Best movies like The Ladder
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Ladder Starring Eduard Trifa, Ana Maria Guran, Eduard Adam, Cătălin Babliuc, and more. If you liked The Ladder then you may also like: Videograms of a Revolution, The Oak, Kolya, The Journey, Moffie 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.
Based on true events, The Ladder follows the spiritual journey of Andrei, a sensitive, socially awkward young man who turns to acting in his search for true happiness. After the fall of communism, he is blinded by the illusion of freedom and democracy and faces a series of brutal events that have deeply marked Romania's recent history. Finding comfort in playing the part of Aliosa in a stage adaptation of The Karamazov Brothers, he becomes closer and closer to his character, gradually discovering the way to understanding divinity.
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The Oak
A description of Romania before Ceausescu's downfall, through the story of Nela. Daughter of a former colonel of the Securitate, the romanian political police. She refused to become as her sister, an agent of this Securitate, and lives with her father. After he died, she leaves Bucharest, and ends up in a little town, where she meets Mitica, a surgeon, another herself, laughing of everything.
The Journey
Bari, a city caught in the relentless economic crisis. Ivo is an agronomist, but the lack of opportunities pushes him to accept a job in the fertile region of Banat in Romania. Clara has just ended a relationship and is about to lose her job at the Bari harbor. Ivo and Clara meet by chance and seem to immediately understand each other. They spend only one night together before Ivo's departure, but that is enough to create a bond and wanting to meet again. When Clara visits him in Romania, they fall in love. But is exile their only way to happiness?
The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu
The three-hour-long documentary covers 25 years in the life of Nicolae Ceaușescu and was made using 1,000 hours of original footage from the National Archives of Romania.
The Lost City
In Havana, Cuba in the late 1950's, a wealthy family, one of whose sons is a prominent nightclub owner, is caught in the violent transition from the oppressive regime of Batista to the Marxist government of Fidel Castro. Castro's regime ultimately leads the nightclub owner to flee to New York.
Toni Erdmann
Without warning a father comes to visit his daughter abroad. He believes that she lost her humor and therefore surprises her with a rampage of jokes.
Just Say Love
Physical attractions appear to be the obvious explanation for two people to become a pair. But are they really the reflection of something sublime, everlasting or dare we say, spiritual? Do relationships start in the bedroom or in the heart? In this male love story, the bliss described by Joseph Campbell and sages throughout the millennia is a practical option for finding happiness. As the camera delves into the character’s minds and actions we find fulfillment on both a physical and spiritual level.
The Brothers Karamazov
Ryevsk, Russia, 1870. Tensions abound in the Karamazov family. Fyodor is a wealthy libertine who holds his purse strings tightly. His four grown sons include Dmitri, the eldest, an elegant officer, always broke and at odds with his father, betrothed to Katya, herself lovely and rich. The other brothers include a sterile aesthete, a factotum who is a bastard, and a monk. Family tensions erupt when Dmitri falls in love with one of his father's mistresses, the coquette Grushenka. Two brothers see Dmitri's jealousy of their father as an opportunity to inherit sooner. Acts of violence lead to the story's conclusion: trials of honor, conscience, forgiveness, and redemption.
The Falls: Testament Of Love
The Falls: Testament of Love is a continuation of the story of RJ Smith and Chris Merrill, two Mormon missionaries that fell in love during their mission in a small town in Oregon. The boys haven't spoken in five years, but when an unexpected tragedy compells them back to the Oregon town where they served, they find themselves, once again, thrust into one another's lives. As old feelings begin to surface they find themselves again facing difficult choices. If they pursue their desire to be together, RJ and Chris risk hurting the ones they care about as they embark on a spiritual journey to discover love, freedom, and happiness.
I Do! I Do!
Adaptation of the award-winning stage musical. The story takes place entirely in a bedroom dominated by a couple's four poster bed, taking them through fifty years of marriage, through happiness and sorrow, through good times and bad, through childbirth, parenthood, and the eventual sadness from the absence of their children. In the end, they face the future together, while remembering their past.
Extramarital
An aspiring writer gets involved in the investigation of her best friend after she is killed while having an affair.
Self-Portrait of a Dutiful Daughter
Cristiana is a 30 year old woman, brought up in a "proper", bourgeois middle-class family. Her time is split between writing for her PhD in Earthquake Engineering, conversations with Alex and Michelle, her two close friends and occasional, eagerly awaited rendezvous' with Dan, a married man with whom she is romantically involved. After her parents move out of the family apartment into a new house, she decides to get a dog. It is something that she wanted ever since she was a child and now that she lives on her own she can finally fulfill this wish.
Aurora
An apartment kitchen: a man and a woman discuss Little Red Riding Hood, their voices hushed, mindful of waking the little girl sleeping next room. Waste land on the city outskirts: behind a line of abandoned trailers, the man silently watches what seems to be a family. The same city, the same man: driving through traffic with two hand-made firing pins for a hunting rifle. The man is 42 years old, his name - Viorel. Troubled by obscure thoughts, he drives across the city to a destination known only to him.
The Opening Night
When theatrical producer Robert Chandler (E. Alyn Warren), believed drowned in a fishing accident, turns up as a lonely, broken amnesiac three months later, he arrives just in time to see his actress wife Carol Chandler (Claire Windsor), thought to be a widow, marrying her leading man Jimmy Keane (John Bowers). Rather than mar her new-found happiness, he takes a job washing cars. New York City is a small town. Will Carol need her car washed?
Poker
In the history of Romanian cinema, Sergiu Nicolaescu's name stands for "prolific, highly commercial and professional". At the age of 80, the director launched his latest production, which is also his second comedy in a long row of action and historic films. "Poker" is a cinema adaptation of Adrian Lustig's theatre play with the same name, and focuses on four male friends, representatives for the social canvas: a doctor without a moral conscience, an unscrupulous politician, a chief of the local mafia, and a businessman who made a fortune in America. Made by MediaPro Pictures, 'Poker' looks at immorality and intrigues in politics, hinting at the fact that contemporary Romania is a day to day jungle where strings are pulled by those in power, so everything turns into a poker round, where those who have the right aces in their sleeve can win.
Hasselhoff vs. The Berlin Wall
David Hasselhoff, better known for his roles in “Knight Rider” and “Baywatch” released a song titled, “Looking for Freedom” the year before the Berlin Wall came down. He performed it on top of the Berlin Wall to a million people during the biggest New Year's Eve party Germany had ever seen. Twenty five years later, David revisits the now-reunited capital, investigating what is left of the Wall, and explores what it meant in the context of the Cold War dividing Communism in the East from democracy in the West. Along his journey he meets extraordinary people who dreamt of freedom and risked their lives trying to overcome the dreaded Berlin Wall.
American Reds: The Failed Revolution
The documentary AMERICAN REDS provides a historical overview of 20th century Communism and the growth, decline and contemporary relevance of the Communist Party, USA (CPUSA). Since its founding in 1919, the CPUSA has championed the struggles for democracy, labor rights, women’s equality, and racial justice. During its heyday in the 1930s and 1940s, it attracted millions of Americans to support its causes and almost 100,000 men and women to enlist in its ranks. The film begins with the Party's emergence as a small militant sect in the 1920s and documents its rise to the foremost radical group in the United States during the Great Depression, fighting against racism, sexism and fascism, as well as for the rights of workers to organize. It ends with the decline of the Party during the Cold War under the assaults of the FBI and anti- communist crusades.
Career
Playwright James Lee adapted his off-Broadway play for the screen in this high-strung adaptation, directed by Joseph Anthony. In this simplistic, backroom show-business-success saga, Anthony Franciosa plays Sam, a struggling young actor who will forsake his family and take any type of menial job in order to become a Broadway star. Dean Martin is on hand as Maury, an aspiring director also trying to claw his way up the ladder of success. When Maury gets his big break, Sam wants a part in his show, but when Maury, who is unwilling to cast Sam in the production, turns down Sam's request, Sam seduces and marries Maury's girlfriend (Shirley MacLaine). In spite of everything, Maury wants his girl back, and Sam agrees to a divorce on the stipulation that Maury cast him as the star in his next show. Once again, Maury reneges and, before Sam can exact his revenge, Uncle Sam comes to the rescue and he is drafted into the army.
The Way I Spent the End of the World
Bucharest 1989 - the last year of Ceausecu's dictatorship. Eva lives with her parents and her 7 year old brother, Lalalilu. One day at school, Eva and her boyfriend accidentally break a bust of Ceausescu. They are forced to confess their crime before a disciplinary committee and Eva is expelled from school and transferred to a reformatory establishment. There she meets Andrei, and decides to escape Romania with him. Lalalilu becomes convinced that Ceausescu is the main reason for Eva's decision to leave. So with his friends from school he devises a plan to kill the dictator.
So, What Is Freedom?
Inspired by historical facts, this film is a story of love and survival against the background of the 1951 Communist ordered deportation of 40,000 landowners and people of non-Romanian origins to the Baragan Plain, the "Romanian Siberia".
Who Is Calling Me?
A young woman is accused of "Immorality" (aka prostitution) and she is sent for re-education to work on a construction site.
Bless You, Prison
Based on Nicole Valery-Grossu's European best seller autobiographic novel "Bless you, prison", the film is a true story, with real events and characters. A young intellectual woman, Nicole is arrested. There follow three months of exhausting interrogation and isolation. Alone in a cell, she undergoes a spiritual experience similar to that of the great mystics.
Through the Ashes of the Empire
A war story. survivors. refugees. few essential meetings. and great actors. a film inspired from Zaharia Stancu short story. about pain, search of sense in misty times, about roots of evil and price of survive, about a country as shadow and ruins of a empire. all in dark nuances, touching images. a movie like a ballad. heavy, strange, profound, harsh, cruel. with few drops of feelings as steps of rotten ladder. looks, silhouettes, way to ambiguous home. a thief and a young man. across Balkans. among ash of a fragile territory. the impressive aspect - silence. and gestures. the woman, the train. the escape. the bath. and the death of Diplomat. all - fragments of an old way to discover reality. all - words of a new world.
Fox: Hunter
Set in the period prior to the revolt in Timisoara in December 1989 and mirroring the events that led to the downfall of the dictator Ceausescu. -- BFI
In Our Village
The film shows that Romanian peasants were divided between those opposing and those embracing collectivization. The heated debates between the pro and con camps would ultimately lead to murder.
Allegiance
Inspired by the true-life experience of its star George Takei, Allegiance follows one family's extraordinary journey in this untold American story following the events of Pearl Harbor. Their loyalty was questioned, their freedom taken away, but their spirit could never be broken.
The Other Irene
Security guard Aurel (Andi Vasluianu) and his wife Irene have a moderately happy marriage and a moderately comfortable lifestyle in urban Romania. Irene takes a working trip to Cairo and returns invigorated with the swell of success. She sets out again and never returns. What follows is both predictable and unpredictable. Aurel, and the audience, are suspicious of the official explanation of her death so the foundation is laid for the traditional who-dunnit. Aurel proceeds on an emotional search against all odds.
Sleep awake
"Sleep Awake" is the story of an unhappy Romanian girl, who meets a boy that will forever change her life and the way she sees the world.
Happiness Is So Close
Cristina, a girl from a well situated family, falls in love with a young working man, who manages to get into college.
Videograms of a Revolution
Videograms of a Revolution is a 1992 documentary film compiled by Harun Farocki and Andrei Ujică from over 125 hours of amateur footage, news footage, and excerpts from the Bucharest TV studio overtaken by demonstrators as part of the December 1989 Romanian Revolution.