Best movies like The Official Story
A truth too frightening to ignore
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Official Story Starring Norma Aleandro, Héctor Alterio, Hugo Arana, Guillermo Battaglia, and more. If you liked The Official Story then you may also like: Valentin, Waterland, No, Nostalgia for the Light, Roma 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.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1983. In the last and turbulent days of the military dictatorship, Alicia, a high school history teacher, begins to ask uncomfortable questions about the dark origins of Gaby, her adopted daughter.
The Official Story
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No
In 1988, Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet, due to international pressure, is forced to call a plebiscite on his presidency. The country will vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to Pinochet extending his rule for another eight years. Opposition leaders for the ‘No’ vote persuade a brash young advertising executive, René Saavedra, to spearhead their campaign. Against all odds, with scant resources and while under scrutiny by the despot’s minions, Saavedra and his team devise an audacious plan to win the election and set Chile free.
Nostalgia for the Light
In Chile's Atacama Desert, astronomers peer deep into the cosmos in search for answers concerning the origins of life. Nearby, a group of women sift through the sand searching for body parts of loved ones, dumped unceremoniously by Pinochet's regime.
Journey From the Fall
Thirteen years after the end of the Vietnam War, a family who was tragically affected by the war are forced to emigrate to America.
The Invisible Eye
A teaching assistant at a private Buenos Aires school begins obsessively spying on her students in the early 1980s, as the public rises up against the military dictatorship.
The Dancer Upstairs
A police detective in a South American country is dedicated to hunting down a revolutionary guerilla leader.
The House of the Spirits
A rancher, his clairvoyant wife and their family face turbulent years in South America.
Machuca
Santiago, capital of Chile during the Marxist government of elected, highly controversial president Salvador Allende. Father McEnroe supports his leftist views by introducing a program at the prestigious "collegio" (Catholic prep school) St. Patrick to allow free admission of some proletarian kids. One of them is Pedro Machuca, slum-raised son of the cleaning lady in Gonzalo Infante's liberal-bourgeois home. Yet the new classmates become buddies, paradoxically protesting together as Gonzalo gets adopted by Pedro's slum family and gang. But the adults spoil that too, not in the least when general Pinochet's coup ousts Allende, and supporters such as McEnroe.
A Love Song for Bobby Long
A headstrong young woman returns to New Orleans after the death of her estranged mother.
A Place in the World
Mario and Ana, in voluntary exile from Buenos Aires, live in a remote Argentine valley with their 12-year-old son Ernesto. Mario runs a school and a wool cooperative; Ana, a doctor, heads a clinic with Nelda, a progressive nun. Into this idealistic family comes Hans, a jaded Spanish geological engineer -- surveying the land for the local patron, to see if it can be dammed for hydro-electric power, which would drive the peasants from the land into the cities.
Missing
Based on the real-life experiences of Ed Horman. A conservative American businessman travels to Chile to investigate the sudden disappearance of his son after a military takeover. Accompanied by his son's wife he uncovers a trail of cover-ups that implicate the US State department which supports the dictatorship.
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.
Imagining Argentina
Set during the unsettling disappearances in Buenos Aires during the dictatorship of the 1970s, the film involves theater director Carlos Rueda and his wife Cecilia. Shortly after Cecilia writes an editorial commentary questioning the mysterious abductions, she is herself abducted and taken into police custody.
In the Time of the Butterflies
Based on the book by Julia Alvarez. Three sisters become activists during the Dominican Republic's Trujillo regime when members of their family are killed by the government's troops.
Land and Freedom
David Carr is a British Communist who is unemployed. In 1936, when the Spanish Civil War begins, he decides to fight for the Republican side, a coalition of liberals, communists and anarchists, so he joins the POUM militia and witnesses firsthand the betrayal of the Spanish revolution by Stalin's followers and Moscow's orders.
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.
Bopha!
In this story of a black policeman during South African apartheid, Danny Glover plays the cop, who believes he's trying to help his people, even while serving as a pawn of the racist government. When his son gets involved in the anti-apartheid movement, he finds himself torn between his family and what he believes is his duty.
Sometimes in April
Two brothers are divided by marriage and fate during the 100 horrifying days of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
A Simple Twist of Fate
When Michael McCann is thrown over by the woman he loves, he becomes something of a misanthrope and a miser, spending all of his spare money on collectible gold coins. Living in the same town is an affluent family with two sons: John and Tanny. Tanny's a wild boy, whom John cannot control, and one night he breaks into McCann's house, and steals the gold and disappears, which nearly confirms McCann's distrust of mankind. But then, a mysterious young woman dies in the snow outside McCann's house, and her small daughter makes her way to McCann's house and into McCann's life and heart.
While at War
Salamanca, Spain, 1936. In the early days of the military rebellion that began the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), writer Miguel de Unamuno supports the uprising in the hope that the prevailing political chaos will end. But when the confrontation becomes bloody, Unamuno must question his initial position.
The Bad Intentions
A young girl convinces herself that she will die on the same day that her brother will be born.
Funny Dirty Little War
A small revolution breaks out in a small Argentine town, as one group of Peronists calls they newly elected peronist a communist. The newly elected official enlists the aid of allies ranging from the town drunk to young peronists to help hold his post. What follows is a slapstick war with a serious message.
Argentina, 1985
In the 1980s, a team of lawyers takes on the heads of Argentina's bloody military dictatorship in a battle against odds and a race against time.
Death in Granada
A journalist starts an investigation into the disappearance of famed poet and political agitator, Garcia Lorca, who disappeared in the early days of the Spanish Civil War in the the 1930's.
Pavilion of Women
With World War 2 looming, a prominent family in China must confront the contrasting ideas of traditionalism, communism and Western thinking, while dealing with the most important ideal of all: love and its meaning in society.
The Truth About Jane
Jane, a high school teenager, tries to deal with the discovery that she is a lesbian after developing an intense friendship with another girl who makes her discover her true sexuality, which is only the start of Jane's troubles when Jane's unaccepting mother, Janice, struggles with her surprising revelation of brought forth by her only daughter.
Chasing Freedom
New York attorney Libby (Juliette Lewis) is a go-getter who won't let anyone stand in the way of her success. But when she accepts a pro bono case involving young Afghan dissident Meena (Layla Alizada), Libby finds her corporate dreams replaced by a growing sense of idealism. Seeking asylum in the United States after years of oppression under the Taliban, Meena desperately wants freedom, and Libby is her only hope. But can Libby deliver?
Under Fire
Three U.S. journalists get too close to one another and their work in 1979 Nicaragua.
Chronicle of an Escape
The true story of four men who narrowly escaped death at the hands of Argentina's military death squads in 1977. Claudio Tamburrini is a goalie for a minor-league football team when he is abducted by members of the Argentine military police and taken to an unofficial detention center on the false suspicion that he is a terrorist. As he is tortured by intelligence agents looking for information he doesn't have, Tamburrini fully expects to be killed. After many sessions of brutal torture, Tamburrini and his fellow captives Guillermo and Tano are being readied for execution when, in a final desperate act, Tamburrini dives out a window during a rainstorm.
The Lost Republic II
A history of Argentina's last military dictatorship (1976-1983). After "La Republica Perdida" was made, which covered 1930 to 1976, there was an important part of Argentina's history yet to be told, which was too recent to be covered by the first documentary. The first movie was made at the end of the last dictatorship. This second documentary covers this last dictatorship from 1976 to 1983.
Endgame
The time is the late '80s, a crucial period in the history of South Africa. President P.W. Botha is hanging on to power by a thread as the African National Congress (ANC) takes up arms against apartheid and the country tumbles toward insurrection. A British mining concern is convinced that their interests would be better served in a stable South Africa and they quietly dispatch Michael Young, their head of public affairs, to open an unofficial dialogue between the bitter rivals. Assembling a reluctant yet brilliant team to pave the way to reconciliation by confronting obstacles that initially seem insurmountable, Young places his trust in ANC leader Thabo Mbeki and Afrikaner philosophy professor Willie Esterhuyse. It is their empathy that will ultimately serve as the catalyst for change by proving more powerful than the terrorist bombs that threaten to disrupt the peaceful dialogue.
A Buddha
Un Buda follows two brothers orphaned as children when their parents were taken by the military during the "Dirty Wars" of the 1970s in Argentina. Tomas is now a drifting and withdrawn young man who experiments with ascetic practices and has an instinctive compassion for others. His older brother Rafael is a university philosophy professor, detached and alone. Their struggles with each other and the world around them in Buenos Aires take a dramatic turn when they find themselves at a rural Zen center.
Garage Olimpo
A beautiful Argentine activist receives preferential treatment from a man supposed to torture her.
Sweet Country
An American couple in Chile is drawn into the turmoil that followed President Salvador Allende's 1973 overthrow.
Clandestine Childhood
Juan lives in clandestinity. Just like his mum, his dad and his adored uncle Beto, outside his home he has another name. At school, Juan is known as Ernesto. And he meets María, who only has one name. Based on true events, set in the Argentina of 1979, this film is one about love.
Latino
The fighting between the Sandinista government in Nicaragua and the Contra rebels backed by U.S. money and expertise is the focus of this pro-Sandinista film by Haskell Wexler. On a secret mission to help the U.S. Special Forces train Contra rebels in the jungles of Nicaragua, American soldier Eddie Guerrero begins to question the morality of the task at hand and consider how his actions may influence the fate of a nation.
Cautiva
Cristina's life is thrown into turmoil when she is suddenly escorted from her strict Catholic school in Buenos Aires and told that she is really Sofía Lombardi, the daughter of activists who disappeared in the '70s. Questioning everything she once thought true, Cristina embarks on a journey to find her true identity. Meeting others like herself, the young girl soon discovers the real-life horrors of Argentina's relatively recent past and the nightmare that claimed tens of thousands of lives during the country's "dirty war."
The Day I Was Not Born
During a stopover in Buenos Aires on her way to Chile, 31-year-old Maria recognizes a nursery rhyme. Maria doesn't speak a work of Spanish, but without understanding what she is singing, she remembers the Spanish lyrics. Disturbed and thrown off course, she decides to interrupt her journey and wander through the unfamiliar city.
Chile: Hasta Cuando?
A portrait of a brutal Pinochet military dictatorship made during a three month visit to Chile in 1985 by David Bradbury. The footage reveals a country torn with civil strife and political unrest; military intimidation of the population; indiscriminate arrests: murder torture and disappearances were facts of Chilean life.
Valentin
Valentin, a 9-year-old boy living with his grandmother in late-1960s Buenos Aires, believes his family has problems that only he can solve. The youngster dreams of being reunited with his mother, who's separated from Valentin's abusive father.