The Coach
Contemporary Russia. After he flubs a penalty kick, a humiliated national soccer player quits the game. He flees to a small town, where he decides to coach their local team.…
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Movies Like My Friend Ivan Lapshin
If you liked My Friend Ivan Lapshin, this Cinento mix gives you more titles with a similar feeling, rhythm, tension, comfort level, and after-watch taste. Start with 16 picks, then load more when you want a wider path.
Movies Like My Friend Ivan Lapshin
The Visit
Carla Zachanassian had a child by Serge Miller as a teenager. When Serge refused to marry her, she was driven out of town. By her own wit and cunning, she has returned as a multi-m…
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Return
Back from a tour of duty, Kelli struggles to find her place in her family and the rust-belt town she no longer recognizes.…
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Home Run
A pro ball player with a substance abuse problem is forced into rehab in his hometown, finding new hope when he gets honest about his checkered past, and takes on coaching duties f…
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A Driver for Vera
The film is set during 1962 in Sevastopol, Crimea, then a secret Navy Base in the Soviet Union. General Serov hires Viktor, a cadet from the Kremlin Guard to work as his private ch…
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Gigi & Nate
A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.…
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Blue Chips
Pete Bell, a college basketball coach is under a lot of pressure. His team isn't winning and he cannot attract new players. The stars of the future are secretly being paid by boost…
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Hardball
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 gettin…
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My Joy
Georgy is driving a load of freight into Russia when, after an unpleasant encounter with the police at a border crossing, he finds himself giving a lift to a strange old man with d…
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The End of St. Petersburg
Shortly before the outbreak of WWI, a peasant from rural Russia arrives in St. Petersburg to find work.…
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I'm Not Here
A man struggles with the tragic memories of his past to make sense of his present, but soon realizes that time isn't the enemy he thinks it is.…
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Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl
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). …
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The Young One
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.…
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An Unfinished Piece for Player Piano
On a summer day in late 19th century Russia, a group of bourgeois friends and acquaintances gather at a dilapidated country estate.…
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Sergio
A sweeping drama set in the chaotic aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq, where the life of top UN diplomat Brazilian Sérgio Vieira de Mello hangs in the balance during the most tr…
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Come Sunday
Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.…
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Babylon
Drama telling the story of Blue, a young man of Jamaican descent living in Brixton in 1980, as he hangs out with his friends, fronts a dub sound system, loses his job, struggles wi…
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Cloak and Dagger
Italian partisans help a professor sent by the OSS to find an atomic scientist held by Nazis.…
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The Kindness of Strangers
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 get…
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The Thief
Katya and her 6-year-old son Sanya, who, in 1952, meet a veteran Soviet officer named Tolyan. Katya falls in love with Tolyan, who turns out to be a small time criminal, but who al…
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Above the Rim
Story of a promising high school basketball star and his relationships with two brothers, one a drug dealer and the other a former basketball star fallen on hard times and now empl…
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A Question of Faith
When Tragedy Strikes three Families, their Destiny forces them on a coverging path and mercy as the challenges of their fate could also resurrect their beliefs…
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Eleanor the Great
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.…
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God's Pocket
A boozy lowlife tries to bury the truth about his crazy stepson's suspicious death, but a nosy newspaper columnist and the young man's mother complicate matters.…
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Ayka
A young Kyrgyz immigrant tries to eke out a living in Moscow after abandoning her newborn and fleeing the hospital.…
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Siberia, Monamour
Siberia. Late autumn. In taiga, in the deserted village there lives an old man Ivan & his seven-year-old grandson Leshia. A pack of feral dogs devours everything alive in the n…
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Little Boy Blue
Living in rural Texas is a dysfunctional family: an abusive dad, a Vietnam vet with a war wound that's left him impotent; a compliant wife and a son of about 20, two small sons who…
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All Day and a Night
While serving life in prison, a young man looks back at the people, the circumstances and the system that set him on the path toward his crime.…
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Farming
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. Ins…
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Flights in Dreams and in Reality
On the eve of his fortieth anniversary Sergei Makarov looks back at his life and learns that he has achieved nothing. He was not able to be happy and to bring happiness to the clos…
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Bastard Out of Carolina
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer a…
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Vanya on 42nd Street
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 i…
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Border Hunters
After his police officer brother is killed by a drug dealer who flees to the protection of his cartel-connected uncle in Mexico, an American man with a diverse law enforcement/mili…
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O.G.
Louis Menkins is five weeks away from being released after 26 years in prison. He is faced with the decision to put his own release at risk in order to protect a young man named Be…
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The Safety of Objects
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, an…
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The Island
When his brother is killed, LAPD officer Mark leaves the city to return to the island he grew up on. Seeking answers and ultimately vengeance, he soon finds himself in a bloody bat…
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Violent Saturday
Three men case a small town very carefully, with plans to rob the bank on the upcoming Saturday, which turns violent and deadly.…
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Walkaway Joe
A young boy named Dallas goes on a search for his pool-hustling father after he abandons their family. Dallas is determined to bring his father home when he meets Joe Haley, a drif…
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Jesse Stone: Sea Change
Police Chief Jesse Stone's relationship with his ex-wife worsens, and he fears he's relapsing into alcoholism. To get his mind off his problems, Jesse begins working on the unsolve…
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Stone Cold
Jesse Stone is a former L.A. homicide detective who left behind the big city and an ex-wife to become the police chief of the quiet New England fishing town of Paradise. Stone's ol…
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How should I use Movies Like My Friend Ivan Lapshin?
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Why do these picks belong together?
Cinento looks at the feeling behind the search: tone, pacing, tension, comfort level, genre lane, and the kind of emotional aftertaste people usually want from this mix.
Is this mix only for people who already know the main title?
No. The title is a shortcut. You can use the mix even if you simply want the same mood, pressure, or story energy.
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