Movies like Ponette
If you like "Ponette" you are looking for touching, emotional and realistic movies about / with children, child, coming of age, grief, youth, innocence lost and bereavement themes of Drama genre shot in France.
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Ponette (1996)
5K

Where to Watch
Genre: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 97 min.
Story:
A four-year-old girl must come to terms with the loss of her mother and the reality of death in this award-winning French drama. Little Ponette (Victoire Thivisol) is riding in a car with her mother when they're involved in a serious accident; Ponette survives, but her mother does not. Her father (Xavier Beauvois) initially reacts with anger over his late wife's careless driving, while her Aunt Claire (Claire Nebout) tries to comfort the child by telling her about Jesus and the resurrection. However, none of this does much to reassure Ponette or clarify her confusion about the practical realities and spiritual dilemma posed by death. In time, Ponette and her cousins Matiaz (Matiaz Caton) and Delphine (Delphine Schiltz) are sent off to boarding school, where they have to resolve their confusion and loss on their own. ~Mark Deming, Rovi
Style:
touching, emotional, realistic, talky, sentimental, thought provoking, enigmatic, bleak, breathtaking, spiritual ...
Plot:
children, child, coming of age, grief, youth, innocence lost, bereavement, school, friendship, death, catastrophe, women, loneliness, god, teacher, life, writers, beautiful scenery, tragedy, orphan, fantasy world, spirituality, corruption, runaway, childhood ...
Time:
90s, 20th century
Place:
france, tokyo, provence
Most similar movies to Ponette
The list contains related movies ordered by similarity. Recommendation engine sorted out melancholic, visually appealing, talky and reflective films with plots about runaway, culture clash, suprisingly clever, storytelling, childhood, loneliness and catastrophe mostly in Drama genres. Some movies like Ponette: Central Station (1998), The Way Home (2002), Eternity and a Day (1998), Time Out (2001), Broken Wings (2002). The matching attributes are highlighted in bold.
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Genre: Drama
Country: Brazil, France
Duration: 110 min.
Story:
An emotive journey of a former school teacher, who writes letters for illiterate people, and a young boy, whose mother has just died, as they search for the father he never knew.
Style:
touching, feel good, emotional, road movie, realistic ...
Plot:
childhood, friendship, teacher, age difference, road trip, children, poverty, letter, youth, melancholy, train, self discovery ...
Time:
20th century, 90s
Place:
brazil, latin america, rio de janeiro
⇓ similarity ⇓
95%

Genre: Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 80 min.
Story:
The story begins on a fine summers morning, when San-woo and his mother board a bus to the country. It is soon clear that the unsophisticated rural passengers annoy the seven-year-old urban boy. His mother is taking him to live with his 78-year-old ...
Style:
touching, sentimental, stylized, sexy, thought provoking ...
Audience:
kids
Plot:
coming of age, childhood, family relations, parents and children, grandparent grandchild relationship, love, life & death, children, friendship, generation gap, village life, village ...
Place:
korea, new jersey, tokyo, asia, south korea ...
⇓ similarity ⇓
93%

Genre: Drama
Country: France, Italy, Greece, Germany
Duration: 137 min.
Story:
Alexander, a famous writer, is very ill and has only a few days to live. He meets a little boy on the street, who is an illegal immigrant from Albania. Alexander then takes the boy home.
Style:
thought provoking, road movie, art house, psychological, sincere ...
Plot:
death, terminal illness, coming of age, art, writers, immigrants, destiny, greek, hospital, catastrophe, brutality, artist ...
Time:
future, 90s
Place:
greece, tokyo, australia, japan
⇓ similarity ⇓
91%

Genre: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 134 min.
Story:
An unemployed man finds his life sinking more and more into trouble as he hides his situation from his family and friends.
Style:
psychological, enigmatic, meditative, compassionate, depressing ...
Plot:
unemployment, greed, self discovery, character study, life is a bitch, down on your luck, society, couple relations, dishonesty, family problems, husband wife relationship, deception ...
Time:
21st century
Place:
tokyo, france, switzerland, europe
⇓ similarity ⇓
90%
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Genre: Drama
Country: Israel
Duration: 87 min.
Story:
Daphne and her four children try to cope with the abrupt death of husband/father. As the family seems to fall apart, a sudden incident gives them a chance to heal their 'broken wings'.
Style:
emotional, touching, lyrical, depressing, stylized ...
Plot:
dysfunctional family, jewish, hopes, children, human nature, couple relations, family life, midlife crisis, life is a bitch, single parent, love and romance, innocence lost ...
Time:
21st century
Place:
israel, middle east, tokyo
⇓ similarity ⇓
90%
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Amour similar movies

Genre: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 134 min.
Story:
This film tells the story of professor Uehida Hyakken-sama (1889-1971), in Gotemba, around the forties. He was a university professor until an air raid, when he left to become a writer and has to live in a hut. His mood has hardly changed, not by ...
Style:
emotional, sexy, enigmatic, sentimental, lyrical ...
Plot:
world war two, samurai, teacher, professor, existentialism, death, sacrifice, relationships, solitude, guilt, god, unlikely friendships ...
Time:
1940s
Place:
tokyo, japan, hong kong, asia, germany
⇓ similarity ⇓
88%

Genre: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 90 min.
Story:
A young Parisian must make major decisions about pregnancy, a job and her boyfriend.
Style:
erotic, sexual, sexy, ironic, clever ...
Plot:
pregnancy, hotel, boyfriend girlfriend relationship, making love, sex scene, glbt, tragedy, weapons, nude, lust, lgbt, melancholy ...
Time:
90s, 70s
Place:
paris france, france, tokyo, europe
⇓ similarity ⇓
86%

Genre: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 90 min.
Story:
In France, before WWI. As every Sunday, an old painter living in the country is visited by his son Gonzague, coming with his wife and his three children. Then his daugther Irene arrives. She is always in a hurry, she lives alone and does not come so ...
Style:
realistic, sentimental, touching, poignant, intellectual ...
Plot:
countryside, art, painter, artist, father daughter relationship, aging, elderly man, family relations, french countryside, dancing, eccentricity, catastrophe ...
Time:
1910s
Place:
france, tokyo, paris france, europe
⇓ similarity ⇓
86%
Movie in collections

Genre: Drama
Country: Iran, France, Netherlands
Duration: 86 min.
Story:
After twelve years of imprisonment by their own parents, two sisters are finally released by social workers to face the outside world for the first time.
Style:
compassionate, serious, thought provoking, sincere, sexy ...
Plot:
isolation, father daughter relationship, confined, family relations, religions or cults, society, life is a bitch, human nature, childhood, children, blindness, twins ...
Time:
90s
Place:
iran, tokyo, middle east, japan
⇓ similarity ⇓
84%

Genre: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 94 min.
Story:
A young boy who lives in an old folks' home strikes up a friendship with a retired magician.
Style:
touching, emotional, depressing, sentimental, realistic ...
Plot:
coming of age, friendship, youth, loneliness, aging, character study, retirement home, justice, adolescence, reconciliation, retirement home life, golden years ...
Time:
80s, 20th century
Place:
england, california, ireland, europe
⇓ similarity ⇓
84%
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Films like The Cement Garden

Genre: Drama
Country: Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Tunisia
Duration: 90 min.
Story:
In this acclaimed and gripping social portrait of immoral lives in need of rescue, Igor (Jérémie Renier), aged 15, and his father Roger (Olivier Gourmet) deal in housing and peddling illicit labor in the outlying districts of Liege, Belgium. ...
Style:
thought provoking, sincere, allegory, gloomy, affectionate ...
Audience:
teens
Plot:
immigrants, coming of age, father son relationship, youth, melancholy, existentialism, dysfunctional family, empathy, boy, traumatic childhood, racism, social injustice ...
Time:
90s
Place:
tokyo, france, belgium, europe, usa ...
⇓ similarity ⇓
84%

Genre: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 113 min.
Story:
In Lille, two penniless young women with few prospects become friends. Isa moves in with Marie, who's flat-sitting for a mother and child in hospital in comas following a car crash. Isa is out-going, unskilled, with hopes of moving south to ...
Style:
realistic, touching, sexy, depressing, emotional ...
Plot:
coming of age, friendship, working class, love and romance, coma, depression, loneliness, society, youth, life is a bitch, hopes, couple relations ...
Time:
90s
Place:
france, flanders
⇓ similarity ⇓
83%

Genre: Drama
Country: Iran, France
Duration: 118 min.
Story:
Irreverent city engineer Behzad comes to a rural village in Iran to keep vigil for a dying relative. In the meanwhile the film follows his efforts to fit in with the local community and how he changes his own attitudes as a result.
Style:
thought provoking, philosophical, melancholic, serious, touching ...
Plot:
small town, countryside, kurd, fish out of water, childhood, family relations, village, parents and children, coming of age, village life, politics, existentialism ...
Time:
90s
Place:
iran, kurdistan, middle east
⇓ similarity ⇓
83%

Genre: Drama
Country: Sweden, France, West Germany
Duration: 188 min.
Story:
Through the eyes of ten-year-old Alexander, we witness the delights and conflicts of the Ekdahl family, a sprawling bourgeois clan in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Sweden.
Style:
intellectual, philosophical, disturbing, art house, thought provoking ...
Plot:
childhood, ghost, christmas, children, emotional abuse, brother sister relationship, grief, coming of age, abusive stepfather, child abuse, domestic violence, christmas eve ...
Time:
victorian era, 20th century, turn of the century, 90s, 1910s
Place:
sweden, tokyo, eastern europe, scandinavia
⇓ similarity ⇓
82%

Genre: Drama
Country: Japan, France
Duration: 217 min.
Story:
In Kyushu, southwest Japan, one hot summer morning, a municipal bus is hijacked. In the carnage only three people survive: the driver, a school girl, and her older brother.
Style:
bleak, psychological, enigmatic, lyrical, sincere ...
Plot:
road trip, bus driver, haunted by the past, survival, family relations, serial killer, orphan, starting over, hijacking, bus, redemption, on the road ...
Time:
90s
Place:
japan, tokyo, asia
⇓ similarity ⇓
81%
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Movies similar to Nobody Knows

Genre: Drama
Country: China
Duration: 106 min.
Story:
Teacher Gao loves the students in his poor village and is devoted to educating them in the hope of their greater futures. When he is called away to tend to his dying mother for a month, the Mayor calls in an inexperienced 13 year-old replacement, ...
Style:
road movie, realistic, touching, sexy, sad ...
Plot:
teacher, children, coming of age, poverty, youth, education, mathematics, school, friendship, chinese, teenager, food ...
Time:
90s, 20th century
Place:
china, japan, iran, tokyo, new jersey
⇓ similarity ⇓
81%

Genre: Drama
Country: USA, UK, France
Duration: 127 min.
Story:
This fictionalized story, based on the family life of writer James Jones, is an emotional slice-of-life story. Jones is portrayed here portrayed as Bill Willis, a former war hero turned author who combats alcoholism and is starting to experience ...
Style:
talky, realistic, clever, sentimental, sexy ...
Plot:
writers, coming of age, friendship, adoption, dysfunctional family, world war two, family relations, father daughter relationship, culture clash, betrayal, life philosophy, adolescence ...
Time:
70s, 60s, 20th century
Place:
paris france, tokyo, france, new england, europe
⇓ similarity ⇓
81%

Genre: Drama
Country: Vietnam, France, Germany
Duration: 112 min.
Story:
Hanoi comes across almost picture-perfect in director Tran Anh Hung's beautiful, elegiac tale about the lives and loves of three Vietnamese sisters. A mood characteristic of Hung's films is set early on with the vivid sounds of birds, ...
Style:
melancholic, sincere, psychological, serious, touching ...
Plot:
infidelity, marriage, adultery, pregnancy, family relations, couples, family life, love and romance, siblings relations, family problems, unfulfillment, crumbling marriage ...
Time:
90s
Place:
vietnam, tokyo, paris france
⇓ similarity ⇓
80%
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Genre: Drama
Country: Hong Kong, USA, Taiwan
Duration: 99 min.
Story:
Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even more remote spot with a ...
Style:
disturbing, emotional, sexy, erotic, allegory ...
Plot:
underage sex, prostitute, loss of innocence, revolution, innocence lost, coming of age, corruption, death, loneliness, communism, nude, adaptation ...
Time:
70s, 20th century
Place:
china, tokyo, tibet, asia
⇓ similarity ⇓
80%

Genre: Drama
Country: Italy, USA
Duration: 109 min.
Story:
When Ruth Matthews's husband is killed in a fall at an archaeological dig, her daughter Sally handles her father's death in a very odd manner. As Sally's condition worsens, Ruth takes her to see Jake, an expert in childhood autism. ...
Style:
psychological, emotional, touching, unusual plot structure, educational ...
Audience:
kids, girls' night
Plot:
autism, psychology, disability, mental illness, child's point of view, fantasy world, life & death, psychiatrist, guilt, police investigation, runaway, secrets ...
Time:
90s
Place:
mexico, latin america
⇓ similarity ⇓
80%
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Movies like The Way Home

Genre: Drama
Country: Australia, Italy, France
Duration: 93 min.
Story:
A seven-year-old girl adopts a vow of silence in protest when her quarrelsome parents grow increasingly hostile to one another.
Style:
sexy, thought provoking, rough, visually appealing, allegory ...
Plot:
divorce, manipulation, hospital, idealism, prejudice, guilt, relationships, identity, runaway, fantasy world, fighting the system, finnish ...
Time:
90s
Place:
tokyo, japan, california
⇓ similarity ⇓
79%

Genre: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 141 min.
Story:
In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.
Style:
depressing, touching, serious, gloomy, atmospheric ...
Audience:
kids, teens
Plot:
childhood, poverty, dysfunctional family, innocence lost, young kid, children, child abandonment, boy, tragedy, coming of age, family relations, greed ...
Time:
21st century
Place:
japan, tokyo, india, asia, california
⇓ similarity ⇓
79%

Genre: Drama
Country: France, Italy, Germany
Duration: 106 min.
Story:
Nelly leaves her lazy, unemployed husband to work for retired judge Mr Arnaud, forty years her senior, after he offers to clear her bills for her. While she types his memoirs the two develop a close friendship, but Arnaud becomes jealous when Nelly ...
Style:
sexy, breathtaking, witty, talky, cerebral ...
Plot:
love triangle, death, fighting the system, culture clash, love, love story, crime gone awry, corruption, destiny, french, greed, character study ...
Time:
1920s, 90s
Place:
france, paris france, california, tokyo, europe
⇓ similarity ⇓
79%
Movie in collections

Genre: Drama
Country: Belgium, France, UK
Duration: 88 min.
Story:
Ludovic is a small boy who cross-dresses and generally acts like a girl, talks of marrying his neighbor's son and can not understand why everyone is so surprised about it. His actions lead to problems for him and his family.
Style:
controversial, touching, sexy, bleak, rough ...
Audience:
teens, chick flick, date night
Plot:
transsexual, coming of age, gay, cross dressing, gender, children, childhood, women, lgbtq, dysfunctional family, suburbs, gay slur ...
Time:
90s
Place:
france, belgium, paris france, europe
⇓ similarity ⇓
78%
12K

Genre: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 81 min.
Story:
Robert Bresson plumbs great reservoirs of feelings with one of the most searing portraits of human desperation ever put on film.
Style:
art house, bleak, stylized, gloomy, emotional ...
Audience:
teens, pre-teens
Plot:
coming of age, suicide, existentialism, solitude, sexual abuse, betrayal, children, child abuse, youth, innocence lost, humiliation, poacher ...
Time:
60s, 20th century
Place:
france, tokyo, paris france, europe, japan
⇓ similarity ⇓
77%
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Genre: Drama
Country: Australia, UK
Duration: 104 min.
Story:
When the wife of sports-writer Joe Warr dies of cancer, he takes on the responsibility of raising their 6-year-old son, and his teenage son from a previous marriage. As Joe rejects the counsel of his mother-in-law and other parents, he develops his ...
Style:
inspirational, touching, melancholic, sentimental, intense ...
Audience:
teens, girls' night
Plot:
single parent, single father, cancer, family relations, father son relationship, brothers, depression, life philosophy, overcoming, widower, step siblings, parenthood ...
Time:
21st century
Place:
england, australia, tokyo, europe, california ...
⇓ similarity ⇓
77%

Genre: Drama
Country: France, West Germany, Cameroon
Duration: 105 min.
Story:
A young French woman returns to the vast silence of West Africa to contemplate her childhood days in a colonial outpost in Cameroon. Her strongest memories are of the family's houseboy, Protee - a man of great nobility, intelligence and beauty ...
Style:
touching, realistic, sexy, intellectual, dramatic ...
Audience:
girls' night
Plot:
racism, colonialism, women, coming of age, youth, imperialism, culture clash, interracial relations, farm, childhood, betrayal, destiny ...
Time:
50s, 20th century, 80s
Place:
africa, france, paris france
⇓ similarity ⇓
76%

Genre: Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 112 min.
Story:
The fashionable Hye-joo is focused on her career at a brokerage house. She's making a decent living, but her co-workers look down on her. Tae-hee is sick of living under the thumb of her domineering father. She spends her time doing volunteer ...
Style:
lyrical, psychological, sincere, sentimental, touching ...
Audience:
chick flick
Plot:
friendship, adulthood, loneliness, self discovery, life is a bitch, couples, parents and children, love and romance, lifestyle, youth, family problems, cat ...
Time:
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Place:
tokyo, japan, rio de janeiro, new jersey, korea ...
⇓ similarity ⇓
75%

Genre: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 108 min.
Story:
It's winter in a small Scottish village near the sea, and multiple lives intersect in a day. Frances (Emma Thompson) has just lost her husband to an early death, so her mother, Elspeth (Phyllida Law), travels to Frances' house to reconnect ...
Style:
talky, touching, bleak, sexy, visually appealing ...
Plot:
winter, mother daughter relationship, small town, nude, children, sexual abuse, destiny, creativity, culture clash, runaway, self discovery, school ...
Time:
90s, 20th century
Place:
scotland, europe, australia
⇓ similarity ⇓
74%

Genre: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 99 min.
Story:
Dede is a sole parent trying to bring up her son Fred. When it is discovered that Fred is a genius, she is determined to ensure that Fred has all the opportunities that he needs, and that he is not taken advantage of by people who forget that his ...
Style:
intellectual, psychological, realistic, touching, humorous ...
Audience:
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Plot:
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Time:
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Place:
usa
⇓ similarity ⇓
74%
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