Movies Like Maria of the Ant Village

If you liked Maria of the Ant Village (1958), a drama movie directed by Heinosuke Gosho, 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
The Ballad of Narayama (1983)
★ 7.5/10Also drama
In a small village in a valley everyone who reaches the age of 70 must leave the village and go to a certain mountain top to die. If anyone should refuse they would disgrace their family. Old Orin is 69. This winter it…
2
The Young One (1960)
★ 7/10Also drama
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
3
Hardball (2001)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
4
What Maisie Knew (2013)
★ 7.1/10Also drama
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…
5
The Kindness of Strangers (2019)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
Clara and her two sons escape from her abusive husband with little more than their car and plan to start over in New York. After the car towed away, the family meets Alice, who gets them into an emergency shelter…
6
Skin (2009)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.
7
Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (1998)
★ 7.2/10Also drama
Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even…
8
Mindwalk (1991)
★ 6.9/10Also drama
On the French island of Mont Saint-Michel, Jack, a failed presidential candidate, Tom, a poet and Sonia, a physicist, engage in an intellectual conversation about politics, philosophy and life over the course of a…
9
Love & Pop (1998)
★ 7.7/10Also drama
Tokyo schoolgirl Hiromi and her friends engage in a practice known as enjo kosai, or "compensated dating", where older men pay young girls for dates. Hiromi plunges deeper into this world to raise money for an…
10
Pastoral: To Die in the Country (1974)
★ 7.5/10Also drama
A director faces creative block while working on his latest film – a reimagination of his adolescence growing up in a mountain village in rural Japan.
11
Vanya on 42nd Street (1994)
★ 6.7/10Also drama
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…
12
Harmonium (2016)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
Toshio hires Yasaka to work in his workshop. But then this old acquaintance, who has just been released from prison, begins to meddle in Toshio's family life.
13
The Village (2023)
★ 6.8/10Also drama
In a once-scenic village now dominated by a vast trash disposal site, a young man yearns to break free from a cruel fate tying him to the very grounds.
14
Charm City Kings (2020)
★ 7.8/10Also drama
Mouse desperately wants to join The Midnight Clique, the infamous Baltimore dirt bike riders who rule the summertime streets. When Midnight’s leader, Blax, takes 14-year-old Mouse under his wing, Mouse soon finds…
15
Salomé (2013)
★ 6.1/10Also drama
After the lewd and frenetic Dance of the Seven Veils, and with the solemn pledge from the very lips of Herod himself that she could have whatever her heart desires up to half his kingdom, wanton and proud young Salomé…
16
Sakuran (2006)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
Kiyoha rises from the lowly courtesan ranks to the high class position of Oiran in the steamy red-light district of Yoshiwara. She is determined to stand on her own two feet and live life as she pleased.
17
Hounddog (2008)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
18
F.I.S.T. (1978)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
Johnny Kovak joins the Teamsters trade-union in a local chapter in the 1930s and works his way up in the organization. As he climbs higher and higher his methods become more ruthless and finally senator Madison starts…
19
Girl in the Box (2016)
★ 6.7/10Also drama
The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.
20
Farming (2018)
★ 6.2/10Also drama
Based on the writer/director's childhood, FARMING tells the story of a young Nigerian boy, 'farmed out' by his parents to a white British family in the hope of a better future. Instead, he becomes the feared leader of…