Movies Similar to The Lost Years

Separated(2024)

Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Errol Morris confronts one of the darkest chapters in recent American history: family separations. Based on NBC News Political and National Correspondent Jacob Soboroff’s book, Separated: Inside an American Tragedy, Morris merges bombshell interviews with government officials and artful narrative vignettes tracing one migrant family’s plight. Together they show that the cruelty at the heart of this policy was its very purpose. Against this backdrop, audiences can begin to absorb the U.S. government’s role in developing and implementing policies that have kept over 1300 children without confirmed reunifications years later, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Anything Else Than Air(2014)

This film explores the consequences of the decisions we take and shows those things which really matter. After leaving his wife and children and promising he would be back, a man lives in a tent at a Mexico City park. There, he earns his living by selling balloons. After 30 years, he needs to fulfill his promise and return home. Will his family accept him back? Is he going to be able to change a life on the streets for the comfort of his home?

Há Sempre Alguém Que Te Ama(2004)

Filmed immediately after the end of the civil war in Angola, Há Sempre Alguém Que Te Ama records the return of Pocas Pascoal to the country where she was born, in an attempt to reconstruct the episode that, in 1975, led to the capture of the director along with her mother and sisters. An intimate documentary about memory and self-(re)construction.

A 3 Minute Hug(2018)

As daylight breaks between the border cities of El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico, undocumented migrants and their relatives, divided by a wall, prepare to participate in an activist event. For three minutes, they’ll embrace in no man’s land for the briefest and sweetest of reunions.

The Invention of the Other(2022)

In 2019, the Brazilian government coordinates the largest and riskiest expedition of the last decades into the Amazon rainforest to search for a group of isolated indigenous people in vulnerability and promote their first contact with non-indigenous. Bruno Pereira, who would later be murdered in the same region and turned into an international symbol in favor of the indigenous and the forest, leads the expedition.

Five Broken Cameras(2011)

Five broken cameras – and each one has a powerful tale to tell. Embedded in the bullet-ridden remains of digital technology is the story of Emad Burnat, a farmer from the Palestinian village of Bil’in, which famously chose nonviolent resistance when the Israeli army encroached upon its land to make room for Jewish colonists. Emad buys his first camera in 2005 to document the birth of his fourth son, Gibreel. Over the course of the film, he becomes the peaceful archivist of an escalating struggle as olive trees are bulldozed, lives are lost, and a wall is built to segregate burgeoning Israeli settlements.

Jerusalem... The East Side Story(2007)

The film documents Palestinian everyday's life under Isreali occupation in East Jerusalem. It uncovers Isreals policy of judaizing the city in order to gain Jewish majority by driving out Palestinian people from the city. The documentary includes interviews with Palestinian as well as Isreali political leaders, political analysts and human right activists.

The Twinning Reaction(2017)

An astounding exposé that gives voice to the unwitting subjects of an infamous American scientific experiment: the 1960s Neubauer-Bernard study of separated twins. Told from the perspective of the Jewish identical twins and triplets who were secretly split up in infancy and adopted through Louise Wise Services, a Jewish adoption agency, the documentary examines the traumatic, long-term effects of the separations — and continuing deception — on the children and their adoptive families.

Faces from Home(2024)

In an empty house, we see the memories of a home, from those who once lived and filled it with joy and love.

Exile Family Movie(2006)

A family’s story, typically crazy and exceptional at the same time. A film about home and exile, parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters and all the other relatives, close and distant, in an extended Persian family. Some of them emigrated to Europe or America, though the majority has stayed in Iran. Regardless of all the danger involved, they secretly meet after 20 years at a place which won’t raise suspicion among the Iranian authorities: Mecca. They come from America, Sweden, Austria and Iran to laugh, argue, cook and celebrate. This is accompanied by an excessive amount of hugging and kissing, and also a clash between Muslim and Western cultures.

Welcome Back, Farewell(2021)

Parents and children are reunited after 13 years apart. This is the starting point of the film, which follows the process of affective reconstruction of director Marcos Yoshi's family, crossed by the flow of migrations between Brazil and Japan, known as the dekassegui phenomenon. The story of a family of Japanese descent torn between the need to make a living and the desire to stay together.

Pyeongyang Neangmyeon(2022)

Cheoljung, the chief chef of Okryugwan in North Korea, is separated from his younger brother in South Korea. One day, he was dispatched to make Pyongyang Naengmyeon, for the request of South Korea at the 2018 Inter-Korean Panmunjom Summit. At the same time, his younger brother is also attending as a South Korean entourage. Despite his old age, Cheoljung goes to the Panmunjom to make Pyongyang Naengmyeon which their mother used to cook for the family.

Werner We Love You(2017)

When Werner Herzog was still a child, his father was beaten to death before his eyes. His mother was overwhelmed with his upbringing and thereupon shipped him off to one of the toughest youth welfare institutions in Freistatt. This was followed by a career as a bouncer in the city's most notorious music club and an attempt to start a family. Today, the 77-year-old from Bielefeld lives with his dog Lucky in a lonely house in the country. Despite adverse living conditions, he has survived in his own unique and inimitable way.

Meet Me On The Bridge(2017)

Kati Pohler was abandoned in a market in China when she was three days old. Her parents left a note saying they would meet her on a famous bridge 10 or 20 years later. When the time arrived, it became a huge story in China, but Kati was living in America and had no idea. This is how she finally met her biological family.

Arada(2021)

The story of three Turkish men. They all grew up in Switzerland and all got deported after various criminal offenses.

Lockdown Generation(2021)

In the beginning it felt like a holiday, then everything changed due to Covid19.

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A Walton Thanksgiving Reunion(1993)

The fourth Waltons reunion TV movie is set in the 1960s , with John-Boy still living in New York, trying to persuade his fiancée to marry him. Meanwhile, Ben and Cindy's daughter Virginia has died, and Cindy is finding life very lonely without her. She tells Ben that she would dearly love to adopt another baby, but Ben feels that it is not a good idea. Ben argues with his father about buying a new truck for their lumber company, but John keeps insisting that they can't afford it. Elsewhere, Erin now has three children and is separated from Paul. Her decision to start seeing another man causes some indignation among the other Walton family members. Ike and Corabeth become grandparents when Aimee has a daughter, while Elizabeth returns from Europe and reunites with Drew, her old beau.

Only Human(2004)

A mismatched couple discovers that whatever can go wrong will go wrong during a family visit.

The Life of the Dead(1991)

A young woman convenes with her extended family in a provincial village where her cousin, in a coma, is hospitalized after attempting suicide.