The IllusionistMovies like The Illusionist
- Key Features:
- Aging, End of an era, Mentor-mentee relationship, Changing times, Scotland, Animation, Loss, Kindness, Poverty, Sacrifice, Musical performance, Father-daughter relationship
- Tone:
- restrained, poetic, serious
- Target Audience:
- Animation enthusiasts, Fans of Studio Ghibli, Viewers who appreciate character-driven stories, Those interested in European cinema
- Emotional Arc:
- Hope → Disillusionment → Acceptance
The Illusionist

A French illusionist travels to Scotland to work. He meets a young woman in a small village. Their ensuing adventure in Edinburgh changes both their lives forever.
The Illusionist
With his eye on a lovely aristocrat, a gifted illusionist named Eisenheim uses his powers to win her away from her betrothed, a crown prince. But Eisenheim's scheme creates tumult within the monarchy and ignites the suspicion of a dogged inspector.

Sophie, a young milliner, is turned into an elderly woman by a witch who enters her shop and curses her. She encounters a wizard named Howl and gets caught up in his resistance to fighting for the king.

Failed magician Iskender decides to do a tour to save his career, but has to bring his grumpy and senile father along. The tour is quite unexpectedly interrupted when a bride actually disappears from the stage.

After losing her parents, young flower selling Midori is put up by a fairground group. She is abused and forced to slavery, until the arrival of an enigmatic magician of short stature, who gives her hope for a better future.

Djibi lives alone with Sofia, his 8-year-old daughter. Every night, he invents a story to put him to sleep. When Sofia falls asleep, these extraordinary stories come to life somewhere in an imaginary world inhabited by knights, pirates and other dragons. In this world that belongs only to them, Sofia is always the princess to save, and the brave Prince is none other than Djibi himself. But 3 years later, the entry of Sofia to the college will mark the end of her childhood. To the despair of her father, she no longer needs her stories at night. On the one hand, Djibi will have to accept that his daughter will grow up and move away from him. On the other hand, in the World of Stories, the Prince will have to face the most epic of all his adventures. Find your destiny in a world where it no longer has a place.

Lis is a teenager whose dream is to become a circus artist and leave her hometown, even if she knows that to do it she’ll have to fight her side against her parents. It’s summer and she spends her days playing with her friends and flirting with her boyfriend, a few years older than herself. The lack of privacy and the neighbours’ gossip force Lis to keep their relationship secret so that her parents won’t find out. A relationship which change her live forever.

Lucien de Rubempré, a young, lower-class poet, leaves his family's printing house for Paris. Soon, he learns the dark side of the arts business as he tries to stay true to his dreams.

Once upon a time there was Louise and her friend, the magician. But his last trick left a bitter taste in her mouth. He disappeared in a curtain of smoke… never to appear again. This is too much for the young woman. Devastated by endless grief, Louise is sent to a psychiatric asylum, resigned to the idea that she will swallow pills till the end of her days. Yet nine months later she gives birth to a child who is likely to have a big problem for his future class pictures, since he’s invisible. But Louise doesn’t care. He’s her angel and, wanting to protect him from this cruel world, she decides to keep his existence a secret. Years later, Louise’s angel has grown up. He even managed to find a girlfriend; Madeleine. The two become inseparable, for Madeleine never judges him. And for good reason: she’s blind.

Illusionist Derren Brown concocts a psychological experiment in which he tries to manipulate an ordinary person into taking a bullet for a stranger.

A story of Naoufel, a young man who is in love with Gabrielle. In another part of town, a severed hand escapes from a dissection lab, determined to find its body again.

Americans Jeff and Tommy, hunting in Scotland, stumble upon a village - Brigadoon. They soon learn that the town appears once every 100 years in order to preserve its peace and special beauty. The citizens go to bed at night and when they wake up, it's 100 years later. Tommy falls in love with a beautiful young woman, Fiona, and is torn between staying or going back to his hectic life in New York.

Natanaël, seven, still doesn't know how to read. His eccentric old aunt bequeaths her house to his parents and her book collection to the young boy. Nat discovers that the books serve as a shelter for all the heroes found in children's literature. They are the original characters and are counting on him for protection. For if they leave the library, they will disappear along with their stories forever! When his parents start selling off the books, Nathanaël, who is shrunk by the evil witch Carabosse, braves everything to save his tiny friends

A young girl, Chihiro, becomes trapped in a strange new world of spirits. When her parents undergo a mysterious transformation, she must call upon the courage she never knew she had to free her family.

An old man who has one interest in life, collecting butterflies, has his life changed by an eight year old girl.

A traveling magician and his assistants are persecuted by authorities in 19th century Sweden. Their capture, however, didn't bring victory to those in power.

A man tries to make his wife fall in love with him again, after waking up in an alternate reality where she never knew him.

When Gelsomina, a naïve young woman, is purchased from her impoverished mother by brutish circus strongman Zampanò to be his wife and partner, she loyally endures her husband's coldness and abuse as they travel the Italian countryside performing together. Soon Zampanò must deal with his jealousy and conflicted feelings about Gelsomina when she finds a kindred spirit in Il Matto, the carefree circus fool, and contemplates leaving Zampanò.

Margot and Marguerite are 12-year-old girls who seem no different from any other youngsters with the usual family and peer problems. While they appear to have similar faces and body shapes, they wear different clothes and hairstyles, but the biggest difference between them is that one lives in 1942 and the other in 2020. When the girls crawled into a wooden chest they were magically sent into each other’s timeline, and because the girls look so similar their family and friends do not notice the swap.

Mastro Geppetto is a poor carpenter with no wife and no children. The man is very lonely, and after trading a piece of wood with his colleague Mastro Ciliegia, decides to build himself a puppet to keep him company.

Aging small-time conman Augusto works with two younger men: Roberto, who desires to become the Italian Johnny Ray, and Carlo, nicknamed Picasso. Through a series of mishaps and personal entanglements, things go badly for Augusto.

Inspired by her grandfather's stories, young Shinko embarks on wild flights of fancy about the history of the little town she lives in. But dreams can't fend off the realities of growing up.

20-year-old Margaux makes the acquaintance of 45-year-old Margaux: they have a lot in common – so much so that it turns out they are one and the same person, at two different ages and stages of their life…

Since her parents passed away, Princess Mona lives by herself in a castle with two hideous, ghastly characters, Goomi and His Lordship. One day her sobs draw the attention of a unicorn, called U, who wants to comfort and protect Mona for as long as she needs. U becomes Mona's companion, her confidant and her inseparable friend. While Mona grows into a beautiful princess, a group of charming, peaceful and fanciful Yeah-Yeah’s settles in the neighboring forest. They have no particular special powers, yet they soon bring about major changes in everyone's lives, especially in Kulka, the dreamy musician.

A pair of rivaling stage magicians are forced to confront their falling out over a guillotine mishap when they compete in a magic competition.

A father says goodbye to his young daughter. In time the daughter grows old, but within her there is always a deep longing for her father.

A peculiar girl transforms into a cat to catch her crush's attention. But before she realizes it, the line between human and animal starts to blur.

Monsieur Bosquier, the owner of a private school, is far from pleased when his eldest son, Philippe, fails his end of year exams. He decides to send his wayward offspring to England to improve his English. In exchange, Philippe’s host, a wealthy whisky distiller, Mac Farrel, will send his daughter, Shirley, to live with the Bosquiers in France. However, Philippe has already decided to spend the summer holidays on a yacht with his friends, so he sends a fellow student, Michonnet, to England in his place. The deception is soon discovered but things go from bad to worse when Philippe and Shirley fall in love and fly to Scotland to get married...

While old Oliva tells a group of children about his life as a sailor and how he met Diana and her cat with sunglasses, a strange circus arrives in town.

During the rise of fascism in Mussolini's Italy, a wooden boy brought magically to life struggles to live up to his father's expectations.

A widower and his daughter witness the retirement of a colleague of his and the closing of her department at her university.

Julien Bouin, a former typographist, and his wife Clemence, who used to perform in a circus, hardly talk to each other in their small house, soon to be demolished. His cat Greffier being the only one he still gives affection to, he becomes the object of Clemence's anger.

A scientist in a surrealist society kidnaps children to steal their dreams, hoping that they slow his aging process.

After 20 years of marriage, Maria decides to leave her husband. She moves into room 212 at the hotel across the street, with a bird’s-eye view of her apartment, her husband and the life she shared with him. While she wonders if she made the right decision, many of the people in her life offer their opinions on the matter. They intend to let her know, whether she likes it or not, on what proves to be a life-changing evening.

An inspirational speaker becomes reinvigorated after meeting a lively woman who shakes up his mundane existence.

The grandfather welcomes us into his blue grotto, there was still beautiful memories of childhood to tell Kirikou: the times when he helped the men and women of his village and elsewhere ... He tells us how Kirikou, thanks to his bravery and intelligence, came to the aid of the strong woman. He tells us by what trick the little hero found the grumpy old man, who had been lost in the bush, and how a cherry threatened by the witch was finally able to pass on his knowledge to the villagers. We also discover the secret of a mysterious blue monster, and finally through a flute linked to the family of our small and valiant heroes, the magical power of music.

From a riddle-speaking butterfly, a unicorn learns that she is supposedly the last of her kind, all the others having been herded away by the Red Bull. The unicorn sets out to discover the truth behind the butterfly's words. She is eventually joined on her quest by Schmendrick, a second-rate magician, and Molly Grue, a now middle-aged woman who dreamed all her life of seeing a unicorn. Their journey leads them far from home, all the way to the castle of King Haggard.

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.

A therapist loses her grip on reality when a ten-year-old boy claims he can control her future.

14-year-old Arrietty and the rest of the Clock family live in peaceful anonymity as they make their own home from items "borrowed" from the house's human inhabitants. However, life changes for the Clocks when a human boy discovers Arrietty.

The life of two men changed unexpectedly when Ajith, an Indian sailor who was robbed and lost everything, appears out of nowhere in front of Pierre, a single and grumpy Frenchman.

Alain Moreau sings for one of the few remaining dance-bands in Clermont-Ferrand. Though something of an idol amongst his female audience he has a melancholic awareness of the slow disappearance of that audience and of his advancing years. He is completely knocked off balance when he meets strikingly attractive and much younger businesswoman Marion. She seems distant and apparently otherwise involved but soon shows quiet signs of reciprocating his interest.

Dr. Dempsey, an American scientist, is sent to Scotland to disprove the existence of the Loch Ness Monster. He is shocked when Laura, an inn-keeper, introduces him to a small family of Nessie-dinosaurs.

To try and overcome a lifetime of bitterness and resentment, 83-year-old Edie decides that it is never too late. After packing an old camping bag, she leaves her life behind and embarks on an adventure she never got to have... climbing the imposing Mount Suilven in Scotland.

Following a fall during mistletoe picking, Druid Getafix decides that it is time to secure the future of the village. Accompanied by Asterix and Obelix, he undertakes to travel the Gallic world in search of a talented young druid to transmit the Secret of the Magic Potion.

Two couples, Pierre and Aimée, Éric and Pénélope, all share four years of friendship without cloud. Only concern, Penelope and Pierre have become lovers ... The situation becoming untenable, they decide to break. But after a final night of passionate love, fate plays a trick on them: Peter and Penelope each wake up in the body of the other! To protect their secrecy, they each find themselves having to live the life of the other. This is the beginning of the complications ...

After a young woman and her parents are murdered by a killer determined to wipe out the entire family, Detective Inspector Joona Linna works with a psychiatrist to hypnotize the son who narrowly escaped death in order to find the one surviving daughter before the murderer does.

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

After 29-year-old Adaline recovers from a nearly lethal accident, she inexplicably stops growing older. As the years stretch on and on, Adaline keeps her secret to herself until she meets a man who changes her life.

A filmmaker recalls his childhood, when he fell in love with the movies at his village's theater and formed a deep friendship with the theater's projectionist.

An aging, out-of-work actress accepts one last job, though the consequences of her decision affect her in ways she didn't consider.

A spell of time in the life of a family in rural Tochigi prefecture. Yoshiko is not an ordinary housewife, instead working on an animated film project. Uncle Ayano, a successful music producer, is looking to get his head together after living in Tokyo. Meanwhile, Sachiko is concerned with why she seems to be followed by a giant version of herself. As the lazy days pass by, each member of the family is followed in a series of episodic vignettes.

A maths teacher acquires the power to travel into movies to save the woman of his dreams and bring her back to her correct film.

Nicky, an accomplished con artist, gets romantically involved with his disciple Jess but later ends their relationship. Years later, she returns as a femme fatale to spoil his plans.

Peter is searching for his long-lost sister when he crosses paths with a fortune teller in the market square. His only question is: is his sister still alive? The answer, that he must find a mysterious elephant and the magician who will conjure it, sets Peter off on a journey to complete three seemingly impossible tasks that will change the face of his town forever.

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

Recently orphaned, a young boy is taken in by his godmother who is shocked to realize that she can see the boy's imaginary friend: a flamboyant, French magician named Bogus.

Aymeric runs into Florence, a former coworker, one evening in Saint-Claude in the Haut-Jura. She is six months pregnant and single. When she gives birth to Jim, Aymeric is there. They spend happy years together until Christophe, Jim's biological father, shows up... It could be the start of a melodrama, it's also the start of an odyssey into fatherhood.

A poor miller gets tricked by the Devil and accidentally sells his daughter for a bit of gold. But Satan can't take her because she's too pure and has wept on her hands. So Satan orders the miller to cut her hands off. It's the beginning of the young girl's journey towards freedom.

Georges and Anne are in their eighties. They are cultivated, retired music teachers. Their daughter, who is also a musician, lives abroad with her family. One day, Anne has a stroke, and the couple's bond of love is severely tested.

At an elder-care facility, a geriatric con artist tries to prevent his new friend with early Alzheimer's symptoms from being transferred to the 'lost causes' floor.

Bloch, an Israeli secret agent, seeks refuge in the French embassy in Libya to escape being killed. Augier, his French opposite number, has to get him to safety in a diplomatic suitcase.

One morning, Lily and Ben wake up side by side in bodies that are not theirs. And Magalie, a little girl in the body of a tall, bearded, awaits them in the guest room. This is the beginning of an incredible adventure, sometimes initiatory, where the bodies and identities will be reversed at the option of a simple hug.

Throughout his life Edward Bloom has always been a man of big appetites, enormous passions and tall tales. In his later years, he remains a huge mystery to his son, William. Now, to get to know the real man, Will begins piecing together a true picture of his father from flashbacks of his amazing adventures.

In the mystical Scottish Highlands, Merida is the princess of a kingdom ruled by King Fergus and Queen Elinor. An unruly daughter and an accomplished archer, Merida one day defies a sacred custom of the land and inadvertently brings turmoil to the kingdom. In an attempt to set things right, Merida seeks out an eccentric old Wise Woman and is granted an ill-fated wish. Also figuring into Merida's quest — and serving as comic relief — are the kingdom's three lords: the enormous Lord MacGuffin, the surly Lord Macintosh, and the disagreeable Lord Dingwall.

An American writer living in exile in London, Philip listens to women. His English mistress, who visits him regularly in the studio that serves as their refuge. A student he loved in another life. A former lover confined to a hospital in New York.

An offbeat observation of refugees waiting to be granted asylum on a fictional remote Scottish island. It focuses on Omar, a young Syrian musician who is burdened by the weight of his grandfather’s oud, which he has carried all the way from his homeland.

A devoted father working in film shares a magical bond with his daughter, but as she enters adolescence and falls into addiction, he takes her to Paris in a final effort to save her and their fading connection.

A monumental windstorm and an abused horse's refusal to work or eat signal the beginning of the end for a poor farmer and his daughter.

Maria, who's not as young as she used to be and who helps people older than her, is living from hand to mouth. She can't quite accept her precarious situation and steals a few euros here and there from all those lovely people she looks after with such devotion, and who adore her for it… But after an accusation of abuse of a vulnerable person, Maria winds up in police custody.

A brilliant young fund manager leaves her unfulfilling job and long-term boyfriend to chase her lifelong dream of becoming an opera singer in the Scottish Highlands.

16 years later, Tanguy, now 44, returns to his parents' house with his daughter Zhu under his arm because Meï Lin left him. Disappointed to see their "little one" in this state, Paul and Edith do everything to give him a taste for life, without realizing that by doing so, they braid the rope to hang themselves. Because Tanguy is starting to feel good with his parents.

Felicie and Charles have a whirlwind holiday romance. Due to a mix-up on addresses they lose contact, and five years later at Christmas-time Felicie is living with her mother in a cold Paris with a daughter as a reminder of that long-ago summer. For male companionship she oscillates between hairdresser Maxence and the intellectual Loic, but seems unable to commit to either as the memory of Charles and what might have been hangs over everything.

Set in a world of magical realism, "Wind" sees a grandmother and her grandson trapped down an endless chasm, scavenging debris that surrounds them to realize their dream of escaping to a better life.

A magician meets a weird girl and offers her to work together in his magic show. It's only until a year later that he starts to know her personally and develops a feeling towards her despite her own problems.

A solitary scholar discovers an ancient bottle while on a trip to Istanbul and unleashes a djinn who offers her three wishes. Filled with reluctance, she is unable to come up with one, so the djinn tries to inspire her with his stories.

When Francois, a journalist, tours a big store for an article, he is chosen by the son of the newspaper's owner, Rambal-Cochet, as his new toy. Needing money and unwilling to quit his job, Francois agrees to this ridiculous assignment. Gradually befriending the spoiled boy, he induces him to play at making a newspaper, unveiling publicly the tyrannical way of life of the father. The powerful emotional climax we experience with the child astonishes both men.

An American oil company sends a man to Scotland to buy up an entire village where they want to build a refinery. But things don't go as expected.

A young boy discovers a stray balloon, which seems to have a mind of its own, on the streets of Paris. The two become inseparable, yet the world’s harsh realities finally interfere.

Sophia is a philosophy professor in Montreal and has lived as a couple with Xavier for 10 years. Sylvain is a carpenter in the Laurentians and must renovate their country house. When Sophia meets Sylvain for the first time, it’s love at first sight. Opposites attract, but can it last?

A mother and daughter move to a small French town where they open a chocolate shop. The town, religious and morally strict, is against them, as they represent free-thinking and indulgence. When a group of gypsies arrive by riverboat, the Mayor's prejudices lead to a crisis.

Forcibly separated from her twin brother when they are orphaned, a melancholic misfit learns how to find confidence within herself amid the clutter of misfortunes and everyday life.

Lui, a struggling author with a heart condition, and his wife Elle, a retired psychiatrist, find their idyllic life shattered when Elle begins to succumb to the effects of dementia.

When her father unexpectedly passes away, young Ella finds herself at the mercy of her cruel stepmother and her daughters. Never one to give up hope, Ella's fortunes begin to change after meeting a dashing stranger in the woods.

In a time of superstition and magic, when wolves are seen as demonic and nature an evil to be tamed, a young apprentice hunter comes to Ireland with her father to wipe out the last pack. But when she saves a wild native girl, their friendship leads her to discover the world of the Wolfwalkers and transform her into the very thing her father is tasked to destroy.

In the Old West, a 17-year-old Scottish boy teams up with a mysterious gunman to find the woman with whom he is infatuated.

Jack is born with his heart frozen solid on the coldest day in history. A wise midwife saves him by replacing it with a cuckoo clock. Now Jack must abide by three rules to keep his mechanical heart safe: never touch the clock's hands, master his anger, and never fall in love. He tries his best, but when he meets a girl named Acacia he falls in love, threatening the delicate balance of his artificial heart.

A lonely boy discovers a mysterious egg that hatches a sea creature of Scottish legend.

Raised on tales of a Djinn fairy princess, Azur, a young Frenchman goes to North Africa in search of the sprite, only to discover that his close childhood friend, Asmar, an Arab youth whose mother raised both boys also seeks the genie.

Ajatashatru Lavash Patel has lived all his life in a small Mumbai neighborhood tricking people with street magic and fakir stunts. He sets out on a journey to find his estranged father but instead gets dragged on a never-ending adventure.

Andrea, a forty-year old engineer, suddenly becomes unemployed while his wife France gets a promotion. He is very down hearted and since he does not want to be a burden to his family he takes the place of the house maid.

Richie Bravo, once upon a time a successful pop star, chases after his faded fame in wintry Rimini. Trapped between permanent intoxication and concerts for busloads of tourists, his world starts to collapse when his adult daughter breaks into his life.

Carl Fredricksen spent his entire life dreaming of exploring the globe and experiencing life to its fullest. But at age 78, life seems to have passed him by, until a twist of fate (and a persistent 8-year old Wilderness Explorer named Russell) gives him a new lease on life.

Husband does not understand his wife? Conflict with children? Do you want to be heard and stood in your place? Be afraid of your desires. In this family, everything changed places, including grandmother.

Although he's now eighty years old, Claude Lherminier is still as imposing as he ever was. But his bouts of forgetfulness and confusion are becoming increasingly frequent. Even so, he stubbornly refuses to admit that anything is wrong. Carole, his oldest daughter, wages a daily and taxing battle to ensure that he's not left on his own. Claude suddenly decides on a whim to go to Florida. What lies behind this sudden trip?

In this episodic animated fantasy from France, an art teacher interprets a series of six fairy tales (each involving a prince or princess) with the help of two precocious students. Princes and Princesses was created using a special style of cutout animation, with black silhouetted characters performing the action against backlit backdrops in striking colors.

To find Ilona and unlock the secrets of her disappearance, Karas must plunge deep into the parallel worlds of corporate espionage, organized crime and genetic research - where the truth imprisons whoever finds it first and miracles can be bought but at a great price.

An aging woman and her nurse develop a friendship that inspires her to unearth unacknowledged longing and thus help her make peace with her past.


