Top 250 Movies Like Via Mala

A renowned artist must uncover a young dancer's secrets in order to truly capture her likeness for a commissioned work.

Film adaptation from the novel by D.H. Lawrence, discovered after the celebrated author's death in 1930, a romantic love story tells of a prim young English girl who is sexually attracted to a seductively virile gypsy. The climatic dam burst is linked with the consummation of her desire.

Rocklin Colorado, 1925. A hard cold winter. Young Arturo Bandini loves his father Svevo, his mother Maria and his brothers. Even though his bricklayer father wastes the little money he has in the Imperial Poolhall and his time with the rich American widow, Hildegarde. Even though his beautiful and pious mother lets his father get away with that, even if his little brother wets the bed. Arturo loves them all. He also loves to play baseball, even though he has to wait until spring. And he also loves the movies ... and Rosa. But she doesn't love him ...

A lawyer puts his family in jeopardy when he captures the last member of a violent clan and tries to forcibly tame her.

An adaptation of Bishop T.D. Jakes' self-help novel, chronciling a woman's struggle to come to terms with her legacy of abuse, addiction and poverty.

To the distress of his family, Clem Hawley, retired from his garage business, spends his time and money in the company of Al, the local bootlegger.

Sam, a recovering alcoholic, feels dissatisfied with his life of sobriety and goes back in search of the good times he enjoyed with his wino friends on "the Nickel" of Los Angeles' skid row.

Based on Mikhail Lermontov's novel Vadim, this costume drama, set in Russia during the 1700s, chronicles the battle between a vengeful, anarchic peasant and the tyrannical landowner who killed his mother and father.

British comedy satirising Stalin's inner circle as an absolute monarchs court. In the face of rampant abuse of power and poisonous distrust some still manage to keep faith with the Bolshevist creed until the very end. In front of the firing squad a stalwart bolshevist of the first hour exclaims: "Even in the best democracy errors are being made!"

A down-on-his-luck American Indian recently released from jail is offered the chance to "star" as the victim of a snuff film, the resulting pay of which could greatly help his poverty stricken family.

Based on Evelyn Waugh's 1945 classic British novel, Brideshead Revisited is a poignant story of forbidden love and the loss of innocence set in England prior to the Second World War.

As punishment for drunken, rebellious behavior, a young white soldier is thrown into a stockade populated entirely by black inmates. But instead of falling victim to racial hatred, the soldier joins forces with his fellow prisoners and rises up against the insanely tyrannical and bigoted prison warden.

The tumultuous and adventurous life of Michelangelo Merisi, controversial artist, called by Fate to become the immortal Caravaggio. A violent genius that will dare to defy the ideal vision of the world imposed by the Renaissance painters. A provoker that scandalized patrons and institutions, raising the altars the outcast figures he knew so well: drunkards, vagrants and prostitutes.

A journalist must make a decision to flee with her two children from her abusive ex-husband or kill him before he kills her.

After the sudden death of their father, four children face cruel treatment from their ruthless grandmother.

The lives of three men who were childhood friends are shattered when one of them suffers a family tragedy.

An extraordinarily intelligent young girl from a cruel and uncaring family discovers she possesses telekinetic powers and is sent off to a school headed by a tyrannical principal.

In a quiet suburban town in the summer of 1958, two recently orphaned sisters are placed in the care of their mentally unstable Aunt Ruth. But Ruth's depraved sense of discipline will soon lead to unspeakable acts of abuse and torture that involve her young sons, the neighborhood children, and one 12-year-old boy whose life will be changed forever.

With the intention to break free from the strict familial restrictions, a suicidal young woman sets up a marriage of convenience with a forty-year-old addict, an act that will lead to an outburst of envious love.

When Gerda Wegener asks her husband Einar to fill in as a portrait model, Einar discovers the person she's meant to be and begins living her life as Lili Elbe. Having realized her true self and with Gerda's love and support, Lili embarks on a groundbreaking journey as a transgender pioneer.

When two married business executives having an affair are blackmailed by a violent criminal, they are forced to turn the tables on him to save their families.

A decades-spanning tale of love and resilience and of one woman's journey to independence. Celie faces many hardships in her life, but ultimately finds extraordinary strength and hope in the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood.

David Sumner, a mild-mannered academic from the United States, marries Amy, an Englishwoman. In order to escape a hectic stateside lifestyle, David and his wife relocate to the small town in rural Cornwall where Amy was raised. There, David is ostracized by the brutish men of the village, including Amy's old flame, Charlie. Eventually the taunts escalate, and two of the locals rape Amy. This sexual assault awakes a shockingly violent side of David.

Dolores Claiborne was accused of killing her abusive husband twenty years ago, but the court's findings were inconclusive and she was allowed to walk free. Now she has been accused of killing her employer, Vera Donovan, and this time there is a witness who can place her at the scene of the crime. Things look bad for Dolores when her daughter Selena, a successful Manhattan magazine writer, returns to cover the story.

After the death of her husband, a mother takes her kids off to live with their grandparents in a huge, decrepit old mansion. However, the kids are kept hidden in a room just below the attic, visited only by their mother who becomes less and less concerned about them and their failing health, and more concerned about herself and the inheritence she plans to win back from her dying father.

A naval officer reprimanded after Pearl Harbor is later promoted to rear admiral and gets a second chance to prove himself against the Japanese.

Set in South Carolina in 1964, this is the tale of Lily Owens a 14 year-old girl who is haunted by the memory of her late mother. To escape her lonely life and troubled relationship with her father, Lily flees with Rosaleen, her caregiver and only friend, to a South Carolina town that holds the secret to her mother's past.

The emotional story of a boy, his grandfather, and his dog. The boy's dream of becoming a great classical painter appears shattered when his loving grandfather dies.

Unfairly accused of her husband's murder, a woman is imprisoned.

A South African spinster murders her father after he rapes the wife of the black foreman for his plantation.

A win on the football pools in postwar Britain changes lives. A happy family is turned into an unhappy argumentative lot until it is discovered the coupon apparently didn't get posted. A mild-mannered clerk worries about how to tell his overbearing boss he is quitting. A double-bass player finds life without the orchestra lacks something. The lure of the big money even turns some people into criminals, as when a coupon checker is tempted by his night-club singer girlfriend to cheat the company. Written by Jeremy Perkins

Evocative of the Roaring Twenties, "Emily" (Aka "The Awakening of Emily") is an erotic coming-of-age film featuring meticulous period detail and music. The sharp class distinctions of British society are blurred by the universal nature of sexual desire.

A stranger called Allan goes to the House of Usher. He is the sole friend of Roderick Usher, who lives in the eerie house with his sick wife Madeleine. When she dies, Roderick does not accept her death, and in the dark night, Madeleine returns.

A Protestant Irish family is caught up in a conflict between Irish Republicans and the British army.

The true story of the life of Gavino Ledda, the son of a Sardinian shepherd, and how he managed to escape his harsh, almost barbaric existence by slowly educating himself, despite violent opposition from his brutal father.

Set in cold rural Quebec at Christmas time, we follow the coming of age of a young boy and the life of his family which owns the town's general store and undertaking business.

An innocent woman falls prey to her abusive husband, his wealthy father and a shady family friend.

Elisabeth, a Catholic mother and a loving wife, dedicates her life to the service of others. Her life changes when she discovers that her son is being molested by a priest.

An unflinching, fragmentary look at a handful of self-destructive, marginalized people, but taking as main focus the heroin-addicted Vanda Duarte.

Gypo Nolan is a former Irish Republican Army man who drowns his sorrows in the bottle. He's desperate to escape his bleak Dublin life and start over in America with his girlfriend. So when British authorities advertise a reward for information about his best friend, current IRA member Frankie, Gypo cooperates. Now Gypo can buy two tickets on a boat bound for the States, but can he escape the overwhelming guilt he feels for betraying his buddy?

Biographic film chronicling the last year of the life of the Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani, 1919, who falls in love with a girl from a wealthy family. Her parents are against this relationship and stop financial help. Modigliani worked and died in abject poverty in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris, France.

Based on the true story of Bill W. (James Woods), a successful stock broker whose life falls apart after the stock crash of the 20's and how he comes to grips with his alcoholism. Along with a fellow alcoholic (James Garner) he forms a support group that would eventually become Alcoholics Anonymous.

A blind, uneducated white girl is befriended by a black man, who becomes determined to help her escape her impoverished and abusive home life.

A drama set in the 1920s, where free-spirited Janie Crawford's search for happiness leads her through several different marriages, challenging the morals of her small town. Based on the novel by Zora Neale Hurston.

A tough, Jewish ex-con just released from prison crosses a powerful drug dealer and former prison rival in his return to a life of crime.

An intimate look at life in the ghetto: Johnny Williams is a house painter who moonlights as a poet, struggling to financially and emotionally support his cancer-ridden wife Mattie. But times are tough and the poverty-troubled streets are even tougher, and it takes every ounce of Johnny's love and courage for the couple to make it through their strife, finding redemption in the River Niger.

In France, before WWI. As every Sunday, an old painter living in the country is visited by his son Gonzague, coming with his wife and his three children. Then his daugther Irene arrives. She is always in a hurry, she lives alone and does not come so often... An intimist chronicle in which what is not shown, what is guessed, is more important than how it looks, dealing with what each character expects of life.

Set in the English countryside of the 1920s - when otter hunting was still legal - this film follows the life of Tarka the Otter from his birth into adulthood. We witness his close shaves, and his struggle with a man who tries to keep our furry hero as a pet.

A serie of murders is comitted in Nice on the French riviera. The commissaire Carella is in charge and tries to find a missing link between all these murders.

Mitch Barrett becomes embittered because his wife is allowed to die when he can't pay for the medicine she needs. The remorseful townspeople hire Mitch to be a deputy sheriff, thereby enabling him to plot an elaborate bank robbery with the help of an artist, a pickpocket, a gunslinger and a bar-girl.

Elizabeth Sheridan is a painter, living in a beautiful home on the coast near Seattle, where her wealthy husband Cole runs a yacht-building company. Elizabeth and the firm's top designer, Tony Blanchard, are having an affair. A particularly nasty blackmailer confronts her with pictures, threatening to give them to Cole; she and Tony agree to pay, but after two deaths and a torched house, things have gotten complicated: infidelity pales next to a murder charge. A high-school yearbook photo takes her further into danger. What motive might explain and connect the twists? Is she ensnared beyond hope?

An orphan weds an older man in circa-1900 New Zealand, then finds out he's a miser who spies on her.

Massachusetts, 1892. An unmarried woman of 32 and a social outcast, Lizzie lives a claustrophobic life under her father's cold and domineering control. When Bridget Sullivan, a young maid, comes to work for the family, Lizzie finds a sympathetic, kindred spirit, and a secret intimacy soon blossoms into a wicked plan.

The story of the desperate love affair between a young Samoan chief and a beautiful American painter, against the will of her father, the powerful governor of the island. Amid this man-made tension comes a powerful hurricane so devastating, the lives of the lovers and the entire island are imperiled.

A crazy father old before his time, a tyrannical, sick mother, a sister who disappeared four years ago and me, Erell, who films everything, all the time... A fine family portrait. I live in the same town I've always lived in. You're born here, you die here. And between the two, there's nothing to do except hang out with my buddies, Gabin, Javier and The Major. One night, my sister Sarah reappears. The pieces of me are put together again.

Laura, in her thirties, lives alone on the outskirts of a big city. She learns that her father is in a coma, following a serious traffic accident. She decides to visit him regularly at the hospital: the opportunity finally presents itself to settle accounts, perhaps even to take revenge... But life is unpredictable and Laura's desire for revenge will lead to a reunion troubling with her family and her past. She will come out of it reconciled, with herself and with life.

A bizarre and tragic love story involving swineherd, village fool, teacher and an agricultural pilot. The story unfolds in a remote village in the communist ruled Yugoslavia at the down of Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

A quiet painter, separated from his wife for a year, receives a suitcase in the mail from his mother, whom he hasn't seen since infancy. He believes she abandoned him to his wealthy, paternal grandparents. The suitcase contains mementos and a diary, a long letter to him, written over the years, with details of her youth, her first job as a pianist at a cinema, the coming of talkies, her marriage, and how he came to live with his grandparents. As he reads through the materials and her story comes to life, his son Antoine, who's about 10 or 12, tries to break through his father's silence and sorrow by taking matters into his own hands.

Melodrama set in Victorian Brighton. Scheming pub landlady uses the timorous son of a domineering pharmacist to assist in the poisoning of her drunkard husband. (The title is from the way pharmacists used to wrap parcels containing poison).

While in a party promoted by her chief and friend Måns Wenngren, the fiscal attorney, Rebecka Martinsson, receives a call from her former sister-in-law, Sanna Strandgård, telling that her brother and preacher Viktor was murdered, stabbed and with severed hands, and she would be arrested. Rebecka heads to her hometown Kiruna and defends Sanna, but the evidences found by the police in her house prove her guilty and she is arrested. While investigating the crime, Rebecka is haunted by her past and faces the bigoted and fanatic religious dwellers that worship the local church, and is more convinced of the innocence of Sanna.

For many years the old Waller worked as a railwayman. After Waller is informed that "his" track will be closed down and that he will be retired, he walks the route for one last time and starts to remember his life along the way: Beginning in his childhood in the 1920s, he commemorates the death of his great love as well as he recalls the legal battle with his illegitimate daughter.

Nick Hart is a struggling American artist who lives amongst the expatriate community in 1920s Paris. He spends most of his time drinking and socializing in local café's and pestering gallery owner Libby Valentin to sell his paintings. He becomes involved in a plot by wealthy art patroness Nathalie de Ville to forge three paintings. This leads to several run-ins with American rubber magnate Bertram Stone, who happens to be married to Hart's ex-wife Rachel.

Emily and Nate Weaver leave the city for the rural comfort of Nate’s ancestral home in the country. Once there, Emily is plagued by horrifying visions and haunted by the ghosts inhabiting their isolated new home. When Nate’s behavior undergoes a strange and fearful metamorphosis, Emily fears she might be the latest target in a murderous tradition.

Curse of the Starving Class is a play by Sam Shepard, considered the first of a series on family tragedies. Drama about a dirt-poor 1950's-era farm family. Dad's a foul talking drunk and Mom is desperately trying to save what's left of their family life.

A female traveling companion seduces a married man and his alcoholic wife.

An English woman, psychotic and sexually repressed, murders her sadistic father, then moves to America. She soon secures a job as a maid for a wealthy family. Soon her severe psychosis and her attempts to keep her sexuality from asserting itself combine to cause trouble for all concerned.

Django returns home to find out that his father has been killed, by local bandits, in a business deal gone wrong . He swears revenge and a mixture of lone gun men, gang members and bandits get involved with the search for a pouch of money, missing from the ill-fated deal.

A young girl is kidnapped and molested by a classmate's father. The man she identifies is arrested and jailed, but is later released on bail. He calls the girl's mother and threatens to kidnap her daughter again, and this time kill her and make sure her body will never be found. She goes to the authorities for help, but there's nothing they can do until he actually tries something. Afraid for her daughter's life, the mother decides to take matters into her own hands.

Raised in a decaying old Pennsylvania mansion and home schooled by their tyrannical professor father, Josie and Jack Raeburn have never had anyone but each other to depend on. Set in the 1990s.

In 1834, Charles Stewart (Alan Ladd), the spoiled, dissolute son of a shipping magnate, is shanghaied aboard the Pilgrim, one of his father's own ships. He embarks upon a long, hellish sea voyage under the tyrannical rule of Captain Francis Thompson (Howard Da Silva), assisted by his first mate, Amazeen (William Bendix). One of his crewmates is Richard Henry Dana Jr. (Brian Donlevy).

A 14-year-old girl in late 1960's America is inadvertently sucked into an odyssey of sex and drugs. She eventually seeks help.

A young girl stuck in a horrific cycle of familial violence finds the power to build her own future from the place she least suspected in an inspiring tale of friendship and devotion starring Ossie Davis and Della Reese, and directed by Bruce Pittman. For years Jo Ann Foley (Madeline Zima) has suffered under the cruel hand of her ruthless grandfather. A chance meeting with kindly neighbors Honey (Reese) and her husband Too Tall (Davis) finds things looking up, however, as the nurturing couple provides Jo Ann with the support needed to break free of her grandfather's tyrannical grip. As the future lies before her ready to be molded however she sees fit, Jo Ann must now find the courage to let go of the past and seek the redemption needed to start life anew.

Thirty-year-old Keith Kavanagh (Joel Thomas Hynes) ekes his way through life in a small town. A hard-drinking hooligan, he keeps his ragged collection of poetry a closely guarded secret... as secret as his regret for the shattered relationship with his father. When Keith meets the darkly exotic Natasha (Mylène Savoie), his life is changed forever.

Thriller about a psycho looking for revenge. Bronsky is a paraplegic because of an accident at a construction site that was partly due to the head architect, David Briand. Many years after the accident, Bronsky shows up at Briand's residence with his family and his trailer looking for assistance. He and his wife insinuate themselves into the household without revealing their true identity. They start to work for Briand and his wife Elaine as a gardener and a babysitter with the sole objective of wreaking havoc on their lives and avenging Bronsky's disabilities.

Ex-con Russell Gaines is attempting to rebuild his life with the help of his father, Mitchell. However, the arrival of Maben sends his new life into chaos, leading the pair to go on the run - as their violent pasts catch up to them, the pair must learn to trust each other if they hope to live out the rest of their days.

In this drama, an American art student is trapped amidst the political turmoil of war-torn Europe while visiting Paris and staying at the fabulous Ritz hotel. Rather than cope constructively with it all, the fellow opts to ignore it and continue living the high-life for as long as possible.

Hardly anyone knows the artist, but almost everyone knows her paintings: Tamara de Lempicka, icon of the 1920s. Her art deco paintings of women in cars or in evening dress adorn book covers and break auction records. But who was she? The ARTE documentary by Grimme Prize-winning author Sylvie Kürsten ventures a self-portrait of Lempicka, narrated and played by Nicole Heesters.

The story of a man who has stopped drinking- and then dreaming- and who thanks to a young man who tries to forget a lost love in alcohol will turn drunk again during an exciting night.

For no apparent reason, "the man" decides he is going to live only in the bathroom of his apartment (clothed). Perhaps he wants the isolation he might find there. His solitude destroyed by a bevy of friends, some housepainters hired by his girlfriend, and his family, our philosophical hero makes his way to a nondescript hotel room in Venice, where he spends his time playing darts in his room. When his girlfriend visits him there, he responds to this interruption of his musings by briefly using her forehead as a dartboard. Eventually he returns to his Paris apartment, and reconciles with his injured girlfriend.

Omar Petit would be able to live a perfectly happy life with his wife and daughter if it weren’t for a number of farmers from the vineyard who have decided to make life miserable for them because of where Omar comes from. One night, one of them happens to be in the middle of sabotaging their vineyard when he witnesses the murder of three South American drug smugglers. The killer, an injured biker who’s nevertheless as hard as nails, must take refuge on the Petits’ farm and takes the family hostage...

A young actress seeking a life away from adult movies moves to Florida insearch of a new identity. Her newfound peace is shattered when local thugsrecognize her.

An alcoholic artist, who may in fact have been driven to murder, seeks inspiration from a mannequin.

Gilbert, assigned to incinerate old banknotes at the Bank of France, lives with his wife, Gisèle, and his young son, Thomas. A few years earlier, he had formed a rock band with Serge and Gisèle's brother, Marc. The latter, abusing his naivety, make him believe that he has been robbed of a briefcase containing a million dollars and that, because of his fault, Marc is in danger of dying. The objective is to force Gilbert to put his incinerator out of order to facilitate the bank robbery. Gilbert refuses at first, then gives in. But he discovers that he has been cheated. To get revenge, he tells the police the date and time of the robbery.

With few clues to go on, Detective Rodriguez is assigned to the case and charged with the task of bringing a beautiful, murdering seductress to justice. After being sentenced to a life term at a mental institution for the criminally insane, the convicted murderer fights for her freedom while falling in love with the man who put her there.

Growing up in the sheltered confines of a 1920's English coal-mining community, free-spirited sisters Gudrun and Ursula explore erotic love with a wealthy playboy and a philosophical educator, with cataclysmic results for all four.

Carla lives life locked inside her house with her kind but tyrannical father. When their isolation is interrupted by a mysterious stranger, Carla questions the reasons for her family's withdrawal from the outside world and discovers dark secrets that redefine their existence.

Big Sur is a film adaptation of the Jack Kerouac autobiographical novel of the same name.

Kay Arnold is a gold digger who wanders from party to party with the intention of catching a rich suitor. Jerry Strong is a young man from a wealthy family who strives to succeed as an artist. What begins as a relationship of mutual convenience soon turns into something else.

The good guys win out in this sweet tale about a young orphan who is abused for much of her life but who eventually finds happiness when she marries an honest man who extricates her from her situation.

A brash young artist invades the secluded retirement of an elderly painter and finds that the great man lives with two young women in a tantalizingly ambiguous relationship.

A crippled dwarf is forced to become jester to a tyrannical king, but when the king abuses a beautiful dwarf with whom the jester is in love the jester plots a terrible revenge.

On a summer day, a man, his daughter and his companion arrive at their country house to spend the weekend. The daughter has just moved in with her father, whose attention she desires. The man is tired of his life, and does not know where to find the strength to carry on living. The woman, a violinist, is confused in her priorities - music, love or career. Despite the fact that the man and the woman love each other, their tense relationship is on the brink of collapse.

A thirty year old man returns from South America to his native village, in the mountains of Yugoslavia, to find his spouse and take her along. He chooses the youngest daughter of self-supporting Jewish woman. The deceit gets discovered on the way to South America. Seven poor girls, among whom is his future wife, are imprisoned in ship's deck. He took them, promising rich marriage, and his real intention is to employ them in bordello houses of Buenos Aires, where the girls, not knowing the language, would be left to his mercy.

Two young Kurdish refugees, recently arrived in Germany struggle to make their way through the harshness of the occidental city. Their encounter with a gang of Turks will rapidly led them into an inevitable tragical spiral filled with death and revenge.

When her sister is mugged and raped, Oili, a young female forensic dentist, meets a group of abused women who have taken matters to their own hands to make the living in fear and just letting it happen stop.

Though a spendthrift and a layabout, Lord Arthur Waring (J. Warren Kerrigan) is universally loved by his tenants. The same cannot be said for Arthur's half-brother Mark (Bertram Grassby), a tyrannical tightwad. Disowned by his family, Arthur finds himself strapped for cash when he promises to finance the operation of Helene von Gerald (Lois Wilson), whom he accidentally crippled in a riding mishap.

Family tensions in the Kentucky hills are inflamed by an outsider's dishonest scheme to exploit the area for its coal.

Silent romantic melodrama about a wife and mother who is desperate to keep a secret from the past IN the past, despite her husband's intentions to reveal it.

The young veterinarian Christine from Vienna stands on the sunny side of life. She is in a relationship with the attractive management consultant Alexander, has just completed her doctorate and is looking forward to a dream job. And she is also unexpectedly pregnant. But after an altercation with Alexander, she loses the child. She desperately flees to her father Georg, a painter to whom she had no contact for many years. He lives on an inherited family estate in Saxony. But instead of rest there is new excitement. At the neighboring riding school she gets together with coach Markus. His rude methods of horse education do not suit her at all. After some difficulties, the two get together and she can also win the trust of a difficult, valuable horse.