RosewaterMovies like Rosewater
- Key Features:
- Imprisonment, Journalism, Satire, Cultural misunderstanding, Human rights, Political drama, Based on a true story, Government corruption, International relations, Family drama
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic, earnest
- Target Audience:
- Politically aware, Drama enthusiasts, Journalism students, Biopic fans
- Emotional Arc:
- Hope → Despair → Resilience
Rosewater

In 2009, Iranian Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari was covering Iran's volatile elections for Newsweek. One of the few reporters living in the country with access to US media, he made an appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, in a taped interview with comedian Jason Jones. The interview was intended as satire, but if the Tehran authorities got the joke they didn't like it - and it would quickly came back to haunt Bahari when he was rousted from his family home and thrown into prison.
Rosewater
R2I, a famous news radio station, sends its best reporting duo to Iraq: Frank, journalist, and Poussin, sound engineer. Very quickly, millions of listeners follow their highly documented stories, reflecting the hot intensity of the fighting and the difficult survival of the population.

A radio journalist and his technician get in over their heads when they hatch a scheme to fake their own kidnapping during a rebel uprising in South America and hide out in New York instead.

In 1986 Iran, Sahebjam, whose car breaks down in a remote village, enters into a conversation with Zahra, who relays to him the story about her niece, Soraya, whose arranged marriage to an abusive tyrant ended in tragedy.

The true story of the Mauritanian Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who was held at the U.S military's Guantanamo Bay detention center without charges for over a decade and sought help from a defense attorney for his release.

This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life event—the arrest of a young man on charges that he fraudulently impersonated the well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf—as the basis for a stunning, multilayered investigation into movies, identity, artistic creation, and existence, in which the real people from the case play themselves.

A satirical take on the mundane absurdities of life in modern-day Iran, these nine vignettes illuminate the lighter side of enduring under authoritarian rule. Whether choosing a name for a newborn, graduating from grade school, getting a driver’s license, applying for a job, or seeking approval for a film script, if you live in Iran, you best come fluent in Orwellian discourse.

An Iranian family survives the shah and the ayatollah and moves to France. This story follows the family through it all. Despite the politics, revolution, prison, beatings, assassinations and suicides this is a comedy.

Iranian female judokas Leila and her coach Maryam, travel to the Judo World Championship, intent on bringing home Iran’s first gold medal. Midway through the Judo World Championships, they receive an ultimatum from the Islamic Republic ordering Leila to fake an injury and lose, or she will be branded a traitor of the state. With her own and her family’s freedom at stake, Leila is faced with an impossible choice: comply with the Iranian regime as her coach Maryam implores her to do, or fight on, for the gold.

Dave Skylark and his producer Aaron Rapaport run the celebrity tabloid show "Skylark Tonight". When they land an interview with a surprise fan, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, they are recruited by the CIA to turn their trip to Pyongyang into an assassination mission.

Rahim is in prison because of a debt he was unable to repay. During a two-day leave, he tries to convince his creditor to withdraw his complaint against the payment of part of the sum. But things don't go as planned. Is he truly a hero?

The story of Daniel Jones, lead investigator for the US Senate’s sweeping study into the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program, which was found to be brutal, immoral and ineffective. With the truth at stake, Jones battled tirelessly to make public what many in power sought to keep hidden.

A desk-bound CIA analyst volunteers to go undercover to infiltrate the world of a deadly arms dealer, and prevent diabolical global disaster.

As a renowned producer and close associate of Dan Rather, Mary Mapes believes she’s broken the biggest story of the 2004 election: revelations of a sitting U.S. President’s military service. But when allegations come pouring in, sources change their stories, document authenticity is questioned, and the casualties begin to mount.

When an Egyptian terrorism suspect "disappears" on a flight from Africa to Washington DC, his American wife and a CIA analyst find themselves caught up in a struggle to secure his release from a secret detention facility somewhere outside the US.

A disgruntled Democrat follows through on a drunken campaign promise to move to Canada if George "Dubya" Bush gets re-elected.

A group of journalists covering George Bush's planned invasion of Iraq in 2003 are skeptical of the presidents claim that Saddam Hussein has "weapons of mass destruction."

An American is kidnapped while attending a conference in Cairo and ends up in prison in Iran on spying charges. His wife goes to Iran, determined to get him out.

The lives of three strong-willed women and a young musician cross paths in Tehran’s schizophrenic society where sex, adultery, corruption, prostitution and drugs coexist with strict religious law. In this bustling modern metropolis, avoiding prohibition has become an everyday sport and breaking taboos can be a means of personal emancipation.

Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who has been barred from leaving the country, arrives at a village on the Iran-Turkey border to supervise a film based on a real-life couple seeking passports to Europe being shot in Turkey, but both his stay and the production run into trouble.

A semi-autobiographical account of Makhmalbaf's experience as a teenager when, as a 17-year-old, he stabbed a policeman at a protest rally. Two decades later, he tracks down the policeman he injured in an attempt to make amends.

Occupied France, 1942. Gilles is arrested by SS soldiers alongside other Jews and sent to a camp in Germany. He narrowly avoids sudden execution by swearing to the guards that he is not Jewish, but Persian. This lie temporarily saves him, but Gilles gets assigned a life-or-death mission: to teach Farsi to Head of Camp Koch, who dreams of opening a restaurant in Iran once the war is over. Through an ingenious trick, Gilles manages to survive by inventing words of "Farsi" every day and teaching them to Koch.

Elections are approaching and things don't look too good for the opposition. Their leader can't stand the pressure and disappears. To avoid a scandal, the upper echelons of the party concoct a risky plan: to replace him with his identical twin, a philosopher with BPD, whose eclectic ideas and direct approach unexpectedly make the party surge in the polls.

The heroic story of a dictator who risks his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed.

The story of two men on different sides of a prison riot -- the inmate leading the rebellion and the young guard trapped in the revolt, who poses as a prisoner in a desperate attempt to survive the ordeal.

In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Satrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.

When reporter Rachel Armstrong writes a story that reveals the identity of a covert CIA operative, the government demands that Rachel reveal her source. She defies the special prosecutor and is thrown in jail. Meanwhile, her attorney, Albert Burnside argues her case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Three U.S. journalists get too close to one another and their work in 1979 Nicaragua.

Flamboyantly gay Austrian television reporter Bruno stirs up trouble with unsuspecting guests and large crowds through brutally frank interviews and painfully hilarious public displays of homosexuality.

At the turning point of the Iran-Contra affair, Elena McMahon, a fearless investigative journalist covering the 1984 US presidential campaign, puts herself in danger when she abandons her assigned task in order to fulfill the last wish of her ailing father, a mysterious man whose past activities she barely knows.

The employees of a radio station in Moscow are forced to organize the elections campaign for a future governor in one of Russia districts.

At the age of 40, Leila has spent her entire life caring for her parents and four brothers. A family that is constantly arguing and under pressure from various debts in the face of sanctions against Iran. While her brothers are struggling to make ends meet, Leila makes a plan.

Investigating judge Iman grapples with paranoia amid political unrest in Tehran. When his gun vanishes, he suspects his wife and daughters, imposing draconian measures that strain family ties as societal rules crumble.

When a congressional aide is killed, a Washington, D.C. journalist starts investigating the case involving the Representative, his old college friend.

Salam, an inexperienced young Palestinian man, becomes a writer on a popular soap opera after a chance meeting with an Israeli soldier. His creative career is on the rise - until the soldier and the show's financial backers disagree about how the show should end, and Salam is caught in the middle.

A drama centered on the relationship between journalist Michael Finkel and Christian Longo, an FBI Most Wanted List murderer who for years lived outside the U.S. under Finkel's name.

Inspirational true story of Iranian dancer Afshin Ghaffarian, who risked his life for his dream to become a dancer despite a nationwide dancing ban.

Set against the backdrop of Iran's strict and oppressive legal system, this anthology film tells the stories of four men who each face a moral crisis when having to deal with death penalties.

Pizza man Hussein is a daily witnesses to the unjust distribution of wealth in his native Iran. One day, he finds a purse filled with shockingly expensive receipts from an upscale jewelry store. He attempts to bring the purse back to the store, but because of his working-class attire, he's not allowed inside. Then, during a delivery, a rich man invites Hussein into his extravagant mansion – an event that spurs Hussein to make a desperate bid for wealth.

A soldier recounts his relationship with a famous political prisoner attempting to overthrow their country's authoritarian government.

When the actor in a scene for his film Life And Nothing More… has to quit, a film director casts another man for the part. However, complications arise since the man and the woman who was cast for the scene know each other.

Bill McKay is a candidate for the U.S. Senate from California. He has no hope of winning, so he is willing to tweak the establishment.

One of the most celebrated war correspondents of our time, Marie Colvin is an utterly fearless and rebellious spirit, driven to the frontlines of conflicts across the globe to give voice to the voiceless.

When a bumbling New Yorker is dumped by his activist girlfriend, he travels to a tiny Latin American nation and becomes involved in its latest rebellion.

On the eve of June 28th, 2011 Swedish journalists Martin Schibbye and Johan Persson put everything at stake by illegally crossing the border from Somalia into Ethiopia. After months of research, planning and failed attempts, they were finally on their way to report on how the ruthless hunt for oil effected the population of the isolated and conflict-ridden Ogaden region. Five days later they lay wounded in the desert sand, shot and captured by the Ethiopian army. But when their initial reportage died, another story began. A story about lawlessness, propaganda and global politics. After a Kafkaesque trial they were sentenced to eleven years in prison for terrorism. And they were far from alone. Their cellmates were journalists, writers and politicians persecuted for not bowing down to dictatorship. Their reportage about oil was transformed into a story about ink, and their daily lives turned into a fight for survival inside the notorious Kality prison in Addis Ababa.

Samad is nobody’s fool. The narcotics officer has seen his share of a drug dealer’s lies and games, and his patience has come to run thin. While searching for the infamous drug baron Nasser Khakzad, he and his colleague Hamid scour the streets of Tehran, turning an overcrowded prison on its head. With his rough and dubious approach, Samad finally manages to find the criminal’s whereabouts – but things do not quite go according to plan...

An ex-special forces operative takes a job to provide security for a journalist as she interviews a dictator, but a military coup breaks out in the middle of the interview, they are forced to escape into the jungle where they must survive.

A celebrity journalist, juggling her busy career and personal life, has her life over-turned by a freak car accident.

The U.S. President, low in the opinion polls, gets talked into raising his popularity by trying to start a cold war with Canada.

London, England, April 1980. Six terrorists assault the Embassy of Iran and take hostages. For six days, tense negotiations are held while the authorities decide whether a military squad should intervene.

It's the final weeks of the most consequential presidential election in history. America is poised to elect either its first female president or its first viable independent candidate. Reporting history as it's made, an idealistic young journalist teams up with her idol, legendary journalist Nick Booker, to uncover a conspiracy that places the fate of the election, and the country, in their hands.

Commentator-comic Bill Maher plays devil's advocate with religion as he talks to believers about their faith. Traveling around the world, Maher examines the tenets of Christianity, Judaism and Islam and raises questions about homosexuality, proof of Christ's existence, Jewish Sabbath laws, violent Muslim extremists.

Journalist Fred Flarsky reunites with his childhood crush, Charlotte Field, now one of the most influential women in the world. As she prepares to make a run for the Presidency, Charlotte hires Fred as her speechwriter — much to the dismay of her trusted advisers.

Djalil Boudaoud and Justine Lacroix are a surgeon and a television reporter who enter a romantic relationship despite the objections of their families to the cultural gap.

When investigative reporter Irwin "Fletch" Fletcher goes undercover to write a piece on the drug trade at a local beach, he's approached by wealthy businessman Alan Stanwyk, who offers him $50,000 to murder him. With sarcastic wit and a knack for disguises, Fletch sets out to uncover Stanwyk's story.

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?

A mockumentary following an ambitious TV network executive trying to produce a controversial reality show where contestants play Russian Roulette.

This is the story of the politician named Zübük. He gets expelled from the political party that he is a member of, due to corruption. The journalist Yaşar wants to make a news story about his case and investigates Zübük's doings. Yaşar gets baffled at the sly tricks Zübük played on his village people. In the end, he feels sorry about Zübük's present situation, however, as things happen he becomes aware that Zübük has been tricking him.

The day after his funeral, the corpse of Varlam Aravidze, the mayor of a small Georgian town, turns up in his son's garden. Although it is secretly reburied, the corpse keeps returning until the police capture the local woman who is responsible. This woman says that Varlam should never be laid to rest since his Stalin-like reign of terror led to the disappearance of her family and friends.

The Middle Eastern oil industry is the backdrop of this tense drama, which weaves together numerous story lines. Bennett Holiday is an American lawyer in charge of facilitating a dubious merger of oil companies, while Bryan Woodman, a Switzerland-based energy analyst, experiences both personal tragedy and opportunity during a visit with Arabian royalty. Meanwhile, veteran CIA agent Bob Barnes uncovers an assassination plot with unsettling origins.

Wally Sparks is a tabloid TV show reporter who's trying to boost ratings on his show. He goes to the governor's mansion to uncover a sex scandal.

During the course of an ordinary week in Hollywood, movie producer Ben must navigate his way through shark-infested waters as he struggles to complete his latest projects. A demanding studio boss demands extensive changes to a movie starring Sean Penn, while another chief won't greenlight a project unless star Bruce Willis shaves his beard. Meanwhile, Ben tries to reconcile with his wife and maintain a relationship with his young daughter.

Two Turkish anti-terrorist agents are sent to New York City on a mission to find and bring back the dangerous Islamic leader codenamed "Dajjal", believed to be hiding in there. Working with the FBI and NYPD, the agents orchestrate the arrest of Hadji Gumus, a well-respected Muslim scholar and family man who years before fled to the United States after being released from a Turkish prison, where he served time for murder. This tale love, friendship, peace and prejudices, takes us on a journey seeking to answer the question of whether innocence or guilt even matters to one who lusts for vengeance.

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

A fictional documentary discusses the effects the Iraq war has had on soldiers and local people through interviews with members of an American military unit, the media, and local Iraqis.

Journalist Denis Robert sparked a storm in the world of European finance by denouncing the murky operations of banking firm Clearstream. His quest to reveal the truth behind a secret world of shadowy multinational banking puts him in contact with an ever-expanding anti-corruption investigation carried out by Judge Renaud Van Ruymbeke. Their paths will lead them to the heart of a political/financial intrigue, which will rock the foundations of Europe and the French government itself.

After the earthquake of Guilan, a film director and his son travel to the devastated area to search for the actors from the movie the director made there a few years previously. In their search, they see how people who have lost everything in the earthquake still have hope and try to live life to the fullest.

Sent to prison along with his mother after her drug conviction, a young boy develops a warm, tender relationship with a political prisoner.

An up-and-coming journalist finds his world and faith increasingly challenged when he's granted the interview of a lifetime – with someone who claims to be God.

Augusta, Georgia, United States, June 3, 2017. After running some errands, Reality Winner returns home, where she is approached by two men.

An 8-year-old boy must return his friend's notebook he took by mistake, lest his friend be punished by expulsion from school.

A journalist descends into the dark underbelly of the Iranian holy city of Mashhad as she investigates the serial killings of sex workers by the so called "Spider Killer", who believes he is cleansing the streets of sinners.

In this true story, Veronica Guerin is an investigative reporter for an Irish newspaper. As the drug trade begins to bleed into the mainstream, Guerin decides to take on and expose those responsible. Beginning at the bottom with addicts, Guerin then gets in touch with John Traynor, a paranoid informant. Not without some prodding, Traynor leads her to John Gilligan, the ruthless head of the operation, who does not take kindly to Guerin's nosing.

The film covers through fiction real-life events like the occupation of Iraq, the execution of Daniel Pearl, the Hood event and the Abu Ghraib torture scandal.

A young woman joins the military to be part of something bigger than herself and her small-town roots. Instead, she ends up as a new guard at Guantanamo Bay, where her mission is far from black and white. Surrounded by hostile jihadists and aggressive squadmates, she strikes up an unusual friendship with one of the detainees.

A cover-up that spanned four U.S. Presidents pushed the country's first female newspaper publisher and a hard-driving editor to join an unprecedented battle between journalist and government. Inspired by true events.

Passionate about ocean life, a filmmaker sets out to document the harm that humans do to marine species — and uncovers an alarming global conspiracy.

George is the scapegoat of his classmates. One day he cracks and shoots them. His best and only friend Blaise is accused in his place and sentenced to 7 years in a psychiatric hospital. At the day of his release, Blaise realizes he only has one family: his best friend George. But he does not want to hear about his childhood friend, as he tries to integrate with the “Chivers” a gang whose members wear red jackets and boots, drink milk, drive sport trucks and play an incomprehensible and violent game that mixes cricket and mental arithmetic.

Sidney Young is a down-on-his-luck journalist. Thanks to a stint involving a pig and a glitzy awards ceremony, Sidney turns his fortunes around, attracting the attention of Clayton Harding, editor of New York-based glossy magazine 'Sharps', and landing the holy grail of journalism jobs. The Brit jets off to the Big Apple and moves from one blunder to the next.

Arnaud, a 25-year-old man, enters the campaign team of a candidate for the French presidential election as assistant to the Director of communication. While discovering the techniques, intricacies and rivalries of the electoral campaign, he will feel fascination for this world, as well as for its attractive director, Agnès.

Ayna is an actor and the prison is his stage. He slips into the characters of the powerful convicted in exchange of money and take their place in prison. This strange profession is borne out of a society that doesn't give him a chance to follow his passion of acting, but forces him to act in the real life. Falling in love with the girl next door changes his life equation and he decides to end this career with one last performance. But this one takes him too deep in the rabbit hole. The story unfolds on how an underdog survives in a society that is merciless and struggles his way out from the clutch of crime game which he is a part too.

During the 2006 World Cup qualifying match between Iran and Bahrain, numerous young women are caught and rounded up for dressing as men so they could gain access to the game. Guarded by several soldiers in a holding pen, the women attempt to keep updated on the score.

Somaieh, the youngest daughter of an indigent family, is getting married and fear is overwhelming each and every member of the family regarding how to overcome their difficulties after she's gone.

In 2002, cable news producer Kim Barker decides to shake up her routine by taking a daring new assignment in Kabul, Afghanistan. Dislodged from her comfortable American lifestyle, Barker finds herself in the middle of an out-of-control war zone. Luckily, she meets Tanya Vanderpoel, a fellow journalist who takes the shell-shocked reporter under her wing. Amid the militants, warlords and nighttime partying, Barker discovers the key to becoming a successful correspondent.

A group of idealistic but frustrated liberals succumb to the temptation of murdering right-wing pundits for their political beliefs.

A middle-aged Tehranian man, Mr. Badii is intent on killing himself and seeks someone to bury him after his demise. Driving around the city, the seemingly well-to-do Badii meets with numerous people, including a Muslim student, asking them to take on the job, but initially he has little luck. Eventually, Badii finds a man who is up for the task because he needs the money, but his new associate soon tries to talk him out of committing suicide.

The R of the title stands for the young protagonist, Rune, fearlessly played by Pilou Asbæk. Imprisoned for violent assault, he's a cocky, good-looking young man placed in the hardcore ward, where his survival depends on quickly learning the prison's parallel world of rules, honor, and obligations. R also stands for Rachid, a young Muslim prisoner who becomes Rune's friend and accomplice, defying the rigid racial stratifications among the inmates.

Mika, a little crook, took a quick tour of the prison, where he got to know "Putin", a crazy and unpredictable detainee. As soon as his sentence has been served, he decides to start from scratch and start his life over again. As he prepares to marry the daughter of a wealthy businessman, his past catches up with him: Putin arrives without warning! Mika will quickly realize that we do not easily get rid of such a ball ...

Investigates the corrupt judicial system under which Alain Mar'caux and his wife Edith were arrested on accusations of pedophilia horrific acts they never committed- and the years he spent fighting to get out of prison, clear his name and keep his family.

Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev travels to America to make a documentary. As he zigzags across the nation, Borat meets real people in real situations with hysterical consequences. His backwards behavior generates strong reactions around him exposing prejudices and hypocrisies in American culture.

After an inspiring chance encounter with his idol, rookie journalist Jay Bahadur uproots his life and moves to Somalia looking for the story of a lifetime. Hooking up with a local fixer, he attempts to get embedded with the local Somali pirates, only to quickly find himself in over his head.

In the troubled city of Edison, a young journalist, his jaded editor, and an honest investigator from the district attorney's office join forces to gather evidence against corrupt members of an elite police unit.

A Washington waitress saves the Emir of Ohtar's life, launching her diplomatic career and a scandal.

A reporter in Iraq might just have the story of a lifetime when he meets Lyn Cassady, a guy who claims to be a former member of the U.S. Army's New Earth Army, a unit that employs paranormal powers in their missions.

As the Iranian revolution reaches a boiling point, a CIA 'exfiltration' specialist concocts a risky plan to free six Americans who have found shelter at the home of the Canadian ambassador.

Political double-talk, dirty tricks, hidden microphones, spy satellites, bugging the Oval Office and a nuclear bomb for sale are all ingredients in this swift, funny and frightening look at the possibilities in today's political arenas. Sean Connery stars as TV Newsman Patrick Hale on an international chase to track two suitcase sized nuclear weapons and to uncover the twisting maze of apparent involvement of US Government agencies.

In 1980, an American journalist covering the Salvadoran Civil War becomes entangled with both the leftist guerrilla groups and the right-wing military dictatorship while trying to rescue his girlfriend and her children.

A routine investigation of a shocking murder takes a bizarre twist when the killer contacts the reporter and appoints him his personal spokesman. As the killer's calls and clues increase, the reporter is lured into a deadly trap.

A prominent politician is murdered during a demonstration. The government and army are trying to suppress the truth. But, a tenacious magistrate is determined to not to let them get away with it.

