Movies like The Illumination
If you like "The Illumination" you are looking for philosophical, existential and poetic movies about / with mental disorder, unrequited love, renaissance, psychological manipulation, disorder, love letter and identity themes of Drama genre shot in Poland.
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.
The Illumination (1973)
2K
Original name: Iluminacja
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 91 min.
Story:
Krzysztof Zanussi's groundbreaking film chronicles a decade in the life of a young physics student whose absolute faith in the primacy of rationality and science is shaken by tragedy and affairs of the heart.
Style:
philosophical, existential, poetic
Plot:
mental disorder, unrequited love, renaissance, psychological manipulation, disorder, love letter, identity, psychology, meaning of life, monkey, scientist, philosophy, physicist, nerd, mountain climbing, marriage, electrocution, brain surgery
Time:
year 1973, 60s, 1960s
Place:
eastern europe, poland
Movie in categories
Most similar movies to The Illumination
The list contains related movies ordered by similarity. Recommendation engine sorted out melancholic, existential, art house and intellectual films with plots about renaissance, alienation, character study, death, identity, minimalism and psychological drama mostly in Drama and Comedy genres. Some movies like The Illumination: The Structure of Crystal (1969), Behind The Wall (1971), The Constant Factor (1980), Spiral (1978), Everything for Sale (1969). The matching attributes are highlighted in bold.
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 74 min.
Story:
Physicist John worked as a meteorologist. He lives in a small village with his wife, a teacher. Meanwhile, his friend from university, Mark, is doing a research career. Trying to get John to return to academic work in the capital. Mark is not ...
Style:
poetic, intellectual, masterpiece
Plot:
renaissance, old friend, identity, moral dilemma, provincial life, university, university student, physics, meaning of life, weatherman, school teacher, married ...
Time:
year 1969
Place:
poland, eastern europe, warsaw poland
Similarity:
95%
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland, France
Duration: 99 min.
Story:
The story of a doctor named Tomasz who questions his beliefs, faith and morality as his end is near, so he makes all efforts to find dignity in his imminent death.
Style:
existential, captivating, serious, tricky, clever ...
Plot:
doctor, cynicism, meaning of life, suffering, cancer, renaissance, terminal illness, ex husband ex wife relationship, death, life & death, illness, fighting illness ...
Time:
2000s
Place:
eastern europe, poland
Similarity:
71%
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 56 min.
Story:
Jan is a young assistant professor in chemistry and a workaholic, Anna is an unsuccessful science writer who turns to Jan for advice and human compassion, but Jan, absorbed with his career, remains immune to Anna's clumsy efforts to pierce his ...
Plot:
renaissance, midlife crisis, professor, writers, suicide attempt, workaholic, chemistry, male female relationship, compassion, scientist, neighbor, studying ...
Place:
eastern europe, poland
Similarity:
59%
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:
57%
Movie in collections
547
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 83 min.
Story:
In what appears to be an inexplicable incident, a man drives up to a resort hotel in midwinter, throws away his car keys, enters, and proceeds to agitate everyone he meets with his urgency -- a message he is somehow unable to communicate. Then he ...
Style:
atmospheric, psychological, suspense, sinister, tense ...
Plot:
renaissance, snow, winter, mountain, alienation, isolation, obsession, symbolism, character study, slow burn, tourist, suspicion ...
Place:
poland, eastern europe
Similarity:
54%
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 105 min.
Story:
Wajda's homage to Zbigniew Cybulski, the "Polish James Dean" who starred in the director's ASHES AND DIAMONDS and died young. The movie follows the tribulations of a director attempting to make a movie with a Cybulski-like star ...
Style:
meta, art house, poignant, melancholic, philosophical ...
Plot:
renaissance, film set, respect, behind the scenes, tribute, loss, tragedy, nostalgia, memory, mourning, grief, film history ...
Time:
60s, year 1969
Place:
eastern europe, poland
Similarity:
50%
254
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 114 min.
Story:
Bearing traces of the old Anton Chekhov play The Wedding, The Contract is set during an "arranged" ceremony. The bride and groom barely know each other, but this matters not at all to their tradition-bound families. At the last minute, the ...
Style:
family saga, tense, melancholic
Plot:
wedding, corruption, hypocrisy, character study, emotional breakdown, suicide attempt, arranged marriage, satire, ballerina, villa, bureaucracy, intimate ...
Time:
year 1980
Place:
eastern europe
Similarity:
42%
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:
37%
Movie in collections
Genre: Drama
Country: Lithuania, France, Russia
Duration: 107 min.
Story:
On a summer day, a man, his daughter and his companion arrive at their country house to spend the weekend. The daughter has just moved in with her father, whose attention she desires. The man is tired of his life, and does not know where to find the ...
Style:
psychological, captivating, philosophical, existential, weird
Plot:
father and daughter, family relations, countryside, philosophical conversation, father daughter relationship, meaning of life, philosophy, skinny dipping, underground, death, psychology, drunkard ...
Place:
lithuania
Similarity:
37%
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 56 min.
Story:
A woman whose passport was denied under the previous Communist regime by a vindictive party secretary is given a chance to confront the woman and take revenge.
Style:
suspense, period piece, art house
Plot:
revenge, grudge, character study, female empowerment, confrontation, female rivalry, ethical dilemma, moral ambiguity, social realism, oppression, polish history, justice ...
Time:
80s
Place:
poland
Similarity:
35%
75
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 91 min.
Story:
About an existentialist alienation drama between a bourgeois couple caught in a stationary environment. Between a man and a woman lost in themselves.
Style:
existential, art house, melancholic, intellectual
Plot:
marriage crisis, alienation, infidelity, domestic drama, midlife crisis, identity crisis, routine, renaissance, married couple, minimalism, claustrophobia, intimate ...
Time:
60s
Place:
eastern europe
Similarity:
33%
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 86 min.
Story:
The setting is an old age home run by an aging director with an authoritarian hand. In the evening many of the residents huddle in a living room, penetrated by the October cold, to listen to the news. The announcement is giving the number of ...
Plot:
renaissance, chase, anxiety, escape, waiter, panic, hippie, manager, runaway, oppression, old age, metaphor ...
Time:
80s
Place:
poland, eastern europe
Similarity:
33%
501
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 80 min.
Story:
Beginning with a sci-fi prologue before finding itself with several doctors attending a medical school reunion in a sealed-up railway carriage. Between drinks, the disenchanted medicos ruminate over the effect that communism (particularly the ...
Style:
allegory, black and white, philosophical, avant garde, experimental ...
Plot:
surrealism, memory, trauma, renaissance, communism, post-apocalyptic future, politics, medical profession, female protagonist, absurdism, male camaraderie, freight train ...
Time:
70s
Place:
poland, eastern europe
Similarity:
32%
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:
32%
Genre: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 90 min.
Story:
Video registration of Carmelo Bene's play 'Lorenzaccio, al di là di de Musset e Benedetto Varchi', performed in Florence in 1986.
Style:
avant garde, poetic, intellectual, dramatic, intense ...
Plot:
theater, performance art, adaptation, literary, monologue, corruption, political intrigue, power, identity, betrayal, revenge, historical figure ...
Place:
florence
Similarity:
31%
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 60 min.
Story:
Made in 1983, shelved for four years. A chilling tale about kids playing in a bombed-out Warsaw courtyard on the day of Stalin's death, while their parents are away at the church or a memorial procession.
Style:
grim, bleak, period piece
Plot:
bullying, stalinism, communism, childhood, innocence lost, cruelty, totalitarianism, post war, fear, irony, oppression, anti semitism ...
Time:
1950s, 50s
Place:
warsaw poland, poland, eastern europe
Similarity:
30%
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 73 min.
Story:
Kieślowski’s study of a political strike, controversially told from the viewpoint of a Communist functionary trying to keep order.
Style:
historical drama, period piece, serious, intense, educational ...
Plot:
working class, violence, civil unrest, character study, cold war era, social realism, ethical dilemma, bureaucracy, renaissance, political party, government, clerk ...
Time:
70s
Place:
poland, eastern europe
Similarity:
28%
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 96 min.
Story:
Polish Psychological Drama
Style:
reflective, existential, philosophical, psychological, melancholic ...
Plot:
aging, midlife crisis, mortality, character study, memory, mountain, friendship, fear of death, male friendship, crisis of faith, nostalgia, isolation ...
Time:
80s
Similarity:
28%
Movie in collections
Genre: Drama
Country: France, Tunisia
Duration: 77 min.
Story:
In this French tour-de-force a young student decides to have no more interaction with the world than is needed to minimally sustain life. His increasingly automaton-like behavior is coupled with a strange clarity of insight about the world around ...
Style:
experimental, art house, artsy, existential, contemplative ...
Plot:
nihilism, existentialism, depression, loneliness, minimalism, introspection, existential loneliness, boredom, loser, time travel, lsd, trauma ...
Time:
70s, 20th century
Place:
paris france, france
Similarity:
27%
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 99 min.
Story:
Takes place in a prewar Poland. A tubercular young man comes to stay with his brother on a farm. He is in love with life and constantly plays 1930's music on a piano. He gets involved with his brother's problems and also becomes the lover ...
Style:
contemplative, serious, realistic, psychological, gloomy ...
Plot:
family relations, countryside, piano, magic realism, renaissance, woods, terminal illness, sibling relationship, comeback, life & death, village life, dealing with death ...
Place:
poland, eastern europe, switzerland, europe
Similarity:
26%
Genre: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 101 min.
Story:
Harry Munter, a sensitive, kind, appealing man in his twenties, lives with his parents. He's an inventor, a bit of a mystic, maybe a genius, and a good son and grandson. He's offered work in the U.S. But a friend has cancer and the world ...
Style:
melancholic, existential, art house, poetic, independent film
Plot:
coming of age, inventor, friendship, character study, intimate, bittersweet, small town, humanism, loneliness, loss of innocence, nostalgia, mysticism ...
Time:
60s
Place:
eastern europe
Similarity:
26%
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 106 min.
Story:
A group of students are spending the summer vacation at a university camp studying the science of linguistics. One of the camp directors, Jaroslaw, is a young professor who prefers the straightforward, intimate approach to students. He is opposed in ...
Style:
realistic, semi serious, cynical, biting, thought provoking ...
Plot:
renaissance, campus, father son relationship, male nudity, sex, skinny dipping, nude girl, summer, satire, intrigue, manipulation, summer camp ...
Time:
year 1977, 70s, 20th century
Place:
poland, eastern europe, europe, central europe, former yugoslavia
Similarity:
26%
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 102 min.
Story:
Set at the turn of the century, the story concerns a Polish poet living in Cracow who has decided to marry a peasant girl. The wedding is attended by a heterogenous group of people from all strata of Polish society, who dance, get drunk and lament ...
Style:
sexual, semi serious, realistic, offbeat, humorous ...
Plot:
renaissance, poet, polish history, mythology, poetry, wedding, ghost, satire, performer's life, couples, family relations, revolution ...
Time:
1900s, 19th century, year 1900, 20th century
Place:
poland, eastern europe, russia, austria, europe
Similarity:
26%
Movie in collections
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 130 min.
Story:
A beautiful Polish girl whose lover has gone to Rome to seek a divorce from his previous wife travels around Europe in search of him and suffers a variety of tragic adventures as the men around her try to fit her into their own selfish schemes.
Style:
erotic, controversial, disturbing, beautiful
Audience:
teens, pre-teens
Plot:
rape, erotica, female pubic hair, bare breasts, renaissance, coming of age, morality, crazy love, fetish, sex, love letter, prostitution ...
Time:
1900s, 20th century
Place:
eastern europe
Similarity:
26%
Genre: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 90 min.
Story:
Karin hopes to recover from her recent stay at a mental hospital by spending the summer at her family's cottage on a tiny island. Her husband, Martin, cares for her but is frustrated by her physical withdrawal. Her younger bother, Minus, is ...
Style:
psychological, philosophical, art house, black and white, serious ...
Plot:
schizophrenia, mental illness, older sister, religion, insanity, psychology, nordic, existentialism, dysfunctional family, mental disorder, illness, spirituality ...
Time:
year 1961, 20th century, 60s
Place:
eastern europe, scandinavia
Similarity:
25%
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 106 min.
Story:
After discussions and dishonest negotiations, a decision is taken as to where a large new chemical factory is to be built and Bednarz, an honest Party man, is put in charge of the construction. He used to live in the small town where the factory is ...
Style:
thought provoking, captivating, bleak, sincere, emotional ...
Plot:
communist, factory, small town, innocence lost, introspection, politics, moral dilemma, society, human nature, state affairs, social relations, small town life ...
Time:
70s
Place:
poland
Similarity:
24%
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland, UK, France
Duration: 90 min.
Story:
A young writer in 1939 Warsaw faces the conflict of acting his age or relapsing into childhood during the brink of World War II. Based on the famous novel Ferdydurke by Witold Gombrowicz.
Style:
thought provoking, art house, dark comedy, tragicomedy, avant garde ...
Plot:
renaissance, identity crisis, literary, surrealism, satire, coming of age, loss of innocence, alienation, isolation, existentialism, teacher, boarding school ...
Time:
1930s
Place:
warsaw poland, eastern europe, poland
Similarity:
24%
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 65 min.
Story:
Two former classmates (one an honest working man with a wife and children, the other a conman) meet at a train station. The conman comes to stay with his old friend and slowly begins to assume the role of master of the house, taking the place of ...
Style:
psychological, melancholic, tension, suspenseful, sinister
Plot:
character study, deception, friendship, intimate, identity, working class, moral dilemma, betrayal, impostor, slow burn, machismo, switching roles ...
Place:
eastern europe
Similarity:
24%
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland, France
Duration: 108 min.
Story:
Mika arrives in Poland to pay a hospital visit to her father, who is suffering from severe brain injury and memory loss. It's the first time they have met in many years, yet her father thinks they still live together and she's a teenager. ...
Style:
psychological, captivating, thrilling, melancholic, art film ...
Plot:
memory, father daughter relationship, memory loss, dementia, family relations, relationships, introspection, amnesiac, family life, estrangement, alienation, dysfunctional family ...
Place:
poland, eastern europe
Similarity:
24%
Genre: Drama
Country: Iran, France
Duration: 114 min.
Story:
A collection of 24 short four-and-a-half minutes films inspired by still images, including paintings and photographs. An experimental project made by filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami in the last three years of his life.
Style:
experimental, anthology, slow cinema, poetic, philosophical ...
Plot:
painting, minimalism, reflection, photography, meditation, filmmaker, director, photographer, meaning of life, film industry, memory, life & death ...
Time:
year 2017
Place:
middle east, iran
Similarity:
23%
Related movie lists
