California Dreamin'Movies like California Dreamin'
- Key Features:
- Political satire, Cultural clash, Small-town life, Bureaucracy, Military intervention, Black comedy, Corruption, 1990s, Military conflict, Unexpected consequences
- Tone:
- humorous, satirical, earnest
- Target Audience:
- Indie film enthusiasts, Political comedy fans, World cinema viewers, Satire appreciators
- Emotional Arc:
- Amusement → Frustration
California Dreamin'

1999. Kosovo War. In a small Romanian village, the chief of the railway station, who also happens to be a local gangster, stops a NATO train transporting military equipment. Their arrival in this small village dramatically changes its landscape.
California Dreamin'
A few days before Christmas, having quit his job in Germany, Matthias returns to his Transylvanian village. He wishes to involve himself more in the education of his son, Rudi, left for too long in the care of his mother, Ana, and to rid him of the unresolved fears that have gripped him. He’s also eager to see his ex-lover Csilla and preoccupied about his old father, Otto. When a few new workers are hired at the small factory that Csilla manages, the peace of the community is disturbed, underlying fears grip the adults, and frustrations, conflicts and passions erupt through the thin sliver of apparent understanding and calm.

A tragicomedy dramatizing how an innocent villager is driven into the crime world only to collect enough cash to make his biggest dream come true: Return to his village home and marry the girl next door.

On Saturday, 5 April 1941, one day before the Invasion of Yugoslavia of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, a colourful group of random passengers on a country road deep in the heart of Serbia board a dilapidated bus, headed for the capital Belgrade. The group includes two gypsy musicians, a World War I veteran, a Germanophile, a budding singer, a sickly looking man, and a hunter with a shotgun. The bus is owned by Krstic senior, and driven by his impressionable and dim-witted son Misko.

A group of Central-American teen-agers depart from the slums of Guatemala City escaping poverty and violence, towards the promised land of California.

In this winsome comedy, an entitled Economics professor pursues a tactic to buy an ailing widow’s mansion for nothing, but he quickly realizes that his seemingly foolproof strategy won’t be as easy as he thought.

Peker Mengen wins the post of mayor in a remote town with the promise of a visit by the prime minister and making the town a province. When the people do not forget his promise, Mengen ends up persuading the prime minister to visit the town with his idiosyncratic methods. After consulting with his advisors, Peker prepares a grandiose welcome ceremony, but when the ceremony gets out of his control, the town of 5000 people suddenly ends up becoming a country, one that is at war with America. As Peker Mengen, his unwillingly married wife Mualla and his advisors try to keep America at bay and struggle with the difficulties of establishing a new country, they even get the help of an alien to achieve their goals.

A cop named Cristi must go undercover to trail teen Victor who is suspected of selling pot in the north-eastern city of Vaslui.

When two youngsters meet and fall for each other, they must go on the run from the girl's corrupt father, who is also the sheriff of the town.

Miami Bici is the story of Ion and Ilie, two young people from a small dark city in Romania who go to Miami in the middle of winter, to live both the "American Dream" and the Romanian dream of "getting rich quick". Once there, they find themselves in the middle of the Machiavellian plan of Mișu, a Romanian of the lowest species, established in Florida.

Some criminal EU ministers plan to turn Denmark into a gigantic fair ground and holiday paradise. Egon gets his hand at some important documents which could both make him rich and take care of Denmark's future.

A group of Serbian socialists prepares for the war in a surreal underground filled by parties, tragedies, love and hate.

An Inuit hunter races his sled home with a fresh-caught halibut. This fish pervades the entire film, in real and imaginary form. Meanwhile, Axel tags fish in New York as a naturalist's gofer. He's happy there, but a messenger arrives to bring him to Arizona for his uncle's wedding. It's a ruse to get Axel into the family business. In Arizona, Axel meets two odd women: vivacious, needy, and plagued by neuroses and familial discord. He gets romantically involved with one, while the other, rich but depressed, plays accordion tunes to a gaggle of pet turtles.

After the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the Yugoslav army pulls out of Kosovo region, leaving Serbian people at the mercy of the Albanian UCK. A small band of soldiers must take over the Slatina airport, and hold it until the Russian peacekeepers arrive.

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.

Five young men dream of success as they drift lazily through life in a small Italian village. Fausto, the group's leader, is a womanizer; Riccardo craves fame; Alberto is a hopeless dreamer; Moraldo fantasizes about life in the city; and Leopoldo is an aspiring playwright. As Fausto chases a string of women, to the horror of his pregnant wife, the other four blunder their way from one uneventful experience to the next.

Convinced that his subtenant is a spy and an enemy of the state, Ilija Čvorović falls into deep paranoia which leads to an absurd and destructive chain of events.

A young American falls hard for a Romanian cellist whose father has recently died -- and whose violent past could bring about his own demise.

Aspiring actor and hot-dog stand employee Bobby Taylor catches the ire of his grandmother for auditioning for a role in the regrettably titled exploitation film "Jivetime Jimmy's Revenge." When Tinseltown Studios casts Taylor in the title role, he has a series of conflicted dreams satirizing African-American stereotypes in Hollywood, and must reconcile his career goals with his desire to remain a positive role model for his little brother.

A scheming tobacco farmer sets out to ruin his competition by diverting the local water to his own property.

Low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry escapes the monotony of his day-to-day life through a recurring daydream of himself as a virtuous hero saving a beautiful damsel. Investigating a case that led to the wrongful arrest and eventual death of an innocent man instead of wanted terrorist Harry Tuttle, he meets the woman from his daydream, and in trying to help her gets caught in a web of mistaken identities, mindless bureaucracy and lies.

Corrupt and sleazy entrepreneur Cetto La Qualunque comes back to Italy and "jumps into politics" lest his law-abiding opponent, Giovanni De Santis, is elected as mayor.

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?

Missing the train is very bad. Seeing it leave with your children and those of your friends you had to accompany on vacation is a whole other story ... that of the crazy pursuit from Turin to Sicily of a father and grandfather as different as they are unreliable.

A woman and her daughter struggle to make their way through the aftermath of the Balkan war.

In a small village of Communist-era Romania a young couple wish to marry, but Joseph Stalin dies the night prior to their wedding ceremony forcing the bride and groom to marry in silence.

A movie crew invades a small town whose residents are all too ready to give up their values for showbiz glitz.

Jimmy Alto is an actor wannabe who stumbles into the role of a lifetime. He becomes a vigilante crime-fighter, aided by his sidekick William, who has suffered a head wound and has problems with short-term memory. Jimmy's vigilante alter ego soon becomes a media wonder--but Jimmy remains a total unknown and his long-suffering girl friend Lorraine is getting fed up with the whole situation.

Composed of six unconventional vignettes, each one dealing with the late communist period in Romania, a narrative is told through its urban myths from the perspective of ordinary people. The title refers to the alluded "Golden Age" of the last 15 years of Ceaușescu's regime.

An American oil company sends a man to Scotland to buy up an entire village where they want to build a refinery. But things don't go as expected.

Radio host Alan 'Dickie' Bird witnesses how an icecream van is attacked and destroyed by angry competitors. This leads him into the struggle between two Italian families over the icecream market of Glasgow.

Corey and his band of skater buddies sometimes make mischief, but they're more interested in girls and having fun on their boards than in getting into any real trouble. Notorious enemy crew the Daggers, led by Tommy Hook, get their kicks terrorizing the locals at Venice Beach. When Corey starts dating Tommy's kid sister Chrissy, the Daggers are furious. The boys then take their beef to the "L.A. Massacre," a deadly skate race down a canyon road.

When a veteran marshal is sent to a small town, he quickly falls for two women: a midwife and an earthy young woman nicknamed "Frisky".

The New Year That Never Came is a tragicomedy whose action takes place in a single day, before the counter-revolution of 1989, in which the characters search for normality, safety, love, freedom and meaning in an absurd world.

On behalf of a multinational company, a production assistant drives around the Romanian city of Bucharest, interviewing various citizens who have been injured due to work accidents to cast one of them in a “safety at work” video.

Kemal, unaware that his father is a mafia boss, sells cotton candy at train stations. After his father is killed, his inheritance is divided. Kemal begins visiting the establishments of Istanbul's most notorious thugs one by one to reclaim his father's inheritance, and gradually gains a reputation.

An ingenuous countryman Ali Nazik migrates to Istanbul and meets producer Mr. Muhsin to have his first album.

Italy, 1968. Aspiring actor Nicola enrolls in the police to pay for his studies, ending up undercover among college students protesting the government, the Vietnam War and the values of their parents' generation. However, he complicates his mission by falling for Laura, a bourgeois girl dreaming of a better world.

A group of German construction workers set out for a foreign construction site in the Bulgarian province. The strange country awakens adventure feelings among the men. At the same time, they are confronted with their prejudices and mistrust. For two of the men, a nearby village becomes the stage for a competition for the recognition and favor of the village.

It's the 22nd of December. Sixteen years have passed since the revolution, and in a small town Christmas is about to come. Piscoci, an old retired man is preparing for another Christmas alone. Manescu, the history teacher, tries to keep up with his debts. Jderescu, the owner of a local television post, seems not to be so interested in the upcoming holidays. For him, the time to face history has come. Along with Manescu and Piscoci, he is trying to answer for himself a question which for 16 years has not had an answer: "Was it or wasn't it a revolution in their town?"

Gabriel, Bobby and Costa are old friends from Altona, a multicultural hood in Hamburg. Just out of prison, Gabriel wants to turn his back on crime, but the others continue to operate as petty criminals. Friendships are tested as the trio navigate a dark world of mafia bosses and deals gone wrong.

A dicey murder investigation. A fuming best friend. A chaotic living situation. Village police officer Franz Eberhofer has a lot on his plate right now.

In 21st century Bucharest, to go out in the city on Saturday evening on the arm of a beautiful woman is a risky financial investment. Ovidiu, an unassuming high school teacher, never could afford it. Looking for a source of income more substantial than a teacher's salary, Ovidiu plunges into a fabulous world – the beggar mob.

A Florida con man uses the recent death of the long time Congressman from his district, who he just happens to share a last name with, to get elected to his version of paradise, the U.S. Congress, where the money flows from lobbyists.

Country bumpkin Şaban Ağa has long dreamed of winning the heart of Peri, the high-society belle he plans to marry, though she doesn’t even know he exists. Spurned when Peri agrees to wed him for his money then flees back to city life, Şaban reinvents himself as the sophisticated Dilaver Bey to exact his sweet revenge.

In Memphis, Tennessee, over the course of a single night, the Arcade Hotel, run by an eccentric night clerk and a clueless bellboy, is visited by a young Japanese couple traveling in search of the roots of rock; an Italian woman in mourning who stumbles upon a fleeing charlatan girl; and a comical trio of accidental thieves looking for a place to hide.

Instead of adhering to the norms of their South Central neighborhood, a group of skater boys opt to bus into Hollywood and Beverly Hills, where they attract local rich girls - and plenty of trouble with the police, jealous boyfriends, and nervous parents.

After his daughter is assaulted and left with an injury that may jeopardize her opportunity to study in the UK, a Romanian doctor decides to do whatever it takes to secure her future.

A 21-year-old reformed gangster's devotion to his family and his future is put to the test when he is released from prison and returns to his old stomping grounds in Watts, Los Angeles.

Based on a real WWII vet and family man turned bank robber. Disillusioned by his post war circumstances, Eddie Boyd is torn between the need to provide for his young family and an unfulfilled dream to head to Hollywood to become a star. He discovers a way to do both, robbing banks Hollywood style, but his dream leads him down a path of danger and tragedy.

The tranquility of a small town is marred only by sheriff Tod Shaw's unsuccessful courtship of widow Ellen Benson, a pacifist who can't abide guns and those who use them. But violence descends on Ellen's household willy-nilly when the U.S. President passes through town... and slightly psycho hired assassin John Baron finds the Benson home ideal for an ambush.

A tough marshal with political ambitions leads an elite posse to capture a notorious train robber and his gang.

Five ordinary people disillusioned with politics—a perennial temp, a docker, a university professor, a TV reporter, and a convict—decide to kidnap a politician, to dispense justice and use the ransom money to compensate the family of a blue-collar worker who died in workplace accident.

During a hot Sunday afternoon in a small Southern Italian town, a school serving as a polling place is occupied by a group of three locals and an Eritrean immigrant, all unemployed, desperate and armed.

In the opening stages of the Bosnian War, a small group of Serbian soldiers are trapped in a tunnel by a Muslim force.

When a straight-laced couple that has fun with a rowdy couple on vacation in Mexico return to the States, they discover that the crazy couple they met in Mexico followed them back home and decide to play tricks on them.

Hüseyin is a young man who lives with his grandfather and grandmother in a village in Thracian Turkey. The two great loves of his life are his clarinet and Müjgan, a nurse. Although Hüseyin is content with his life, with his music and dreams of Mügan, due to an unexpected development he leaves his village. He ends up in Istanbul where he finds support first in his clarinet and then in the friendship of the singer Firuzan. Firuzan is a popular nightclub performer who is eagerly working on an album as she leads a colorful but complicated life. When Firuzan meets Huseyin, the course of events gives away to a hilarious adventure.

The new season of "American Dreamz," the wildly popular television singing contest, has captured the country's attention, as the competition looks to be between a young Midwestern gal and a showtunes-loving young man from Orange County. Recently awakened President Staton even wants in on the craze, as he signs up for the potential explosive season finale.

Cowboys Beauregard Decker and Virgil Blessing attend a rodeo in Phoenix, where Decker falls in love with beautiful cafe singer Cherie. He wants to take Cherie back to his native Montana and marry her, but she dreams of traveling to Hollywood and becoming famous. When she resists his advances, Decker forces Cherie onto the bus back to Montana with him, but, when the bus makes an unscheduled stop due to bad weather, the tables are turned.

A young fashion blogger and an aspiring songwriter seem to have not that much in common, but when Cupid’s arrow hits them, every difference fades away and overnight they decide to get married. Even their fathers do not have anything in common: Gaetano is a strict mayor from Southern Italy, while Diego is a rich entrepreneur from the North. Between the two forthcoming in-laws, instead, is hate at first sight. They seem to agree on one single common goal: prevent this marriage at any cost! After fighting by any means in a struggle that will also involve their two bizarre families, will they manage to say no to the wedding?

Bruno Stroszek is released from prison and warned to stop drinking. He has few skills and fewer expectations: with a glockenspiel and an accordion, he ekes out a living as a street musician. He befriends Eva, a prostitute down on her luck and they join his neighbor, Scheitz, an elderly eccentric, when he leaves Germany to live in Wisconsin.

Shaun Brumder is a local surfer kid from Orange County who dreams of going to Stanford to become a writer and to get away from his dysfunctional family household. Except Shaun runs into one complication after another, starting when his application is rejected after his dim-witted guidance counselor sends in the wrong form.

The basic plot revolves around drug dealer Limeni and two men, Lemi and Kiza, who are trying to transport their dead grandfather for burial, until their car breaks down and they end up struggling to get him home onboard a train. This is when these two plots intersect and all hell breaks loose.

The everyday life of accountant Levante, his family and the other people of a small town in the Tuscan countryside is taken by storm by the serendipitous arrival of five gorgeous Spanish flamenco dancers.

The story of an encounter between a bourgeois man and a poor woman, because their teenage children fall in love.

A young Mexican woman crosses the border in search of the American dream, only to instead find her worst nightmare lying within.

Three Italians travel to their hometown to vote for elections: Pasquale is a Southern immigrant living in Munich who's genuinely happy to come back to Italy, even if just for a few days, but the country he dreams of is far from reality; Furio travels to Rome with his family, but his niggling attitude threatens to push his wife Magda over the edge; young Mimmo is also going to Rome, but the trip is repeatedly interrupted by worries about his grandma's health.

A company of Spanish movie makers leaves Franco's Spain and moves to Hitler's Germany to make a film in co-production. Soon some problems start to arise...

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 a campaign to find the truth about the alleged connections with the Mob.

Each year Lucia volunteers at a Summer Camp in Sicily. This summer however, will be the hottest on record, not just because of the crazy weather, but also because of Nicola, the new soon-to-be-priest deacon who, besides being extremely handsome, hides a tormented and idealistic soul. His arrival sows panic in this seaside community, upsetting Lucia's plans forever.

Two cops portrayed by Michelin Men chase an armed Ronald McDonald through the streets of a fictionalized, stylized city.

An aspiring singer from southern Italy who's just been dumped moves north to Milan, where he falls in love and enters a TV singing competition show.

Rıfkı, who lives in Germany, returns to his village, which he left years ago, to sell the properties inherited from his late father. A few coincidences that occur upon his arrival in the village lead to his name being associated with the 'Saint' title.

Rudy, an American of Hispanic descent, whose south-of-the-border looks show him no mercy during an immigration raid in a migrant worker factory. As his luck goes, he is caught with neither money nor his ID and is deported to Mexico - without speaking a word of Spanish!

Felice Sciosciammocca, the mayor of Roccasecca, sends his nephew Ciccillo to Naples so that he will become a good doctor.

Ismail's son, Tarik returns to his village after long years of being away and announces that he is engaged to a Latvian woman named Nugesha and although he doesn't have the means for it, Ismail still wants to be the one who pays for the expenses of the wedding. Several problems ensue as he tries to make sure that there is enough money for the wedding.

Four stories intersect in this violent film parody. Exterminators dress as hit men and try to protect the wife of their boss, Montello. Meanwhile, the strippers at Montello's strip club, dressed as nuns, attempt to rob him. Tag-team wrestlers steal Montello's briefcase, thinking its contents are valuable. Finally, Bumpkin, running to deliver a script, loses a lot of the pages.

Back from a professional trip to Paris, a neurologist at the pinnacle of his career has to pick up his wife so that they can attend a family meal to commemorate his father, who died a year before. At his mother's flat, the guests are waiting for the priest to arrive while arguing about all kinds of things connected and unconnected with the world’s events and wars.

A newly engaged couple finds the home of their dreams and it quickly becomes a nightmare when the previous owner's friend continues squatting in their guest house. It leads to a turf war that ultimately ruins their house, their marriage and their lives.

A logger leads a life of quiet grace as he experiences love and loss during an era of monumental change in early 20th-century America.

After a friend overdoses, Spoon and Stretch decide to kick their drug habits and attempt to enroll in a government detox program. Their efforts are hampered by seemingly endless red tape, as they are shuffled from one office to another while being chased by drug dealers and the police.

Tracy Flick is running unopposed for this year’s high school student election. But Jim McAllister has a different plan. Partly to establish a more democratic election, and partly to satisfy some deep personal anger toward Tracy, Jim talks football player Paul Metzler to run for president as well.

Three friends see their end-of-summer motorhome holiday trip hijacked by Viola, a beautiful girl on the run from both the law and violent gangsters after a robbery.

Sayra, a Honduran teen, hungers for a better life. Her chance for one comes when she is reunited with her long-estranged father, who intends to emigrate to Mexico and then enter the United States. Sayra's life collides with a pair of Mexican gangmembers who have boarded the same American-bound train.

A 40-year-old loser named Isidoro at the request of his brother drives from Italy to mountainous Carpathian village in Ukraine with a coffin of a diseased Ukrainian worker, who died at a construction site in Italy.

Sascha, the young and beautiful trophy girlfriend of a Danish drug lord, arrives at his holiday villa in the seaside town of Bodrum, on the Turkish Riviera, where she is welcomed into his inner circle. Under the summer sun, she lives a carefree dream of luxury and fun until she meets Tomas, a Dutch traveler trying to discover himself.

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?

Assola is an imaginary village on the border between Italy and France and the borderline crosses the village itself. The French customs agent Ferdinand is always trying to catch the Italian smuggler Giuseppe. Giuseppe discovers that Ferdinand was actually born in Italy and therefore he can't be a French customs agent.

Defying orders to lay-off the case, two Los Angeles vice-squad cops go after a local mobster and use unorthodox methods to achieve results.

Convinced that his daughter has forgotten how to laugh, a father shows up unannounced while she's living abroad and bombards her with outrageous jokes.

In the Mexican-Guatemalan border, young teenage lovers, Sabina and Jovany, both Hondurans, accidentally meet again after some years without seeing each other. She plans to get to the United States and dreams about being a great singer; he commits all the required atrocities to be accepted by the gang: la Mara Salvatrucha. Sabina and Jovany crashed with the most adverse conditions at the border like white slavery, the Mexican and American migratory agents Burrona and Patrick, the brothel matron Doña Lita, Don Nico the Mexican Consul in Tecún Umán, the drug trafficking networks, the army and la Mara Salvatrucha.

Two lovers are stuck in stale relationships due to lean finances. But when one is duped into thinking he's suddenly rich, he takes very drastic action.

A short Arizona motorcycle cop gets his wish and is promoted to Homicide following the mysterious murder of a hermit. He is forced to confront his illusions about himself and those around him in order to solve the case, eventually returning to solitude in the desert.

Good hearted but not very wordly-wise, Dante is happy driving the school bus for a group of mentally handicapped children, while feeling he is somehow missing out on life and love. So he is very excited when after nearly being knocked down by her car he meets Maria, who seems immediately enamoured of him. He is soon invited to her sumptuous Palermo villa, little suspecting that this is part of a plot. He bears an amazing likeness to Maria's stool-pigeon gangster husband and it would be convenient for them if the mobster, in the shape of Dante, was seen to be dead and buried.

Naples/Sorrento, mid 20s. A couple of small thieves conceive a scam whereby one of them dresses up as a eunuch Turk to care for the women of the family of a wealthy man. They end up messing everything up, with lots of gags and funny events in the meantime.

Believe it or not, even Smalltown USA still has people who are unfulfilled and unrelieved in the midst of plenty. Levonna and Lamar could have the perfect relationship, were it not for Lamar's obsession with rear entry.

Promiscuous teenager Chiara gets herself and her equally debauched peers embroiled in a drug ring run by a dirty cop.

A story about Petar Maraš, a Belgrade criminal in his late twenties, whose one reckless move causes an avalanche of events that will greatly affect the lives of those around him.

You know the feeling. It feels like time slows down as your eyes meet a stranger’s. Then you walk pass each other, neither of you looking back. That’s what happened with Pelin and Engin. Lo and behold, they open their eyes in the same bed. And you may want to brace yourself for this one, as a two-year married couple! It must be a dream. No, a nightmare. But now, to wake up they must fall in love.

At a village railway station in occupied Czechoslovakia, a bumbling dispatcher’s apprentice longs to liberate himself from his virginity. Oblivious to the war and the resistance that surrounds him, this young man embarks on a journey of sexual awakening and self-discovery, encountering a universe of frustration, eroticism, and adventure within his sleepy backwater depot.
