Movies like Reading Lolita in Tehran
If you like "Reading Lolita in Tehran" you are looking for poignant and reflective movies about / with female friendship, women's rights, oppression, political repression, authoritarianism, female empowerment and literary themes of Biography and Drama genre shot in Israel or Italy.
Find your next favorite and similar movies in two steps:
1. Identify all themes of interest from this film (block below).
2. Look for them in the presented list.
Reading Lolita in Tehran (2024)
1K
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: Israel, Italy, UK
Duration: 108 min.
Story:
As Islamic morality squads stage arbitrary raids in Tehran and as fundamentalists seize hold of the universities, Azar Nafisi, an inspired teacher, secretly gathers six of her most committed female students to read forbidden western classics. Unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, they soon removed their veils, their stories intertwining with the novels they read: just like the heroines of Nabokov, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James or Jane Austen, the women in Nafisi’s living room dare to dream, hope and love as we experience the complexity of the lives of individuals facing political, moral and personal siege.
Style:
poignant, reflective
Plot:
female friendship, women's rights, oppression, political repression, authoritarianism, female empowerment, literary, teacher student relationship, autobiography, coming of age, adaptation, identity, household, hopes, intimate, memory, airplane, teacher, student, university, book, repression, literature, self sacrifice, airport ...
Time:
year 1979
Place:
iran, tehran, tehran iran
Movie in categories
Most similar movies to Reading Lolita in Tehran
The list contains related movies ordered by similarity. Recommendation engine sorted out reflective, melancholic, emotional and period piece films with plots about biopic, identity, coming of age, intimate, female protagonist, resilience and autobiography mostly in Drama, Biography and Comedy genres. Some movies like Reading Lolita in Tehran: Diary for My Loves (1987), Fuori (2025), My Life as a Comedian (2019), Mayu: Kokoro no hoshi (2007), Filmlovers! (2024). The matching attributes are highlighted in bold.
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: Hungary
Duration: 141 min.
Story:
A continuation of "Diary for My Children," the film picks up in 1950, when Juli, the diarist, is 18 and determined to become a movie director.
Style:
art house, reflective, poignant, emotional, lyrical ...
Plot:
diary, female protagonist, autobiography, introspection, coming of age, intimate, post war, identity, memory, personal growth, political repression, literary ...
Time:
1950s, 50s
Place:
moscow russia, budapest
Similarity:
95%
752
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 117 min.
Story:
Rome. The 1980s. After the magnum opus The Art of Joy she has been working on for a decade is rejected by the Italian publishing world, writer Goliarda Sapienza commits a desperate theft that costs her her reputation and social position. ...
Style:
reflective, melancholic, period drama
Plot:
character study, writers, feminism, biopic, self discovery, intimate, rejection, hopes, redemption, women's rights, resilience, outcast ...
Time:
80s, year 1980, 20th century
Place:
italy, rome italy
Similarity:
60%
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 92 min.
Story:
Juha, 12, class clown in the suburb of Sävbyholm, Sweden. To be funny is the only thing he is good at and all he wants is to fit in the social peckingorder at school. When Juha as an adult performs the show – My Life As A Comedian- to sold out ...
Style:
captivating, comedy drama, period piece, melancholic
Plot:
coming of age, past coming back to haunt, haunted by the past, dealing with the past, childhood, family problems, life philosophy, troubled past, life, confronting the past, comedian, bittersweet ...
Time:
70s
Place:
eastern europe
Similarity:
47%
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 123 min.
Story:
Adaptation of Mayu Ohara's autobiography.
Style:
heartfelt, realistic, emotional, reflective, period drama ...
Plot:
biopic, autobiography, adaptation, female protagonist, personal growth, slice of life, mother daughter relationship, coming of age, intimate, domestic drama, bittersweet, resilience ...
Similarity:
45%
Movie in collections
Genre: Biography, Comedy, Drama
Country: France
Duration: 88 min.
Story:
What does it mean, to go to the movies? Why have people been going for over one hundred years? I set out to celebrate movie theaters and their manifold magic. So I walked in the footsteps of young Paul Dédalus, as if in a filmgoer’s coming-of-age ...
Style:
poetic, reflective, art house, experimental, meditative
Plot:
cinema, film history, nostalgia, celebration, memory, intimate, coming of age, melancholy, voice over narration, childhood, identity, obsession ...
Time:
20th century
Place:
france
Similarity:
39%
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: France, USA
Duration: 99 min.
Story:
Nina (Melina Mercouri) is a former silent-film star from Russia who abandons her career to care for her son. She is a single mother -- the boy's father is a famous actor who wants nothing to do with either Nina or her child. She joins an acting ...
Style:
emotional, poignant, family saga, historical drama, dramatic ...
Plot:
single mother, mother son relationship, struggle, biopic, ambition, migration, identity, coming of age, resilience, survival, immigration, illegitimate child ...
Place:
france, eastern europe, paris france
Similarity:
39%
31
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: New Zealand
Duration: 98 min.
Story:
Bliss tells the story of Katherine Mansfield in her early 20s as she leaves New Zealand and begins her journey as a writer.
Style:
historical drama, poetic, period piece, sensitive, reflective ...
Plot:
modernism, biopic, writer's life, female protagonist, coming of age, character study, friendship, literary, female empowerment, writers, teenage girl, tuberculosis ...
Time:
edwardian era
Place:
england
Similarity:
39%
Genre: Drama
Country: France, Italy, Algeria
Duration: 101 min.
Story:
Based on a novel that Albert Camus was working on when he died, we follow Jacques Comery as he travels back to Algeria in 1957, a place full of childhood memories. The country is split between those wanting to remain a part of France, and those ...
Style:
realistic, contemplative, sentimental, atmospheric, psychological ...
Plot:
childhood, youth, family relations, society, social issues, identity, memory, adaptation, reminiscence, literary, autobiography, homecoming ...
Time:
20th century, 50s
Place:
africa, algeria, north africa
Similarity:
38%
Movie in collections
Genre: Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 113 min.
Story:
The sierras of southern Brazil, 1963. The son of an French man and a Brazilian woman, Tony is a young man with a profound love of cinema and poetry. After graduating from college he returns to his small town in rural Brazil, to find out that his ...
Style:
psychological, captivating, reflective, melancholic, emotional ...
Plot:
search for father, teacher, father son relationship, coming of age, lifestyle, relationships, life is a bitch, family relations, school teacher, personal growth, family drama, identity ...
Time:
60s
Place:
brazil
Similarity:
38%
Genre: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 90 min.
Story:
Born to traditional Punjabi parents and growing up in Wolverhampton, Sathnam Sanghera moves to London after graduating from Cambridge University. Now in his late 20s he is planning to reveal to his family that he will defy expectations of an ...
Style:
emotional, heartfelt, touching, poignant, reflective ...
Plot:
arranged marriage, family secret, coming of age, identity, parent child relationship, bittersweet, family drama, immigration, rite of passage, identity crisis, biopic, intimate ...
Place:
london
Similarity:
37%
153
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 118 min.
Story:
Biography of Russian physicist & dissident Andrei Sakharov focuses on his first acts in his civil rights.
Style:
serious, thought provoking, historical drama, period piece, political drama
Plot:
dissident, exile, hunger, human rights, authoritarianism, oppression, political repression, biopic, activism, civil rights movement, nobel prize, cold war ...
Place:
soviet union, ussr, russia
Similarity:
35%
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 173 min.
Story:
For sixty years, Elizabeth II has met each of her twelve Prime Ministers in a weekly audience at Buckingham Palace, a meeting like no other in British public life, it is private.
Style:
political, psychological, captivating, reflective, poignant ...
Plot:
british politics, live performance, theater, british history, queen, prime minister, british, monarchy, royalty, queen elizabeth ii, politics, royal family ...
Time:
20th century, 21st century
Place:
england, britain, buckingham palace
Similarity:
34%
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 150 min.
Story:
Dramatization of the life of Italian actress Sophia Loren who plays herself during adulthood and also that of her mother Romilda Villani.
Style:
period piece, emotional, dramatic
Plot:
biopic, mother daughter relationship, female protagonist, glamour, autobiography, resilience, legacy, motherhood, family drama, intimate, female empowerment, hollywood ...
Place:
rome italy, italy
Similarity:
33%
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: Hungary
Duration: 60 min.
Story:
The profound depths of Ernõ Szép's life and poetry are revived in a new film adaptation of the poet's novel, 'The Smell of Humans'. This stoic and lyrical narrative of twenty fateful days offers an authentic account of an ...
Style:
reflective, lyrical, melancholic, bleak, emotional ...
Plot:
humanity, poetry, poet, memory, biopic, literary, haunting, survival, loss, resilience, oppression, anti semitism ...
Time:
1940s
Place:
hungary, eastern europe
Similarity:
33%
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 105 min.
Story:
Ariadna discovers that her grandfather has been searching for the remains of his father, who disappeared during the Civil War. Determined to help him, she travels to Burgos, where a mass grave is being excavated, and where he could be buried. During ...
Style:
historical drama, thrilling, psychological, captivating, emotional ...
Plot:
teacher, biopic, school teacher, professor, small community, spanish civil war, civil war, storytelling, political violence, exhumation, memories, memory ...
Time:
1930s
Similarity:
32%
480
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: France
Duration: 93 min.
Story:
Darling is a woman of today. It seems to always choose the wrong path. Suffers but does not look like a victim. Do not feel sorry for herself. On the contrary, shows a passion for life against all odds. She is struggling to exist. If you fall, get ...
Style:
serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, melancholic ...
Plot:
farm, hopes, love and romance, loss of innocence, resilience, female protagonist, young woman, toxic relationship, mature, small town, longing, naivete ...
Time:
21st century
Place:
france
Similarity:
32%
23K
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 104 min.
Story:
New York in the 1920s. Max Perkins, literary editor at Scribner’s Sons is the first to sign such subsequent literary greats as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. When a sprawling, chaotic 1,000-page manuscript by an unknown writer named ...
Style:
period piece, talky, touching, intellectual, informative ...
Audience:
boys' night
Plot:
writers, novelist, genius, book editor, book, mentor, brutality, relationships, biopic, literary, jazz, creativity ...
Time:
1930s
Place:
usa, new york, new jersey
Similarity:
31%
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min.
Story:
With unexpected humor, Maddie Corman shares a story of perseverance and hope in the face of crisis in this film based on her renowned one-woman show.
Style:
uplifting, independent film, satirical
Plot:
dark secret, confession, self discovery, marriage, hopes, character study, relationships, marital crisis, perseverance, betrayal, infidelity, bittersweet ...
Place:
new york
Similarity:
31%
Movie in collections
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: Ireland, Canada
Duration: 104 min.
Story:
The life story of traditional Irish folk singer Joe Heaney, who is estimated to have recorded in excess of 500 traditional Irish sean nós ('old style') songs. Heaney moved from Ireland to the UK, and then on to New York City, where he ...
Style:
reflective, lyrical, melancholic, art house, period piece ...
Plot:
biopic, folk singer, intimate, identity, community, loneliness, exile, singer, father son relationship, teacher, singing, irishman ...
Place:
new york, ireland
Similarity:
31%
Genre: Drama
Country: Spain, France
Duration: 93 min.
Story:
Summer of 1976. Bea is 16 years old and she collaborates with a group of women to make visible the feminist cause and achieve the approval of the right to abortion. The rebellion she feels in the blood will mix with an unexpected feeling that will ...
Style:
psychological, serious, social, exciting, thrilling ...
Audience:
adult
Plot:
lesbian, women's rights, women, coming of age, abortion rights, feminism, social problems, fighting the system, social injustice, fight for justice, fight, civil rights ...
Time:
70s
Place:
spain
Similarity:
30%
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: India
Duration: 140 min.
Story:
Upcoming Bengali Movie Based on Bengali matinee idol Uttam Kumar. The story revolves around the unexplored life of Uttam Kumar.
Style:
period piece, retro, reflective, sentimental, emotional ...
Plot:
biopic, tribute, actor's life, legacy, film industry, behind the scenes, respect, character study, nostalgia, glamour, identity, memory ...
Place:
kolkata
Similarity:
29%
Genre: Drama
Country: Argentina
Duration: 85 min.
Story:
In a poor neighborhood crisscrossed by a polluted river, Tati, a 14-year-old girl, is forced to grow up alone in a troubled and confusing context. While learning to sail on the river, she dreams of being a boat rower. A job only ruled by men.
Style:
emotional
Plot:
female protagonist, gender roles, adolescence, coming of age, ambition, struggle, river, youth, poverty, working class, resilience, dream ...
Similarity:
29%
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 110 min.
Story:
Girls no more, four heroines emerge into womanhood with a more clear-eyed outlook on life.
Style:
reflective, melancholic
Plot:
grownups, adolescence, coming of age, friendship, self discovery, personal growth, youth, female friendship, female bonding, loss of innocence, relationships, life lesson ...
Time:
1920s
Similarity:
29%
Movie in collections
Genre: Drama
Country: Russia
Duration: 74 min.
Story:
The story of Tanya, who is suddenly hit by a feeling that her existence is hopelessly devoid of meaning, is set in St. Petersburg. The city landscape provides the backdrop for Tanya's ups and downs as she takes drastic action, gets into scrapes ...
Style:
emotional, touching, poignant, independent film, melancholic ...
Plot:
solitude, personal growth, self discovery, diary, female protagonist, confession, bittersweet, coming of age, resilience, intimate, identity, hopes ...
Time:
21st century
Place:
st. petersburg russia
Similarity:
28%
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: USA, Germany
Duration: 127 min.
Story:
Set in the changing world of the late 1960s, Susanna Kaysen's prescribed "short rest" from a psychiatrist she had met only once becomes a strange, unknown journey into Alice's Wonderland, where she struggles with the thin line ...
Style:
psychological, crying, gothic, serious, heartbreaking ...
Audience:
girls' night, chick flick, teens, teen drama, adult
Plot:
mental illness, suicide, coming of age, psychiatric ward, suicide attempt, mental institution, teenage girl, psychiatrist, borderline personality disorder, insanity, female protagonist, mentally unstable ...
Time:
20th century, year 1999, 90s, year 1967, 60s
Place:
usa
Similarity:
28%
887
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: Indonesia
Duration: 103 min.
Story:
Zira was united with Amer for 172 very memorable days. Fate separated, Amer left too soon, leaving many sweet memories for Zira.
Style:
thrilling, captivating, psychological, romantic drama, reflective ...
Plot:
love, female protagonist, couples, muslim, spiritual journey, problem, self discovery, religious conversion, personal growth, separation, loyalty, soul searching ...
Time:
2020s, 21st century
Similarity:
28%
2K
Genre: Drama
Country: Indonesia, France, Singapore, Australia
Duration: 95 min.
Story:
In her last year of secondary school, a bright Indonesian student is determined to pursue her education and resist getting married, despite the expectations of her community.
Style:
reflective, tension, emotional, teen, smart ...
Audience:
teens, teen drama
Plot:
coming of age, arranged marriage, female empowerment, tradition, female protagonist, high school life, gender roles, cultural conflict, traditional versus modern, moral dilemma, resistance, self discovery ...
Place:
southeast asia, indonesia
Similarity:
27%
169
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 200 min.
Story:
After fleeting marriages to Henry Fonda and William Wyler, Margaret Sullavan found contentment as the wife of producer Leland Hayward (Jason Robards) and as the mother of three. Or so it seemed, until the marriage crumbled, the children rebelled and ...
Style:
period piece, reflective, melancholic, art house, moody
Plot:
biopic, autobiography, family drama, dysfunctional family, broadway, celebrity culture, hollywood, mental illness, father daughter relationship, mother daughter relationship, glamour, showbiz ...
Similarity:
26%
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 90 min.
Story:
In the 19th century, young Charles Dickens is a promising young writer who is obsessed with material success in his career. His misguided priorities are soon challenged when he encounters a mysterious little girl. That girl takes Dickens on a ...
Style:
period piece, inspirational, historical drama, reflective, emotional ...
Audience:
family friendly
Plot:
biopic, charles dickens, writer's life, social criticism, literary, christmas, child protagonist, ghost story, coming of age, supernatural, christmas carol, inspiration ...
Time:
victorian era, 19th century
Place:
london
Similarity:
26%
Genre: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min.
Story:
Fifteen-year-old Heidi Schreck earned her college tuition by winning Constitutional debate competitions across the United States. In this hilarious, hopeful, and achingly human show, Heidi resurrects her teenage self in order to trace the profound ...
Style:
political, thought provoking, captivating, thrilling, heartfelt ...
Plot:
american history, feminism, civil rights movement, equality, storytelling, autobiography, stage play, female protagonist, politics, social issues, social problems, political activism ...
Time:
20th century, 21st century
Place:
usa
Similarity:
26%
Related movie lists
