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Movies like Moolaadé

Key Features:
Cultural conflict, Social injustice, Womens rights, Village life, Activism, Tradition vs. modernity, Courage, Resistance, Africa, Gender equality
Tone:
serious, dramatic, gritty
Target Audience:
Socially conscious viewers, Human rights advocates, Feminist cinema enthusiasts, African culture aficionados
Emotional Arc:
Anxiety → Defiance

Moolaadé

2004-08-04
Moolaadé Poster - Find Similar Movies

When a woman shelters a group of girls from suffering female genital mutilation, she starts a conflict that tears her village apart.

Genres
Drama
Cast
Fatoumata Coulibaly, Maimouna Hélène Diarra, Salimata Traoré, Dominique Zeïda, Rasmané Ouédraogo, Joseph Traoré, Théophile Sowié, Balla Habib Dembélé, Gustave Sorgho, Moussa Sanogo
Crew
Ousmane Sembène, Ousmane Sembène
Rating
7.158(73 votes)
MoolaadéMoolaadé
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Cuties
Cuties(2020)
5.1

Amy, an 11-year-old girl, joins a group of dancers named “the cuties” at school, and rapidly grows aware of her burgeoning femininity—upsetting her mother and her values in the process.



Girlhood
Girlhood(2014)
6.424

Oppressed by her family setting, dead-end school prospects and the boys law in the neighborhood, Marieme starts a new life after meeting a group of three free-spirited girls. She changes her name, her dress code, and quits school to be accepted in the gang, hoping that this will be a way to freedom.



Les Indésirables
6.19

A local activist and a budding young mayor clash over the best path forward for their impoverished suburb.



Timbuktu
Timbuktu(2014)
6.966

Just outside of the Malian city of Timbuktu, now occupied by militant Islamic rebels who impose the Sharia on civilians and inconvenience their daily life, a cattleman kills a fisherman.



In Between
7

The film captures the daily duality of three young Palestinian women in Tel Aviv, caught between hometown tradition and big city abandon, and the price they must pay for a lifestyle that seems obvious to many: the freedom to work, party, have sex, and choose.



The Source
6.57

A comedy/drama set in a village and centered on a battle of the sexes, where women threaten to withhold sexual favours as long as the men refuse to install a water pipe.



Baise-moi
Baise-moi(2000)
4.8

Nadine and Manu are two mad women, as tidy as can be, almost perfectionists. They have several things in common: extreme sex, drugs, beer and the trigger. They find the solution to their problems with guns and beware to those who dare to get in their way!



Hadewijch
Hadewijch(2009)
6.379

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



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.



Saint Omer
6.161

A novelist attends the trial of a woman accused of killing her 15-month-old daughter by abandoning her to the rising tide on a beach in northern France. But as the trial continues, her own family history, doubts, and fears about motherhood are steadily dislodged as the life story of the accused is gradually revealed.



Layla M.
Layla M.(2016)
6.555

18-year-old Layla, a Dutch girl with Moroccan roots, joins a group of radical Muslims. She encounters a world that nurtures her ideas initally, but finally confronts her with an impossible choice.



Fatima
Fatima(2015)
6.2

Fatima, an Algerian-born woman who now lives in France with her two teenage daughters, with whom she is barely able to communicate.



War Witch
War Witch(2012)
6.542

Somewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa, Komona a 14-year-old girl tells her unborn child growing inside her the story of her life since she has been at war. Everything started when she was abducted by the rebel army at the age of 12.



Leila
Leila(2011)
6

Gab has a well-ordered life: a fiancée, a wealthy family. Leïla, who struggles to juggle her studies, odd jobs, and a brother to support, does not allow herself to live her own life... When Gab meets Leïla, it is a clash of worlds, the beginning of a great love story that will collide violently with reality.



Hideaway (Le refuge)

Mousse and Louis are young, beautiful, rich and in love. But drugs have invaded their lives. One day, they overdose and Louis dies. Mousse survives, but soon learns she's pregnant. Feeling lost, Mousse runs away to a house far from Paris. Several months later, Louis' brother joins her in her refuge.



Much Loved
5.9

A social drama about four marginalized prostitutes in Marrakech and their complex relations with their families and society at large.



Bombay
Bombay(1995)
7.169

A Hindu man and a Muslim woman fall in love in a small village and move to Mumbai, where they have two children. However, growing religious tensions and erupting riots threaten to tear the family apart.



Sand Storm
6.1

A Bedouin village in Northern Israel. When Jalila's husband marries a second woman, Jalila and her daughter's world is shattered, and the women are torn between their commitment to the patriarchal rules and being true to themselves.



DNA
DNA(2020)
5.9

A woman has a close bond with her beloved Algeriann grandfather, who protected her from a toxic home life as a child; his death triggers a deep identity crisis as tensions between her extended family members escalate, revealing new depths of resentment and bitterness.



Rafiki
Rafiki(2018)
7

Kena and Ziki long for something more. Despite the political rivalry between their families, the girls resist and remain close friends, supporting each other to pursue their dreams in a conservative society. When love blossoms between them, the two girls will be forced to choose between happiness and safety.



Romance
Romance(1999)
5.451

Frustrated by the lack of intimacy in her relationship, a young schoolteacher goes through a series of intimidating and often violent sexual partners.



Story of Women
7.3

France, World War II. In order to somehow make ends meet, the mother of two children, Marie Latour, does underground abortions and rents a room to a familiar prostitute. She doesn't pay any attention to her husband, who returned from the war because of his injury and lives her own life. Abortions gradually begin to bring a good income, and boredom can be easily dispelled by starting a young lover.



Meet the Barbarians
6.141

The municipality of a small Breton village has decided to welcome a family of Ukrainian refugees. To their surprise, they receive Fayad family – coming from Syria. They thwart all the clichés that the French expected: they are friendly, refined, educated… So much so that, in this small, humming village, it is no longer clear which side the barbarians are on…



No Chains, No Masters
6.592

1759, Mauritius Island, Indian Ocean. The island is controlled by French settlers and the deported slave population live in fear while toiling in the sugar cane plantations. Unlike her disillusioned father Massamba, 16-year-old Mati refuses to keep her head down and accept her fate.



Kirikou and the Sorceress

Drawn from elements of West African folk tales, it depicts how a newborn boy, Kirikou, saves his village from the evil witch Karaba.



In the Shadow of Women

Pierre and Manon are poor. They make documentaries with nothing and they live by doing odd jobs. Pierre meets a young intern, Elisabeth, and she becomes his mistress. But Pierre will not leave Manon for Elisabeth; he wants to keep both.



Trees of Peace
7.178

Four women from different backgrounds forge an unbreakable sisterhood while trapped and in hiding during the genocide in Rwanda.



Where Do We Go Now?
7.42

In a remote, isolated Lebanese village surrounded by land mines, Muslims and Christians live together in peace. As civil strife starts to engulf the country around them, the women in the village try, by various means and to varying success, to keep their men in the dark by sabotaging the village radio, and then destroying the village TV.



A Wedding
A Wedding(2017)
6.612

Zahira, 18, is close to her family until her parents ask her to follow Pakistani tradition to choose a husband. Torn between family customs and her western lifestyle, the young woman turns for help to her brother and confidant Amir.



The World Unseen
7.077

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



Cairo 6,7,8
7.363

Three women seek justice due to the difficult daily situation which sexual harassment causes in the streets of Cairo, Egypt.



This Is Our Land
5.8

Pauline, a devoted and generous home help nurse, raises her two children alone, while also looking after her father, a former steelworker. Taking advantage of her popularity, the directors of an extremist political party suggest she become their candidate at the mayoral elections.



Mandingo
Mandingo(1975)
6.566

Warren Maxwell, the owner of a run-down plantation, pressures his son, Hammond, to marry and produce an heir to inherit the plantation. Hammond settles on his own cousin, Blanche, but purchases a sex slave when he returns from the honeymoon. He also buys his father a new Mandingo slave named Mede to breed and train as a prize-fighter.



3 Faces
3 Faces(2018)
6.717

Filmmaker Jafar Panahi and actor Behnaz Jafari travel to a tiny village after receiving a plea for help from a girl whose family has forbidden her from studying acting. Amusing encounters abound, but they soon discover that the local hospitality is rivaled by the desire to protect old traditions.



Difret
Difret(2014)
6.3

Three hours outside of Addis Ababa, a bright 14-year-old girl is on her way home from school when men on horses swoop in and kidnap her. The brave Hirut grabs a rifle and tries to escape, but ends up shooting her would-be husband. In her village the practice of abduction into marriage is common and one of Ethiopia’s oldest traditions. Meaza Ashenafi, an empowered and tenacious young lawyer, arrives from the city to represent Hirut and argue that she acted in self defense. Meaza boldly embarks on a collision course between enforcing civil authority and abiding by customary law, risking the ongoing work of her women’s legal aid practice to save Hirut’s life.



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.



17 Girls
17 Girls(2011)
5.453

When Camille accidentally becomes pregnant, she encourages her friends and fellow high school classmates to follow suit. It's only a matter of time, before seventeen girls in the high school are pregnant and the town is thrown into a world of chaos.



Horses of God
7.223

The film follows two brothers over the course of a decade. While they begin as kids in search of thrills in the sprawling slums of Morocco’s Sidi Moumen, we witness their gradual, and ultimately shocking, radicalisation.



Adam
Adam(2019)
6.89

Abla runs a modest local bakery from her home in Casablanca where she lives alone with her 8-year-old daughter Warda. Their routine of housework and homework is interrupted one day by a knock on the door. It is Samia, a young woman looking for a job and a roof over her head. The little girl is immediately taken with the newcomer, but her mother initially refuses to allow a pregnant stranger into their home. Gradually, however, Abla's resolve softens and Samia's arrival begins to offer all of them the prospect of a new life.



Yeelen
Yeelen(1987)
6.6

A young man with magical powers journeys to his uncle to request help in fighting his sorcerer father.



The Woman King
7.637

The story of the Agojie, the all-female unit of warriors who protected the African Kingdom of Dahomey in the 1800s with skills and a fierceness unlike anything the world has ever seen, and General Nanisca as she trains the next generation of recruits and readies them for battle against an enemy determined to destroy their way of life.



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.



Rebels
Rebels(2019)
6.1

Sandra, a young woman forced to leave the south of France to flee a violent husband. Without attachment, she returned to Boulogne-sur-Mer, the city of her childhood which she left almost 15 years ago. She finds her mother there and a world she left behind. Without money, she is hired in a fish cannery where she befriends two workers. But one day, one of her colleagues tackles her insistently, she defends herself and kills him accidentally.



Secret Things
5.7

Two young women find themselves struggling to survive in Paris, street-wise Nathalie, a stripper, and naïve Sandrine, a barmaid. Together, they discover that sex can be used to their advantage, and pleasure.



A Girl at My Door
6.9

Sent from Seoul to serve in a remote coastal village, a policewoman gets involved in the life of a mysterious teenage girl who is abused by both her father and her grandmother.



The Insult
7.494

After an emotional exchange between a Lebanese Christian and a Palestinian refugee escalates, the men end up in a court case that gets national attention.



School Life
6.892

In one of the poorest areas of Paris, a school counselor devotes herself to working with disadvantaged students, while facing challenges of her own.



Love Affair(s)
6.3

Vacations in the French countryside. Daphne, three months pregnant, finds herself alone to welcome Maxime, her boyfriend François’ cousin. François had to leave in a hurry for Paris to cover for a sick colleague. For four days, while waiting for his return, Daphne and Maxime get to know each other and share very intimate stories that bring them closer...



Osama
Osama(2004)
7.008

After the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the restriction of women in public life, a preteen girl is forced to masquerade as a boy in order to find work to support her mother and grandmother.



Herself
Herself(2020)
6.7

Struggling to provide her daughters with a safe, happy home, Sandra decides to build one - from scratch. Using all her ingenuity to make her ambitious dream a reality, Sandra draws together a community to lend a helping hand to build her house and ultimately recover her own sense of self.



The Handmaid's Tale

In a dystopian, polluted right-wing religious tyranny, a young woman is put in sexual slavery on account of her now rare fertility.



Far from Men
6.803

A French teacher in a small Algerian village during the Algerian War forms an unexpected bond with a dissident who is ordered to be turned in to the authorities.



Run Hide Fight
6.6

A 17-year-old girl uses her wits, survival skills, and compassion to fight for her life, and those of her fellow classmates, against a group of live-streaming school shooters.



Camille
Camille(2019)
7.1

Camille, a young idealistic photojournalist, goes to the Central African Republic to cover the civil war that is brewing up. What she sees there will change her destiny forever.



Le Divorce
4.9

While visiting her sister in Paris, a young woman finds romance and learns her brother-in-law is a philanderer.



Flashback
Flashback(2021)
5.9

A female lawyer travels back in time and crosses paths with other women in history who fought for women's rights.



Red Sorghum
7.2

An old leper who owned a remote sorghum winery dies. Jiu'er, the wife bought by the leper, and her lover, identified only as "my Grandpa" by the narrator, take over the winery and set up an idealized quasi-matriarchal community headed by Jiu'er. When the Japanese invaders subject the area to their rule and cut down the sorghum to make way for a road, the community rises up and resists as the sorghum grows anew.



Dheepan
Dheepan(2015)
6.8

Three war-torn strangers posing as a family flee Sri Lanka’s civil war to start over in a troubled Paris suburb, but their past traumas resurface as they struggle to survive in their new environment.



The Midwife
6.1

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.



Maîtresse
5.7

After breaking into a house he believes is empty, thief Olivier is caught by the owner, Ariane, who turns out to be a dominatrix. Improbably falling for her, Olivier returns periodically, and an impulsive romance blossoms despite Ariane's profession. Soon Olivier becomes more familiar with her work, even joining in on occasion. However, when he discovers that Ariane has a son, he attempts to "fix" her, hoping to give her a better life.



The Invisibles
7

Following a city councils decision, a women's shelter will soon be closed and social workers have only three months to accommodate the residents.



God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya

In Stip, a small town in Macedonia, every January the local priest throws a wooden cross into the river and hundreds of men dive after it. Good fortune and prosperity are guaranteed to the man who retrieves it. This time, Petrunya dives into the water on a whim and manages to grab the cross before the others. Her competitors are furious - how dare a woman take part in their ritual? All hell breaks loose, but Petrunya holds her ground. She won her cross and will not give it up.



Touki Bouki
6.668

Mory, a cowherd, and Anta, a university student, try to make money in order to go to Paris and leave their boring past behind.



Agathe Cléry
4.812

Agathe Clery, a marketing manager for a cosmetics company, is snobbish, stubborn and racist. When she is diagnosed with Addison Syndrome, an disorder that darkens the pigmentation of one's skin, she suddenly finds herself resembling a black woman.



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.



The Wound
The Wound(2017)
6.2

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



Revenge
Revenge(2018)
6.5

Jen's romantic getaway with her wealthy married boyfriend is disrupted when his friends arrive for an impromptu hunting trip. Tension mounts at the house until the situation culminates in an unexpected way.



Parisienne
5.9

18-year-old Lina arrives in Paris for her studies. She comes to look for what she has never found in Lebanon, her country of origin: a certain form of freedom. The survival instinct as the only baggage, she sails from one Paris to another to the rhythm of her romantic encounters.



Mia and the White Lion

A young girl from London moves to Africa with her parents where she befriends a lion cub.



Divines
Divines(2016)
7.678

In a ghetto where religion and drug trafficking rub shoulders, Dounia has a lust for power and success. Supported by Maimouna, her best friend, she decides to follow in the footsteps of Rebecca, a respected dealer. But her encounter with Djigui, a young, disturbingly sensual dancer, throws her off course.



Brother
Brother(2019)
6.557

Because he wanted to protect his little brother, Teddy, a young man without a history, is accused of the murder of his father and sent to a closed educational center, waiting for his trial for parricide. He then plunges into a brutal universe of which he does not know the rules.



The White Masai
6.269

A girl, Carola, whose vacation in Kenya takes an interesting turn when she becomes infatuated with a Masai. Carola decides to leave her boyfriend to stay with her lover. There, she has to adapt to the Masai's way of life and get used to their food which includes milk mixed with blood. She also has to face her husband's attitude towards women and what he expects from a wife. Nonetheless, Carola is welcomed warmly into the tribe she has chosen to join.



Amer
Amer(2009)
6.207

Ana is confronted with body and desire at three key moments of her life. As a young girl, she brings her dead grandpa back to life. In her puberty, she discovers the power of decay and sexuality. Finally, she wrestles with loss and loneliness when she returns to her parental home, now derelict.



The African Doctor
6.812

1975. When Seyolo Zantoko, a doctor from the Congo who has managed, along with his family, to flee tyranny, is hired by the mayor of a small town in northern France, he begins a struggle to adapt to a new life and gain the trust of the prejudiced villagers.



Godard's Passion
5.743

While shooting a film, the director becomes interested in the unfolding struggle of a young factory worker that has been laid off by a boss who did not like her union activities.



In a Better World
7.1

The lives of two Danish families cross each other, and an extraordinary but risky friendship comes into bud. But loneliness, frailty and sorrow lie in wait.



Our Children
6.7

Young and full of life, Murielle has a promising future ahead of her when she meets and falls head over heels for Mounir. A wedding soon follows, and the happy couple quickly set about preparing to make a family. However, with family come ties, and none come as tight as that between Mounir and his adoptive father. As Murielle continues to bring new life into the family, frictions between Mounir and Doctor Pinget reach boiling point. Helpless to extract her husband and children from the wealthy nest that Doctor Pinget has provided for them, Murielle is drawn into an unhealthy family dynamic. There is only one way out of this nightmare, and for Murielle all sense of reasoning begins to abandon her.



The Common Man
6.985

Georges Lajoie is a Parisian café owner. As every summer, Georges, his wife Ginette and grown-up son Léon go on holiday to Loulou's campsite, where they meet up with the Schumacher family (whose father is a bailiff) and the Colin family (who sells bras in the markets). This year, their peace is slightly disturbed by the proximity of a construction site where foreign workers are employed. Xenophobic comments are made. One evening at the ball, a fight breaks out between Lajoie, Albert Schumacher and two algerian immigrant workers...



Mogambo
Mogambo(1953)
6.444

On a Kenyan safari, white hunter Victor Marswell has a love triangle with seductive American socialite Eloise Kelly and anthropologist Donald Nordley's cheating wife Linda.



Fort Saganne
6

In 1911, a willful and determined man from peasant stock named Charles Saganne enlists in the military and is assigned to the Sahara Desert under the aristocratic Colonel Dubreuilh.



Women Talking
6.86

A group of women in an isolated religious colony struggle to reconcile their faith with a series of sexual assaults committed by the colony's men.



...And God Created Woman

Juliette Hardy is sexual dynamite, and has the men of a French coastal town panting. But Antoine, the only man who affects her likewise, wouldn't dream of settling down with a woman his friends consider the town tramp.



Delhi-6
Delhi-6(2009)
6

Roshan, an NRI, arrives in Old Delhi with his ailing grandmother and starts to rediscover himself before getting caught in a religious dispute that shakes the once peaceful neighborhood.



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.



Bad Faith
Bad Faith(2006)
5.912

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.



Hotel Rwanda
7.715

Inspired by true events, this film takes place in Rwanda in the 1990s when more than a million Tutsis were killed in a genocide that went mostly unnoticed by the rest of the world. Hotel owner Paul Rusesabagina houses over a thousand refuges in his hotel in attempt to save their lives.



Thappad
Thappad(2020)
7

A young woman's life is shattered into pieces when her husband slaps her at a party, causing her to question what this relationship stands for.



Lila Says
Lila Says(2005)
6.4

Based on a controversial French novel, Lila Says tells the story of a quiet young poet named Chimo who develops a crush on the pretty, blond Lila, a girl who recently moved into his Arab ghetto with her aunt. When the leader of a rival gang also falls for Lila, the ensuing love triangle initiates a journey of sexual discovery -- and sets off a chain of devastating events.



Zelary
Zelary(2003)
6.961

A nurse and her surgeon-lover are part of a resistance movement in 1940s Czechoslovakia. When they are discovered, her lover flees and she must find a place to hide. A patient whose life she saved, a man from a remote mountain village where time stopped 150 years ago, agrees to hide her as his wife.



Wadjda
Wadjda(2012)
7.216

An enterprising Saudi girl signs on for her school's Quran recitation competition as a way to raise the remaining funds she needs in order to buy the green bicycle that has captured her interest.



Damsel
Damsel(2024)
6.995

A young woman's marriage to a charming prince turns into a fierce fight for survival when she's offered up as a sacrifice to a fire-breathing dragon.



A Nos Amours
6.8

Fifteen-year-old Suzanne seeks refuge from a disintegrating family in a series of impulsive, promiscuous affairs. Her fulsome sexuality further ratchets up the suppressed passions of her narcissistic brother, insecure mother and brooding, authoritarian father.



I Am All Girls
6.6

A special crimes investigator forms an unlikely bond with a serial killer to bring down a global child sex trafficking syndicate.



Queens of The Field

After its football team is disqualified for insulting a referee during a major game, a small country town risks losing its funding along with its field. To avoid this disaster, there is only one solution: creating a new team made up exclusively of women to defend the city’s colors! But in a community where football has always been an activity reserved for men, these women’s new status will be sure to shake up the daily lives of the town’s residents…



Desire
Desire(2011)
6.286

In a social context deteriorated by a countrywide economic crisis, the life of several people will be turned upside down after they meet Cécile, a character who symbolizes desire.



Hard Truths
6.487

Pansy is a woman so full of rage that every interaction she has devolves into lashing out, whether at her utterly cowed husband and son, or random strangers who have the temerity to address her. In contrast, her younger sister Chantelle lives with her two vivacious daughters and plies a successful trade as a hairdresser, putting clients at their ease all day long. Yet beneath Pansy’s abrasive exterior are hints of a more fragile psyche, one motivated by fear and damaged by repressed pain.



Wild Reeds
7

As the Algerian War draws to a close, a teenager with a girlfriend starts feeling homosexual urges for two of his classmates: a country boy, and a French-Algerian intellectual.



Marquis de Sade: Justine

Without a family, penniless and separated from her sister, a beautiful chaste woman will have to cope with an endless parade of villains, perverts and degenerates who will claim not only her treasured virtue but also her life.



Black Moon
6

There is a global civil war between men and women. A teenage girl tries to escape this reality and arrives at a hidden place where a strange unicorn lives with a family: sister, brother, many children and an old, bedridden woman who stays in contact with the world through her radio.

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