Movies like Aparajito (1956)
The best movies like Aparajito (1956) are The World of Apu (1959), The 400 Blows (1959) and Charulata (1964). If Aparajito hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedIkiru (1952)8.3/10 from 1,426 votes
- NewestThe Stranger (1991)Released 1991
- In BengaliThe World of Apu (1959)Also in Bengali
- Same seriesThe World of Apu (1959)Apu
The World of Apu (1959)
Apu, now a jobless ex-student dreaming vaguely of a future as a writer, is invited to join an old college friend on a trip up-country to a village wedding.
Why it matches: Same series: Apu · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe 400 Blows (1959)
For young Parisian boy Antoine Doinel, life is one difficult situation after another. Surrounded by inconsiderate adults, including his neglectful parents, Antoine spends his days with his best friend, Rene, trying to plan for a better life. When one of their schemes goes awry, Antoine ends up in trouble with the law, leading to even more conflicts with unsympathetic authority figures.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisCharulata (1964)
In 1870s India, Charulata is an isolated, artistically inclined woman who sees little of her busy journalist husband, Bhupati. Realizing that his wife is alienated and unhappy, he convinces his cousin, Amal, to spend time with Charulata and nourish her creative impulses. Amal is a fledgling poet himself, and he and Charulata bond over their shared love of art.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBicycle Thieves (1948)
Unemployed Antonio is elated when he finally finds work hanging posters around war-torn Rome. However on his first day, his bicycle—essential to his work—gets stolen. His job is doomed unless he can find the thief. With the help of his son, Antonio combs the city, becoming desperate for justice.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisUmberto D. (1952)
When elderly pensioner Umberto Domenico Ferrari returns to his boarding house from a protest calling for a hike in old-age pensions, his landlady demands her 15,000-lire rent by the end of the month or he and his small dog will be turned out onto the street. Unable to get the money in time, Umberto fakes illness to get sent to a hospital, giving his beloved dog to the landlady's pregnant and abandoned maid for temporary safekeeping.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisPather Panchali (1955)
Impoverished priest Harihar Ray, dreaming of a better life for himself and his family, leaves his rural Bengal village in search of work. Alone, his wife, Sarbojaya, looks after her rebellious daughter, Durga, and her young son, Apu, as well as Harihar's elderly aunt Indir. The children enjoy the small pleasures of their difficult life, while their parents suffer the daily indignities heaped upon them.
Why it matches: Same series: Apu · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Big City (1963)
Arati takes a job as a door-to-door saleswoman in Calcutta's wealthy neighbourhoods, in defiance of her traditionally-minded husband, Subrata, and his live-in parents. Emulating her Anglo-Indian friend Edith, who speaks equal to the men she encounters on the job, Arati quickly becomes her firm's top salesperson. When Subrata loses his job, the power dynamic begins to shift.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Music Room (1958)
An aging, decadent landlord’s passion for music becomes the undoing of his legacy as he sacrifices his wealth in order to compete with the opulent music room of his younger, richer neighbour.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Wave (1936)
A Mexican fisherman, whose son has died because he could not afford necessary medical care out of his meagre wages, becomes aware of how badly exploited he and his many fellow fisherman are by the one greedy man for whom they work and the corrupt politician who makes the laws to benefit him.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
The Nightingale's Prayer (1959)
This compelling tale of love and betrayal, set in the upper Egyptian countryside, follows the story of Amna as she plots her revenge on the engineer who destroyed her family's honor.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Pyaasa (1957)
Vijay, a destitute poet, searches for true love while attempting to get his work published. With the assistance of two women in his life, his dream comes true - but at a cost that causes Vijay to rethink his worldview.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Blazing Sun (1954)
A wealthy landlord floods and destroys a village on purpose to prevent the people living there from making a profit off their crops. What he doesn't know is that his own daughter, Amal, is in love with Ahmed, a young man from the village.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Cloud-Capped Star (1960)
A selfless young woman, the daughter of a middle-class refugee family from East Pakistan, sacrifices her own happiness for her unappreciative family.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAu Hasard Balthazar (1966)
The story of a donkey Balthazar as he is passed from owner to owner, some kind and some cruel but all with motivations beyond his understanding. Balthazar, whose life parallels that of his first keeper, Marie, is truly a beast of burden, suffering the sins of humankind. But despite his powerlessness, he accepts his fate nobly.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Hero (1966)
Arindam, a matinee idol, is going by train to collect an acting award. On the train, he is confronted by Aditi, a journalist who somewhat unwillingly starts to take his interview. Arindam, won over by Aditi's naivete, starts to disclose his past, his fears, and his secrets.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Home and the World (1985)
In the early 1900s, Nikhilesh, a wealthy Westernized Hindu in colonial East Bengal, feels compelled to test the love of his wife, Bimala. He introduces her to his friend Sandip, a politician agitating against British rule, and Bimala is equally taken with both Sandip's anti-colonial fervor and the man himself. Personal and political tensions subsequently flare as the now assertive Bimala has to make a crucial decision.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Devi (1960)
A devout upper-class Hindu has a vision in a dream that his daughter-in-law is the human incarnation of the Goddess Kali and begins worshipping her.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTwo Acres of Land (1953)
After falling for a cunning landlord’s scheme, a farmer (Balraj Sahni) and his young son (Ratan Kumar) travel to Calcutta in search of work to save money and reclaim their ancestral land.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
The Golden Thread (1965)
After an old college friend offers him a job at an iron foundry, the upright and honest Ishwar leaves a shanty town on the outskirts of Calcutta where he lives with a group of refugees from East Bengal. With plans to forge a solid living for himself, sister Sita and Abhiram, an orphaned boy he offers a home to, Ishwar is accused of selling out and deserting his people.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA River Called Titas (1973)
An in-depth look at the lives and struggles of a fishing community living by the River Titas in Bangladesh after the Partition of India in 1947.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Late Spring (1949)
Noriko is perfectly happy living at home with her widowed father, Shukichi, and has no plans to marry -- that is, until her aunt Masa convinces Shukichi that unless he marries off his 27-year-old daughter soon, she will likely remain alone for the rest of her life. When Noriko resists Masa's matchmaking, Shukichi is forced to deceive his daughter and sacrifice his own happiness to do what he believes is right.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisLa Strada (1954)
When Gelsomina, a naïve young woman, is purchased from her impoverished mother by brutish circus strongman Zampanò to be his wife and partner, she loyally endures her husband's coldness and abuse as they travel the Italian countryside performing together. Soon Zampanò must deal with his jealousy and conflicted feelings about Gelsomina when she finds a kindred spirit in Il Matto, the carefree circus fool, and contemplates leaving Zampanò.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Stranger (1991)
A well-off family is paid an unexpected, and rather unwanted, visit by a man claiming to be the woman's long lost uncle. The initial suspicion with which they greet the man slowly dissolves as he regales them with stories of his travels, tales that are at odds with their conventional middle class perspective on the world.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Middleman (1976)
A bright and idealistic young graduate steels himself for a dog-eat-dog world, only to flounder in a job market packed with thousands of other hopefuls. When he eventually decides to start his own business as a middle-man, he discovers that the world of business does not live up to his lofty ideals.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Diary of a Country Priest (1951)
An inexperienced, sickly priest shows up in the rural French community of Ambricourt, where he joins the community's clergy. But the locals don't take kindly to the priest, and his ascetic ways and unsociable demeanor make him an outcast. During Bible studies at the nearby girls school, he is continually mocked by his students. Then his attempt to intervene in a family feud backfires into a scandal. His failures, compounded with his declining health, begin to erode his faith.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDays and Nights in the Forest (1970)
Four friends from Calcutta who have very different personalities make a holiday excursion into the country, to a tiny village in the state of Bihar where they set themselves up in a bungalow. A series of minor events, all connected to their respective reactions to their new environment, reveals their characters more deeply.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIkiru (1952)
Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisI Am Cuba (1964)
A study in contrasts set in and around Havana that explores Cuba's 1959 revolution: a young woman's fascination with the excess of an American-owned casino leads to her downfall in the eyes of her street vendor boyfriend; a tenant farmer revolts the only way he knows how, attacking the land he works; university students gain first-hand knowledge of political upheaval; and, in the hills outside the city, the members of a poor peasant family are patriotically swept up into the burgeoning revolt.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisCairo Station (1958)
Qinawi, a physically challenged peddler who makes his living selling newspapers in the central Cairo train station, is obsessed with Hanuma, an attractive young woman who sells drinks. While she jokes with him about a possible relationship, she is actually in love with Abu Siri, a strong and respected porter at the station who is struggling to unionize his fellow workers to combat their boss' exploitative and abusive treatment.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Given Word (1962)
Zé is a very poor man whose most prized possession is his donkey. When his donkey falls terminally ill, Zé makes a promise to Saint Bárbara: If his donkey recovers, he will carry a cross - like Jesus - all the way from his city to Saint Bárbara's church, in the state capital. Upon the recovery of his donkey, Zé leaves on his journey. He makes it to the church, but the priest refuses to accept the cross once he discovers the context of Zé's promise.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Aparajito?
The closest matches to Aparajito are The World of Apu (1959), The 400 Blows (1959) and Charulata (1964). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Aparajito?
People who watched Aparajito most often go on to The 400 Blows (1959), Charulata (1964) and Bicycle Thieves (1948).
What is the highest-rated movie like Aparajito?
Ikiru (1952), rated 8.3/10 by 1,426 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Aparajito?
The Stranger (1991) is the most recent release on this list.
Is Aparajito part of a series?
Yes. It belongs to Apu, which includes The World of Apu (1959) and Pather Panchali (1955).
Are there Bengali movies like Aparajito?
Yes: The World of Apu (1959), Charulata (1964) and Pather Panchali (1955).
How are movies similar to Aparajito chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Aparajito, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.