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Movies like Stories We Tell

Key Features:
Family secrets, Memory, Subjectivity, Documentary, Filmmaking, Personal history, Identity, Truth, Relationships, Australian cinema, Investigation, Self-discovery
Tone:
serious, restrained, poetic
Target Audience:
Film enthusiasts, Documentary lovers, Introspective viewers, Families
Emotional Arc:
Intrigue → Reflection

Stories We Tell

2012-10-12
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Canadian actress and filmmaker Sarah Polley investigates certain secrets related to her mother, interviewing a group of family members and friends whose reliability varies depending of their implication in the events, which are remembered in different ways; so a trail of questions remains to be answered, because memory is always changing and the discovery of truth often depends on who is telling the tale.

Genres
Documentary
Cast
Michael Polley, Harry Gulkin, Susy Buchan, John Buchan, Mark Polley, Joanna Polley, Cathy Gulkin, Marie Murphy, Robert MacMillan, Anne Tait
Crew
Sarah Polley, Sarah Polley
Rating
7.1(225 votes)
Stories We TellStories We Tell
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The Tale
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An investigation into one woman’s memory as she‘s forced to re-examine her first sexual relationship and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive.



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Fabienne is a star; a star of French cinema. She reigns amongst men who love and admire her. When she publishes her memoirs, her daughter Lumir returns from New York to Paris with her husband and young child. The reunion between mother and daughter will quickly turn to confrontation: truths will be told, accounts settled, loves and resentments confessed.



Tell Me Who I Am
7.358

In this documentary, Alex trusts his twin, Marcus, to tell him about his past after he loses his memory. But Marcus is hiding a dark family secret.



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.



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Elena(2013)
7.279

Petra heads to New York in search of her older sister after a long time of being separated. They are both movie actresses and heirs of the wounds of the Brazilian dictatorship. But Petra has only a few clues: home movies, newspaper clippings, a diary...



After We Fell
7

Just as Tessa's life begins to become unglued, nothing is what she thought it would be. Not her friends nor her family. The only person that she should be able to rely on is Hardin, who is furious when he discovers the massive secret that she's been keeping. Before Tessa makes the biggest decision of her life, everything changes because of revelations about her family.



The Secret Life of Words

A solitary nurse bonds with a badly burned patient who survived an accident on an oil rig.



We Will Go
7.236

An unexpected road trip brings a dysfunctional family together for one last journey with their elder, sparking moments of connection, joy, and reconciliation.



What Jennifer Did
6.255

When Jennifer Pan calls 911 to report that her parents have been shot, she becomes the primary focus of a captivating criminal case.



My Life Without Me
6.069

A fatally ill mother with only two months to live creates a list of things she wants to do before she dies without telling her family of her illness.



A Simple Story
5.9

A middle-aged woman leaves her partner and drifts back to her ex-husband, while the lives of her middle class friends intersect with her own.



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.



Sexual Chronicles of a French Family

Three generations of a French family open up about their sexual experiences and desires after young Romain is caught masturbating in his biology class.



Secrets & Lies
7.6

After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense, a successful black optometrist, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to Cynthia, a working class white woman.



The Story of Us
6.1

After 15 years of marriage, Katie and her husband, Ben, have grown apart. While they keep up the facade of having a contented marriage, mostly to not worry their children, they aren't happy together and argue frequently. While the kids are away at camp, Katie and Ben decide to separate and try to reassess their relationship to see if they should stay together or split up for good. 



What We Did on Our Holiday

Doug and Abi and their three children travel to the Scottish Highlands for Doug's father Gordie's birthday party. It's soon clear that when it comes to keeping a secret under wraps from the rest of the family, their children are their biggest liability...



(Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies

Documentary exploring the human tendency to be dishonest. Inspired by the work of social scientist, Dan Ariely, the film interweaves personal stories, expert opinions, behavioral experiments, and archival footage to reveal how and why people lie.



We
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6.3

Dating within different cultures and being open to all religions, Ethan must deal with constant roadblocks. From First Nations to South American, his journey to find love in Toronto is nothing but complex. He faces discrimination and depression but always remains optimistic.



We Are What We Are
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The Parkers, reclusive people who cling to ancient customs, find their secret lives threatened when a torrential downpour and the death of the family matriarch forces daughters Iris and Rose to assume special responsibilities.



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Sandra(1965)
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Sandra returns to her childhood village to take care of family business, but childhood memories and secrets soon overcome her.



One True Thing
6.5

A career woman reassesses her parents' lives after she is forced to care for her cancer-stricken mother.



We Are What We Are
5.915

After the death of a patriarch, a family must try to continue on with a disturbing, ritualistic tradition.



The Daughter
6.3

In the last days of a dying logging town, Christian returns to his family home for his father Henry’s wedding. While home, Christian reconnects with his childhood friend Oliver, who has stayed in town working at Henry’s timber mill and is now out of a job. As Christian gets to know Oliver’s wife Charlotte, daughter Hedvig, and father Walter, he discovers a secret that could tear Oliver’s family apart.



Hideaways
Hideaways(2011)
6.2

The elder one of each generation in the Furlong family is equipped with an extraordinary capacity. James discovers the nature of his at the time of an accident which causes the death of his father and his grandmother. Haunted by this mysterious evil he hides in a forest not to harm anybody. A few years later, Mae also takes refuge it in the forest and meets James.



Silent House
5.398

Sarah returns with her father and uncle to fix up the family's longtime summerhouse after it was violated by squatters in the off-season. As they work in the dark, Sarah begins to hear sounds from within the walls of the boarded-up building. Although she barely remembers the place, Sarah senses the past may still haunt the home.



Back Roads
5.804

A young man cares for his younger sisters after their mother is imprisoned for murdering their abusive father. When he strikes up an affair with a married woman, long-dormant family secrets bubble to the surface.



Two of Us
Two of Us(2020)
7

Nina and Madeleine have been sharing their lives and the landing between their two apartments for decades. After more than 20 years of loving in the shadows, Madeleine promises Nina she will tell her family the truth. It takes an unexpected event to show her the importance of living your truth.



Juliette in Spring
6.673

Juliette goes back in her hometown to spend some time with her family. She finds herself between a loving but moody father, a New Age mother, a sister in the midst of an existential crisis, and a grandmother slowly losing her mind. Buried memories and family secrets rise to the surface in this sweet, tender and sometimes extravagant family portrait.



Syndromes and a Century

A story about director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s parents who were both doctors, and his memories of growing up in a hospital environment.



Demonic
Demonic(2021)
4.8

A young woman unleashes terrifying demons when supernatural forces at the root of a decades-old rift between mother and daughter are ruthlessly revealed.



Don't Tell
6.1

Sabina has a regular life. She is satisfied with her job and her love for Franco. Lately nightmares start disturbing her, and almost in the same time she discovers to be pregnant. Step by step she remembers her childhood spent within a severe middle-class family. But a big secret is hidden within her heart. Sabina wants to contact again her brother, a University teacher in the US, to try to understand what is happened in their past. What is the secret? She is determined to bring clarity and serenity in her life. She finally manages to free herself from her "beast in the heart".



El Sur
El Sur(1983)
7.7

A woman recalls her childhood growing up in the North of Spain, focusing on her relationship with her father.



Aurore
Aurore(2005)
7.5

After the sudden death of her mother, Aurore Gagnon is abused by her disturbed step-mother as her town remains in the silence followed by her death. Based on a true story.



The Whole Truth
6.5

When two siblings stumble on a strange hole in the wall of their grandparents' house, horrifying incidents reveal sinister secrets about their family.



The Truth
The Truth(1960)
7.615

As Dominique Marceau is being tried for the murder of Gilbert Tellier, accounts by different witnesses paint a picture of the kind of relationship the two used to share.



Our Ties
Our Ties(2022)
6.4

Moussa has always been gentle, altruistic and present for his family. This is the opposite of his brother Ryad, a TV presenter of great notoriety who is reproached for his selfishness by his entourage. Only Moussa defends him, who has great admiration for his brother. One day Moussa falls and hits his head violently. He suffers a head injury. Unrecognizable, he now speaks without a filter and tells his relatives the truth. He ends up falling out with everyone except Ryad.



Stories Not to be Told

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Inheritance
6.34

The patriarch of a wealthy and powerful family suddenly passes away, leaving his wife and daughter with a shocking secret inheritance that threatens to unravel and destroy their lives.



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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.



Tru Confessions
6.8

Trudy Walker hated her life. She thought it was totally messed up until she found out about a contest that could change everything...



Farewell to the Night
6.159

Muriel is overjoyed, as her beloved grandson Alex is staying at her place for a few days before moving to Canada to work. But when the changes in his behavior arouse her curiosity, she is led to the discovery of a dark secret.



Estranged
Estranged(2015)
5.3

Due to a near-fatal accident that has left her incapacitated and depleted of her long-term memory, a temporarily wheelchair-bound woman returns home after being abroad for six years accompanied by her bohemian boyfriend, the apparent cause of the accident. Unable to remember her family or her own childhood, she sets out, with the help of her boyfriend, to find the reason for her leaving all those years ago and quickly discovers her relatives may not be as loving as she’d thought



Madeleine Collins

Judith leads a double life between Switzerland and France. On the one hand Abdel, with whom she is raising a little girl, on the other Melvil with whom she has two older boys. Little by little, this fragile balance, made up of lies, secrets and back and forth, cracks dangerously. Trapped, Judith chooses to head forward, at the risk of losing everything.



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.



The I Inside
5.9

When Simon awakens in the hospital after surviving a near-fatal accident, amnesia has erased the last two years from his memory. He learns that his brother was killed, he has married a woman he doesn't remember and he's haunted by strange visions of the woman he loved.



The Secrets We Keep

In post-World War II America, a woman, rebuilding her life in the suburbs with her husband, kidnaps her neighbor and seeks vengeance for the heinous war crimes she believes he committed against her.



The War Zone
6.8

An alienated teenager, saddened that he has moved away from London, must find a way to deal with a dark family secret.



The Return
6.8

A former alcoholic returns home after ten years in prison for the murder of her husband. As her recollection of the murder returns, things take a different turn.



The Lie
The Lie(2018)
6.36

A father and daughter are on their way to dance camp when they spot the girl's best friend on the side of the road. When they stop to offer the friend a ride, their good intentions soon result in terrible consequences.



Matriarch
Matriarch(2022)
4.898

Afflicted with a mysterious disease after surviving an overdose, a woman returns to her childhood home to confront her personal demons but instead discovers a real one.



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.



Before I Go to Sleep

A woman wakes up every day, remembering nothing as a result of a traumatic accident in her past. One day, new terrifying truths emerge that force her to question everyone around her.



Mommy
Mommy(2014)
8.2

A peculiar neighbor offers hope to a recent widow who is struggling to raise a teenager who is unpredictable and, sometimes, violent.



Dark Places
5.929

A woman who survived the brutal killing of her family as a child is forced to confront the events of that day.



Motherly
Motherly(2022)
6.132

Kate and her daughter Beth live alone in an isolated farmhouse in the woods, but when Kate slowly begins to suspect that something sinister is happening, her motherly instincts are put to the test.



Boomerang
Boomerang(2015)
6.212

When Antoine returns to the island of Noirmoutier, secrets kept in the past resurfaces and threatens to change his family’s present.



We Need to Talk
5.5

Nuria is a young girl with a good life, a boyfriend to marry him and a parents who love her, but a problem: she still is married with Jorge. Former CEO, Jorge lives almost in the ruin together his ex boss and friend Lucas. After two years separated, Jorge doesn't forget her, but Nuria tries to ask him files for divorce when she wrongly discovers that Jorge has tried to commit suicide jumping by a window. Feeling responsible by it, Nuria talks with her parents Miguel and Patricia, according cheat Jorge for that he beliefs that they aren't divorced and Miguel didn't lose his company due to the Jorge's bad business inversions that ruined his parents-in-law, in order to get the divorce without pain for anybody. The real problem is what when the lies accumulate, the situation is each time more dangerously out of control.



Echo Valley
6.4

Kate lives a secluded life—until her troubled daughter shows up, frightened and covered in someone else's blood. As Kate unravels the shocking truth, she learns just how far a mother will go to try to save her child.



3 Generations
6.362

A teenager transitions from female to male, and his family must come to terms with that fact.



Secrets of Women
6.4

The four wives of four brothers share stories of their marriages as they wait for their husbands in a small, secluded cottage.



Our Little Secret
6.274

After discovering their significant others are siblings, two resentful exes must spend Christmas under one roof — while hiding their romantic history.



Just Like Our Parents
7.143

Rosa is in her late 30s, a child of the 1970s with divorced parents. She lives with her own family in São Paulo. Overwhelmed by an eruption of individual passions, lies and the expectations of three generations, she tries to discover who she really is.



What They Had
6.479

A woman must fly back to her hometown when her Alzheimer's-stricken mother wanders into a blizzard. The return home forces her to confront her past.



Two Lives
Two Lives(2012)
6.6

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?



Family Life
7.2

A young woman, Janice, is living with her restrictive and conservative parents, who lead a dull working-class life and consider their daughter to be “misbehaving” whenever she’s trying to find her own way in life.



Memory
Memory(2023)
7.068

Sylvia is a social worker who leads a simple and structured life: her daughter, her job, her AA meetings. This is blown open when Saul follows her home from their high school reunion. Their surprise encounter will profoundly impact both of them as they open the door to the past.



Away from Her
7.004

Fiona and Grant have been married for nearly 50 years. They have to face the fact that Fiona’s absent-mindedness is a symptom of Alzheimer’s disease. She must go to a specialized nursing home, where she slowly forgets Grant and turns her affection to Aubrey, another patient in the home.



Love You to Death
7.6

Inspired by a true story, this film tells the shocking tale of a mother and daughter who are nothing like they seem, their tumultuous relationship ending in a brutal murder.



The Anniversary Party
5.683

While celebrating their reconciliation and six years of marriage, American actress Sally Nash and British novelist Joe Therrian receive their close friends, some colleagues and their next door neighbors in a party. Under the effect of Ecstasy, revelations are disclosed and relationships deteriorate among the group.



The Ties That Bind Us

A young single father trying to find the strength to love. A feminist librarian, single by conviction, who’s decided that she won’t be a mother. A six-year-old child trying to find a place in a new family structure. By revealing their aspirations, their fears, their choices, Carine Tardieu depicts different ways in which humans create families.



C.R.A.Z.Y.
7.465

A young French Canadian, one of five boys in a conservative family in the 1960s and 1970s, struggles to reconcile his emerging identity with his father's values.



Things We Lost in the Fire

A recent widow invites her husband's troubled best friend to live with her and her two children. As he gradually turns his life around, he helps the family cope and confront their loss.



Oh, Canada
5.758

Famed Canadian-American leftist documentary filmmaker Leonard Fife was one of sixty thousand draft evaders and deserters who fled to Canada to avoid serving in Vietnam. Now in his late seventies, Fife is dying of cancer in Montreal and has agreed to a final interview in which he is determined to bare all his secrets at last, to demythologize his mythologized life.



A Tale of Two Sisters

Two sisters return home after a stay in a mental institution, only to face disturbing events and a strained relationship with their stepmother. As eerie occurrences unfold, dark family secrets begin to surface, blurring the line between reality and nightmare.



Relic
Relic(2020)
6.092

When elderly mother Edna inexplicably vanishes, her daughter rushes to the family's decaying home, finding clues of her increasing dementia scattered around the house in her absence.



Snapshots
Snapshots(2018)
7.083

Rose spends her days fishing near the beautiful lake house she’s called home for 50 years. She’s not getting any younger and her daughter Patti worries about Rose being all alone, but the stubborn matriarch will not sell. There are memories here that she doesn’t want to leave. These come flooding back one weekend during a visit from Patti and granddaughter Allison, when a long-forgotten roll of film reminds Rose of the summer she met and fell in love with the bold and beautiful Louise.



People Like Us
6.776

After flying home to L.A. for the funeral of his estranged record-producer father, a struggling man discovers that the will stipulates that he must deliver $150,000 in cash to a 30-year-old alcoholic sister he never knew existed, and her troubled 12-year-old son.



Nancy
Nancy(2018)
5.845

Nancy becomes increasingly convinced she was kidnapped as a child. When she meets a couple whose daughter went missing thirty years ago, reasonable doubts give way to willful belief.



Ghostland
Ghostland(2018)
7.387

A mother of two inherits a home from her aunt. On the first night in the new home she is confronted with murderous intruders and fights for her daughters’ lives. Sixteen years later the daughters reunite at the house, and that is when things get strange...



Secrets of My Stepdaughter

A mother protects her stepdaughter after the teenager witnesses the murder of her best friend, but is soon forced to come to grips with the terrifying possibility that her stepdaughter may be the real killer.



Evening
Evening(2007)
5.804

As Constance (Natasha Richardson) and Nina (Toni Collette) gather at the deathbed of their mother, Ann (Vanessa Redgrave), they learn for the first time that their mother lived an entire other lifetime during one evening 50 years ago. In vivid flashbacks, the young Ann (Claire Daines) spends one night with a man named Harris (Patrick Wilson), who was the love of her life.



Colours of Time
7.5

United by the unexpected inheritance of a house in Normandy, four estranged cousins discover their family history by retracing their ancestor's steps.



Legacy of Lies
5.5

An ex-MI6 agent is thrown back into the world of espionage and high stakes to uncover the shocking truth about operations conducted by unknown secret services.



Suzanne
Suzanne(2013)
6.874

The story of a family and a love affair told through the journey of a young woman called Suzanne.



Fair Game
Fair Game(2010)
6.46

A devoted wife and mother leads a secret life as a CIA agent until her husband’s article exposes a scandal, putting her identity and loved ones at risk. As her world crumbles, she must navigate the fallout of her double life.



Secret Ceremony
6

A penniless woman meets a strange girl who insists she is her long-lost mother and becomes enmeshed in a web of deception, and perhaps madness.



A Christmas Tale
6.8

When their regal matriarch falls ill, the troubled Vuillard family come together for a hesitant Christmastime reunion. Among them is rebellious ne'er-do-well Henri and the uptight Elizabeth. Together under the same roof for the first time in many years, their intricate, long denied resentments and yearnings emerge again.



The Secret
6

Husband, wife, and daughter have moved from Boston to Williamstown. At 16, Samantha treats her mother shabbily, but when the two of them are in a horrific car crash, the mother wills Sam to live, somehow losing her own life while her spirit enters Sam.



Naked as We Came
5.8

Love, loss and hope are tumultuously explored amidst a tranquil backdrop and asks us all the question: What is your dream? After an unexpected phone call, Laura and her brother Elliot rush to their family’s country estate to find Lilly their mother gravely ill and living with a handsome young stranger named Ted. Estranged for some time, their mother’s condition sets Laura and Elliot on a path to realizing where their own lives have gone wrong. Lilly, on the other hand, has mellowed from the controlling woman she was and is hoping to pass on some wisdom to her children. Now her kids find themselves dealing with their own feelings of resentment and broken dreams while trying to figure out how Ted fits into their mother’s life. Elliot even sleeps with Ted to break some barriers. But Ted has a secret of his own.



Secrets of War
6.628

Tuur and Lambert are best friends. But the war is closing in and is about to change their lives forever. Tuurs dad joined the resistance and even his big brother seems so be part of it. Lamberts family on the other hand choose to obey the Germans. Then a new girls from the city shows up, befriending the boys but telling her secret to only one of them. A choice that separates the boys and ultimately gets her in trouble.



The People We Hate at the Wedding

A dysfunctional family that can't seem to get along and get it together reluctantly reunites for a family wedding. As their many skeletons are wrenched from the closet, it turns out to be just what this singular family needs to reconnect.



Lore
Lore(2012)
6.8

After being abandoned by their Nazi parents at the end of World War II, five German siblings embark on a harrowing journey across their war-torn country. Led by the eldest, 14 year-old Lore, the children are forced to confront their parents’ actions and the reality of a new world.



The Tree of Blood
6.4

Marc and Rebeca, a young couple, travel to an old country house that used to belong to their family. Once there, they write the shared history of their roots, creating a huge family tree that harbours relationships of love, heartbreak, sex, madness, jealousy and infidelity, and under which also lies a history laden with secrets.



My Winnipeg
6.832

The geographical dead center of North America and the beloved birthplace of Guy Maddin, Winnipeg, is the frosty and mysterious star of Maddin’s film. Fact, fantasy and memory are woven seamlessly together in this work, conjuring a city as delightful as it is fearsome.



Secrets in the Walls
5.632

A single mom and her two daughters move from their cramped Detroit apartment to a large house in the suburbs, but scratching, cries and shadows haunt their new home.



Separate Lies
5.76

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



Songs My Brothers Taught Me

This complex portrait of modern-day life on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation explores the bond between a brother and his younger sister, who find themselves on separate paths to rediscovering the meaning of home.



The Strange Ones
5.216

Mysterious events surround the travels of two brothers as they make their way across a remote American landscape. On the surface all seems normal, but what appears to be a simple vacation soon gives way to a dark and complex web of secrets. This is the feature film version of the 2011 short film going by the same name.



Family Resemblances
7.278

An upper middle-class French family celebrates a birthday in a restaurant. In one evening and during one meal, family history, tensions, collective and separate grudges, delights, and memories both clash and coalesce.

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