Best movies like Written on Water

Mathieu seeks all ways to attract attention to himself. It is a matter of survival: you think of me so I am.

Merab, a devoted dancer, has been training for years with his partner Mary for a spot in the National Georgian Ensemble. The arrival of another male dancer, Irakli, sparks both an intense rivalry and romantic desire that may cause Merab to risk his future in dance as well as his relationships.

Touko Laaksonen, a decorated officer, returns home after a harrowing and heroic experience serving his country in World War II, but life in Finland during peacetime proves equally distressing. He finds peace-time Helsinki rampant with persecution of the homosexual and men around him even being pressured to marry women and have children. Touko finds refuge in his liberating art, specialising in homoerotic drawings of muscular men, free of inhibitions. His work – made famous by his signature ‘Tom of Finland’ – became the emblem of a generation of men and fanned the flames of a gay revolution.

The story of two sisters on a journey, where they try to get close to each other and approach the tough questions in life. Euphoria is a contemporary drama about responsibility and reconciliation, in a world where these concepts are gradually being lost.

A gifted young dancer arrives in New York City and joins the downtown contemporary dance world. With talent to burn, he soon must choose between his responsibility to his broken family in the Midwest, and forging a life and career for himself.

One of several collaborative dance films by the Brothers Quay & (dancer, choreographer) William Tuckett. Little enough info around on line, but there's briefly by way of Wikipedia entry. Adapted rather loosely from the works of the E.T.A. Hoffman. Familiar Quays' tropes, much in evidence: automata, trompe l'oeil effects, etc. No credit on the sound design (which is fairly elaborate), tho' that is possibly Larry Sider.

Street dancer Skyler comes out of the shadow of her trained dancer sister, Tosha, & joins a dance competition with the Honey dance studio; the prize is a college scholarship.

While attending college in Cape Town, Melea Martin feels constrained by the school's strict policies, and decides to set out on her own. Searching for a way to use her talents as a dancer and inspire the community around her, Melea rents a failing theater in order to put on a Hip-Hop Romeo and Juliet performance. But much like the Capulets and Montagues, conflicts between cast members threaten to bring the whole performance to a halt...

While trying to navigate life as he enters his 30s, Ryan slips further into loneliness. A chance meeting with a friend's boyfriend, Sam, changes that and as they grow closer. Ryan must now come to terms with who he is, and what that means for him.

In modern-day London, three men (Craig Ferguson, Jimi Mistry and David Morrissey) and three women (Olivia Williams, Jane Horrocks and Catherine McCormack) fall in and out of love and back again, to the Greek-chorus accompaniment of two cab drivers, who engage in an ongoing conversation about sex. A winning romantic comedy, Born Romantic is the second feature by British writer-director David Kane of This Year's Love fame.

Matthias Le Goff, an Olympic champion at the end of his career, makes a homophobic statement on TV. His punishment: coach the Shiny Shrimps, a flamboyant and amateur gay water-polo team. They have only one thing in mind: to qualify for the Gay Games in Croatia where the hottest international LGBT athletes compete. It's the start of a bumpy and joyful ride - Faster, Higher, Stronger.

A man vacationing in the country with his wife and children finds ideas he has of himself unexpectedly challenged in director Zabou Breitman's intimate drama.

One night, screenwriter Adam, in his near-empty tower block in contemporary London, has a chance encounter with his mysterious neighbor Harry that punctures the rhythm of his everyday life. As Adam and Harry get closer, Adam is pulled back to his childhood home where he discovers that his long-dead parents are both living and look the same age as the day they died over 30 years ago.

On his deathbed, his royal highness Alfredo, King without a crown, is taken back to distant youth memories and the time he dreamt of becoming a fireman. The encounter with instructor Afonso from the fire brigade, opens a new chapter in the life of the two young men devoted to love and desire, and the will to change the status quo.

A successful aging dancer takes a young female protegee.

A young man in a tricky situation follows the advice of his unconventional best friend and uses social media to create a fake boyfriend to keep his awful ex-lover out of his life. But everything backfires when he meets the real love of his life, and breaking up with his fake boyfriend proves hard to do.

A single woman who decides to take a chance on love again by catapulting her life from Paris to Los Angeles. From awkward dates to touching surprise encounters, she understands the journey to love is a journey towards herself.

After his commitment-phobic husband divorces him, a stuck-in-his-ways gay man tries to start over. When he becomes accidental roommates with a younger hip nerd who is as romantically challenged as he is, sparks fly. “All Kinds of Love” is a feel-good comedy about people trying to follow their hearts, whether it involves an intergenerational romance, a middle-aged interracial throuple or an artistic trans man looking for love in all the wrong places.

Florent, 23, is an upper class Parisian who dreams of going back to America, where he attended college. One summer he meets Alessia, an American girl, lost in the streets of Paris. Together and with random encounters while on a journey from Paris to Normandy, they explore their passions, which draws them closer as well as brings up their clashing differences. As they face a crucial crossroad in their lives, they will uncover new sides of themselves, struggling to determine who they are personally, professionally and sexually while to break free from their upbringings.​

Straight-to-video filmmaker David Payne writes and directs the docudrama Just Can't Get Enough: The True Story of the Chippendales' Murders. The movie opens with Nick DeNoia (Peter Nevargic) getting shot in his office. The bulk of the story takes place in the early '80s during the glory days of the Chippendales night club, owned by sleazy businessman Steve Banerjee (Shelley Malil). Innocent college graduate Chad Patterson (Johnathan Aube) gets a job at the club to make some extra money, but he manages to get corrupted by the money and lifestyle. Then choreographer DeNoia gets involved in a blackmail scandal and Steve gets illegal ideas of his own.

Asuka, a woman in her thirties, works in a lakeside fish factory. She’s about to be married to her boss, Taki. But one day, she encounters a kappa – a water sprite found in Japanese folklore – and learns that the creature is in fact the reborn form of Aoki, an old crush who’d drowned to death when they were 17.

Three twenty-something couples, one gay, one lesbian, and one straight, travel to a beach house to enjoy the last days of summer, but what should be a fun and carefree weekend becomes an exploration of what it takes to sustain a healthy relationship.

The true story of Steve Banjerlee who started a sleazy male strip club for women. Several years later he meets Nick De Noia, a choreographer whom he goes into partnership with to turn his nightclub into a successful high-class business that eventually leads to betrayal and murder.

Bill Moyers and filmmaker David Grubin give viewers a rare glimpse into dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones’s highly acclaimed dance Still/Here. At workshops around the country, people facing life-threatening illnesses are asked to remember the highs and lows of their lives, and even imagine their own deaths. They then transform their feelings into expressive movement, which Jones incorporates into the dance performed later in the program. For this documentary, Jones demonstrates the movements of his own life story: his first encounter with white people, confusion over his sexuality, his partner Arnie Zane’s untimely death from AIDS, and Jones’s own HIV-positive status.

Mark, a new and inexperienced rugby club member, finds himself drawn to Warren, a seasoned first team player. When a series of happenstances at an away fixture lead to a drunken encounter, Mark and Warren unwittingly embark on a romantic affair they struggle to hide from their partners and teammates.

Léo, a 22-year-old homeless sex worker searches for genuine love on the streets of Strasbourg.

A unique exploration into romantic connection and gender dynamics, 'Aviva' tells the story of a relationship between a man and a woman, with each of the two principal characters played by both a man and a woman. It's the story of a marriage that develops and eventually dissolves, evolving into deep friendship-all told through a mix of traditional dramatic scenes and expressive dance sequences

Harry has been partying for 48 hours when he meets Johannes on the dance floor of a club in Berlin. With 15 hours until his flight home, Johannes offers to help him print his boarding pass. This mundane task leads to a day together wandering the city. The contrasts in their lives and values force each one to confront their own truths.

Hope is tasked with teaching Manhattan's former "Most Eligible Bachelor" how to dance for his extravagant, society wedding. But as the dance lessons progress, complications ensue when feelings begin to develop between student and instructor.

An Israeli swimming tutor living in Chicago returns to Israel after 10 years of absence to bury his father. An encounter with a beloved childhood friend and his newly engaged girlfriend will set a series of events that will affect everyone's lives. A story set between a flower shop and an ancient monastery, between a swimming pool and the Mediterranean sea, between life and death - and somewhere in the middle.

Camille, a young, provincial, proletarian man works for Hélène Courtray, who is still beautiful and seductive. She's a sophisticated, cultivated and well-to-do woman who has engaged him to care for her reclusive son who has spent the past few years voluntarily locked up in his room. An encounter between two persons and two worlds where the relationship of the young man to this closed, strange and unknown universe rapidly turns tragedy.

A prison guard is attracted to a woman at his weekly tango class. They meet again when she visits her husband in the prison where he works and he is drawn into her complicated romantic life. Meanwhile the prisoners are learning the tango.

When successful writer Edu falls in love with a young hustler, Fabio, his initial fear is about contracting HIV, but emotional matters soon loom large as well.

Born to a North African father and a French mother, 18-year-old Parisian high school senior Rémi works part-time in an Arab grocery store while studying management and commerce. He responds to a school ad seeking subjects for a film, and Marc, who placed the ad, auditions Rémi by filming an interview with him. Rémi and Marc wind up in bed, and Rémi soon has other sexual experiences – with a guy in a men's room and with a young woman who grabs him while she's dancing in the street.

After failing to get the coveted role of the Sugar Plum Fairy in this year's production of The Nutcracker, Vivíana Serrano joins forces with Natalia, to create a surprise reprise of the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy...with a Latin twist.