Open HeartsMovies like Open Hearts
- Key Features:
- Infidelity, Marriage, Tragedy, Disability, Hospital setting, Love triangle, Moral dilemma, Guilt, Relationships, Emotional drama, Existentialism, Human connection, Redemption
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic, restrained
- Target Audience:
- Drama enthusiasts, Viewers interested in relationship stories, Those who appreciate character-driven narratives, Fans of European cinema
- Emotional Arc:
- Hope → Despair → Acceptance
Open Hearts

Cecilie and Joachim are about to get married when a freak car accident leaves Joachim disabled, throwing their lives into a spin. The driver of the other car, Marie, and her family don’t get off lightly, either. Her husband Niels works in the hospital where he meets Cecilie and falls madly in love with her.
Open Hearts
Jonas is a Copenhagen homicide scene photographer, happily married, with two kids. One day, his car stalls, another car slams into him, runs head on into a third car and flips into the ditch. The other driver, Julia, is critically injured. He visits her in the hospital and is greeted by her family, who assumes he must be the Sebastian she told them about, the new fiance she met in Vietnam.

A manager of an orphanage in India is sent to Copenhagen, Denmark, where he discovers a life-altering family secret.

Anne, a brilliant and dedicated advocacy lawyer specialising in society’s most vulnerable, children and young adults, lives what appears to be the picture-perfect life with her doctor-husband, Peter, and their twin daughters. When her estranged teenage stepson, Gustav, moves in with them, Anne’s escalating desire leads her down a dangerous rabbit hole which, once exposed, unleashes a sequence of events destined to destroy her world.

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.

Detectives and best friends Andreas and Simon lead vastly different lives; Andreas has settled down with his beautiful wife and son; while Simon, recently divorced, spends most of his waking hours getting drunk at the local strip club. But all that changes when the two of them are called out to a domestic dispute between a junkie couple, caught in a vicious cycle of violence and drugs. It all looks very routine – until Andreas finds the couple's infant son, crying in a closet. The usually collected policeman finds himself confronted with his own powerlessness and is shaken to his core. As Andreas slowly loses his grip on justice, it suddenly becomes up to the unruly Simon to restore the balance between right and wrong.

Lila and Mo meet at a bus stop. Lila has a paralyzing speech impediment. Mo is chatty and exuberant. Lila is preparing for her exams. Mo illegally races cars for a living. Opposites attract, and they fall in love. But Mo carries a secret burden…

The thin line between love and hate turns deadly when a wife discovers her husband’s affair — and they both take extreme measures to get what they want.

In a small, conservative Scottish village, an oilman is paralyzed in an accident. His wife, who prayed for his return, feels guilty; even more, when he urges her to have sex with another.

Markus returns home to care for his daughter when his wife dies in a tragic train accident. However, when a survivor of the wreck surfaces and claims foul play, Markus suspects his wife was murdered and embarks on a mission to find those responsible.

A Danish officer, Michael, is sent away to the International Security Assistance Force operation in Afghanistan for three months. His first mission there is to find a young radar technician who had been separated from his squad some days earlier. While on the search, his helicopter is shot down and he is taken as a prisoner of war, but is reported dead to the family.

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.

Four small gangsters from Copenhagen trick a gangster boss: they take over 4,000,000 kroner which they were supposed to bring him. Trying to escape to Barcelona they are forced to stop in the countryside, in an old, wrecked house, hiding there for several weeks. Slowly, one after another, they realize, that they would like to stay there, start a new life.

Following a traffic accident, things take a turn when the victim's identity is revealed.

After Ashley asks for a divorce, good-natured Carey runs to his friends, Julie and Paul, for support. He’s shocked to discover that the secret to their happiness is an open marriage, that is until Carey crosses the line and throws all of their relationships into chaos.

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.

Together for 20 years, a couple that has grown apart over time receives difficult news that will impact the entire family. As they try to make sense of the changes, they end up rediscovering their love for one another.

During a car accident, Vincent Eastman watches his whole life flash before his eyes, and he doesn't like what he sees. While maintaining the semblance of a marriage with his wife, Sally, Vincent has been carrying on with a mistress, Olivia. She's everything Sally isn't -- warm, passionate, carefree. So why can't he choose between the two, especially when his indecision is taking its toll on his daughter?

A novelist is blinded in a car crash that killed his wife and several years later rediscovers his passion for life and writing when he embarks on an affair with the neglected wife of an indicted businessman.

A young queen falls in love with her physician, and they start a revolution that changes their nation forever.

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.

In order to catch a basketball from the favorite team of his girlfriend's spoiled son, Fred poses as a numb, wheelchair-bound fan. But when he catches the ball, he also catches the attention of young, attractive filmmaker Denise, who wants to feature an invalid fan in an image film for the team. Fred has to keep playing his role, while real invalid and really furious fan Ronny might call his bluff at any moment. Worse, still, love sets in...

A young woman quietly unsatisfied in the bedroom by her boyfriend puts their relationship to the test when she proposes to open up their sex life to a third person.

Dean and Cindy live a quiet life in a modest neighborhood. They appear to have the world at their feet at the outset of the relationship. However, his lack of ambition and her retreat into self-absorption cause potentially irreversible cracks in their marriage.

Late one evening Alex suddenly abandons his girlfriend, Simone, to pursue the beautiful Aimee. In his encounter with Aimee time and place dissolve for him and he becomes a stranger to Simone, to whom he cannot return.

After author Mia finds love with single father Emil, their happiness is put to the test as they undergo fertility treatments to have kids of their own.

A recovering drug addict is granted a day’s leave from rehab and returns to Oslo, where he reconnects with friends, faces the weight of his past, and struggles with uncertainty about his future. Over the course of one day, he drifts through encounters that reflect his longing for connection and his deep sense of alienation.

When kitchen fitter Niller comes to install Sus's new suite, their immediate attraction to one another proves a sweet escape from both of their problematic relationships.

A young man released from prison visits the widow of the man he killed drunk-driving and becomes infatuated with his cerebral palsy-stricken daughter.

Lorna is a young Albanian woman in a marriage of convenience with Claudy, a heroin addict. Just as Lorna is about to be granted Belgian citizenship, Claudy finds the strength to detox; this presents a problem not only for Lorna, but for the criminal who brokered the deal.

Dan Merrick comes out from a shattering car accident with amnesia. He finds that he is married to Judith who is trying to help him start his life again. He keeps getting flashbacks about events and places that he can't remember. He meets pet shop owner and part time private detective Gus Klein who has supposedly done some work for him prior to the accident. Klein helps Merrick to find out more...

Having recently lost her sight, Ingrid retreats to the safety of her home—a place where she can feel in control, alone with her husband and her thoughts. After a while, Ingrid starts to feel the presence of her husband in the flat when he is supposed to be at work. At the same time, her lonely neighbor who has grown tired of even the most extreme pornography shifts his attention to a woman across the street. Ingrid knows about this but her real problems lie within, not beyond the walls of her apartment, and her deepest fears and repressed fantasies soon take over.

The destinies of two families are irrevocably tied together after a cyclist is hit off the road by a jeep in the night before Christmas Eve.

Denmark, 2016. A blurred note is found in a bottle that has traveled across the ocean for a long time. After deciphering the cryptic note, Department Q follow a sinister trail that leads them to investigate a case that occurred in 2008. At the same time, new tragic events take place that test their faith and deepest beliefs.

After losing their spouses in a plane crash, an internal affairs cop and a congresswoman find each other's keys in each other's loved ones' possessions and discover that the two were having an affair.

Ian begins a relationship with Drew's daughter, who works in the financial sector. The couple gets involved in a tragic accident that will change their lives forever. At the same time, the accident has a major impact on both their families who, despite the class difference, cross paths.

When Antonia's husband Massimo is killed in a car accident, she accidentally discovers that he has been having a same-sex affair with a produce wholesaler named Michele.

A teenager struggles to keep her scandal-ridden past and a big secret from getting out when she strikes up an unlikely romance with the crown prince.

Sparks fly when a humble housekeeper crosses paths with a wealthy surgeon, but a devastating truth puts their relationship to the test.

Successful surgeon Tomas leaves Prague for an operation, meets a young photographer named Tereza, and brings her back with him. Tereza is surprised to learn that Tomas is already having an affair with the bohemian Sabina, but when the Soviet invasion occurs, all three flee to Switzerland. Sabina begins an affair, Tom continues womanizing, and Tereza, disgusted, returns to Czechoslovakia. Realizing his mistake, Tomas decides to chase after her.

40-year-old Elling, sensitive, would-be poet, is sent to live in a state institution when his mother, who has sheltered him his entire life, dies. There he meets Kjell Bjarne, a gentle giant and female-obsessed virgin, also in his 40s.

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

Paralyzed from a crash, Nicola falls for his physiotherapist Lucia. Franco and Manuela seek fertility treatment in Barcelona. Filippo and Fosco, a gay couple, plan their wedding. Ernesto, a waiter, has an affair with Spanish cook Cecilia.

Jessica knows exactly what her life is supposed to look like and where it takes her. But then she meets Danny. He has a complicated past and could confuse all their plans. Jessica has to decide.

A wife questions her life choices as she travels to Stockholm with her husband, where he is slated to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.

A college student starts to experience extreme seizures. She soon learns that the violent episodes are a symptom of inexplicable abilities.

While undergoing heart surgery, a man experiences a phenomenon called ‘anesthetic awareness’, which leaves him awake but paralyzed throughout the operation. As various obstacles present themselves, his wife must make life-altering decisions while wrestling with her own personal drama.

Stephen is a professor at Oxford University who is caught in a rut and feels trapped by his life in both academia and marriage. One of his students, William, is engaged to the beautiful Anna, and Stephen becomes enamored of the younger woman. These three people become linked together by a horrible car crash, with flashbacks providing details into the lives of each person and their connection to the others in this brooding English drama.

Set in the port town of Dover in the South-East of England, Mary Hussain suddenly finds herself a widow following the unexpected death of her husband. A day after the burial, she discovers he has a secret just twenty-one miles across the English Channel in Calais.

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

When illness strikes two people who are polar opposites, life and death bring them together in surprising ways.

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.

When 30-ish rich kid Lenny has to take care of 15-year-old David, who’s suffering from heart disease, it’s the beginning of a wild adventure. Lenny fearlessly breaks all the rules to fulfill his young friend’s every wish.

Denmark, 2013. Police officers Carl Mørck and Hafez el-Assad, sole members of Department Q, which is focused on closing cold cases, investigate the disappearance of politician Merete Lynggaard, vanished when she and her brother were traveling aboard a ferry five years ago.

Marie, who works as a successful door-to-door encyclopedia salesperson, has been married to her husband Francois for 12 years and has a two-year-old son. Though she is relatively content with her life, she feels something is wanting. Enter 50-year old African-American Bill. Initially she is annoyed by his insouciance, but she finds that she is irresistibly attracted to him. Soon the two are in the midst of sordid illicit affair. She knows little about her new lover, and he seems uninterested in learning about her, but the long sessions of lovemaking are something else entirely. Feeling out of control, Marie is increasingly repelled by her own actions. Psychologically, she struggles to reconcile her torrid encounters with Bill and mundane domestic chores such as bathing her son. Moreover, she finds herself incapable of hiding her adulterous behavior, rather she comes home with scratches and hickeys all over her body, to the devastation Francois.

Louise, a widow with two children, almost crushes a stranger with her car. She takes care of him, even if he's not really wounded. It turns out that he has mental disorders and that they can help each other much more than they thought.

Handsome Dutchman Stijn is the star of an advertising agency with his buddy Frenk and a hot womanizer. The boys start their own agency and Stijn marries colleague Carmen, who accepts his incurable greed for truly meaningless one-night-stands. Even fatherhood and a move to the boring country go well, until Carmen gets breast cancer. Now their lives are turned upside-down, maybe wrecked

The intersecting lives of teens on a surfing trip, a woman with a weak heart and two teams of doctors and medical experts.

The relationships of two couples become complicated and deceitful when the man from one couple meets the woman of the other.

Year 1977, a September morning in Ankara... Yilmaz tries to rush his pregnant wife Neriman to the hospital and he crushes into Omer's car. This accident causes Omer's pregnant wife Inci, who was in the back seat, to have a pre-term labor. The babies are born on the same day. They see each other for the first time... This accident is the threshold of the coincidences that bring Ozgur and Deniz together.

A deadly car crash sets off three parallel stories of women at crisis points, faltering behind the doors of the same, plain Vienna apartment block.

Company commander Claus Michael Pedersen and his men are stationed in Helmand, Afghanistan. Meanwhile back in Denmark, with a husband at war and three children missing their father, everyday life is a struggle for Claus' wife Maria. During a routine mission, the soldiers are caught in heavy Taliban crossfire. In order to save his men, Claus makes a decision that ultimately sees him return to Denmark accused of a war crime.

Sara invites her ex-husbands and their new families to celebrate Christmas with her and her husband Janne. Sara has always wanted to have a baby with Janne, and at the dinner table she reveals the news: she's pregnant. The only problem is that Janne had a vasectomy two years ago, without Sara knowing it. The secret starts to spread among the guests, and in no time everyone knows but Sara. The party heads for a complete disaster. Who's the real father?

Anna and Will, were each other’s first every-things: first kiss, first love, first and only relationship. Now, 10 years in, at Anna’s 30th birthday party, as Will is about to propose, the couple’s best friend makes a drunken toast, suggesting that they should sleep around before their inevitable marriage. The joke lands like a lead balloon, but the thought lingers until Anna proposes that they try opening their relationship – as a sexual experiment.

Reckless and in love, Viviana and Modesto are bound by an uncontrollable passion. Their secret relationship ends up in front of an incredulous therapist, who'll anyway help them understanding their feelings and dealing with their desire to follow the true love.

Using each other as alibis, two friends sneak off to indulge in secret affairs — but their elaborate web of lies unravels when one of them goes missing.

While holidaying in the French Alps, a Swedish family deals with acts of cowardliness as an avalanche breaks out.

Documentary filmmaker Erik and closeted lawyer Paul meet through a casual encounter, but they find a deeper connection and become a couple. Individually and together, they are risk takers — compulsive, and fueled by drugs and sex. In an almost decade-long relationship defined by highs, lows, and dysfunctional patterns, Erik struggles to negotiate his own boundaries and dignity and to be true to himself.

Unable to face his new reality in a wheelchair, Ángel develops a deadly obsession with the woman who left him and unleashes a sinister revenge plot.

Following a car accident, which kills her mother, 17-year-old Ida moves in with her estranged aunt and her aunt’s grown sons. The home is filled with physical tenderness and love, but outside of the home, the family leads a violent and criminal life.

Elena and Antonio seem not to be made for each other. They are too different in terms of character, life choices, worldview, and the way they relate to others. They are total opposites. However, they are overwhelmed by a mutual attraction they're trying hard to avoid; but to which they succumb to.

Aldo and Vittorio are two men suffering from disabilities. One is blind, the other is forced to a wheelchair. Vittorio one day by chance meets Aldo in the hospice and invites him to take a pleasure trip to Sanremo in Liguria. In fact Vittorio, though blind, is a cheat who’s in trouble.

Europe 1990, the Berlin wall has just crumbled: Katrine, raised in East Germany, but now living in Norway for the last 20 years, is a “war child”; the result of a love relationship between a Norwegian woman and a German occupation soldier during World War II. She enjoys a happy family life with her mother, her husband, daughter and granddaughter. But when a lawyer asks her and her mother to witness in a trial against the Norwegian state on behalf of the war children, she resists. Gradually, a web of concealments and secrets is unveiled, until Katrine is finally stripped of everything, and her loved ones are forced to take a stand: What carries more weight, the life they have lived together, or the lie it is based on?

Jaakko and Sirpa have never met face to face, but talk on the phone every day. When Jaakko hears news about Sirpa's declining health, he decides to go meet her in another city. It's not the easiest decision, because he's blind and paralyzed from the chest down - and he has to make the journey alone. To get there, Jaakko must rely on the help of five strangers. What could go wrong?

Caroline, a young waitress who seems to have bad taste in men, is on her way home one night when thugs attempt to rape her. Adam, the mysterious busboy who works at the same diner, helps fight off the assailants, and she begins a relationship with him -- but not all their fellow Minnesotans are happy for them. Meanwhile, the couple face their own difficulties when Caroline finds about Adam's past, including his unique health condition.

In several unrelated stories, the consequences of putting one's foot down – or failing to do so – are explored.

A neo-nazi sentenced to community service at a church clashes with the blindly devotional priest.

The three sons of devout Danish farmer Morten have widely disparate religious beliefs. Youngest son Anders shares his father's religion, but eldest son Mikkel has lost his faith, while middle child Johannes has become delusional and proclaims that he is Jesus Christ himself. When Mikkel's wife, Inger goes into a difficult childbirth, everyone's beliefs are put to the test.

A newly appointed teacher finds herself being followed, and soon discovers that one of her own students is obsessed with her.

Hélène, a 33-year-old woman from Bordeaux, France, lives happily as a couple with Mathieu, her husband of many years. Her life turns upside down the day she learns she has a rare lung disease. Thanks to a blog, she discovers Norway and decides to follow her instinct. Despite all the love she has for her life partner Mathieu, who is very supportive through her illness, she leaves him behind in France and will cross all Europe to Norway alone in search of a new path and to meet a blogger named Mister that she found on the internet.

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

Muriel is beautiful, free-spirited and bed-ridden since a horrific accident. Leo is a drunk middle-aged ex-boxer. Desperate for work and unqualified, he interviews for Muriel, who hires him to cook and care for her against her better judgment. Initially out of his depth, Leo slowly wins Muriel's trust. As Muriel teaches him to read, he forces her to confront the joys beyond her window.

Francis is a young gay man, Marie is a young straight woman and the two of them are best friends -- until the day the gorgeous Nicolas walks into a Montreal coffee shop. The two friends, instantly and equally infatuated, compete for Nicolas' indeterminate affections, a conflict that climaxes when the trio visit the vacation home of Nicolas' mother. The frothy comedy unfolds through narrative, fantasy sequences and confessional monologues.

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...

Oleg is a young gifted paramedic. His wife Katya works as a nurse at the hospital emergency department. She loves Oleg, but is fed up with him caring more about patients than her. She tells him she wants a divorce. The new head of Oleg’s EMA department is a cold-hearted manager who’s got new strict rules to implement. Oleg couldn’t care less about the rules – he’s got lives to save; his attitude gets him in trouble with the new boss. The crisis at work coincides with the personal life crisis. Caught up between their patients, alcohol-fueled off-shifts, and an evolving health care system, Oleg and Katya have to find the binding force that will keep them together.

Thirty-year-old Ben is about to marry Juliette. His quiet, ordered life will fall to pieces when he meets up again with the person he secretly wants to see the most: Vanessa, the high school bombshell who never so much as looked in his direction. She's back in Paris, and the only person she now knows is him…

Helene, a pill-addicted anesthesiologist, is mourning the death of her boyfriend when, through a car accident she causes, she chances to meet the lethargic Gilles, a young man who lives for free at his mother's hotel. Gilles pursues Helene romantically, and she eventually softens up. Gilles, however, is also devoted to Bernard, a petty crook who revels in mugging gay men. All three struggle with relationships that seem to be going nowhere.

With the intention to break free from the strict familial restrictions, a suicidal young woman sets up a marriage of convenience with a forty-year-old addict, an act that will lead to an outburst of envious love.

The heterosexual man Axel is thrown out of his girlfriends home for cheating and ends up moving in with a gay man. Axel learns the advantages of living with gay men even though they are attracted to him and when his girlfriend wants him back he must make a tough decision.

Emma and Jesse are living the perfect life together, until Jesse disappears in a tragic helicopter crash on their first wedding anniversary. Four years later, Emma has found happiness again and is about to marry her best friend when Jesse resurfaces, turning her world upside down and leaving her torn between two great loves.

Svend and Bjarne work for a butcher in a small Danish town. Fed up with their boss' arrogance, they decide to start their own butcher shop. After dismal beginnings, an unfortunate accident happens which coincides with a large order of meat. One hasty decision leads to another and soon the business thrives. In the meantime, Bjarne has to deal with his twin brother who has been in coma for years following a gruesome car accident.

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.

After learning of her husband's infidelities, a housewife invites an itinerant lesbian to move in with them. None of their lives will ever be the same again.

Tomas and Martin are a gay couple living in Paris whose marriage is thrown into crisis when Tomas impulsively begins a passionate affair with young schoolteacher Agathe. But when Martin begins an affair of his own, Tomas must confront life decisions he may be unprepared—or unwilling—to deal with.

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.

A man awakes-- without memory -- in a pit full of bodies and must figure out if the people who rescued him are the killers, or if he is the murderer.

The neurotic Fikret and tavern singer Solmaz, whose 21 year long relationships end on the same day, meet through a funny coincidence. When Solmaz's daughter Zeynep decides to marry her lover from Adana, the ever-fearful Fikret ends up having to play the role of his life. Intended at first to be kept in the family, the wedding becomes a much bigger event upon the insistence of the groom's relatives. Can our heroes come to terms with the traditional Adana family who carry guns and own a kebab restaurant chain, and see the wedding through without mishaps?

Former Danish servicemen Lars and Jimmy are thrown together while training in a neo-Nazi group. Moving from hostility through grudging admiration to friendship and finally passion, events take a darker turn when their illicit relationship is uncovered.

A budding female race-car driver finally meets her racing idol and unbelievably they fall in love...a love that's quickly put to the test when, having received the chance to show her racing talents, the two find themselves in a race for a multi-million dollar sponsorship contract.

