Movies Similar to An Optimistic Tragedy

Doctor Zhivago(1965)

The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.

7.5

Persepolis(2007)

In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Satrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.

7.9

Indochine(1992)

Set in colonial French Indochina during the 1930s to 1950s, this is the story of Éliane Devries, a French plantation owner, and of her adopted Vietnamese daughter, Camille, set against the backdrop of the rising Vietnamese nationalist movement.

7.0

Lenin in Paris(1981)

1911. Lenin organizes the first Bolshevik party school near Paris, in the small town of Longjumeau. Through a chain of historical parallels and associations, this time is intertwined with the events of the Paris Commune, the October Revolution and the political struggles of the post-revolutionary years.

3.8

Cows(1992)

A film set in the Basque region, beginning in the Carlist war of 1875 and ending during the Spanish Civil war of 1936. The film portrays how one single act of cowardice shapes the life of the next three generations of two families and fuels the intense rivalry which will span the next sixty-one years.

6.4

Checkpoint(1998)

A group Russian soldiers is send to an outpost to guard the area. They pass the day patroulling the area, while being shot at from the forest. They never know if the civillions are hostile or friendly to them.

5.7

Lenin: The Train(1990)

March/April 1917. The first world war is already a couple year to pace. A sealed train with Russian emigrants keeps on driving from Zürich Germany and Sweden to Sint-Petersburg. The outlaws stand under the guidance of Vladimir J. Lenin. Two senior officers support the revolutionary bomb "to ensure that everything runs smoothly. Yet there are some unpleasant clashes between Socialists and enthusiastic workers who are worried about the war. During train travel there comes an end to Lenin's affair with the gracious Inessa, and his wife Nadja is prepared take back him. The triumphant entrance in St. Petersburg will exceed all expectations....

6.2

Paradise Now(2005)

Two childhood friends are recruited for a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.

6.9

Battleship Potemkin(1925)

A dramatized account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resultant public demonstration, showing support, which brought on a police massacre. The film had an incredible impact on the development of cinema and is a masterful example of montage editing.

7.6

The Travelling Players(1975)

This expansive Greek drama follows a troupe of theater actors as they perform around their country during World War II. While the production that they put on is entitled "Golfo the Shepherdess," the thespians end up echoing scenes from classic Greek tales in their own lives, as Elektra plots revenge on her mother for the death of her father, and seeks help from her brother, Orestes, a young anti-fascist rebel.

7.4

October (Ten Days that Shook the World)(1928)

Sergei M. Eisenstein's docu-drama about the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. Made ten years after the events and edited in Eisenstein's 'Soviet Montage' style, it re-enacts in celebratory terms several key scenes from the revolution.

6.9

Gone with the Wind(1939)

The spoiled daughter of a Georgia plantation owner conducts a tumultuous romance with a cynical profiteer during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era.

7.9

The Night of the Shooting Stars(1982)

The Night of San Lorenzo, the night of the shooting stars, is the night when dreams come true in Italian folklore. In 1944, a group of Italians flee their town after hearing rumours that the Nazis plan to blow it up and that the Americans are about to arrive to liberate them.

7.1

Lenin and the Other Story of the Russian Revolution(2018)

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, is remembered as the instigator of the October Revolution of 1917 and, therefore, as one of the men who changed the shape of the world at that time and forever, but perhaps the actual events happened in a way different from that narrated in the history books…

8.0

C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America(2005)

Through the eyes of a British "documentary", this film takes a satirically humorous, and sometimes frightening, look at the history of an America where the South won the Civil War.

5.8

War for the Planet of the Apes(2017)

Caesar and his apes are forced into a deadly conflict with an army of humans led by a ruthless Colonel. After the apes suffer unimaginable losses, Caesar wrestles with his darker instincts and begins his own mythic quest to avenge his kind. As the journey finally brings them face to face, Caesar and the Colonel are pitted against each other in an epic battle that will determine the fate of both their species and the future of the planet.

7.2

All the Invisible Children(2005)

Seven short films - each one focused on the plight of a different child protagonist.

7.1

The City of First Love(1971)

The film tells about the inhabitants of the Russian city of Tsaritsyn-Stalingrad-Volgograd. The film consists of three novellas, united by the theme of love and the scene - a city on the Volga.

9.0

The Hunting Party(2007)

A young journalist, an experienced cameraman and a discredited reporter find their bold plan to capture Bosnia's top war criminal quickly spiraling out of control when a UN representative mistakes them for a CIA hit squad.

6.5

Timbuktu(2014)

Just outside of the Malian city of Timbuktu, now occupied by militant Islamic rebels who impose the Sharia on civilians and inconvenience their daily life, a cattleman kills a fisherman.

7.0