Movies Like Damascus: The Smile of Sadness

If you liked Damascus: The Smile of Sadness (2008), a movie directed by Maher Kaddo, here are 20 movies with a similar feel, based on TMDB's recommendations. Each one links to its cast, trailer and where it's streaming.

1
For Sama (2019)
★ 8.2/10
A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all…
2
Wadjda (2012)
★ 7.2/10
An enterprising Saudi girl signs on for her school's Quran recitation competition as a way to raise the remaining funds she needs in order to buy the green bicycle that has captured her interest.
3
The Man Who Sold His Skin (2021)
★ 6.6/10
To be able to travel to Europe and find the love of his life, Sam Ali, a Syrian refugee, accepts to have his back tattooed by one of the most sulfurous contemporary artist; becoming that way a precious work of art.
4
The Red Pill (2016)
★ 7.5/10
When a feminist filmmaker sets out to document the mysterious and polarizing world of the Men’s Rights Movement, she begins to question her own beliefs. Chronicling Cassie Jaye’s journey exploring an alternate…
5
Gia (1998)
★ 7.1/10
Gia Carangi meteorically rises to modeling fame in the late 1970s but becomes overconsumed by persistent loneliness and drug addiction.
6
Tatami (2024)
★ 7.7/10
Iranian female judokas Leila and her coach Maryam, travel to the Judo World Championship, intent on bringing home Iran’s first gold medal. Midway through the Judo World Championships, they receive an ultimatum from the…
7
The Smashing Machine (2025)
★ 6.4/10
In the late 1990s, up-and-coming mixed martial artist Mark Kerr aspires to become the greatest fighter in the world. However, he must also battle his opioid dependence and a volatile relationship with his girlfriend…
8
The Souvenir (2019)
★ 6.1/10
A shy but ambitious film student falls into an intense, emotionally fraught relationship with a charismatic but untrustworthy older man.
9
Orlando (1992)
★ 7/10
England, 1600. Queen Elizabeth I promises Orlando, a young nobleman obsessed with poetry, that she will grant him land and fortune if he agrees to satisfy a very particular request.
10
THX 1138 (1971)
★ 6.4/10
People in the future live in a totalitarian society. A technician named THX 1138 lives a mundane life between work and taking a controlled consumption of drugs that the government uses to make puppets out of people. As…
11
Our Kind of Traitor (2016)
★ 6/10
A young Oxford academic and his attorney girlfriend holiday in Morocco. They bump into a Russian millionaire who owns a peninsula and a diamond watch. He wants a game of tennis. What else he wants propels the lovers on…
12
Desert Flower (2009)
★ 7.6/10
The autobiography of a Somalian nomad who was sold in marriage at 13, fled from Africa a while later to become finally an American supermodel and is now at the age of 38, the UN spokeswoman against female genital…
13
The Zero Theorem (2013)
★ 6.1/10
A computer hacker's goal to discover the reason for human existence continually finds his work interrupted thanks to the Management; this time, they send a teenager and lusty love interest to distract him.
14
Elegy (2008)
★ 6.3/10
Cultural critic David Kepesh finds his life -- which he indicates is a state of "emancipated manhood" -- thrown into tragic disarray by Consuela Castillo, a well-mannered student who awakens a sense of sexual…
15
Love Me (2025)
★ 6/10
In a story that spans billions of years, a buoy and a satellite meet online long after humanity’s extinction. As they learn what life was like on Earth, they discover themselves and what it means to be alive and in love.
16
The Outrun (2024)
★ 6.8/10
Fresh out of rehab, Rona returns to the Orkney Islands—a place both wild and beautiful, right off the Scottish coast. Now 29 and after more than a decade of living life on the edge in London, where she both found and…
17
D.E.B.S. (2005)
★ 6.6/10
The star of a team of teenage crime fighters falls for the alluring villainess she must bring to justice.
18
Yes, God, Yes (2020)
★ 6.3/10
Alice, a young innocent Catholic girl, is tempted into masturbating after an AOL chat suddenly turns sexual, however is conflicted as the act would be considered a sin.
19
Jane Eyre (2011)
★ 7.2/10
After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meets the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Edward Rochester…
20
Unthinkable (2010)
★ 6.8/10
The government gets wind of a plot to destroy America involving a trio of nuclear weapons for which the whereabouts are unknown. It's up to a seasoned interrogator and an FBI agent to find out exactly where the nukes…