Movies like Maldoror : Festival d'Avignon 2026 (2026)

What Maisie Knew (2013)

In New York City, six-year-old Maisie is caught in the middle of a bitter custody battle between her self-absorbed parents—an aging rock singer mother and a distracted art dealer father. As both quickly marry new partners to strengthen their legal standing, Maisie is shuttled back and forth in an endless game of emotional point-scoring. Yet amid the chaos and upheaval, Maisie begins to find true comfort and affection in her new step-parents.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet (2012)

From beyond the grave, celebrated playwright Antoine d'Anthac gathers all his friends who have appeared over the years in his play 'Eurydice'. These actors watch a recording performed by a young acting company, La Compagnie de la Colombe. Do love, life, death and love after death still have any place on a theater stage? It's up to them to decide. And the surprises have only just begun...

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

National Theatre Live: Hamlet (2015)

As a country arms itself for war, a family tears itself apart. Forced to avenge his father's death but paralyzed by the task ahead, Hamlet rages against the impossibility of his predicament, threatening both his sanity and the security of the state.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Adieu Philippine (1962)

Michel is a young technician in the fledgling TV industry and is due for military service in two months at the time of the Algerian War. Juliette and Liliane are inseparable best friends, and aspiring actresses, who hang around outside the TV studio. Michel invites them in to watch, flirts with them both, and dates them separately and together. When Michel goes on a holiday to Corsica, just before he is drafted, the girls follow.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Love Me No More (2008)

Antoine Méliot is around 40 years old and has everything he needs to be happy: a beautiful wife, two adorable children, friends he can count on, a pretty house in the Yvelines and money. But one day he decides to ruin everything in one weekend.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

The Finishers (2013)

Julien, 17, is wheelchair-bound due to cerebral palsy. Despite their love for him, his family is gradually falling apart under the strain of dealing with his disability. In a bid to bond with his father, Julien challenges him to participate with him in the Ironman race in Nice (French Riviera), a triathlon in which his father has previously competed.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Hamlet (1948)

Winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor, Sir Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet continues to be the most compelling version of Shakespeare’s beloved tragedy. Olivier is at his most inspired—both as director and as the melancholy Dane himself—as he breathes new life into the words of one of the world’s greatest dramatists.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

I Swear (2025)

Thirtysomething Marco goes through life without a compass. Employed at a Forbach recycling center, he finds comfort in alcohol. And a little with Madeleine, a mature woman with whom he secretly has a relationship. One day, he is drawn by lot to be a juror of Assisi. Incapable of discernment for himself, Marco will have to decide the life of a young arsonist accused of manslaughter.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Vanya on 42nd Street (1994)

An uninterrupted rehearsal of Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya' plays out by a company of actors. The setting: their run-down theater with an unusable stage and crumbling ceiling. The play is shown act by act with the briefest of breaks to move props or for refreshments. The lack of costumes, real props and scenery is soon forgotten.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Gloria Mundi (2019)

Daniel leaves prison. He returns to Marseilles where Mathilda, his daughter, has just given birth. Nicolas, her spouse, a self-employed driver, is exhausted while Mathilda is a sales assistant on a trial basis. But, one night, Nicolas is assaulted by taxi drivers determined to reduce unfair competition.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Final Set (2021)

Thomas was once renowned as a young tennis prodigy, but never had the career he hoped for. At 37, despite his declining physical fitness and shattered knee he decides to compete in the intense qualifying rounds of the French Open at Roland-Garros for one last attempt at glory. Although his wife Eve and mother Judith advise him to give up, Thomas obsessively pushes forward. He will have to fight his own demons and will ultimately face a determined young player who reminds him of his younger self.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972)

Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

King Lear (2018)

An aging King invites disaster, when he abdicates to his corrupt, toadying daughters, and rejects his loving and honest one.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Fanny (2013)

"Fanny" is the second part of the "Marseille trilogy", made by Marcel Pagnol with the generic name of "Marius, Fanny and César". Fanny falls in love and is abandoned by Marius. Now she discovers she is pregnant. Her mother and Marius's father, César, persuade her to accept the romantic advances of a much older man. To save face, Fanny accepts to marry Honoré Panisse, a rich merchant of the Vieux Port, 30 years her senior who will recognize her son.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Hamlet (2009)

David Tennant stars in a film of the Royal Shakespeare Company's award-winning production of Shakespeare's great play. Director Gregory Doran's modern-dress production was hailed by the critics as thrilling, fast-moving and, in parts, very funny.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

I Never Sang for My Father (1970)

A man living in the towering shadow of his aging father finds it difficult to start a new chapter in his life by marrying his girlfriend and moving to California.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Heaven Will Wait (2016)

Mélanie, 16 years old, lives with her mother. She likes going to school, her friends, playing the cello, and she wants to change the world. But when she meets a boy on the Internet and falls in love with him, her world changes as she is gradually recruited by Daesh. Sonia is 17 years old, and she almost did something irrevocable to “guarantee” her family a place in paradise. These teenage girls might be called Anaïs, Manon or Leila, and one day they all might go some way down the recruitment process. But can they ever come back from it?

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Saint Omer (2022)

A novelist attends the trial of a woman accused of killing her 15-month-old daughter by abandoning her to the rising tide on a beach in northern France. But as the trial continues, her own family history, doubts, and fears about motherhood are steadily dislodged as the life story of the accused is gradually revealed.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

My Dinner with Hervé (2018)

An unlikely friendship evolves over one wild night in LA between a struggling journalist and actor Hervé Villechaize, the world's most famous gun-toting dwarf, resulting in life-changing consequences for both.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Nobody from Nowhere (2014)

Sebastien Nicolas is a reclusive realtor leading a double life – in his spare time he creates complex disguises based on acquaintances. Combined with minutely studied and rehearsed impersonations, Sebastien can disappear completely into other people's lives. Things spiral out of control after he impersonates the wrong man.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

After We Are Born (2027)

A New Psychological Documentary About Children

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Bernadette of Lourdes: The Musical (2025)

Bernadette Soubirous, just 14 years old, goes by the river near the Massabielle cave. It is there that, for the first time, a “lady dressed in white” appears to her. Accused of lying, Bernadette’s revelation initially provokes mistrust and tensions in her family, drawing the wrath of civil and ecclesiastical authorities. The rumor spreads. Pilgrims begin to converge. Lourdes goes down in History.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Check-Up (TBA)

Two brothers united by the game, and broken by the passion

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

COUPLEGOALS (2025)

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Liebe ist kein Rummel (2025)

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

The Queen of Fear (2018)

Only one month left until the premiere of The Golden Time, the long-awaited solo show by acclaimed actress Robertina. Far from focused on the preparations for this new production, Robertina lives in a state of continuous anxiety that turns her privileged life into an absurd and tumultuous landscape.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

The Chocolate War - Act One (2026)

Act One of the film The Chocolate War by critically acclaimed studio Phony Pictures; following the Breaking Bar Crew before the start of the Chocolate War.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Mater Mortis (2021)

Mater Mortis is a short narrative film that asks what the limits of family bonds are under the weight of illness. Rajan must care for his mother, now afflicted with a condition that makes her the living dead. Relations between Rajan and his father fray as tensions rise to a head in this meditation on family, disease, and the right to life or death.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Halifax Pier (2026)

At the end of a tangled relation- ship, Myra and Percy begin to feel the anxiety of the everyday creep in.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Sugar Salt and Love (2015)

Three women navigate their way through life and love.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama