The 13 RosesMovies like The 13 Roses
- Key Features:
- Historical drama, Political persecution, Injustice, True story, Spanish Civil War, Post-war, Imprisonment, Execution, False accusation, Female ensemble, Historical context, Spain, Political thriller, Human rights
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic, gritty
- Target Audience:
- History buffs, Political drama enthusiasts, International cinema viewers, Social justice advocates
- Emotional Arc:
- Hope → Despair → Resignation
The 13 Roses

True story of thirteen totally normal young women that suffered harsh questioning and were put in prison under made up charges of helping the rebellion against Franco back in the 1940s. Despite of their innocence, the thirteen were soon executed without even a trace of evidence of any wrong doing.
The 13 Roses
Orense, Spain, 1940, just after the end of the Civil War. Every time Elena locks the door of her home, she and her children become the faithful guardians of a sacred secret: Ricardo, her husband, their father, hides in the house, trying to avoid the brutal political persecution of the victors, who hunt, as if they were wild animals, and imprison or execute, those who have lost the bloody and tragic struggle…

The fates of Henry - an American correspondent - and Teresa, one of the Republic's censors during the Spanish Civil War.

At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the nun Maria is forced to flee her convent. She takes refuge in a brothel, until it is liberated by a woman's anarchist group. Maria joins the group and eventually goes to the front. The women's group faces the problems of fighting not only the nationalists, but also factions on the left seeking to impose a more traditional military structure.

The story of Salvador Puig Antich, one of the last political prisoners to be executed under Franco's Fascist State in 1974.

The story of the tortuous struggle against the silence of the victims of the dictatorship imposed by General Franco after the victory of the rebel side in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1975). In a democratic country, but still ideologically divided, the survivors seek justice as they organize the so-called “Argentinian lawsuit” and denounce the legally sanctioned pact of oblivion that intends to hide the crimes they were subjects of.

Spain, 1939. In the last days of the Spanish Civil War, the young Carlos arrives at the Santa Lucía orphanage, where he will make friends and enemies as he follows the quiet footsteps of a mysterious presence eager for revenge.

Salamanca, Spain, 1936. In the early days of the military rebellion that began the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), writer Miguel de Unamuno supports the uprising in the hope that the prevailing political chaos will end. But when the confrontation becomes bloody, Unamuno must question his initial position.

Rouen, Normandy, 1431, during the Hundred Years' War. After being captured by French soldiers from an opposing faction, Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orléans, is unjustly tried by an ecclesiastical court overseen by her English enemies.

French Basque Country, year 1609. The men of a small fishing village have gone to sea. Judge Rostegui, who has been charged by the king with ridding the country of the devil's wiles, arrests Ana and her friends and accuses them of witchcraft.

Based on true events about the foot soldiers of the early feminist movement, women who were forced underground to pursue a dangerous game of cat and mouse with an increasingly brutal State.

Pre-WWII Czech democratic politician Milada Horáková was one of the first victims of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. Opposing the 1948 coup but not leaving the country, she was arrested and tried for treason on fabricated charges in a show trial broadcast on the radio.

Painter Francisco Goya becomes involved with the Spanish Inquisition after his muse, Inés, is arrested by the church for heresy. Her family turns to him, hoping that his connection with fanatical Inquisitor Lorenzo, whom he is painting, can secure her release.

Two unmarried women who have become pregnant by accident and are about to give birth meet in a hospital room: Janis, in her late-thirties, unrepentant and happy; Ana, a teenager, remorseful and frightened.

Hildegart is conceived and educated by her mother Aurora to be the woman of the future, to become one of the most brilliant minds of Spain in the 1930s and one of the European references on female sexuality.

David Carr is a British Communist who is unemployed. In 1936, when the Spanish Civil War begins, he decides to fight for the Republican side, a coalition of liberals, communists and anarchists, so he joins the POUM militia and witnesses firsthand the betrayal of the Spanish revolution by Stalin's followers and Moscow's orders.

Manuel, a Spanish politician whose high-class lifestyle is based on nefarious and illegal business threatens to break his entire party after a newspaper exposes him to the public eye. Rather than admit to any wrongdoing, he decides to sell out his whole party in an effort to avoid jail time. It's a decision that will put many lives at risk.

Based upon the true story of Olga Benário, the German-born wife of Brazilian communist leader Luís Carlos Prestes. During the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas (1930-1945) she was arrested and sent to Nazi Germany, where she was put to death in a concentration camp. After World War II began, Vargas decided to uphold the Allies.

A film set in the Spanish side of the Basque Country, beginning in the Carlist war of 1875 and ending during the Spanish Civil war of 1936. The film portrays how one single act of cowardice shapes the life of the next three generations of two families and fuels the intense rivalry which will span the next sixty-one years.

A group of students arrives in a small town during a hiking expedition. Once there, the local priest accuses them of being communist agitators on the run from an army crack-down against student demonstrations in nearby Mexico City and rallies the townsfolk to lynch them. Based on a true story.

Finished the Spanish Civil War in April 1939, in November 1940, while Spain is being crushed by the ruthless boot of dictator Franco, Pepita travels from rural Córdoba to Madrid to be near her sister Hortensia, who is seven months pregnant and imprisoned, haunted by the shadow of a death sentence.

In the 1980s, a team of lawyers takes on the heads of Argentina's bloody military dictatorship in a battle against odds and a race against time.

February 1939. Overwhelmed by the flood of Republicans fleeing Franco's dictatorship, the French government's solution consists in confining the Spanish refugees in concentration camps where they have no other choice than to build their own shelters, feed off the horses which have carried them out of their country, and die by the hundred for lack of hygiene and water... In one of these camps, two men, separated by barbwire, will become friends. One is a guard the other is Josep Bartoli (Barcelona 1910 - New York 1995), a cartoonist who fights against the Franco regime.

A Westerner finds refuge with a group of women in a church during Japan's rape of Nanking in 1937. Posing as a priest, he attempts to lead the women to safety.

Dolores lived the life of a higher-class student until her best friend was found brutally murdered. Two years later, she’s the only indicted suspect for a crime that attracts a lot of media attention and has placed her in the center of the public eye. Dolores spends her days preparing for the trial, secluded in her house as her parents work as a team ready to do anything to defend their daughter. The best lawyer is not enough, they obsessively control around her: how she looks, what she does, eats and who she sees. But as the trial moves forward and pressure grows, suspicion and secrets emerge within the family. Cornered, increasingly isolated and just when any mistake could prove disastrous, Dolores puts the entire strategy at risk.

Rosario Tijeras has been abused by men all her life, initially by her stepfather. Years later, she works as a paid assassin, seducing men and killing them when they least expect it. She meets Emilio, a wealthy womanizer, and his best friend, Antonio, at a nightclub, and starts an affair with Emilio despite Antonio's growing feelings for her. But circumstances bring her closer to Antonio, until her past catches up with her in a devastating way.

Set in '50s Spain, a young man leaves the army and looks for a job so he and his fiancée can get married. He rents a room from a widow, and shortly begins a torrid affair with her. The fiancée figures it out and decides to win him back by offering herself to him and taking him to meet her family. Ultimately he has to make a decision. Based on a true story.

A young girl recounts her girlhood and eventual marriage to a general of the Mexican revolution. by one of the most outstanding writers of the new feminist Mexican literature, it is at once a haunting novel of one woman's life and a powerful account of post-revolutionary Mexico from a female perspective.

Accused of the genocide of Mayan people, retired general Enrique is trapped in his mansion by massive protests. Abandoned by his staff, the indignant old man and his family must face the devastating truth of his actions and the growing sense that a wrathful supernatural force is targeting them for his crimes.

When a former BlackRose cartel assassin deliberately betrays them by refusing to complete her mission, the cartel orders her execution. Unbeknownst to them, she fakes her own death and is able to create a new life of her own. When the cartel discovers she is alive, the hunter becomes the hunted as she fights to get revenge on those who took her new life away from her.

Lia and Tina are two beautiful girls who meet and realize that they have a lot in common. They are both young, beautiful and pissed off, so they decide to hitchhike their way to Rome to find Nazariota's commune, a place to stay for free and have all the sex they want... or so they think. Things don't go as they have planned though, and soon they become involved in prostitution, the police and an aggressive gang.

During the filming of a movie, actress Sandra Navarro denounces actor Daniel Zavala for sexual abuse on the set during the recording of a scene for the movie. Daniel pleads his innocence and the production tries to prevent the situation from leaking off the set and causing a scandal.

Modelo Prison. Barcelona, 1977. Manuel, a young accountant, imprisoned and awaiting trial for embezzlement, faces a sentence of 6 to 8 years, a disproportionate punishment for the crime committed. Together with his cellmate Pino, he joins forces with COPEL, a collective fighting for the rights of ordinary prisoners and amnesty. A war for freedom breaks out that will bring the Spanish prison system to its knees. If things are changing outside, they’ll have to do the same inside. A tale of friendship, solidarity and freedom, inspired in true events.

In 1943, as Hitler continues to wage war across Europe, a group of college students mount an underground resistance movement in Munich. Dedicated expressly to the downfall of the monolithic Third Reich war machine, they call themselves the White Rose. One of its few female members, Sophie Scholl is captured during a dangerous mission to distribute pamphlets on campus with her brother Hans. Unwavering in her convictions and loyalty to the White Rose, her cross-examination by the Gestapo quickly escalates into a searing test of wills as Scholl delivers a passionate call to freedom and personal responsibility.

Somewhere in the spanish country, in the 60s. Paco and his wife Régula are very poor. They work as tenant farmers for a very wealthy landowner. They have 3 children. One is backward. The others can not got to school because the master "needs" their work. When Regula's brother is fired from where he has worked for 61 years, he settles down at their little place... An attack against the archaism of the spanish country of the 60s.

Four vignettes on the lives of the Cuban people in the pre-revolutionary era. In Havana, Maria is ashamed when a man she loves discovers how she makes a living. Pedro, an old farmer, discovers that the land he cultivates is being sold to an American company. A student sees his friends attacked by the police while they distribute leaflets supporting Fidel Castro. Finally, a peasant family is threatened by Batista's army.

Paulino and Carmela are husband and wife, troubadours touring the countryside during the Spanish Civil War. They are Republicans, and with their mute assistant, Gustavete, they journey into rebel territory by mistake. They are arrested, fear a firing squad, and receive a reprieve from an Italian Fascist commander who loves the theatre. He arranges a performance for his troops, bargaining with Paulino to stage a burlesque of the republic in exchange for the actors' freedom. Will the fiery and patriotic Carmela consent?

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.

A chronicle of the Cristeros War (1926-1929), which was touched off by a rebellion against the Mexican government's attempt to secularize the country.

Spanish photographer Francesc Boix, imprisoned in the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, works in the SS Photographic Service. Between 1943 and 1945, he hides, with the help of other prisoners, thousands of negatives, with the purpose of showing the freed world the atrocities committed by the Nazis, exhaustively documented. He will be a key witness during the Nuremberg Trials.

An embittered law student commits a brutal double murder; a family man takes the fall and is forced into a harsh prison sentence; a mother and her two children wander the countryside looking for some kind of redemption.

Uruguay, 1973. Having been crushed by the military dictatorship, surviving members of the Tupamaro guerillas are imprisoned and tortured. They must find a way to endure the coming 12 years.

During the Spanish Civil War a platoon of mismatched Republican soldiers cross the front-line to steal the bull that the enemy is going to fight on the local holiday of the nearby village. In addition to ruining the Nationalist faction's celebration they want the animal in order to butcher it and feed their famished troops. They get caught in the process and have to go through a series of funny and pathetic incidents before they can get back to their side.

An ambitious young journalist uncovers the horrific slaughter of 22,000 Polish officers during World War II, a secret kept hidden for far too many years.

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

Sofia, 14 years old, is in love with Ulises. Because of him, in spite of him, she is forced into a prostitution network in Mexico. To set her free, Ulises will have to find another girl to replace her. Adapted from Jorge Volpi’s novel, set in the world of juvenile prostitution.

Something terrible is happening in class 3A at Calmecatl Junior High. No one can leave the classroom until the guilty party is found. This is the device that gives us a glimpse of the ethics, games, esthetics and eroticism of these girl-women. It is not easy to say what the subject is, there are so many: the discovery of sexuality, discrimination, chance, drugs, maternity, traditions, betrayals, power, love. A mural of a complex reality from the point of view of twenty-something women in the skin of 14 to 15 year old girls.

Seville, Spain. Juan Santos, a convicted petty criminal, gets out of jail for a day to celebrate with Triana, his wife, the first communion of their daughter Estrella.

Boston, 1920. Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are charged and unfairly tried for murder on the basis of their anarchist political beliefs.

When oil is discovered in 1920s Oklahoma under Osage Nation land, the Osage people are murdered one by one—until the FBI steps in to unravel the mystery.

The true story of four men who narrowly escaped death at the hands of Argentina's military death squads in 1977. Claudio Tamburrini is a goalie for a minor-league football team when he is abducted by members of the Argentine military police and taken to an unofficial detention center on the false suspicion that he is a terrorist. As he is tortured by intelligence agents looking for information he doesn't have, Tamburrini fully expects to be killed. After many sessions of brutal torture, Tamburrini and his fellow captives Guillermo and Tano are being readied for execution when, in a final desperate act, Tamburrini dives out a window during a rainstorm.

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.

A company of Spanish movie makers leaves Franco's Spain and moves to Hitler's Germany to make a film in co-production. Soon some problems start to arise...

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.

In 1931, a young soldier deserts from the army and falls into a country farm, where he is welcomed by the owner due to his political ideas. Manolo has four daughters, Fernando likes all of them and they like him, so he has to decide which one to love.

The film tells the true story of Elisa Sánchez Loriga and Marcela Gracia Ibeas, two women in 1901 Spain who fell deeply in love. To overcome societal and legal barriers to their relationship, Elisa assumes a male identity, enabling the pair to marry in secret. Their daring act makes them the first recorded same-sex couple to marry in Spain, but their love is tested as they face relentless persecution and sacrifice.

One of the most controversial cases in recent years in Argentina, this movie is based on the true story of Nahir Galarza and the murder of her boyfriend that rocked the country. The youngest woman to be convicted and sentenced to life in prison in Argentina, but questions still remain- was this a crime of passion, or is the truth still yet to be fully discovered?

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

The vice-minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia, knowing he's being watched and followed, is one day arrested and put into solitary confinement.

Acclaimed writer and historian Deborah E. Lipstadt must battle for historical truth to prove the Holocaust actually occurred when David Irving, a renowned denier, sues her for libel.

Soviet Georgia, 1983. Preparations for Nika and Ana's wedding are in full swing and it's a big day for both of their elite families. For the newlyweds and their friends, however, the celebrations are in fact part of a cover-up, as they plot an audacious escape from the Soviet Union.

A conflicted youth confesses to crimes he didn't commit while a man and woman aroused by death become obsessed with each other.

In the 1930s, three friends—a doctor, a nurse, and an attorney—witness a murder, become suspects themselves and uncover one of the most outrageous plots in American history.

Northern Spain, October 1944. Several groups of guerrilla fighters, former Republican soldiers exiled in France after the end of the Spanish Civil War, infiltrate the country in order to provoke a popular uprising against General Franco's dictatorship.

Maria, an unfortunate young woman, kills her rapist father in self-defense, and is later tried, sentenced, and shipped off to a woman's penitentiary where she and her fellow inmates are subjected to psychological and sexual abuse at the hands of a psychotic lesbian warden.

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

In the harsh post-war years' Catalan countryside, Andreu, a child that belongs to the losing side, finds the corpses of a man and his son in the forest. The authorities want his father to be made responsible of the deaths, but Andreu tries to help his father by finding out who truly killed them. In this search, Andreu develops a moral consciousness against a world of adults fed by lies. In order to survive, he betrays his own roots and ends up finding out the monster that lives within him.

Year 1998. Isabel, a journalism student, is forced to do her internship in the newspaper of a small Galician coastal town in order to finish her degree. When she arrives, she wants to start investigating as soon as possible, to demonstrate everything she has learned in order to become a real journalist. But the position she is assigned is the last one she expected: the writing and management of the obituaries that reach the newsroom. But this, which might seem boring at first, becomes the door to an investigation that will take her through different parts of the Spanish geography in search of an impossible love story.

A trapeze artist must decide between her lust for Sergio, the Happy Clown, or her affection for Javier, the Sad Clown, both of whom are deeply disturbed.

When a man is found dead, the investigation shatters his widow's perfect facade and exposes a hidden double life in this thriller based on real events.

Maya is a quick-witted young woman who comes over the Mexican border without papers and makes her way to the LA home of her older sister Rosa. Rosa gets Maya a job as a janitor: a non-union janitorial service has the contract, the foul-mouthed supervisor can fire workers on a whim, and the service-workers' union has assigned organizer Sam Shapiro to bring its "justice for janitors" campaign to the building. Sam finds Maya a willing listener, she's also attracted to him. Rosa resists, she has an ailing husband to consider. The workers try for public support; management intimidates workers to divide and conquer. Rosa and Maya as well as workers and management may be set to collide.

Emanuelle is framed by a corrupt D.A. while investigating a drug smuggling operation and has to tough it out under lock and key, dealing with a strict warden and abusive guards.

Based on a true story, in late 1970s Barcelona, Manolo Vital, a bus driver, takes bold action to protest the neglect of Torre Baró, an immigrant neighborhood. His act becomes a symbol of resistance against systemic inequality during a pivotal moment in the city’s modern transformation.

After a young heiress is assaulted by a policeman, she seeks revenge by befriending the policeman’s mousy wife and introducing her to her circle of outrageous punk friends.

The breathtaking story of a man who nearly would have changed the world. In 1939, when Hitler tricked millions of people at the height of his power, radical Georg Elser — disparaged as an assassin — is one of the greatest resistance fighters.

A good-natured man has an unexpected deadly confrontation. Instincts kick in to clean up the mess caused in the name of self-defense but does one really get away free after killing someone?

In the year 2000, Maixabel Lasa’s husband, Juan Maria Jauregi, was killed by ETA. Eleven years later, she receives an incredible request: one of the men who killed Juan wants to meet with her in the Nanclares de la Oca prison in Araba (Spain), where he is serving his sentence after breaking ties with the terrorist group. Despite her reservations and her immense pain, Maixabel Lasa agrees to meet face to face with those who ended the life of the person who had been her companion since she was 16 years old. ‘Everyone deserves a second chance’, she said, when asked why she was willing to confront the man who killed her husband.

Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1983. In the last and turbulent days of the military dictatorship, Alicia, a high school history teacher, begins to ask uncomfortable questions about the dark origins of Gaby, her adopted daughter.

Three veterans of the Spanish Civil War go rabbit hunting. While doing so, old wounds open up.

Santi, a young high-school student with a serious physical reaction to sunlight, is forced by his health to move with his single mother to a shadowy, isolated village in the mountains of Spain where the inhabitants begin to reveal themselves as strangely xenophobic. When terrible, violent events begin to occur, Santi becomes first a pariah at school and then strongly suspected by the police of hideous murders. Santi himself, however, wonders if he is not the next victim.

In the near future, a popular uprising in Mexico City interrupts a wedding held at the home of a wealthy family. After the riots have been quashed, they discover the bride has gone missing and plea with the military to help locate her.

During an eviction procedure in a troubled area of Madrid, police officer Dani makes a shocking discovery.

During the final throes of the last Carlist war, a little girl is rescued from an orphanage by a mysterious woman who lives deep inside the forest.

Owing to his alleged involvement with communist parties, film director David Merrill is forbidden from working in Hollywood. He decides to fight for his rights and faces numerous challenges.

In 1991 Madrid, after holding a séance at school, a teen girl minding her younger siblings at home suspects an evil force has entered their apartment.

A small village in Huelva, Andalusia, Spain, 1936. Higinio and Rosa have been married only for a few months when the Civil War breaks out. Higinio, being afraid of possible reprisals from the rebel faction, decides to use a hole dug in his own house as a temporary hideout.

Spain, 1982. Andrés Expósito, a young police inspector, accepts a posting in Denia, a small town on the Mediterranean coast, in the hope of leading a quieter life and that the natural environment will help improve the fragile health of his daughter; but once in his new post he becomes involved by chance in the investigation of the strange death of the inspector he has come to replace.

London, England, May 2000. The peaceful life of elderly Joan Stanley is suddenly disrupted when she is arrested by the British Intelligence Service and accused of providing information to communist Russia during the forties.

The tragic and controversial story of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in Texas for killing his three children after scientific evidence and expert testimony that bolstered his claims of innocence were suppressed.

After participating in a séance, young Laura begins to behave strangely. Alarmed, her parents ask Father Olmedo, one of the few exorcists authorized by the Vatican to intervene in cases of demonic possession, for help.

10-year-old Pixote endures torture, degradation, and corruption at a local youth detention center where two of its members are murdered by policemen who frame Lilica, a 17-year-old trans hustler. Pixote helps Lilica and three other boys escape and they start to make their living by a life of crime which only escalates to more violence and death.

Don Sallust is the minister of the King of Spain. Being disingenuous, hypocritical, greedy and collecting the taxes for himself, he is hated by the people he oppresses. Accused by The Queen, a beautiful princess Bavarian, of having an illegitimate child to one of her maids of honor, he was stripped of his duties and ordered to retire to a monastery.

A youth group is preparing for what will be the summer of their life, including secrets, lies, sex, confusion, evenings and holidays.

As a 13-year-old, fledgling writer Briony Tallis irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit.

A political activist is convinced that her guest is a man who once tortured her for the government.

Andrea, in search of her biological family, feels stalked by an invisible threat. Other women before them have suffered the same fate. Twenty years earlier, on the other side of the world, Camille, fascinated by Marie, tries to warn her of a threat hanging over her.

Not satisfied with the result of a murder investigation in Warsaw's gay community, an officer in 1980s communist Poland resolves to uncover the truth.

Female prisoners endure the horrors of drug abuse, prostitution and rampant sadism at an island prison. When an escape attempt goes awry, the fugitives discover that escaping can be as dangerous as remaining in the prison.

A catalan manufacturer of intercoms travels to Madrid, accompanied by his mistress, to attend a hunt that he has organized. Its main purpose is to mix with people of high society to improve their business. All seems well until the owner of the farm shows full authority over James, who is the real organizer of the meeting. The celebration is diverse characters who live next to absurd situations.

