of an eccentric aunt who just arrived in her life will help her to pass the barrier.

The undying bond between a mother and her beloved son nearly destroys the lives of an entire family. Jessie Yates (Marlo Thomas) is torn between the ghost of her son and the life she has created with her husband and family.

A divorced woman seeks new sexual adventures in this erotic tale. What she doesn't count on is that her new lover will take her as a hostage and hold her against her will.

Two of Germany's best and busiest directors collaborated on Berge in Flammen (Mountain in Flames). The storyline should be of interest to pro-ecologists, inasmuch as the directors take to task the warmongers of the world for despoiling the natural beauties of the European mountain ranges with their shell-fire. The final outrage occurs during a battle between the Austrians and the Italians in the Dolomites, culminating with the destruction of an entire mountain (hence the film's title). The harrowing images on screen were complemented perfectly by the musical score of Giuseppe Beece. Also known as The Doomed Batallion, Berge in Flammen was filmed in three different languages -- German, English, French -- for a total cost of $150,000.

Besides the stray dog Mingus, 11 year old Sophia has no real friends. She is pushed around by the "Beastie boys", a gang of street kids who have built an entire camp in the trees of a junk yard. One day Sophia hears that the yard is ordered to be cut down by Carlow, the mayor. Mingus, who lives in the yard, will be taken away and put to sleep. Sophia is shocked but just then she meets a gypsy, who lends her an old leather ball. For five days only. The ball is alive and may just be able to help her saving the yard. And indeed the ball proves being an amazing character. It makes objects fly and communicates with Sophia through whistling, and successfully attacks Carlow's bodyguard "Sweetlove". Sophia is accepted in the gang. She realises that the ball might chase the mayor's men off the yard. Yet, Sophia discovers that even great magic sometimes has dark sides: when Sophia's new friend Romeo tries to kiss her, the ball grows jealous and turns vicious...

Showtime presented this pro-shot musical revue of the songs & lyrics of legendary film and Broadway composer Frank Loesser.

Charles Starrett goes up against an entire family of criminals posing as respectable citizens in this entry in Columbia's long-running Durango Kid Western series.

A penniless barber schemes to marry his wealthy landlady for her money, but friends, foes-and the Gods-intervene.

Kate Sterling’s entire life is about proposals. As a jewelry designer she’s created rings for more happy couples than she can count, however none for herself yet. At her sister’s marriage, Kate is given a second change to connect with her childhood sweetheart. Now she has to decide whether their feelings have changed, or if the wedding will re-kindle the sparks that once united them; giving Kate the ring she’s been waiting for her whole life!

While staying at an inn in a colonial-recreation village for her anniversary, a young woman becomes possessed by her murderous ancestor through an antique mirror and compelled to murder her husband.