Movies Like When Father Was Away on Business (1985)

When Father Was Away on Business is a 1985 drama film from Emir Kusturica with a MovieMagicScore of 7.3/10. Here are 20 similar films, ranked by real viewer ratings — starting with The Way Back and Man on a Tightrope.

Drama

The Way Back

2010

A small band of multicultural convicts stages a daring escape from a WWII-era Siberian gulag, and embarks on a treacherous journey across five countries in a desperate race for freedom and survival.

7.0

MagicScore

Man on a Tightrope

1953

The owner of an impoverished circus in Communist-ruled Czechoslovokia plots to flee across the border to freedom, taking his entire troupe of performers and wild animals with him.

6.5

MagicScore

Variola Vera

1982

An Albanian pilgrim, infected with an unknown disease, is on his way back to Belgrade from the Middle East. When doctors realize that it is a disease that has been considered eradicated, it is already too late - variola vera begins to languish and the hospital is quarantined.

7.2

MagicScore

WR: Mysteries of the Organism

1971

What does the energy harnessed through orgasm have to do with the state of communist Yugoslavia circa 1971? Only counterculture filmmaker extraordinaire Dušan Makavejev has the answers (or the questions). His surreal documentary-fiction collision begins as an investigation into the life and work of controversial psychologist and philosopher Wilhelm Reich and then explodes into a free-form narrative of a beautiful young Slavic girl’s sexual liberation.

6.1

MagicScore

Chuck Norris vs Communism

2015

In late eighties, in Ceausescu's Romania, a black market VHS bootlegger and a courageous female translator brought the magic of Western films to the Romanian people and sowed the seeds of a revolution.

7.1

MagicScore

Good Night, and Good Luck.

2005

The story of journalist Edward R. Murrow's stand against Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-communist witch-hunts in the early 1950s.

7.1

MagicScore

The Way We Were

1973

Opposites attract when, during their college days, Katie Morosky, a politically active Jew, meets Hubbell Gardiner, a feckless WASP. Years later, in the wake of World War II, they meet once again and, despite their obvious differences, attempt to make their love for each other work.

7.0

MagicScore

The Majestic

2001

Set in 1951, a blacklisted Hollywood writer gets into a car accident, loses his memory and settles down in a small town where he is mistaken for a long-lost son.

6.8

MagicScore

The Secret Life of Words

2005

A solitary nurse bonds with a badly burned patient who survived an accident on an oil rig.

7.0

MagicScore

#10

Garden State

2004

Andrew returns to his hometown for the funeral of his mother, a journey that reconnects him with past friends. The trip coincides with his decision to stop taking his powerful antidepressants. A chance meeting with Sam - a girl also suffering from various maladies - opens up the possibility of rekindling emotional attachments, confronting his psychologist father, and perhaps beginning a new life.

7.1

MagicScore

#11

The Last Emperor

1987

A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.

7.6

MagicScore

#12

The Death of Stalin

2017

When dictator Joseph Stalin dies, his parasitic cronies square off in a frantic power struggle to become the next Soviet leader. As they bumble, brawl and back-stab their way to the top, the question remains — just who is running the government?

7.0

MagicScore

#13

The Front

1976

A cashier poses as a writer for blacklisted talents to submit their work through, but the injustice around him pushes him to take a stand.

7.0

MagicScore

#14

Milada

2017

Pre-WWII Czech democratic politician Milada Horáková was one of the first victims of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. Opposing the 1948 coup but not leaving the country, she was arrested and tried for treason on fabricated charges in a show trial broadcast on the radio.

6.7

MagicScore

#15

Death of a Neapolitan Mathematician

1992

Naples, 1959. Pure Mathematics professor Renato Caccioppoli, Bakunin's grandson, is a tortured soul. Recently discharged from the psychiatric hospital, left by his wife, and increasingly disillusioned with academia and the Communist Party, he lives his last days with painful detachment.

6.7

MagicScore

#16

The Godfather

1972

Spanning the years 1945 to 1955, a chronicle of the fictional Italian-American Corleone crime family. When organized crime family patriarch, Vito Corleone barely survives an attempt on his life, his youngest son, Michael steps in to take care of the would-be killers, launching a campaign of bloody revenge.

8.7

MagicScore

#17

Battle for Haditha

2007

An investigation of the massacre of 24 men, women and children in Haditha, Iraq allegedly shot by 4 U.S. Marines in retaliation for the death of a U.S. Marine killed by a roadside bomb. The movie follows the story of the Marines of Kilo Company, an Iraqi family, and the insurgents who plant the roadside bomb.

6.3

MagicScore

#18

The Wound

2017

Eastern Cape, South Africa. A lonely factory worker, Xolani, takes time off his job to assist during an annual Xhosa circumcision initiation into manhood. In a remote mountain camp that is off limits to women, young men, painted in white ochre, recuperate as they learn the masculine codes of their culture. In this environment of machismo and aggression, Xolani cares for a defiant initiate from Johannesburg, Kwanda, who quickly learns Xolani's best kept secret, that he is in love with another man.

6.2

MagicScore

#19

Shaft in Africa

1973

Detective John Shaft travels incognito to Ethiopia, then France, to bust a human trafficking ring.

6.0

MagicScore

#20

Short Skin

2015

Ever since he was a child, the seventeen-years-old Edoardo has suffered from a malformation of the foreskin that stops him from masturbating and makes him insecure and ill at ease with girls. Shut up in his sexless microcosm, Edoardo reacts with irritation to the pressures of the outside world, which do nothing but exacerbate his insecurity. Forced against his will to emerge from the shadows in which he has hidden for years, Edoardo will initially try to solve his problem by clumsy stratagems before finding, at last, the courage to face his own fears.

5.8

MagicScore

Frequently asked

What are the best movies like When Father Was Away on Business?

The top films similar to When Father Was Away on Business by MovieMagicScore are The Way Back (7.0), Man on a Tightrope (6.5), Variola Vera (7.2). Each shares drama themes and is ranked by real viewer ratings, not critics or studios.

Is When Father Was Away on Business worth watching?

When Father Was Away on Business holds a MovieMagicScore of 7.3/10 from 136 viewer ratings, putting it among the better-reviewed titles in its genre.

What kind of movie is When Father Was Away on Business?

When Father Was Away on Business (1985) is a drama film directed by Emir Kusturica, starring Moreno de Bartoli, Miki Manojlović, Mirjana Karanović.

Where can I find more recommendations like When Father Was Away on Business?

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 The Way Back Movies like Man on a Tightrope Movies like Variola Vera Movies like WR: Mysteries of the Organism Movies like Chuck Norris vs Communism Movies like Good Night, and Good Luck.

About movies like When Father Was Away on Business

This ranked list pairs When Father Was Away on Business (1985), a drama film from Emir Kusturica, with similar titles by genre, theme and cast overlap (fans of Moreno de Bartoli 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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