Movies Similar to Balzac: A Life of Passion

Open Hearts(2002)

Cecilie and Joachim are about to get married when a freak car accident leaves Joachim disabled, throwing their lives into a spin. The driver of the other car, Marie, and her family don’t get off lightly, either. Her husband Niels works in the hospital where he meets Cecilie and falls madly in love with her.

7.1

Italian for Beginners(2000)

Several lonely hearts in a semi-provincial suburb of a town in Denmark use a beginner's course in Italian as the platform to meet the romance of their lives. The film, which unspools the connections and family drama shared between the students, complies with several aesthetic principles of Dogme 95 movement.

6.4

The Secret Life of Words(2005)

A solitary nurse bonds with a badly burned patient who survived an accident on an oil rig.

7.0

The Garden(2017)

In the summer of 1976, a shared family yard becomes the setting, as the adults bicker over selling the garden and the kids are free to explore the mysterious neighboring lot. Then they hear about a girl that has disappeared...

4.9

Adolescence(2018)

A teenager from an abusive household falls in love with a free-spirited runaway that leads him into the fast-lane lifestyle of drugs and addiction which threatens to destroy him.

7.0

Poem of the Sea(1958)

A Soviet dam project means that many old Ukrainian villages will end up under water. There are conflicts between the dam engineers and villagers who don't want to move.

5.0

The Wagner-Clan(2015)

After the death of genius Richard Wagner his wife Cosima fights for his legacy even against the will of her children Sigmund and Sieglinde.

4.0

The Python(2003)

An absurdist farce centering around a school in post-Soviet Latvia. After a rather disgusting prank (someone defecates in the school attic), the tyrannical headmistress deems that no one can leave until the culprit is caught. When the photographer's pet python escapes, havok breaks loose.

0.0

Bend It Like Beckham(2002)

Jess Bhamra, the daughter of a strict Indian couple in London, is not permitted to play organized soccer, even though she is 18. When Jess is playing for fun one day, her impressive skills are seen by Jules Paxton, who then convinces Jess to play for her semi-pro team. Jess uses elaborate excuses to hide her matches from her family while also dealing with her romantic feelings for her coach, Joe.

6.3

36 Fillette(1988)

Lili, a pouty and voluptuous 14-year-old, is caravan camping with her family in Biarritz. She's self-aware and holds her own in a café conversation with a concert pianist she meets, but she has a wild streak and she's testing her powers over men, finding that she doesn't always control her moods or actions, and she's impatient with being a virgin. She sets off with her brother to a disco, latching onto an aging playboy who is himself hot and cold to her. She is ambivalent about losing her virginity that night, willing the next, and determined by the third.

5.0

Monsoon Wedding(2001)

As the romantic monsoon rains loom, the extended Verma family reunites from around the globe for a last-minute arranged marriage in New Delhi. This film traces five intersecting stories, each navigating different aspects of love as they cross boundaries of class, continent and morality.

6.8

Cléo from 5 to 7(1962)

Agnès Varda eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time portrait of a singer set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of the minutes of one woman’s life, Cléo from 5 to 7 is a spirited mix of vivid vérité and melodrama, featuring a score by Michel Legrand and cameos by Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.

7.7

Monster(2003)

An emotionally scarred highway drifter shoots a sadistic trick who rapes her, and ultimately becomes America's first female serial killer.

7.2

Fire(1997)

In a barren, arranged marriage to an amateur swami who seeks enlightenment through celibacy, Radha's life takes an irresistible turn when her beautiful young sister-in-law seeks to free herself from the confines of her own loveless marriage.

6.7

Lake of Death(2019)

A small group of friends battle to survive in the middle of the forests and fjords of Norway. The story is based on Norwegian legend thought to be innocent folklore.

4.0

Heat(1963)

An idealistic high school graduate goes to work on a state farm on the Kazakh steppe, only to clash with its authoritarian leader.

4.0

Fires Within(1991)

A Cuban emigre, living in Miami and involved in an affair with the American seaman who rescued her and her daughter years earlier, must face her husband after he is unexpectedly released from a Cuban prison.

4.0

Olivia(1951)

"Olivia" captures the awakening passions of an English adolescent sent away for a year to a small finishing school outside Paris. The innocent but watchful Olivia develops an infatuation for her headmistress Julie and through this screen of love observes the tense romance between Julie and the other head of the school Cara in its final months.

6.6

Zestrea(1973)

Young engineer Doru is called to the Prosecutor's Office and questioned on his wife's unlawful ways of making money. Soon he'll learn about her true character and he'll regret having broken up with Livia, a woman who truly loved him.

8.5

Legend of the Red Reaper(2013)

For a thousand years, the Reapers guarded mankind from the demons that wait in the dark. Now, at the beginning of a new age, the Reapers are betrayed and slaughtered. Only one Reaper remains - Red, and she's out to exact revenge.

3.2