Movies Like Samsa

FENNEL

2023

The Taste of Life

2018

The story of a young rascal with a tough past who enters a house of generational chefs and learns to cook authentic Shandong cuisine.

The Leopard

1963

As Garibaldi's troops begin the unification of Italy in the 1860s, an aristocratic Sicilian family grudgingly adapts to the sweeping social changes undermining their way of life.

The Traitor

2019

Palermo, Sicily, 1980. Mafia member Tommaso Buscetta decides to move to Brazil with his family fleeing the constant war between the different clans of the criminal organization. But when, after living several misfortunes, he is forced to return to Italy, he makes a bold decision that will change his life and the destiny of Cosa Nostra forever.

7th & Union

2021

Ex-fighter Raymundo forms an unlikely bond with a disgruntled man whose life and relationship with his daughter are unraveling. The men join forces to win a fight that could very well save Raymundo, his wife and their child.

Paolo Borsellino: The 57 Days

2012

The film traces the 57 days after the assassination of his friend and fellow anti-Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone when Paolo Borsellino must come to terms with his own inescapable destiny.

Reading Lolita in Tehran

2024

As Islamic morality squads stage arbitrary raids in Tehran and as fundamentalists seize hold of the universities, Azar Nafisi, an inspired teacher, secretly gathers six of her most committed female students to read forbidden western classics. Unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, they soon removed their veils, their stories intertwining with the novels they read: just like the heroines of Nabokov, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James or Jane Austen, the women in Nafisi’s living room dare to dream, hope and love as we experience the complexity of the lives of individuals facing political, moral and personal siege.

Bastard Out of Carolina

1996

A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.

What Maisie Knew

2013

In New York City, a young girl is caught in the middle of her parents' bitter custody battle.

Come Into the Light

2005

In 1990s Palermo, Pino Puglisi is a priest from the neglected Brancaccio neighborhood dedicated in helping kids to get off the streets and creating an embracing place of hope and solidarity in his church, which means trouble for the local Mafia. He continues his solitary fight until the bitter end.

It Was the Son

2012

The Ciraulo family lives in the miserable district of Palermo called "Zen". When one of their children dies in a shootout between mafia gangsters they receive compensation and buy a luxury black Volvo. Things go wrong when Trancredi, another son, takes the car out and damages the car door.

Mindwalk

1991

On the French island of Mont Saint-Michel, Jack, a failed presidential candidate, Tom, his ex-speechwriter and Sonia, a physicist, engage in an intellectual conversation about politics, philosophy and life over the course of a single day.

Final Recipe

2013

Hao's Singaporean restaurant is in danger of going out of business. Hao's grandson, Mark, secretly travels to Shanghai to attend a cooking competition despite his grandfather's wishes for him to become an engineer. Mark takes the place of a contestant who did not show up and must now impress the host, Julia Lee, and her chef husband, David Chen. Chen, who is originally from Singapore and misses his family, eventually learns he is Mark's father.

Ray Donovan: The Movie

2022

A showdown decades in the making brings the Donovan family legacy full circle. As the events that made Ray who he is today finally come to light, the Donovans find themselves drawn back to Boston to face the past. Each of them struggles to overcome their violent upbringing, but destiny dies hard, and only their fierce love for each other keeps them in the fight.

Boys on the Outside

1990

Young men with no future have little in the present as well. Natale is released from prison: he takes up with his friends again but none can find work. Claudio, from Palermo, gets out of juvenile detention in Naples and he's met by Vita, a girl who's come from home to run away with him. Where can they go? A young dad, whose potato stall at the market is shut down because he has no permit, takes his two small children to the beach and yells at them. Mario, gay, a prostitute in drag, gets a visit from his mom; he offers tea, then finds the water to his apartment is shut off. Social workers drop by, parole officers file reports. What hope is there? What options besides crime?

Home

2021

An ex-felon returns home from prison and must confront the demons of his past.

East Side Sushi

2014

Years of working in the food industry have made Juana, a working-class Latina, a chef of speed and skill. Searching for financial stability, she stumbles into a high-energy, male-dominated Japanese cuisine kitchen. The new atmosphere re-ignites her passions for food and life and makes her hungry to get mixed up in the flavors of this new world.

Herself

2020

Struggling to provide her daughters with a safe, happy home, Sandra decides to build one - from scratch. Using all her ingenuity to make her ambitious dream a reality, Sandra draws together a community to lend a helping hand to build her house and ultimately recover her own sense of self.