Movies like A Pale View of Hills
If you like "A Pale View of Hills" you are looking for period piece, atmospheric and melancholic movies about / with widow, female protagonist, post war, memory, secrets, grief and trauma themes of Drama, History and War genre shot in Japan or UK.
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1. Identify all themes of interest from this film (block below).
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A Pale View of Hills (2025)
353
Original name: 遠い山なみの光
Genre: Drama, History, War
Country: Japan, UK, Poland, Singapore
Duration: 123 min.
Story:
Dual timelines explore a Japanese widow's memories spanning post-war Nagasaki in 1950s and England during 1980s Cold War era, unraveling secrets that intertwine her past and present experiences across borders.
Style:
period piece, atmospheric, melancholic, reflective, intercultural, historical drama, period drama
Plot:
widow, female protagonist, post war, memory, secrets, grief, trauma, family relations, family secret, mother and daughter, loss, regret, identity, haunting, repression, isolation, nostalgia, intimate, literary, domestic drama, immigration, diaspora, slow burn, life, border ...
Time:
1950s, 60s, 80s, 20th century, year 1982, year 1952, 1960s
Place:
england
Movie in categories
Most similar movies to A Pale View of Hills
The list contains related movies ordered by similarity. Recommendation engine sorted out melancholic, atmospheric, reflective and bleak films with plots about memory, identity, loss, trauma, nostalgia, grief and intimate mostly in Drama, War and History genres. Some movies like A Pale View of Hills: El largo invierno (1992), Forced March (1989), Hourglass (2007), Liten Ida (1981), The Raven (1977). The matching attributes are highlighted in bold.
Genre: Drama, History, War
Country: Spain, France
Duration: 135 min.
Story:
In 1939, Ramon (Jacques Penot) was a young man, caught up in his Barcelona family's involvement on the Republic side in the brutal Spanish Civil War. He and his family fled into exile ahead of Franco's troops. Now it is many years later, ...
Style:
historical drama, period piece, bleak, serious, contemplative ...
Plot:
spanish civil war, fascism, exile, political repression, memory, flashback, family history, reflection, totalitarianism, nostalgia, memories, butler ...
Time:
20th century, year 1939
Place:
barcelona, catalonia
Similarity:
95%
Genre: Drama, History, War
Country: Hungary, USA
Duration: 104 min.
Story:
Originally shot in Hungary in 1988, this new version of FORCED MARCH is even more haunting, given the re-emergence of anti-Semitism in today’s Hungary. Chris Sarandon plays BEN KLINE, an American television star and a “bankable name” who is ...
Style:
historical drama, bleak, poignant, serious, meditative ...
Plot:
holocaust, concentration camp, actor, trauma, jewish history, memories, haunting, empathy, memory, guilt, survival, identity ...
Time:
1940s, year 1989
Place:
hungary, los angeles, europe
Similarity:
94%
112
Genre: Drama, War
Country: Serbia, Hungary
Duration: 110 min.
Story:
A story of a Jewish-Hungarian-Serbian family. The plot is centered about trying of an adult son to reconstruct his childhood dream of and memories. Looms, but a sunken world, the central European town with its figures, the way to experiencing deep ...
Style:
melancholic, poignant, atmospheric, tragicomedy, period piece ...
Plot:
father son relationship, memory, family drama, madness, loneliness, childhood, identity, sadness, nostalgia, intimate, humiliation, dream ...
Time:
year 1942
Place:
central europe, balkan
Similarity:
94%
166
Genre: Drama, War
Country: Norway, Sweden
Duration: 87 min.
Story:
Little Ida's mother is working for the Germans during WW2, and she is also having a relationship with a German SS-officer. Ida is experiencing the problems of having a mother who is involved with the enemy, without being old enough to ...
Style:
historical drama, period piece, melancholic, realistic, bleak ...
Plot:
world war two, mother daughter relationship, collaboration, family drama, loss of innocence, trauma, betrayal, guilt, intimate, identity, haunting, moral ambiguity ...
Time:
1940s
Similarity:
90%
Movie in collections
380
Genre: Drama, History, Mystery, War
Country: Iran
Duration: 120 min.
Story:
When Mr. Esalat is looking for a topic for his TV show, he notices an advertisement in the newspaper about a missing girl. The picture of the missing girl is very familiar to him and he tries to remember where he saw it before. His wife Asieh is a ...
Style:
suspenseful, psychological thriller, emotional, tense, atmospheric ...
Plot:
diary, missing person, memory, obsession, cold case, investigation, nostalgia, loss, identity, family drama, investigative journalism, grief ...
Time:
1940s, 70s, 1930s
Place:
iran, persia, tehran iran
Similarity:
90%
Genre: Drama, History, War
Country: Czech Republic, Slovakia
Duration: 90 min.
Story:
Slovak musicologist Agata Schindlerová, now settled in Dresden, has spent years mapping out the forgotten destinies of Jewish musicians whose lives were irrevocably marked by the advance of nazism. Scenes from the lives of several of them are ...
Style:
melancholic, reflective, atmospheric, tragic, period drama
Plot:
musician, pianist, composer, train conductor, memories, oppression, holocaust, nazism, memory, persecution, anti semitism, biopic ...
Time:
1930s
Place:
germany, czechoslovakia
Similarity:
89%
512
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Country: Hungary, UK, USA, Cyprus, France, Germany
Duration: 132 min.
Story:
In 1957 Budapest, one year following the failure of the Hungarian Revolution, a 12-year-old Jewish boy whose mother has raised him to believe that his father will return from the camps has his hopes shattered when a brutish stranger appears on the ...
Style:
historical drama, emotional, melancholic, period piece, intense ...
Plot:
child protagonist, family drama, trauma, post war, identity crisis, father son conflict, jewish family, intimate, haunting, cold war, brutality, mistrust ...
Time:
1950s, year 1956, 20th century
Place:
budapest, hungary, europe, central europe
Similarity:
88%
Genre: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 120 min.
Story:
When Bertha dies, her granddaughter Iris inherits her house and finds herself back in the home where she and her cousin used to play dressing-up in the summer holidays. While she wanders from room to room, she gropes her way through memories and ...
Style:
family saga, melancholic, contemplative, reflective, emotional ...
Plot:
memory, family drama, inheritance, family secret, grief, mourning, nostalgia, flashback, house, homecoming, literary, adaptation ...
Time:
20th century
Place:
northern germany
Similarity:
83%
Movie in collections
173
Genre: Drama
Country: Cyprus, Israel, Slovenia
Duration: 87 min.
Story:
Chara’s family is everything to her, and yet she sometimes ponders a life without them. When she strikes up a hesitant friendship with a young girl, she is inexorably forced to confront a painful past and to answer a burning question: Is ...
Style:
emotional, melancholic, realistic, psychological, atmospheric ...
Plot:
motherhood, domestic drama, character study, identity, female protagonist, gender roles, intimate, realism, family secret, trauma, friendship, intimacy ...
Similarity:
74%
Genre: Drama
Country: Argentina, France, Uruguay
Duration: 95 min.
Story:
In this poignant period drama set in 1960s Argentina, a young woman, struggling to raise her twin daughters alone after the tragic death of her husband, accepts the courtship of a charming but mysterious older suitor.
Style:
poignant, melancholic, art house, atmospheric, black and white ...
Plot:
single mother, widow, female protagonist, loss, grief, anxiety, trauma, mourning, domestic drama, jazz, manipulation, healing ...
Time:
60s
Place:
argentina
Similarity:
72%
353
Genre: Drama
Country: France, Switzerland, Belgium, Lebanon
Duration: 98 min.
Story:
Nada is going home. Or at least she wants to. When she comes back to Lebanon, she realizes she's a foreigner in her own country. But there's still a place she calls home: an abandoned house in ruins, haunted by the presence of her ...
Style:
captivating, thrilling, psychological, suspenseful, surreal ...
Plot:
female protagonist, identity, memory, homecoming, self discovery, introspection, life is a bitch, family relations, relationships, trauma, haunted house, family secret ...
Place:
lebanon
Similarity:
72%
Genre: Drama, War
Country: Croatia
Duration: 103 min.
Story:
A young American is trying to find a man from her past, but he is never to be found, during the largest conflict on European soil since World War II – the battle of Vukovar. It is a search of identity and truth at a place where truth is selective, ...
Style:
captivating, thrilling, psychological, reflective, emotional ...
Plot:
identity, obsessive quest, problem, conflict, identity crisis, waking up, trauma, quest, freedom, truth, redemption, connection ...
Place:
croatia
Similarity:
71%
Genre: Comedy, Drama, History, Music
Country: Morocco
Duration: 114 min.
Story:
After leaving Morocco amidst racial tensions spurred by the Yom Kippur war, the son of a once famous Jewish musician travels to his home country to bury his father. As he meets the members of the band, his life unexpectedly transforms.
Style:
reflective, melancholic, intercultural, art house, period drama
Plot:
grief, loss, identity, orchestra, mourning, family drama, jewish culture, healing, friendship, reconciliation, community, memory ...
Place:
morocco, africa
Similarity:
68%
Genre: Drama, War
Country: Azerbaijan, Mexico, Switzerland, UK, Turkey
Duration: 89 min.
Story:
Davud returns from war to find everyone in his village has succumbed to a strange illness and has decomposed. His sister, the only survivor, is slowly rotting away herself. Davud is troubled by his memories as a soldier, as he confronts the only ...
Style:
existential, bleak, reflective, grim, atmospheric ...
Plot:
isolation, loneliness, survivor, trauma, loss, grief, moral ambiguity, mourning, war veteran, post war, post apocalyptic, moral dilemma ...
Similarity:
68%
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan, France
Duration: 129 min.
Story:
Three women who share memories of the Hiroshima disaster try to uncover the hidden family ties that may or may not bind them together.
Style:
bleak, reflective, poignant, melancholic, atmospheric ...
Plot:
memory, identity, family drama, memories, family secret, trauma, grief, domestic drama, post traumatic stress, survivor, relationships, reconciliation ...
Place:
hiroshima japan
Similarity:
66%
Genre: Drama, War
Country: France
Duration: 95 min.
Story:
Lucien, 14, can’t understand why his father, a serious and respected teacher, makes a fool of himself by dressing up as a clown and giving a show. André, Lucien’s father’s best friend, feels for the teenager and decides to reveal something ...
Style:
suspense, disturbing, tense, captivating, poignant ...
Plot:
world war two, occupied france, occupation, sabotage, resistance, french resistance, friendship, nazi occupation, german occupation, father son relationship, family secret, fight ...
Time:
1940s, year 2003
Place:
france
Similarity:
66%
Genre: Drama, History
Country: West Germany
Duration: 55 min.
Story:
Not Reconciled, the title of the Straubs’ first feature-length film, is engraved on their work like an inscription. It is a story about the continuity and collapse of history, the power of suppression, and the terror of reconciliation; loyalty, ...
Style:
historical drama, family saga, serious, period piece, bleak ...
Plot:
guilt, reconciliation, german history, betrayal, memory, suppression, family secret, post war germany, moral ambiguity, revenge, symbolism, loyalty ...
Time:
20th century, 1940s, 1950s, 50s
Place:
germany
Similarity:
65%
Genre: Drama, History, War
Country: Greece, USA, Cyprus
Duration: 141 min.
Story:
Members of the Baltatzis family recount the 1922 burning of Smyrna, Greece, including the assault on vibrant Greek and Armenian communities.
Style:
period piece, historical drama, realistic, dramatic, serious ...
Plot:
genocide, family relations, assault, war crime, witness, tragedy, ethnic cleansing, occupation, exodus, destruction, refugee, loss ...
Time:
1920s
Place:
ottoman empire, greece, turkey
Similarity:
63%
Movie in collections
195
Genre: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 100 min.
Story:
Anna, 50 years old, moves into her new house. Rooms are full of boxes which contain a lot of things and plenty of memories. Anna has lived many lives and her past comes out of these boxes. Her parents surely, but also her children and their fathers, ...
Style:
poignant, art house, melancholic, bleak, atmospheric ...
Plot:
midlife crisis, female protagonist, memory, family drama, loss, reflection, regret, ghost, family secret, grief, aging, introspection ...
Place:
brittany
Similarity:
62%
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 95 min.
Story:
A middle-aged man sets out on a symbolic journey through past, present, and future to learn why an old friend committed suicide, and learns much about his own life along the way.
Style:
reflective, existential, melancholic, bleak, philosophical ...
Plot:
suicide, memory, existential crisis, symbolism, loss, midlife crisis, self discovery, guilt, flashback, mature, regret, isolation ...
Place:
poland
Similarity:
62%
Genre: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 92 min.
Story:
An insecure, aggressive widow of a tea garden manager reluctantly develops an affectionate relationship with an Indian housewife and her family.
Style:
intercultural, reflective, melancholic, atmospheric, tension ...
Plot:
friendship, character study, grief, empathy, memory, healing, gardening, loneliness, mourning, social class, isolation, reconciliation ...
Time:
year 1985, 80s
Similarity:
62%
Genre: Drama
Country: Tunisia, France, Canada, Norway, Qatar, Saudi Arabia
Duration: 120 min.
Story:
Aicha, a Tunisian mother gifted with prophetic dreams, lives in the isolated north of Tunisia with her husband Brahim and young son Adam. The family lives in anguish after the departure of the eldest sons Mehdi and Amine to the violent embrace of ...
Style:
emotional, psychological, melancholic, atmospheric, intense ...
Plot:
female protagonist, trauma, motherhood, isolation, grief, domestic drama, secrets, family conflict, small village, darkness, guilt, moral ambiguity ...
Place:
north africa
Similarity:
61%
Genre: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 96 min.
Story:
Carmen, a well-known writer on her fifties, has returned a year ago to a farmhouse in the small town where she was born, in Bajo Aragón (Teruel, Spain). Her vital crisis is complicated when Eduardo, a film producer with whom she had a love affair ...
Style:
melancholic, atmospheric
Plot:
female protagonist, midlife crisis, nostalgia, homecoming, regret, getting home, memory, farmhouse, small town, remote village, intimate, screenwriter ...
Similarity:
61%
1K
Genre: Drama, History, War
Country: Germany
Duration: 93 min.
Story:
On Amrum Island in spring 1945, twelve-year-old Nanning hunts seals, fishes at night, and works the fields to help feed his family. When the war ends, his mother sinks into depression, and he must navigate new conflicts while struggling to find his ...
Style:
historical drama, poignant, period piece, atmospheric, melancholic ...
Plot:
world war two, island, coming of age, north sea, resilience, fishing, isolation, nature, mother son relationship, loss of innocence, wartime, family drama ...
Time:
1940s
Place:
germany
Similarity:
57%
Genre: Drama
Country: Canada, Norway
Duration: 102 min.
Story:
A young woman, and her last memories of the five people who loved her most, recalled while experiencing a catastrophic event.
Style:
psychological, thrilling, captivating, emotional, art house ...
Plot:
memories, female protagonist, death, memory, relationships, love story, male female relationship, love affair, lifestyle, trauma, loss, grief ...
Similarity:
55%
Genre: Drama, War
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 87 min.
Story:
The families of 18 soldiers who heroically died in 1944 are meeting at the place of the squad last battle.
Style:
bleak, realistic, sentimental, thought provoking, compassionate ...
Plot:
world war two, memories, death, parents and children, murder, grief, tragedy, loss, storytelling, danger, memorial service, honor ...
Time:
year 1944, year 1974, year 1970
Place:
soviet union, russia, ussr
Similarity:
53%
Genre: Drama
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 116 min.
Story:
Two former lovers find themselves struggling for shared closure as one of them prepares to stage a play about the unspeakable tragedy that tore them apart decades ago.
Style:
psychological, romantic drama, emotional, captivating, thrilling ...
Plot:
family tragedy, family relations, relationships, male female relationship, secret, confronting the past, tragic past, bittersweet, secrets, forgiveness, flashback, lost love ...
Time:
80s
Similarity:
53%
Genre: Drama
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 90 min.
Story:
Jo Beckett leads a comfortable life with a successful veterinary practice, a devoted husband, and a beautiful home in a lovely small town outside of Boston. Still, she is strangely dissatisfied with her life. One afternoon, a man brings his dog into ...
Style:
captivating, thrilling, psychological, reflective, emotional ...
Plot:
female protagonist, relationships, veterinarian, midlife crisis, character study, secrets, husband wife relationship, animal, dog, problem, family relations, pets ...
Place:
boston
Similarity:
52%
Genre: Drama
Country: Turkey, Germany, France, Georgia
Duration: 124 min.
Story:
At the times of World War II, accomplished painter and translator Aram flees Istanbul due to political offenses. When he is trapped at the USSR-Georgia borders, his flight turns into a remembrance of things past...
Style:
melancholic, reflective, historical drama, bleak, period piece ...
Plot:
memory, diaspora, identity, exile, nostalgia, ethnicity, reminiscence, border crossing, migration, world war two, political persecution, refugee ...
Place:
istanbul turkey, soviet union, turkey
Similarity:
52%
Genre: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 82 min.
Story:
A young African American man, reeling from the tragic loss of his wife, travels to rural Maine to seek answers from his estranged mother-in-law, who is herself confronting guilt and grief over her daughter's death.
Style:
psychological, captivating, disturbing, melancholic, bleak ...
Plot:
grief, guilt, mother-in-law, family problems, loss, mourning, character study, bereavement, loss of daughter, mother in law, countryside, loss of wife ...
Place:
maine
Similarity:
51%
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