Movies Like Year of Enlightment (1986)

Year of Enlightment is a 1986 drama, war film from Fernando Trueba with a MovieMagicScore of 6.1/10. Here are 20 similar films, ranked by real viewer ratings — starting with Map of the Human Heart and The Tin Drum.

Drama War

Map of the Human Heart

1993

In an Arctic village in 1931, British mapmaker Walter Russell selects 12-year-old Eskimo Avik as his guide. When the boy contracts tuberculosis, Walter flies him to a Montreal hospital, where Avik meets Albertine and is infatuated. A decade later, a grown Avik encounters Albertine again in London, where he's serving as a British combat pilot. Despite her relationship with Walter, she and Avik begin an affair.

6.2

MagicScore

The Tin Drum

1979

Oskar Matzerath is a very unusual boy. Refusing to leave the womb until promised a tin drum by his mother, Agnes, Oskar is reluctant to enter a world he sees as filled with hypocrisy and injustice, and vows on his third birthday to never grow up. Miraculously, he gets his wish. As the Nazis rise to power in Danzig, Oskar wills himself to remain a child, beating his tin drum incessantly and screaming in protest at the chaos surrounding him.

6.9

MagicScore

The Brothers Lionheart

1977

After brothers Jonathan and Crusty pass away, they reunite in Nangijala, the land of eternal spring. Casting a long shadow over their world is the tyrant Tengil, ruler of the country Karmanjaka, where he’s building his new fortress up in the Ancient Mountains.

6.7

MagicScore

White Bird

2023

After being expelled from Beecher Prep for his treatment of a classmate with a facial deformity, Julian has struggled to fit in at his new school. To transform his life, Julian's grandmother finally reveals her own story of courage of her youth in Nazi-occupied France, where a classmate shelters her from mortal danger.

7.8

MagicScore

The Boy and the Heron

2023

While the Second World War rages, the teenage Mahito, haunted by his mother's tragic death, is relocated from Tokyo to the serene rural home of his new stepmother Natsuko, a woman who bears a striking resemblance to the boy's mother. As he tries to adjust, this strange new world grows even stranger following the appearance of a persistent gray heron, who perplexes and bedevils Mahito, dubbing him the "long-awaited one."

7.4

MagicScore

The Sea

2000

Childhood friends reunite later in life in Spanish tuberculosis sanitorium. Pressures of death all around combine with dark secrets of their past.

6.0

MagicScore

Summer of '42

1971

Over the summer of 1942 on Nantucket Island, three friends -- Hermie, Oscy and Benjie -- are more concerned with getting laid than anything else. Hermie falls in love with the married Dorothy, whose husband is an army pilot recently sent to the battlefront of World War II.

6.7

MagicScore

The Nun's Story

1959

After leaving a wealthy Belgian family to become a nun, Sister Luke struggles with her devotion to her vows during crisis, disappointment, and World War II.

7.2

MagicScore

Lost in Yonkers

1993

In the summer of 1942 two young boys are sent to stay with their stern grandmother Kurnitz and their childlike aunt Bella in Yonkers, New York.

6.3

MagicScore

#10

Defiance

2008

Based on a true story, during World War II, four Jewish brothers escape their Nazi-occupied homeland of West Belarus in Poland and join the Soviet partisans to combat the Nazis. The brothers begin the rescue of roughly 1,200 Jews still trapped in the ghettos of Poland.

6.8

MagicScore

#11

My Beautiful Girl, Mari

2002

Kim Nam-woo struggles through life as people around him constantly leave him; his best friend, Jun-ho, is going to study in Seoul and in some ways his widowed mother is "leaving" him too by paying more attention to her new boyfriend. To escape, he goes to a dream world, where he meets a girl named Mari. The story follows Nam-woo in discovering himself and maturing.

5.8

MagicScore

#12

Tan Lines

2005

Cute teen Midget Hollow wanders through life riding big waves and partying with surfer boys. When Midget's best friend's gay brother Cass arrives on the scene, the two quickly dive head first into a clandestine sea of sexual awakening.

4.9

MagicScore

#13

Where Hands Touch

2018

Germany, 1944. Leyna, the 15-year old daughter of a white German mother and a black African father, meets Lutz, a compassionate member of the Hitler Youth whose father is a prominent Nazi soldier, and they form an unlikely connection in this quickly changing world.

7.9

MagicScore

#14

Saving Private Ryan

1998

As U.S. troops storm the beaches of Normandy, three brothers lie dead on the battlefield, with a fourth trapped behind enemy lines. Ranger captain John Miller and seven men are tasked with penetrating German-held territory and bringing the boy home.

8.2

MagicScore

#15

Jojo Rabbit

2019

Jojo, a lonely German boy during World War II has his world shaken when he learns that his single mother is hiding a Jewish girl in their home. Influenced by a buffoonish imaginary version of Adolf Hitler, he begins to question his beliefs and confront the conflict between propaganda and his own humanity.

8.0

MagicScore

#16

The Great Escape

1963

The Nazis, exasperated at the number of escapes from their prison camps by a relatively small number of Allied prisoners, relocate them to a high-security 'escape-proof' camp to sit out the remainder of the war. Undaunted, the prisoners plan one of the most ambitious escape attempts of World War II. Based on a true story.

7.9

MagicScore

#17

In This Corner of the World

2016

Japan, 1943, during World War II. Young Suzu leaves her village near Hiroshima to marry and live with her in-laws in Kure, a military harbor. Her creativity to overcome deprivation quickly makes her indispensable at home. Inhabited by an ancestral wisdom, Suzu impregnates the simple gestures of everyday life with poetry and beauty. The many hardships, the loss of loved ones, the frequent air raids of the enemy, nothing alters her enthusiasm…

7.9

MagicScore

#18

Army of Shadows

1969

Betrayed by an informant, Philippe Gerbier finds himself trapped in a torturous Nazi prison camp. Though Gerbier escapes to rejoin the Resistance in occupied Marseilles, France, and exacts his revenge on the informant, he must continue a quiet, seemingly endless battle against the Nazis in an atmosphere of tension, paranoia and distrust.

7.9

MagicScore

#19

Downfall

2004

In April of 1945, Germany stands at the brink of defeat with the Russian Army closing in from the east and the Allied Expeditionary Force attacking from the west. In Berlin, capital of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler proclaims that Germany will still achieve victory and orders his generals and advisers to fight to the last man. When the end finally does come, and Hitler lies dead by his own hand, what is left of his military must find a way to end the killing that is the Battle of Berlin, and lay down their arms in surrender.

7.9

MagicScore

#20

The Shadow in My Eye

2021

On March 21st, 1945, the British Royal Air Force set out on a mission to bomb Gestapo's headquarters in Copenhagen. The raid had fatal consequences as some of the bombers accidentally targeted a school and more than 120 people were killed, 86 of whom were children.

7.8

MagicScore

Frequently asked

What are the best movies like Year of Enlightment?

The top films similar to Year of Enlightment by MovieMagicScore are Map of the Human Heart (6.2), The Tin Drum (6.9), The Brothers Lionheart (6.7). Each shares drama/war themes and is ranked by real viewer ratings, not critics or studios.

Is Year of Enlightment worth watching?

Year of Enlightment holds a MovieMagicScore of 6.1/10 from 20 viewer ratings.

What kind of movie is Year of Enlightment?

Year of Enlightment (1986) is a drama, war film directed by Fernando Trueba, starring Jorge Sanz, Verónica Forqué, Maribel Verdú.

Where can I find more recommendations like Year of Enlightment?

Browse the full ranked list above, or explore more drama recommendations on MovieMagicScore, where every list is ordered by genuine viewer ratings.

Keep exploring

Movies like Map of the Human Heart Movies like The Tin Drum Movies like The Brothers Lionheart Movies like White Bird Movies like The Boy and the Heron Movies like The Sea

About movies like Year of Enlightment

This ranked list pairs Year of Enlightment (1986), a drama and war film from Fernando Trueba, with similar titles by genre, theme and cast overlap (fans of Jorge Sanz take note). Unlike critic-driven sites, every position here is ordered by MovieMagicScore — a rating built only from real viewers, with no studio marketing or paid placement. Scores update as more people rate, so the list stays current.

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