Social realism/Inner Struggle (all genres)
Movies reflecting society, the human condition and their dialectics
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36 titles
- DirectorNadine LabakiStarsZain Al RafeeaYordanos ShiferawBoluwatife Treasure BankoleWhile serving a five-year sentence for a violent crime, a 12-year-old boy sues his parents for neglect.
- DirectorLynne RamsayStarsTommy FlanaganMandy MatthewsWilliam EadieA naïve young lad navigates the dirty squalid streets of 1973 Glasgow and the poor youth around him.
- DirectorJacques AudiardStarsJesuthasan AntonythasanKalieaswari SrinivasanClaudine VinasithambyDheepan is a Sri Lankan Tamil warrior who flees to France and ends up working as a caretaker outside Paris.
- DirectorMathieu KassovitzStarsVincent CasselHubert KoundéSaïd Taghmaoui24 hours in the lives of three young men in the French suburbs the day after a violent riot.
- DirectorYuriy BykovStarsArtyom BystrovNatalya SurkovaYuriy TsuriloDima Nikitin is an ordinary honest plumber who suddenly decides to face the corrupt system of local politics in order to save the lives of 800 inhabitants of an old dormitory, which is about to collapse.
- DirectorKore-eda HirokazuStarsLily FrankySakura AndôKirin KikiOn the margins of Tokyo, a dysfunctional band of outsiders are united by loyalty, a penchant for petty theft and playful grifting. When the young son is arrested, secrets are exposed that upend their tenuous, below-the-radar existence.
- DirectorHaifaa Al-MansourStarsWaad MohammedReem AbdullahAbdullrahman Al GohaniAn enterprising Saudi girl signs on for her school's Koran recitation competition as a way to raise the remaining funds she needs in order to buy the green bicycle that has captured her interest.
- DirectorJean-Pierre DardenneLuc DardenneStarsThomas DoretCécile de FranceJérémie RenierAbandoned by his father, a young boy is left in a state-run youth farm. In a random act of kindness, the town hairdresser agrees to foster him on weekends.
- DirectorSean BakerStarsBrooklynn PrinceBria VinaiteWillem DafoeSet over one summer, the film follows precocious six-year-old Moonee as she courts mischief and adventure with her ragtag playmates and bonds with her rebellious but caring mother, all while living in the shadows of Walt Disney World.
- DirectorKen LoachStarsPaul BranniganJohn HenshawRoger AllamNarrowly avoiding jail, new dad Robbie vows to turn over a new leaf. A visit to a whisky distillery inspires him and his mates to seek a way out of their hopeless lives.
- DirectorKen LoachStarsKris HitchenDebbie HoneywoodRhys McgowanHoping that self-employment through gig economy can solve their financial woes, a hard-up UK delivery driver and his wife struggling to raise a family end up trapped in the vicious circle of this modern-day form of labour exploitation.
- DirectorJafar PanahiStarsJafar PanahiNasrin SotoudehBanned from making movies by the Iranian government, Jafar Panahi poses as a taxi driver and makes a movie about social challenges in Iran.
- DirectorUlrich SeidlStarsMaria HofstätterNabil SalehRené RupnikA single woman in her 50s devotes her vacations to doing Catholic missionary work in Vienna, descending into violent self-punishment as part of her faith.
- DirectorUlrich SeidlStarsMargarete TieselPeter KazunguInge MauxTeresa, a fifty-year-old Austrian mother, travels to the paradise of the beaches of Kenya, seeking out love from African boys. But she must confront the hard truth that on the beaches of Kenya, love is a business.
- DirectorUlrich SeidlStarsMelanie LenzVerena LehbauerJoseph LorenzThe final installment in Ulrich Seidl's Paradise trilogy, 'Paradise: Hope' tells the story of overweight thirteen-year-old Melanie and her first love. While her mother travels to Kenya ('Paradise: Love') and her aunt does missionary work ('Paradise: Faith'), Melanie spends her summer vacation at a strict diet camp for overweight adolescents. Between physical education and nutrition counseling, pillow fights and her first cigarette, Melanie falls in love with the camp director, a doctor forty years her senior. As the doctor struggles with the guilty nature of his desire, Melanie had imagined her paradise differently.
- DirectorKantemir BalagovStarsDarya ZhovnerAtrem CipinNazir ZhukovIn the late-1990s squalid town of Nalchik, a poor young Jewish couple is kidnapped and a grievous ransom is demanded, as bitter resentments and cruel dilemmas come to light, magnifying the small community's grave predicament.
- DirectorThomas VinterbergStarsGustav Fischer KjærulffSebastian BullMads Broe AndersenTwo brothers meet at their mother's funeral, each in his way on a path of self-destruction, both haunted by a tragedy in their youth.
- DirectorAsghar FarhadiStarsPayman MaadiLeila HatamiSareh BayatA married couple are faced with a difficult decision - to improve the life of their child by moving to another country or to stay in Iran and look after a deteriorating parent who has Alzheimer's disease.
- DirectorAsghar FarhadiStarsShahab HosseiniTaraneh AlidoostiMaral BaniadamWhile Ranaa and Emad, a married couple, are participating in a production of "Death of a Salesman," she is assaulted in their new home, which leaves him determined to find the perpetrator over his wife's traumatized objections.
- DirectorZaza UrushadzeStarsLembit UlfsakElmo NüganenGiorgi NakashidzeIn 1992, war rages in Abkhazia, a breakaway region of Georgia. An Estonian man, Ivo, has decided to stay behind and harvest his crops of tangerines. In a bloody conflict at his door, a wounded man is left behind, and Ivo takes him in.
- DirectorRalitza PetrovaStarsIrena IvanovaVentzislav KonstantinovSvezhen MladenovA nurse traffics the ID cards of demented patients on the black market of identity theft. Driven by easy cash, and an addiction to morphine, she struggles to keep tabs on her emotional void, and a growing fear of punishment.
- DirectorBong Joon HoStarsSong Kang-hoLee Sun-kyunCho Yeo-jeongGreed and class discrimination threaten the newly-formed symbiotic relationship between the wealthy Park family and the destitute Kim clan.
- DirectorBahman GhobadiStarsSoran EbrahimAvaz LatifSaddam Hossein FeysalNear the Iraqi-Turkish border on the eve of an American invasion, refugee children like 13-year-old Kak (Ebrahim), gauge and await their fate.
- DirectorPaddy ConsidineStarsPeter MullanArchie LalJag SangheraJoseph, a man plagued by violence and a rage that is driving him to self-destruction, earns a chance of redemption that appears in the form of Hannah, a Christian charity shop worker.
- DirectorSrdjan DragojevicStarsDragan BjelogrlicNikola KojoDragan MaksimovicDuring the war in Bosnia, two childhood friends eventually become enemies, as the tragic and devastating circumstances of the war put them on the opposite sides and expose the most gruesome and cruel aspects of the human nature.