Movies like The Second Circle
If you like "The Second Circle" you are looking for spiritual, philosophical and contemplative movies about / with death, grief, loss, mourning, isolation, funeral and father son relationship themes of Drama genre shot in Soviet Union.
Find your next favorite and similar movies in two steps:
1. Identify all themes of interest from this film (block below).
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The Second Circle (1990)
823
Original name: Круг второй
Genre: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 92 min.
Story:
A man tries to come to terms with his father's death and to deal with the mundane details of his burial in a society cut off from spirituality.
Style:
spiritual, philosophical, contemplative, black comedy, avant garde
Plot:
death, grief, loss, mourning, isolation, funeral, father son relationship, existential crisis, alienation, melancholy, introspection, minimalism, silence, ritual, family drama, bureaucracy, everyday life, loss of faith, social commentary, morality, small town, absurdism, hopelessness, underground, spirit ...
Place:
soviet union, ussr, russia, russian
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Most similar movies to The Second Circle
The list contains related movies ordered by similarity. Recommendation engine sorted out melancholic, art house, contemplative and existential films with plots about isolation, minimalism, alienation, grief, mourning, death and family drama mostly in Drama, Sci-Fi and Comedy genres. Some movies like The Second Circle: The Lonely Voice of Man (1987), The Asthenic Syndrome (1989), Whispering Pages (1994), Taurus (2001), Mother and Son (1997). The matching attributes are highlighted in bold.
Genre: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 87 min.
Story:
The film is Sokurov's feature film debut and is based on the novel The River Potudan by Andrei Platonov. It's a story about the lives of people in the Russian countryside in the beginning of the 20th century. The film was completed in 1979 ...
Style:
poetic, melancholic, psychological, art house, existential ...
Plot:
loneliness, character study, isolation, post war, trauma, alienation, memory, slow burn, bittersweet, moral dilemma, symbolism, desperation ...
Time:
1920s
Place:
soviet union, poetic realism, ussr, russia
Similarity:
95%
Genre: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 153 min.
Story:
In the old days it was called hypochrondria, or black melancholia. Now, apparently, it's termed the Asthenic Syndrome. Whatever it is, Nikolai, a teacher of epicly indifferent pupils, has got it, and it's not much fun.
Style:
art house, bleak, philosophical, tragicomedy, postmodern ...
Plot:
perestroika, alienation, existentialism, satire, bureaucracy, pessimism, melancholy, absurdism, midlife crisis, urban, bitterness, spirituality ...
Time:
year 1990
Place:
ussr, soviet union
Similarity:
74%
Genre: Drama
Country: Russia, Germany
Duration: 77 min.
Story:
The pages that whisper through this brooding, beautiful tone poem are from nineteenth-century Russian literature, primarily Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. An anonymous man wanders through decomposing, fog-enshrouded catacombs and encounters a ...
Style:
spiritual, existential, poetic, contemplative, avant garde
Plot:
atheist, solitude, alienation, existentialism, crime and punishment, underground, spirituality, lion, humiliation, poverty, religion, faith ...
Place:
soviet union, russia
Similarity:
63%
Genre: Drama
Country: Russia
Duration: 104 min.
Story:
Unfolding over two days in 1924, the film depicts the dying Lenin, world revolutionary and father of the USSR, now powerless and isolated at his Gorki estate. Cared for by his wife, Nadezhda Krupskaia, sister Maniasha, his German doctor and several ...
Style:
tense, suspense, bleak, reflective, melancholic ...
Plot:
illness, lenin, biopic, fighting illness, life is a bitch, historical figure, historical character, social problems, sick, legacy, josef stalin, revolutionary ...
Time:
1920s
Place:
russia, soviet union
Similarity:
61%
Movie in collections
Genre: Drama
Country: Russia, Germany
Duration: 73 min.
Story:
A slow and poignant story of love and patience told via a dying mother nursed by her devoted son. The simple narrative is a thread woven among the deeply spiritual images of the countryside and cottage.
Style:
slow cinema, aesthetic, depressing, realistic, psychological ...
Plot:
art, biopic, countryside, childhood, youth, mother and son, landscape, mental disorder, artist, minimal dialogue, spirituality, underground ...
Time:
year 1997, 90s
Place:
soviet union, russia
Similarity:
61%
151
Genre: Drama
Country: Colombia, Germany
Duration: 80 min.
Story:
A man and his son move from the Pacific coast of Colombia to Cali, but have a difficult time adapting to the city. When his son is killed, the father must go through the hard process of grief while trying to find roots in a place that does not ...
Style:
emotional, poignant, bleak, melancholic, art house ...
Plot:
family tragedy, loss, mourning, father son relationship, grief, character study, family drama, migration, social realism, adaptation, intimate, urbanization ...
Place:
colombia
Similarity:
56%
Genre: Drama
Country: Ireland
Duration: 58 min.
Story:
In Krapp's Last Tape, which was written in English in 1958, an old man reviews his life and assesses his predicament. We learn about him not from the 69-year-old man on stage, but from his 39-year-old self on the tape he chooses to listen to. ...
Style:
existential, philosophical, contemplative, art house, crying ...
Plot:
regret, reflection, memory, monologue, aging, identity, isolation, melancholy, solitude, theater, minimalism, intimate ...
Similarity:
55%
Genre: Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 139 min.
Story:
This bleak late soviet-era drama follows the career of Malyanov, a young medical school graduate who has been sent to work in Turkmenia. Here he runs into a hodge-podge of people of differing ethnicities, all of them victims of the government's ...
Style:
surreal, bleak, psychedelic, art film, psychological ...
Plot:
underground, stream of consciousness, alienation, isolation, totalitarianism, bureaucracy, claustrophobia, identity crisis, symbolism, ethnic diversity, moral ambiguity, surveillance ...
Place:
soviet union, ussr
Similarity:
46%
Movie in collections
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Country: Japan
Duration: 103 min.
Story:
Mashike, a city on the Japanese island of Hokkaido. Nobuo Honma is a 63-year-old sake producer. He has lived with Yasuo since his wife died two years ago. Yasuo is his youngest son to whom he has entrusted his trade. Every day Nobuo goes for a walk ...
Style:
meditative, contemplative, slow cinema
Plot:
father son relationship, loneliness, snow, old man, anniversary, mourning, melancholy, grief, family drama, elderly man, slice of life, isolation ...
Place:
hokkaido, japan
Similarity:
45%
Genre: Drama
Country: Mexico
Duration: 98 min.
Story:
After 35 years working as a clerk in a government office, Doña Flor has become such a cog, invisible to herself. Cloaked in solitude and routine, she has even suppressed the loss of her daughter who drowned years ago. As her retirement approaches ...
Style:
existential, poetic, contemplative, melancholic, lyrical ...
Plot:
female protagonist, character study, introspection, solitude, everyday life, grief, realism, intimate, routine, aging, memory, loss of child ...
Place:
peru, mexico
Similarity:
41%
467
Genre: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 100 min.
Story:
Professor Sretenski is a scientist and director of a research center in Russia. He is separated from his wife and lives alone. His daughter, who lives with the mother, comes to his home and stays with him for a period, leaving her daughter with him. ...
Style:
reflective, contemplative, emotional, melancholic, period piece ...
Plot:
father daughter relationship, loneliness, scientist, family drama, professor, estrangement, introspection, reconciliation, family relations, parenting, empathy, aging ...
Time:
70s
Place:
soviet union, ussr
Similarity:
41%
Genre: Drama
Country: Soviet Union, Lithuania
Duration: 75 min.
Story:
In Kaliningrad two Lithuanian boys meet two Russian girls. They have difficulties in finding places where they can sleep together. But this is the only problem they do solve. All four justly feel miserable because their lives are meaningless (the ...
Style:
slow cinema, bleak, contemplative, aesthetic, avant garde ...
Plot:
underground, post soviet, minimalism, conflict, trauma, depression, alienation, cat, smoking, sex, beach, teenager ...
Time:
year 1992
Place:
ussr, soviet union
Similarity:
41%
373
Genre: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Russia
Duration: 83 min.
Story:
Via the New York Times: "...a severely obscure meditation on pre-revolutionary Russia in the form of an encounter between a ghost from the past and the ghost's present-day guardian. In fact, the two characters seem to be the shade of Anton ...
Style:
psychological, melancholic, art film, philosophical, atmospheric ...
Plot:
minimalism, character study, lonely, memory, literary, meditation, identity, nostalgia, haunting, encounter, ghost story, museum ...
Place:
soviet union, crimea, ussr
Similarity:
41%
Genre: Drama
Country: Germany, Slovenia, France
Duration: 87 min.
Story:
On a barren island, a mother and son confront years of silence and misunderstandings in writer-director Hanna Slak’s formidable fourth feature film starring Maren Eggert, scored by Amélie Legrand, and shot by Claire Mathon.
Style:
melancholic, contemplative, atmospheric, existential, art house ...
Plot:
silence, family drama, mother son relationship, isolation, introspection, intimate, strained relationship, misunderstanding, motherhood, communication, minimalism, slow burn ...
Similarity:
38%
Genre: Drama
Country: Ireland
Duration: 78 min.
Story:
Happy Days is an adaptation of Samuel Beckett's challenging absurdist drama, a play most would deem unfilmable. Faithfully adhering to Beckett's minimalist original, a black parody of love, marriage, and our search for meaning in an ...
Style:
art house, philosophical, surreal, psychological, bleak ...
Plot:
absurdism, existentialism, isolation, alienation, monologue, rehearsal, entrapment, minimalism, ritual, dark humor, desperation, retiring ...
Place:
ireland
Similarity:
36%
33K
Genre: Drama
Country: Italy, Soviet Union
Duration: 125 min.
Story:
The Russian poet Andrei Gorchakov, accompanied by guide and translator Eugenia, is traveling through Italy researching the life of an 18th-century Russian composer. In an ancient spa town, he meets the lunatic Domenico, who years earlier had ...
Style:
philosophical, atmospheric, cerebral, art house, contemplative ...
Plot:
philosophy, art, church, existentialism, poetry, dream, obsession, storytelling, great ending, poet, memory, redemption ...
Time:
year 1983, 80s, 18th century
Place:
rome italy, italy, soviet union, russia, ussr ...
Similarity:
35%
Genre: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 101 min.
Story:
The heroes of the movie last seen each other on the Belarusian railway station in the summer of 1945. A quarter-century, they meet at the funeral of comrade.
Style:
disturbing, touching, sincere, thought provoking, poignant ...
Audience:
family outing
Plot:
friendship, world war two, memory, society, life is a bitch, destiny, life & death, justice, hopes, loss, nostalgia, social realism ...
Time:
20th century
Place:
soviet union, moscow russia, russia, ussr
Similarity:
35%
Genre: Drama
Country: France, USA
Duration: 110 min.
Story:
After being heralded by Jean-Luc Godard as the great hope of the New American Cinema, Peter Emanuel Goldman relocated to Paris just in time for 1968. Social dissolution permeates WHEEL OF ASHES, a stripped-down account of a young man's ...
Style:
existential, avant garde, art film, philosophical, art house ...
Plot:
existential crisis, alienation, introspection, religion, hallucination, surrealism, symbolism, isolation, a vision, psychological torment, male protagonist, urban ...
Time:
60s
Place:
paris france
Similarity:
33%
Movie in collections
368
Genre: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 95 min.
Story:
One Sunday in May, at home with Carolina, the hours are counted. The following Monday will have to publicly adhere to the collective emotion that overwhelmed a small community on the sea, a few kilometers from the capital. Mauro Secondari left, a ...
Style:
psychological, thrilling, captivating, melancholic
Plot:
fatal accident, death, mourning, grief, loss, loss of family member, life is a bitch, bereavement, loss of spouse, family relations, family problems, female protagonist ...
Time:
2010s
Similarity:
33%
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 82 min.
Story:
Mortality and death seen through the eyes of a lonely student who has an morbid and albeit naive fascination with death. His teacher, Koichi is also grappling with the issue of mortality as he deals with the impending death of his ailing father, who ...
Style:
psychological, thrilling, captivating, existential, bleak ...
Plot:
death, mourning, terminal illness, father son relationship, mortality, grief, family relations, illness, teacher, father and son, loss of father, school teacher ...
Similarity:
33%
107
Genre: Drama
Country: Slovenia
Duration: 90 min.
Story:
After his wife's death a middle-aged man and his friends become increasingly agitated and violent towards the suburbs they inhabit.
Style:
disturbing, tense, dark, black comedy, tragic
Plot:
midlife crisis, suburban life, character study, violence, prejudice, voyeurism, obsession, xenophobia, social commentary, grief, alienation, isolation ...
Time:
2000s
Place:
slovenia, eastern europe
Similarity:
33%
Genre: Drama
Country: Hungary
Duration: 85 min.
Story:
Ever since I started making films it has bothered me in a certain sense that film images are far too concrete, because technically they try to imitate the sense of space characteristic of everyday life. So the story ignites the imagination only to ...
Style:
experimental, existential, philosophical, slow cinema, avant garde ...
Plot:
death, plague, cemetery, mourning, symbolism, isolation, alienation, minimalism, haunting, adaptation, literary, obsession ...
Similarity:
31%
Genre: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 81 min.
Story:
A Swedish pastor fails a loving woman, a suicidal fisherman and God.
Style:
philosophical, psychological, depressing, art house, cerebral ...
Plot:
religion, existentialism, suicide, priest, winter, faith, midlife crisis, darkness, philosophy, spirituality, great ending, art ...
Time:
year 1963, 20th century, 60s
Place:
scandinavia, eastern europe
Similarity:
31%
Movie in collections
Genre: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 140 min.
Story:
Shakespeare's 17th century masterpiece about the "Melancholy Dane" was given one of its best screen treatments by Soviet director Grigori Kozintsev. Kozintsev's Elsinore was a real castle in Estonia, utilized metaphorically as ...
Style:
atmospheric, visually appealing, philosophical, fairy tale, black and white ...
Plot:
betrayal, shakespeare, medieval, love, stage play, shakespeare's hamlet, royal court, knight, spirituality, moving, hamlet, realism ...
Time:
medieval times, middle ages
Place:
soviet union, ussr, russia, denmark
Similarity:
30%
Genre: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 55 min.
Story:
Essay film about a man coping with the aftermath of World War II.
Style:
reflective, experimental, grim, fake documentary
Plot:
world war two, veteran, trauma, post war, memory, loss, death, ptsd, melancholy, frustration, anti war, mourning ...
Place:
germany, usa, illinois
Similarity:
30%
301
Genre: Drama
Country: USA, Soviet Union
Duration: 103 min.
Story:
1986, Chernobyl disaster. Couples, friends, and a risk-taking journalist are woven into the larger framework of the disaster. Panic follows.
Style:
historical drama, tense, bleak, period piece, tragic
Plot:
survival, radioactivity, radiation, disaster, evacuation, contamination, nuclear disaster, anxiety, panic, uncertainty, realism, loss ...
Time:
year 1986, 80s
Place:
chernobyl, soviet union, ussr, ukraine
Similarity:
29%
Genre: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 82 min.
Story:
The men of a small town on the edge of nowhere mysteriously disappear, one by one, leaving women and children behind to fend for themselves in a desolate and dreamlike world.
Style:
bleak, melancholic, atmospheric, surreal, poetic
Plot:
small town, abandonment, coming of age, family drama, adolescence, loss, isolation, desolation, mysterious disappearance, grief, motherhood, slow burn ...
Time:
future
Place:
california
Similarity:
29%
Genre: Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 123 min.
Story:
When their son drowns while saving the life of a friend, the couple offer to take the boy in. What can they do with the kid who outlived their own son? The father tries to teach him work and looks after him like family. The mother is distant to him ...
Style:
psychological, thrilling, captivating, emotional, realistic ...
Plot:
bereavement, grief, loss, mourning, family drama, social problems, kids and family, family problems, life is a bitch, relationships, family relations, loss of child ...
Similarity:
28%
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 87 min.
Story:
The main character in this effective, convincing drama is Witold (Tadeusz Bradecki) who is high in what later would be termed the "emotional quotient" or the ability to bounce back from adverse, tragic circumstances. Witold has been ...
Style:
existential, melancholic, bleak, intellectual, tragic
Plot:
corruption, grief, character study, moral dilemma, family drama, existential crisis, bureaucracy, frustration, social realism, betrayal, class struggle, anti hero ...
Time:
year 1980
Place:
eastern europe, poland, himalaya
Similarity:
27%
261
Genre: Drama
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 96 min.
Story:
Days after her baby is stillborn, Robin's breasts begin to produce milk. Unable to throw it away, she decides to donate the milk. As her quest for a place to donate is more difficult than she anticipated, more and more milk starts to crowd her ...
Style:
melancholic, intense
Plot:
motherhood, stillbirth, grief, loss, donation, female protagonist, family drama, loneliness, obsession, isolation, healing, ethical dilemma ...
Similarity:
27%
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