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Movies like Besieged

Key Features:
Exile, Forbidden love, Imprisonment, Cultural displacement, Finding home, Sacrifice, Obsession, Melodrama, Romance, Character study
Tone:
serious, dramatic
Target Audience:
Art house cinema enthusiasts, World cinema viewers, Romance drama fans, Character-driven stories
Emotional Arc:
Longing → Conflict → Acceptance

Besieged

1998-02-05
Besieged Poster - Find Similar Movies

While in exile in Italy, an African woman finds herself trying to get back home and free her imprisoned husband. But the only man that can help her do so is in love with her.

Genres
Drama, Romance
Cast
Thandiwe Newton, David Thewlis, Claudio Santamaria, John C. Ojwang, Massimo De Rossi, Veronica Lazăr, Elena Perino
Crew
Bernardo Bertolucci, James Lasdun, Clare Peploe, Bernardo Bertolucci
Rating
6.602(64 votes)
BesiegedBesieged
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Fiore
Fiore(2016)
6.2

Young and in prison for theft, Daphne falls in love with Josh, another inmate. Their love story exists through secret letters and fleeting conversations.



Story of a Love Affair

A wealthy, possessive husband's investigation reignites his young wife's past love, leading them to plot against him. As obstacles fall away, their passion faces a new test.



After Everything
6.89

Besieged by writer’s block and the crushing breakup with Tessa, Hardin travels to Portugal in search of a woman he wronged in the past – and to find himself. Hoping to win back Tessa, he realizes he needs to change his ways before he can make the ultimate commitment.



I Am Love
I Am Love(2010)
6.777

Emma has left Russia to live with her husband in Italy. Now a member of a powerful industrial family, she is the respected mother of three, but feels unfulfilled. One day, Antonio, a talented chef and her son's friend, makes her senses kindle.



Lady Chatterley
6.1

After a crippling injury leaves her husband impotent, Lady Chatterly is torn between her love for her husband and her physical desires. With her husband's consent, she seeks out other means of fulfilling her needs.



Senso
Senso(1954)
7.2

A troubled and neurotic Italian Countess betrays her entire country for a self-destructive love affair with an Austrian Lieutenant.



Cold War
Cold War(2018)
7.4

A man and a woman meet in the ruins of post-war Poland. With vastly different backgrounds and temperaments, they are fatally mismatched and yet drawn to each other.



Down by Love
6

A man, a woman. A prison director, his inmate. An impossible love, a true story.



Red Desert
7.343

In an industrializing Italian town, a married woman, rendered mentally unstable after a traffic accident, drifts into an affair with a friend of her husband.



Breath
Breath(2007)
6.656

A condemned prisoner slowly falls in love with the married female artist who decorates his prison cell. Jin is a convicted killer awaiting execution on Death Row; Yeon is a lonely artist locked in a loveless marriage.



Atlantics
Atlantics(2019)
6.8

Arranged to marry a rich man, young Ada is crushed when her true love goes missing at sea during a migration attempt — until a miracle reunites them.



The Key
The Key(1983)
5.984

Art professor Nino Rolfe attempts to break down his wife Teresa's conventional modesty. Noticing her affection for their daughter's fiancé, Nino instigates her sexual interest in him - setting off a chain of unexpected events and emotional complications...



And While We Were Here

Trapped in a loveless marriage, a troubled writer experiences a sexual awakening when she meets a carefee American in Italy.



A Room in Town
6.4

Set against the backdrop of an increasingly violent strike, a worker falls in love with the middle-class daughter of his landlady.



Women's Prison Massacre

Emanuelle is framed by a corrupt D.A. while investigating a drug smuggling operation and has to tough it out under lock and key, dealing with a strict warden and abusive guards.



Rugantino
Rugantino(1973)
5.9

A beautiful girl Rosina lives In Rome. Her husband is strong as a bull and jealous as Shakespeare's Othello. Once the husband of Rosina kills a wealthy aristocrat, who sang the serenade to his wife, and now he is hiding from justice.



Vermiglio
Vermiglio(2024)
7.081

Set in the small, mountainous village of Vermiglio during the waning days of WWII, a series of dramatic, consequential events unfold after the arrival of a taciturn Sicilian soldier, who hides out in town after deserting the army. While there, the soldier develops a romance with a provincial family’s eldest daughter.



Diana
Diana(2013)
5.6

During the last two years of her life, Princess Diana campaigns against the use of land mines and has a secret love affair with a Pakistani heart surgeon.



The Forbidden City
7.081

In the suburbs of Rome two very different souls intersect. One is the son of a restaurant owner who disappeared with his lover. The other is a young mysterious woman who has arrived from China in search of her missing sister.



Luna
Luna(1979)
6.3

While touring in Italy, a recently-widowed American opera singer has an incestuous relationship with her 15-year-old son to help him overcome his heroin addiction.



The Sheltering Sky
6.482

An American couple drift toward emptiness in postwar North Africa.



365 Days
365 Days(2020)
7

A woman falls victim to a dominant mafia boss, who imprisons her and gives her one year to fall in love with him.



Fruits of Passion
5.2

A girl named O loves a rich, and much older man. She is subjected to a variety of humiliating experiences to prove her unconditional obedience to him in a Chinese brothel. A poor boy sees her and falls in love with her. To get the money needed to sleep with her, he takes part in rebellious acts.



Fuori
Fuori(2025)
6.636

Rome. The 1980s. After the magnum opus The Art of Joy she has been working on for a decade is rejected by the Italian publishing world, writer Goliarda Sapienza commits a desperate theft that costs her her reputation and social position. Incarcerated in Italy’s largest female prison, she finds herself living alongside thieves, junkies, sex workers and revolutionaries. After her release, she continues to meet with these women and over the course of a sweltering summer, a life-changing relationship flowers – a relationship that will reawaken her the desire to live and to write.



The Patience Stone
7.018

In a war-ridden country, a woman watches over her husband, comatose from a bullet in the neck and abandoned by Jihad companions and brothers. One day, the woman decides to say things to him she could never have done before.



Benedetta
Benedetta(2021)
6.6

A 17th-century nun becomes entangled in a forbidden lesbian affair with a novice. But it is Benedetta's shocking religious visions that threaten to shake the Church to its core.



The Flesh
The Flesh(1991)
5.523

A beautiful film which is basically about a man, a piano player, who meets and falls in love with a beautiful and voluptuous woman, who, by some strange procedure, leaves the man unable to move but with a permanent priapism! After some time he becomes sick of it and she relieves his paralysis. Eventually she gets bored and decides to leave, but he can't take it because he loves her…



Love & Passion
5.121

After the renewed flings with their former lovers prove to be disastrously unlike the romantic memories, an unfaithful couple returns to each other.



Sansho the Bailiff
8.1

In medieval Japan, a woman and her children journey to find the family's patriarch, who was exiled years earlier.



The Siege
The Siege(2023)
5.4

International assassin Walker is compromised during a mission and sent to a reassignment center for a new identity. During his stay at the facility, a ruthless assault team storms the compound searching for someone their boss has lost. Walker begrudgingly falls in with skilled hitwoman Elda and her mysterious ward Juliet in order to survive the night.



Gorbaciof
Gorbaciof(2010)
6.05

Marino Pacileo has a soft spot for gambling. When he discovers that Lila's father, the young Chinese girl that he is in love with cannot pay a debt, the gambler steals money from the jail he is in to help the love of his life.



Devil in the Flesh
5.555

An Italian high school student becomes infatuated with a woman he sees outside his class window. Her fiancée is in jail for being involved in a radical movement, and she spends much time in court providing moral support. At first she resists the student's advances, but eventually begins an affair with him. Their situation is condemned by her family and his father, who is the woman's psychologist.



Lady Chatterley's Lover

After a crippling injury leaves her husband impotent, Lady Chatterly is torn between her love for her husband and her physical desires. With her husband's consent, she seeks out other means of fulfilling her needs.



Borgo
Borgo(2024)
6.8

Melissa is an experienced, exemplary prison guard. But a dangerous spiral is set into motion when she transfers to a Corsican jail, where she accepts help and protection from inmate Saveriu to get her bearings. Upon his release, he contacts Melissa expecting to collect.



Letto a tre piazze

Antonio married Amalia and went to fight in Russia during World War II. Since he didn't return Amalia thought he was dead, so she married another man. Many year after the war end, Antonio returned. Amalia has to choose between two husbands.



Tattoo
Tattoo(2013)
7.5

Paulete, the star of a daring theater group, is visited by his military brother-in-law, the young Fininha. A torrid relationship arises between the two, and now the soldier must deal with the prevailing repression during the Brazilian military dictatorship.



Seduced and Abandoned

The film presents the tale of Agnese Ascalone, daughter of prominent miner Vincenzo Ascalone, and takes place in a small town in Sicily. Agnese is seduced by her sister Matilde's fiancé, and has a tryst with him for which she confesses and tries to repent, only to be discovered by her mother and father.



La vita facile
6.2

An Italian doctor starts a new life in Kenya to escape the city, but life catches up with him when an old friend offers his assistance along with his wife, who happens to be an old lover.



Worldly Girl
6.269

Giulia’s is a poised world, made of rigour and sacred texts, which fiercely excludes those who do not belong to it. Libero's world is the world of all the others, of those who make mistakes, who fend for themselves looking for another chance and who love unconditionally. When Giulia meets Libero, she realizes she can have another destiny, one she will have to choose and build.



The World Unseen
7.077

A drama centered on two women who engage in a dangerous relationship during South Africa's apartheid era.



Anita B.
Anita B.(2014)
5.5

After World War II, Anita, a young survivor of Auschwitz, becomes involved in an intense and passionate affair that almost shatters her until she gains the strength to start a new life.



Letters to Juliet

An American girl on vacation in Italy finds an unanswered "letter to Juliet" -- one of thousands of missives left at the fictional lover's Verona courtyard, which are typically answered by the "secretaries of Juliet" -- and she goes on a quest to find the lovers referenced in the letter.



The Ties
The Ties(2020)
6.6

Naples, early 1980s. The strained marriage between Aldo and Vanda is fractured one evening when Aldo admits, unprompted, his infidelity. Equally hurt and bewildered, Vanda attempts to hide her pain from the couple's two school-age kids, lest they discover that their cramped apartment is not a home of trust and love. 30 years later, Aldo and Vanda are still tied together, but their relationship with each other and their children continues to be defined by what happened all those years ago.



Mediterranea
6.623

Ayiva recently left his home in Burkina Faso in search of a way to provide for his sister and his daughter. He takes advantage of his position in an illegal smuggling operation to get himself and his best friend Abas off of the continent. Ayiva adapts to life in Italy, but when tensions with the local community rise, things become increasingly dangerous. Determined to make his new situation work he attempts to weather the storm, but it has its costs.



Paris Je T'aime
6.8

Olivier Assayas, Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven and Alfonso Cuaron are among the 20 distinguished directors who contribute to this collection of 18 stories, each exploring a different aspect of Parisian life. The colourful characters in this drama include a pair of mimes, a husband trying to chose between his wife and his lover, and a married man who turns to a prostitute for advice.



The Brute
The Brute(1953)
6.9

A tough young man, who helps to kick poor people out of their houses, falls in love with a girl. She lives with her father in the building about to be demolished.



Red
Red(2020)
4.7

A married woman with a lovely daughter lives a carefree life, until she meets her ex-lover at a friend’s wedding. They haven’t seen each other in ten years, but they begin an affair.



Bihter: A Forbidden Passion

Bihter, who is desperate for love, sees Adnan, a wealthy and respected older guy, as a way out of the stereotype that society and her materialistic mother have given her. But she soon discovers that she is not satisfied with his attention and has other needs.



Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!

After being released from a mental hospital, a troubled young man tracks down an actress he once had sex with and forces her into captivity, determined to make her part of his life.



Gabriel's Rapture: Part I

In the fourth instalment of the Gabriel's Inferno series, Professor Gabriel Emerson has embarked on a passionate, yet clandestine affair with his former student Julia Mitchell, but when they return from their romantic holiday in Italy, their happiness is threatened. Will Gabriel succumb to Dante's fate?



The Touch
The Touch(1971)
5.8

A Swedish housewife begins an adulterous affair with an American archaeologist, unaware of his emotional scars as a Holocaust survivor; consequently, their relationship will be painfully difficult.



That Malicious Age
6.413

Gardener Napoleone takes a job in a southern-Italian villa and quickly finds himself embroiled in a menage-a-trois with Paola and her mother, which soon leads to sex, death and mayhem.



Why
Why(1971)
7.244

Giuseppe Di Noi, an Italian surveyor living in Swiden, gets arrested at the border while going back to Italy with his family for a vacation. But can someone tell the man why?



Paranoia
Paranoia(1969)
5.9

Following the death of her wealthy husband, American widow Kathryn West migrates to Italy and takes up a reclusive existence in a luxurious villa. After quickly succumbing to the charms of a local man, she lets him move into the villa and the two are later joined by his sister, which soon leads to complications.



A Difficult Life

Silvio refuses to fight for the fascists and joins the resistance with Elena. After the war, his vitriolic newspaper articles cause him to be sentenced to imprisonment.



Women in Cages
4.992

Carol Jeffries is a naive American woman staying in the Philippines. She is given ten years in prison after being set up by her drug-dealer boyfriend, Rudy. She endures the harsh conditions, sadistic head matron and attempts on her life, then convinces her cell-mates to try to escape with her through the jungle, in spite of the knowledge that ruthless trackers will be sent out after them.



Woman in Chains
6.9

Gallery director Stanislas bolsters the development of modern art with his collection of surprising works. His newest acquisition is a sculpture by Gilbert, whose wife Josée is captivated by Stanislas. But unbeknownst to her, Stanislas is amassing photographs of a very perverse, disturbed nature.



Aida of the Trees
6.434

In a world divided between two cities, the evil stone dragon Satam and his followers in the city of Petra wage war against the peaceful Tree People of Alborea. Beautiful Princess Aida, the daughter of Alborea's king, is taken prisoner by the Petrans and enslaved. As a servant, Aida meets and falls in love with handsome soldier Ramades. Ramades feels the same for Aida, but can their young love end the war between their two peoples?



Detained
Detained(2024)
5.787

In the dead of night, Rebecca wakes in a decrepit precinct, accused of a hit-and-run. But a deadly scuffle reveals a sinister plot. With nowhere to turn, she must uncover the truth before it consumes her. But Rebecca harbors secrets darker than they know.



A Drama of Jealousy (and other things)

Construction worker Oreste and young fiancee Adelaide meet Nello, a cook in a pizzeria. This love triangle often goes to communist rallies, and enjoys the filthy beaches of Ostia. Will the hostile environment pave a way to jealousy?



White Material
6.8

In the midst of a volatile regime change in a Francophone African state, Maria Vial is fighting to sustain her family’s coffee plantation. With rebels and the army struggling for control, French peacekeeping forces move out, warning the remaining white residents that they’re on their own. But Maria refuses to be driven off the land, even as tragedy looms.



Paradise: Faith
6.504

For Anna Maria, paradise lies with Jesus, and she devotes her time to door-to-door missionary work. One day after years of absence, her husband, an Egyptian Muslim confined to a wheelchair, comes home—and soon prayers are replaced by fighting.



Love and Anarchy
7.67

Set in Fascist Italy before the outbreak of World War II, the story centers on Tunin, a farmer turned anarchist who stays in a brothel while preparing to kill Benito Mussolini.



Captain Corelli's Mandolin

When a fisherman leaves to fight with the Greek army during World War II, his fiancée falls in love with the local Italian commander.



TÁR
TÁR(2022)
7.088

As celebrated conductor Lydia Tár starts rehearsals for a career-defining symphony, the consequences of her past choices begin to echo in the present.



Addicted
Addicted(2014)
5.9

A gallerist risks her family and flourishing career when she enters into an affair with a talented painter and slowly loses control of her life.



Angelique and the Sultan

Angélique is in a North African Muslim kingdom where she is now part of the Sultan's harem. She refuses to be bedded as her captors try to beat sense into her. She finally decides to escape with the help of two Christian prisoners.



Suite Française
7.246

France, 1940. In the first days of occupation, beautiful Lucile Angellier is trapped in a stifled existence with her controlling mother-in-law as they both await news of her husband: a prisoner of war. Parisian refugees start to pour into their small town, soon followed by a regiment of German soldiers who take up residence in the villagers' own homes. Lucile initially tries to ignore Bruno von Falk, the handsome and refined German officer staying with them. But soon, a powerful love draws them together and leads them into the tragedy of war.



The Truce
The Truce(1997)
6.1

After the liberation of Auschwitz, an Italian prisoner of War begins a torturous voyage home to Turin, through a Europe caught between war and peace.



Macabre
Macabre(1980)
5.683

A middle-aged woman, traumatized from the death of her adulterous lover, moves into a room at a New Orleans boarding house where the blind landlord becomes suspicious to her activities of continuing her affair with her dead lover.



Tristana
Tristana(1970)
7.202

As a young woman, Tristana is orphaned and taken under the guardianship of Don Lope, a respected member of the community, who takes advantage of his innocent charge. When Tristana falls in love with artist Horacio, she must learn to be more assertive in order to achieve independence from her nefarious guardian, or her blossoming relationship with Horatio is doomed.



The Lovers
6.6

A shallow, provincial wife finds her relationship with her preoccupied husband strained by romantic notions, leading her further towards Paris and the country wilderness.



Of Love and Shadows
5.232

Irene is a magazine editor living under the shadow of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. Francisco is a handsome photographer and he comes to Irene for a job. As a sympathizer with the underground resistance movement, Francisco opens her eyes and her heart to the atrocities being committed by the state.



Journey to Italy
7.287

Married for eight years with no children, Brits Katherine and Alex Joyce are driving to Italy, their ultimate destination just outside of Naples to sell the villa they have just inherited from his uncle, the villa where they will be staying during their time there. On the drive, they come to the realization that this trip marks the first time that they have truly been alone together, and as such don't really know one another in the true sense.



The English Patient
7.157

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, Almásy enters into a world of love, betrayal, and politics.



Hannah
Hannah(2018)
5.6

A woman grapples with the consequences of her husband's imprisonment.



Deception
Deception(2021)
5.323

An American writer living in exile in London, Philip listens to women. His English mistress, who visits him regularly in the studio that serves as their refuge. A student he loved in another life. A former lover confined to a hospital in New York.



The Prophet
7.337

Exiled artist and poet Mustafa embarks on a journey home with his housekeeper and her daughter; together the trio must evade the authorities who fear that the truth in Mustafa's words will incite rebellion.



Bent
Bent(1997)
6.8

Max is a handsome young man who, after a fateful tryst with a German soldier, is forced to run for his life. Eventually Max is placed in a concentration camp where he pretends to be Jewish because in the eyes of the Nazis, gays are the lowest form of human being. But it takes a relationship with an openly gay prisoner to teach Max that without the love of another, life is not worth living.



Desire
Desire(2017)
5.945

Lucía and Ofelia, two sisters, finally meet after 7 years of cold relationships upon Lucia 's wedding. But when Juan, Lucia's husband, and Ofelia meet, they feel like a disruptive fantasy have enchanted their minds and bodies...



Chico & Rita
7.13

Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unites them, but their journey - in the tradition of the Latin ballad, the bolero - brings heartache and torment.



Hadewijch
Hadewijch(2009)
6.379

A troubled young woman is thrown out of a convent and forms a relationship with a radical Muslim.



Sicilian Letters
6.25

Loosely based on real events that took place during Matteo Messina Denaro's thirty years on the run. A disgraced politician is gifted a second chance when secret services involve him in an operation to root out an elusive Mafia boss. Using his personal connection as the Boss' godfather, his task is to get him to reveal his hiding place in their secret letters.



Help Me, My Love
7.2

Giovanni and Raffaella are happily married from ten years, but their relationship goes into crisis when Raffaella falls in love with Valerio Mantovani, a handsome forty-year-old man she knew during the concerts of chamber music she weekly attends with her mother.



Last Tango in Paris
6.913

A recently widowed American begins an anonymous sexual relationship with a young Parisian woman.



Fortress
Fortress(1992)
6.1

In the future, the inmates of a private underground prison are computer-controlled with cameras, dream readers, and devices that can cause pain or death. John and his illegally pregnant wife Karen are locked inside "The Fortress" but are determined to escape before the birth of their baby.



Gate of Hell
7.1

Japan, 1159. Moritō, a brave samurai, performs a heroic act by rescuing the lovely Kesa during a violent uprising. Moritō falls in love with her, but becomes distraught when he finds out that she is married.



Unrelated
Unrelated(2008)
5.716

A woman in an unhappy relationship takes refuge with a friend's family on holiday in Tuscany.



Sappho
Sappho(2008)
4.3

On honeymoon on the island of Lesbos, a woman falls for the daughter of a Russian archaeologist.



Emma
Emma(2017)
6.4

Teo has a good job, a fiancee, a lover, no intention to assume any responsibility in his life. Meeting Emma, a blind woman, will upset his convictions.



Beloved
Beloved(2011)
6.1

From Paris in the 1960s to London in the first decade of the third millennium, Madeleine and her daughter Véra flit from one amorous adventure to the next, living for the moment and taking all the opportunities that life offers. But not every love affair is without its consequences, its upsets and its disappointments. As time goes by and gnaws away at one’s deepest feelings, love becomes a harder game to play.



Shame
Shame(1968)
7.517

In the midst of a civil war, a pair of former violinists in a tempestuous marriage oversee a farm on a rural island. In spite of their best efforts to escape their homeland, the war impinges on every aspect of their lives.



Song of Love
7.024

Two prisoners in complete isolation, separated by the thick brick walls, and desperately in need of human contact, devise a most unusual kind of communication.



Pure Hearts
6.094

Agnese and Stefano are profoundly different. She is only seventeen, lives with her mother – a harsh and devoted woman – is a regular church-goer and is about to take a vow of chastity to last until marriage. He is twenty-five, has a violent temper and a difficult past behind. He works as a warden in a car park that borders a Roma camp. Their unexpected meeting engenders a true sentiment, made of little stolen moments and mutual help.



Gabriel's Inferno
8.403

An intriguing and sinful exploration of seduction, forbidden love, and redemption, Gabriel's Inferno is a captivating and wildly passionate tale of one man's escape from his own personal hell as he tries to earn the impossible--forgiveness and love.



Chikamatsu Monogatari
7.745

When the wife of a 17th century Kyoto scroll-maker is falsely accused of having an affair with his best employee, the pair flee the city and find themselves falling for one another.



L'Avventura
7.5

Claudia and Anna join Anna's lover, Sandro, on a boat trip to a remote volcanic island. When Anna goes missing, a search is launched. In the meantime, Sandro and Claudia become involved in a romance despite Anna's disappearance, though the relationship suffers from guilt and tension.



The Cave of the Golden Rose

After a queen's tragic death, the king abandons his newborn daughter in a cave, but a witch saves her. Years later, the tomboy princess must confront and ultimately falls in love with the enemy king.



Jailbirds
Jailbirds(2016)
5.6

In order to save the man she loves from jail, Mathilde takes his place by helping his break-out. While she exclusively relies on him to survive in this prison setting, Mathilde has not heard from him since her imprisonment. Isolated, with her son as her only support, she is now identified by the inmate number 383205-B. Will Mathilde become a convict like any other one?

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