Decalogue IIMovies like Decalogue II
- Key Features:
- Moral dilemma, Pregnancy, Marriage, Doctor-patient relationship, Faith, Ethics, Existentialism, Poland, European cinema, Moral ambiguity
- Tone:
- serious, restrained, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Art house cinema enthusiasts, Fans of philosophical dramas, Viewers interested in moral dilemmas, Those who appreciate character-driven stories
- Emotional Arc:
- Doubt → Anxiety → Acceptance
Decalogue II

Dorota Geller, a married woman, faces a dilemma involving her sick husband's prognosis. Her husband's doctor, who believes in God, sweared about it in vain.
Decalogue II
Roman and Hanka have a loving marriage, but his impotence has led to her having an affair. The unbearable situation drives Roman to extreme measures both physically and mentally, testing their love and his own will to live.

Krzysztof, a semantics professor and computer hobbyist, is raising his young son, Paweł, to look to science for answers, while Irena, Paweł’s aunt, lives a life rooted in faith. Over the course of one day, both adults are forced to question their belief systems.

It’s Christmas Eve, and Ewa has plotted to pass the hours until morning with her former lover Janusz, a family man, by making him believe her husband has gone missing. During this night of recklessness and lies, the pair grapple with choices made when their affair was discovered three years ago, and with the value of their present lives.

Zofia, a professor of ethics, is visited by Elżbieta, an American researching the fate of Jews who survived World War II. A daytime classroom conversation turns into a night of confrontation, and Zofia is forced to answer for a decision she made decades ago that directly affected the course of Elżbieta’s life.

A father and daughter, Michał and Anka, have a unique intimacy, which the college-aged Anka is beginning to feel conflicted about. When she finds an unopened letter from her deceased mother, it seems to justify her attraction to Michał, who may not in fact be her father.

As a high school student, Majka bore a child, Ania, whom Majka’s mother, Ewa, has been raising as her own. Now that Majka is ready for motherhood, Ewa refuses to let go, leading Majka to kidnap her own daughter, with unexpected emotional consequences.

Jacek, an angry drifter, murders a taxi driver, brutally and without motive. His case is assigned to Piotr, an idealistic young lawyer who is morally opposed to the death penalty, and their interactions take on an emotional honesty that throws into stark relief for Piotr the injustice of killing of any kind.

Jerzy and Artur’s father dies, leaving behind a valuable stamp collection, which, they discover, is coveted by dealers of varying degrees of shadiness. The more involved the brothers get in their father’s world, the more dire and comical their situation becomes.

A teenage postal worker, Tomek, routinely spies on his older neighbor Magda, a sexually liberated artist who lives in the apartment across the courtyard from his. As their private worlds merge, fascination turns to obsession, and the line between love and curiosity becomes violently blurred.

The fate of three Catholic priests were linked together through tragic events a few years back. Every year, on the anniversary of the catastrophe, they gather to celebrate their survival of the tragedy. Lisowski works at a curia in a big city, building his career while dreaming of the Vatican. Standing in his way, Mordowicz, the archbishop, a luxurious church dignitary who is making use of his political connections to build the largest sanctuary in Poland. Trybus, is a parish priest and often submits to human weaknesses. Kukuła also is not doing well. Despite his passion for faith, he is losing the trust of his flock. Soon, through new tragic events, the paths of the three priests will cross again.

19-year-old Tomek whiles away his lonely life by spying on his opposite neighbour Magda through binoculars. She's an artist in her mid-thirties, and appears to have everything - not least a constant stream of men at her beck and call. But when the two finally meet, they discover that they have a lot more in common than appeared at first sight...

Lena is a talented midwife and gynaecologist, her husband Serezha is an actor at a provincial drama theatre. They are close and gentle with each other, but there is no sex. Lena suspects that Serezha has an affair, but she worries quietly and does not reveal her jealousy. Instead of sorting out her relationship with her husband, Lena starts to betray him with chance acquaintances. Gradually Lena’s parallel life gets out of control and changes her original life.

Poland, 1945. Mathilde, a young French Red Cross doctor, is on a mission to help the war survivors. When a nun seeks for her help, she is brought to a convent where several pregnant sisters are hiding, unable to reconcile their faith with their pregnancy. Mathilde becomes their only hope.

Jacek climbs into the taxi driven by Waldemar, tells him to drive to a remote location, then brutally strangles him, seemingly without motive.

1982, Poland. A translator loses her husband and becomes a victim of her own sorrow. She looks to sex, to her son, to law, and to hypnotism when she has nothing else in this time of martial law when Solidarity was banned.

In an incendiary story of love, desire, and betrayal between siblings, the rebellious young Tadek returns to his half-sister Anka’s home in search of solace and affection. Bound together by a painful shared family history, brother and sister must find a way to break free in order to survive. This formidable debut fearlessly yet tenderly explores one of society’s last taboos.

The deeply held religious convictions of an idealistic young priest are challenged when he must face extraordinary events within his own congregation.

Witek runs after a train. Three variations follow on how such a seemingly banal incident could influence the rest of Witek's life.

A couple is desperately looking to conceive a child and moves to Spain to get the help of a renowned doctor. Their plans change after they meet an apparently perfect girl that volunteers to carry on the pregnancy in their place.

A superficial woman finds conflict choosing between her abusive husband and her vain lover.

A busy attorney, worried that his anorexic daughter Olga, who is still grieving her recently deceased mother, might try to harm herself, sends her to see a psychiatrist who's dealing with her own loss in an unusual way.

Hanna and Simon are in a 20 year marriage with an unexciting relationship. By chance, they both meet and start separate affairs with Adam. Adam has no idea that his two lovers are married, until they are all found out when Hanna becomes pregnant, with the natural doubts stemming from their situation.

Aleksandra is a student from Krško, a small town in Slovenia. She has a plan to conquer the world. Working as a prostitute, her life is heading to where she wants it, but an accidental death has her wrestling with new feelings of fear, loneliness, confusion and responsibility

When a wife becomes the breadwinner of her family after her husband loses his job, adultery becomes part of her life.

The wedding of Kornel, a young, well known TV scientist, to the famous singer, Alicja, is to be the social event of the year. In the suburban reception hall, the final preperations are being made. The waiter, Tytus, who is somewhat touchy having just found out he is to become a father, lays out the cutlery on the tables.

Peasant girl Jagna is forced to marry the much older, wealthy farmer Boryna, despite her love for his son Antek. With time, Jagna becomes the object of envy and disdain with the villagers and she must fight to preserve her independence.

On their way to an afternoon on the lake, husband and wife Andrzej and Krystyna nearly run over a young hitchhiker. Inviting the young man onto the boat with them, Andrzej begins to subtly torment him; the hitchhiker responds by making overtures toward Krystyna. When the hitchhiker is accidentally knocked overboard, the husband's panic results in unexpected consequences.

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

Filip buys an 8mm movie camera when his first child is born. Because it's the first camera in town, he's named official photographer by the local Party boss. His horizons widen when he is sent to regional film festivals with his first works but his focus on movie making also leads to domestic strife and philosophical dilemmas.

Stuck in a passionless marriage, a journalist must choose between her distant but loving husband and a younger ex-boyfriend who has reentered her life

While vacationing in the countryside at his childhood home, a woman suddenly reveals to her husband that she is expecting a child – but not his.

After suffering from a heart attack, a wealthy elderly Russian man plans to will most of his estate to his estranged daughter, but his titular wife has other plans.

Łukasz, an unemployed geography graduate, is wrongfully arrested for robbery. His alibi is weak, and he is identified during a lineup. The situation gets hopeless when, a few hours later, the alleged victim suddenly dies. The defense lawyer promises to do everything in his power, but Łukasz ends up in custody. He must find his place in a world of harsh prison rules. He chooses the cell of the “grypsujący” (inmates who communicate by coded messages)…

Young Polish nobleman Jakub is saved from imprisonment by a stranger. In return, the stranger wants to obtain a list of Jakub’s fellow conspirators. As he follows his mysterious savior across the country, Jakub is affected by the overall chaos and moral corruption; he goes insane and becomes a mass murderer.

The world has been ravaged by nuclear war. The planet is frozen and radiation kills anyone or anything that ventures outside of 'The Dome'. Soft is a shepherd for the last remnants of humanity who have gathered together as they await rescue from a mysterious craft known only as 'The Ark.' He wanders among the masses, performing his regular daily tasks; keeping morale from plummeting, wooing prostitutes, squashing rebellions, and sometimes feeding the hungry. But as the true and sinister nature of 'The Dome' comes to light, Soft must ask himself if humanity is worth saving...

The contemporary story of a priest who launches a centre for troubled youth in a small parish. He is a good priest and is well-liked by his congregation, which remains unaware of his complicated past.

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.

In a monastery cut off from the world, the monks run a clinic for the possessed. One day, a young policeman Marek comes to the convent. Posing as a clergyman, he penetrates monastic life and tries to explain the recent, mysterious disappearance of several tormented inmates. It turns out, however, that there is no way out of the monastery.

A woman is suspected of her husband's murder, and their blind son faces a moral dilemma as the sole witness.

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.

Polish immigrant Karol Karol finds himself out of a marriage, a job and a country when his French wife, Dominique, divorces him after six months due to his impotence. Forced to leave France after losing the business they jointly owned, Karol enlists fellow Polish expatriate Mikołaj to smuggle him back to their homeland.

Three women in a maternity ward share their lives and intimate thoughts, and face the choice of keeping their babies or offering them for adoption.

Poland, 1970. Firmly determined to fight against Soviet tyranny and prevent the destruction of the world, the high-ranking officer of the Polish army Ryszard Kukliński makes a serious decision that will put his life, his family and the fate of an entire nation at risk.

A group of scientists is sent to the planet Arkanar to help the local civilization, which is in the Medieval phase of its own history, to find the right path to progress. Their task is a difficult one: they cannot interfere violently and in no case can they kill. The scientist Rumata tries to save the local intellectuals from their punishment and cannot avoid taking a position.

A childless couple struggle in the aftermath of a sexual assault leaves the woman pregnant.

This harrowing tale of survival centers on Rose, a Masurian woman, whose German soldier husband was killed in the war, leaving her alone on their farm. A single woman had no defense against Russian soldiers who raped as a form of revenge, nor against plundering Poles who found themselves in desperate straits. Help arrives for Rose in the form of Tadeusz, a former officer in the Polish Home Army who deserted after he saw his wife raped and murdered by Russian troops and is attempting to hide his identity.

A bridegroom is possessed by an unquiet spirit in the midst of his own wedding celebration, in this clever take on the Jewish legend of the dybbuk.

Jurek Kiler has become a VIP - sponsoring the Polish government, playing tennis with the President, meeting world leaders. He must oversee a transfer of a substantial amount of gold. However, in his past activities, he has made enemies. Mighty ones. And thus Jurek Kiler's next adventure begins as he has to face attempts at kidnapping, assassinations and problems in his love life...

Scripted by Ingmar Bergman, this very personal film is about a destructive affair which wrecks the marriage of an actress (Marianne) and musician (Markus). Wanting to continue the affair, Marianne moves in with her lover. But she is tormented by Markus' decision not to let her have custody of their daughter. Finally Markus announces he may have a solution to the stalemate, but this leads to deception, lies and ultimately, tragedy.

Frederic leads a bourgeois life; he is a partner in a small Paris office and is happily married to Helene, a teacher expecting her second child. In the afternoons, Frederic daydreams about other women, but has no intention of taking any action. One day, Chloe, who had been a mistress of an old friend, begins dropping by his office. They meet as friends, irregularly in the afternoons, till eventually Chloe decides to seduce Frederic, causing him a moral dilemma.

A journalist tries to balance the duties of marriage and motherhood while researching a piece on college women who work as prostitutes to pay their tuition.

While serving as a juror in a high profile murder trial, family man Justin Kemp finds himself struggling with a serious moral dilemma…one he could use to sway the jury verdict and potentially convict—or free—the accused killer.

Romance brings two warring families together in this historical drama. As citizens fight for independence in 1810s Lithuania, Tadeusz, the son of a murderer, and Zosia, a young woman, come together for a wedding against a backdrop of changing politics, ancient traditions, and the uncertain future of a country.

In Stalinist Poland, cabaret singer Tonia decides to spend the evening drinking with a group of friends. The next morning, she awakes to find that, for reasons unknown to her, she has been jailed as a political prisoner. As prison officials interrogate, torture and humiliate her, she fights for survival and to maintain her innocence by refusing to sign a false confession. As her years of imprisonment pass, her relationship with her captors grows more complicated.

Grand romantic gestures need not apply in this comedic tale of star-crossed young love. Instead, freshman Brian Kieslowski displays endless reserves of bumbling awkwardness as he goes home with a girl for the first time... and then learns that he got her pregnant... with twins... all while she's going through a rather inconvenient Christianity phase. Could it be that being the good guy and doing what's right are two very different things?

A Polish priest arrives at a convent hoping to save the Mother Superior who is supposedly possessed by eight demons.

Claire is a midwife and has devoted her life to others. At a moment when she is preoccupied by the imminent closure of the maternity clinic where she works, her life is further turned upside down when Béatrice, her father's former mistress, turns up on the scene. Béatrice is a capricious and selfish woman, Claire's exact opposite.

A purely observational non-fiction film that takes viewers into the ethically murky world of end-of-life decision making in a public hospital.

Louise and Kasper want to become parents, but Louise cannot have children. She seals a pact with her Romanian maid, Elena, to bear her child, but things don't turn out quite as planned...

Monika lives with Rob, a corpse she loves. Her dilemma intensifies when she meets Mark and considers a normal life with him. She must choose between her affection for Rob and a new relationship.

People of different age, profession and social status answer two simple questions: who they are and what they want from life.

A pious 20-year-old juvenile delinquent is sent to work at a sawmill in a small town; on arrival, he dresses up as a priest and accidentally takes over the local parish. The arrival of this young, charismatic preacher is an opportunity for the local community to begin the healing process after a tragedy that happened a year prior.

Since losing her husband, Sophie has struggled to manage grief, a full-time job, and parenting her devastated daughter, but when a former physicist reveals a secret time-bending machine, Sophie will be faced with an impossible choice.

Jerzy is a writer and a heavy drinker. We meet him at the point when he believes that he can beat his addiction. He falls in love with a young girl and finally feels that he has got the person and the reason to live for. But soon he yields to his addiction.

Barny, although a Marxist, is intrigued by the mysteries of religion. In confession, she teases a priest, Léon Morin, but he is a young and intelligent man and ready to discuss anything.

After a mysterious leader imposes his law in a brutal system of vertical cells, a new arrival battles against a dubious food distribution method.

Two seemingly happily married French couples are forced to contend with a number of issues.

Film chronicles a decade in the life of a young physics student whose absolute faith in the primacy of rationality and science is shaken by tragedy and affairs of the heart.

Lydia, a midwife very invested in her work, is in the middle of a breakup. At the same time, her best friend, Salomé, announces to her that she is pregnant and asks her to follow her pregnancy. The day Lydia meets Milos, a one-night stand, while she is holding her friend's baby in her arms, she sinks into a lie, at the risk of losing everything.

Is a party after a canceled wedding a recipe for disaster? It is. And what a disaster it is! Two families differ in everything - origin, status, wallet content, taste. The parents of the groom and bride are initially shocked. What did such a thing happen? Who was at fault? What about the wedding party? Should they welcome the guests? Play music? Pour the vodka? Who will cut the cake? From word to word, polite smiles turn into public washing of dirt. And finally a real bomb goes off... And in the meantime, the wedding party turns into a wild party. And no one is bothered by the absence of the newlyweds.

Sara and Nicola are married and in love. Their lives seem to be perfect: they have an angelic six-year-old daughter, thriving careers and a stable marriage. The birth of their second child, which disrupts the family balance, leads to tragicomic scenarios.

Olga and Maks are 15 years away. She is a successful woman with an established position, the mother of an adult daughter, he is a handsome young man who enjoys his life in a handful and lives only in the moment. It might seem that these two different worlds will never meet, and yet fate put them in the way.

Medicine, money and morality clash when a hospital's Heart Transplant Selection Committee has only minutes to decide which of three patients on the transplant list will receive a heart that has suddenly become available.

Three stories about persons forced to think about the ethics and moral issues raised by medical advances.

A tale about a happily married couple who would like to have children. Tracy teaches infants, Andy's a college professor. Things are never the same after she is taken to hospital and operated upon by Jed, a "know all" doctor.

A young husband and father, perfectly content with his life, falls in love with another woman.

A married couple are faced with a difficult decision - to improve the life of their child by moving to another country or to stay in Iran and look after a deteriorating parent who has Alzheimer's disease.

One day, hospital orderlies, watching corpse in the morgue, recognize film director. Man, even though he died, he begins to remember his life. He made a career making movies, had numerous mistresses, but never realized their dreams. His life was interspersed with many setbacks that enfeebled him from the inside. Although he made a career in film, he was not happy with his life.

An executive manager, his wife and his family, at the point when his professional choices are about to overturn all their lives. Philippe Lemesle and his wife are separating, their love irretrievably damaged by pressures of work. A successful executive in industrial conglomerate, Philippe no longer knows how to respond to the contradictory demands of his bosses. Yesterday they wanted a manager, today an enforcer. Now he must decide what his life really means.

Wojnar is a wealthy man who is marrying off his beautiful daughter Kasia, in a small town in present day Poland. Wojnar had to bribe the groom with a fancy car, since Kasia was pregnant by another man. At the end of the ceremony, the car is delivered by a gangster, who immediately demands the promised money and the deed to land from Kasia's grandfather. Unfortunately grandpa is unwilling to let go of the land. Meanwhile each of the workers at the reception demand to be paid, so Wojnar, who is very reluctant to part with his money, tries to haggle and bribe his way out of all the situations.

Four friends are facing problems like infidelity, infertility and disease. But together, they can solve every single problem.

Paris doctor Catherine starts to think her husband, Bernard, is having an affair when she hears an unfamiliar woman's message on his voice mail. Hoping to learn more about his extramarital activities, Catherine heads to a strip club, where she hires call girl Nathalie to have a fling with Gerard. As the affair progresses, Nathalie gives Catherine regular status reports, and the relationship between the women evolves from business to personal.

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.

Story about two brothers and their wives, and the interactions between them and their two high school age children. When the kids get into serious trouble together, how will the parents relationships change with and among each other? Will the parents protect the kids or force them to face the consequences of their actions?

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.

In Paris, Clara, psycho motor therapist, and Ismaël, music teacher, have been lovers for four years. Happy, the couple are expecting their first child and decide to move in together. But the news is not well received by their respective families because Clara is Jewish and Ishmael a Muslim. Although not practicing, this difference will gradually sow trouble in their love life.

J. is depressed. E. lives peacefully. S. tries to get back with his wife. G. resorts to anxiolytics. P. plays seduction games. María and Sara exchange their husbands. L. calls his lover in a peculiar way.

A renowned ophthalmologist is desperate to cut off an adulterous relationship…which ends up in murder; and a frustrated documentary filmmaker woos an attractive television producer while making a film about her insufferably self-centered boss.

A Cape Verdean woman navigates her way through Lisbon, following the scanty physical traces her deceased husband left behind and discovering his secret, illicit life.

Kasia and Pawel, having got married, live in the village of Brzozki, 10 kilometres from Grabow. Kasia wants to return to her pedagogical studies, so she does not want to have children yet. Pawel announces that he wants to break away from the traditional village farm and focus on specialised sheep breeding, which causes a family argument. Kasia's parents anxiously await the birth of their grandchildren. Things get even more complicated when the Wolanskis arrive in Grabow. They offer to help Kasia go back to university, but in return Kasia has to look after little Piotr as the docent is leaving for London where he has received a month-long study grant.

When a dead newborn is found, wrapped in bloody sheets, in the bedroom wastebasket of a young novice, psychiatrist Martha Livingston is called in to determine if the seemingly innocent novice, who knows nothing of sex or birth, is competent enough to stand trial for the murder of the baby.

Klara is going to die today unless she kills her husband instead. The Calendar Killer has given her that impossible choice. When Jules starts his night shift at a telephone safety helpline for lonely women on their way home, Klara's call reaches him. He soon becomes her last hope for survival and races against time to save her.

A young nurse, Alma, is put in charge of Elisabeth Vogler: an actress who is seemingly healthy in all respects, but will not talk. As they spend time together, Alma speaks to Elisabeth constantly, never receiving any answer.

Pernat finds himself in a police interrogation, accused of a murder, and unable to recall any details of the crime, or even his own life. He's released back into a world of raving lunatics and deranged dentists, murderous doctors and scientists who believe the secret of human creation is inside the walls of a cast-iron oven.

A young woman left her family for an unspecified reason. The husband determines to find out the truth and starts following his wife. At first, he suspects that a man is involved. But gradually, he finds out more and more strange behaviors and bizarre incidents that indicate something more than a possessed love affair.

A young academy soldier, Maciek Chelmicki, is ordered to shoot the secretary of the KW PPR. A coincidence causes him to kill someone else. Meeting face to face with his victim, he gets a shock. He faces the necessity of repeating the assassination. He meets Krystyna, a girl working as a barmaid in the restaurant of the "Monopol" hotel. His affection for her makes him even more aware of the senselessness of killing at the end of the war. Loyalty to the oath he took, and thus the obligation to obey the order, tips the scales.

Two scientists are chosen as guinea pigs for a time experiment: they are placed in hibernation and should be brought back to life after three years. In the meantime, however, World War III breaks out and life has been wiped off the surface of Earth. When they wake up, it turns out that not only 50 years have passed but also that they are the only living specimens of the male sex in a new, underground society composed exclusively of women.


