Movies Like A Flower in Wasteland

If you liked A Flower in Wasteland (1961), a movie directed by Mehdi Reisfirooz, 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
Sight (2023)
★ 6.4/10
Ming Wang is an impoverished Chinese prodigy who flees Communist China to become a pioneering eye surgeon in America. When tasked with restoring the sight of an orphan in India, who was blinded by her stepmother, Wang…
2
The English Patient (1996)
★ 7.1/10
In the 1930s, Count Almásy is a Hungarian map maker employed by the Royal Geographical Society to chart the vast expanses of the Sahara Desert along with several other prominent explorers. As World War II unfolds…
3
The Stoning of Soraya M. (2009)
★ 7.7/10
In 1986 Iran, Sahebjam, whose car breaks down in a remote village, enters into a conversation with Zahra, who relays to him the story about her niece, Soraya, whose arranged marriage to an abusive tyrant ended in…
4
And Life Goes On (1992)
★ 7.7/10
After the earthquake of Guilan, a film director and his son travel to the devastated area to search for the actors from the movie the director made there a few years previously. In their search, they see how people who…
5
Close-Up (1990)
★ 8/10
This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life event—the arrest of a young man on charges that he fraudulently impersonated the well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf—as the basis for a stunning…
6
The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
★ 7.4/10
Cecilia is a waitress in New Jersey, living a dreary life during the Great Depression. Her only escape from her mundane reality is the movie theatre. After losing her job, Cecilia goes to see 'The Purple Rose of Cairo'…
7
Remember Sunday (2013)
★ 7.1/10
A lonely, down-on-her-luck waitress meets a handsome, quirky jewelry store clerk and thinks that maybe, finally, she's met Mr. Right. The more Molly gets to know Gus, the more she's intrigued by him. But she's also…
8
The Thief of Bagdad (1940)
★ 7.1/10
When Prince Ahmad is blinded and cast out of Bagdad by the nefarious Jaffar, he joins forces with the scrappy thief Abu to win back his royal place, as well as the heart of a beautiful princess.
9
The Wind Will Carry Us (1999)
★ 7.1/10
Irreverent city engineer Behzad comes to a rural Kurdish village in Iran to keep vigil for a dying relative. In the meanwhile the film follows his efforts to fit in with the local community and how he changes his own…
10
Taste of Cherry (1997)
★ 7.7/10
A middle-aged Tehranian man, Mr. Badii is intent on killing himself and seeks someone to bury him after his demise. Driving around the city, the seemingly well-to-do Badii meets with numerous people, including a Muslim…
11
Empire of Light (2022)
★ 6.6/10
The duty manager of a seaside cinema, who is struggling with her mental health, forms a relationship with a new employee on the south coast of England in the 1980s.
12
A Separation (2011)
★ 7.9/10
A 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.
13
Through the Olive Trees (1994)
★ 7.5/10
When the actor in a scene for his film Life And Nothing More… has to quit, a film director casts another man for the part. However, complications arise since the man and the woman who was cast for the scene know each…
14
Greed (1924)
★ 7.3/10
When housewife Trina wins the lottery, her comfortable life with her dentist husband John slowly deteriorates, in part by her own increasing paranoia and partly by the machinations of villainous acquaintance Marcus.
15
Hamnet (2025)
★ 7.7/10
The powerful story of love and loss that inspired the creation of Shakespeare's timeless masterpiece, Hamlet.
16
Princess Protection Program (2009)
★ 6.6/10
When her nation is invaded, a young princess is taken into the Princess Protection Program. She is relocated to Louisiana, where she stays with a covert agent and his tomboyish daughter, and must learn how to behave…
17
Circumstance (2011)
★ 6.6/10
A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager's growing sexual rebellion and her brother's newfound conservatism.
18
Flowers in the Attic (2014)
★ 6.7/10
After the sudden death of their father, four children face cruel treatment from their ruthless grandmother.
19
The Bridges of Madison County (1995)
★ 7.7/10
Photographer Robert Kincaid wanders into the life of housewife Francesca Johnson for four days in the 1960s.
20
A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate (1923)
★ 6.7/10
When Marie St. Clair believes she has been jilted by her artist fiance Jean, she decides to leave for Paris on her own. After spending a year in the city as a mistress of the wealthy Pierre Revel, she is reunited with…