The Sheltering SkyMovies like The Sheltering Sky
- Key Features:
- Existentialism, Political disillusionment, Africa, Marital breakdown, Psychological drama, Travel, Alienation, Cultural clash, Lost souls, Searching for meaning, Isolation, Nihilism, Psychological exploration
- Tone:
- serious, restrained, poetic
- Target Audience:
- Art house cinema enthusiasts, Literary adaptation fans, Psychological drama lovers, Viewers interested in existential themes
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Disconnection → Despair
The Sheltering Sky

An American couple drift toward emptiness in postwar North Africa.
The Sheltering Sky
A woman embarks on a journey alone across the United States after fleeing from her violent husband.

In an industrializing Italian town, a married woman, rendered mentally unstable after a traffic accident, drifts into an affair with a friend of her husband.

Four tales, each centered on a woman, journey inward to explore the enigmatic reality of their lives, connecting through a single narrative thread.

After being a victim of rape within their own home, Diana chooses to keep the trauma secret. Mario, her husband, also has something to hide. The silence takes the couple's account over the day turns gradually into a peculiar form of violence.

Backpacking in the Caucasus Mountains, walking for hours, an engaged couple and their tour guide trade anecdotes and play games to pass the time, until a momentary misstep, that takes only two or three seconds, changes everything.

Two sisters find their already strained relationship challenged as a mysterious new planet threatens to collide with Earth.

Fleeing the June 1940 arrival of Hitler's army in Paris, a young war widow and her two children are rescued from dive-bombing German fighters by a cocky, reckless teenager. He finds them refuge in an abandoned house, but despite the fact that the family quickly comes to be depending much on his cunning and survival abilities, their cohabitation proves uneasy.

A young couple is compelled to leave their Christian missionary station in the Kalahari Desert after being threatened with death by an extremist militant gang. After crashing their aircraft they must battle man and beast for their lives.

Tragedy strikes a married couple vacationing in the Moroccan desert, which jumpstarts an interlocking story involving four different families.

Two honeymooners rescue a mysterious car crash survivor in the Las Vegas desert. But their decision to save the man becomes increasingly regrettable when he turns on them, forcing the newlyweds to do the unthinkable.

A superficial woman finds conflict choosing between her abusive husband and her vain lover.

Two young men seek the solitude of the country; their peace is disturbed when a set of random occurrences suggest to their susceptible minds a pattern with sinister meanings.

Hannah and Tahir fall in love while homeless on the streets of New York. Shelter explores how they got there, and as we learn about their pasts we realize they need each other to build a future.

While in exile in Italy, an African woman finds herself trying to get back home and free her imprisoned husband. But the only man that can help her do so is in love with her.

On a romantic getaway to Iceland, a young American couple wake up one morning to discover every person on Earth has disappeared. Their struggle to survive and to reconcile the mysterious event lead them to reconsider everything they know about themselves and the world.

Deceit and betrayal rise to the surface after newlyweds survive a deadly car accident in the Moroccan desert.

Arranged to marry a rich man, young Ada is crushed when her true love goes missing at sea during a migration attempt — until a miracle reunites them.

At an idyllic writers retreat in Morocco, a newly single novelist finds an unexpected connection with a younger man who's reevaluating his life choices.

Set in Genoa, the film concerns the financial struggles and emotional strain that occur after Michele loses his job. He and his wife Elsa are forced to give up their affluent lifestyle and cope with the tensions of moving into a smaller home, finding new work, and making sacrifices.

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

Astronaut Lucy Cola returns to Earth after a transcendent experience during a mission to space – and begins to lose touch with reality in a world that now seems too small.

The separation of a long married couple goes awry when they fall for each other again.

Married for eight years with no children, Brits Katherine and Alex Joyce are driving to Italy, their ultimate destination just outside of Naples to sell the villa they have just inherited from his uncle, the villa where they will be staying during their time there. On the drive, they come to the realization that this trip marks the first time that they have truly been alone together, and as such don't really know one another in the true sense.

Two people meet each other after missing the last train home, leading to a beautiful relationship over five years.

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

A young husband and father, perfectly content with his life, falls in love with another woman.

In the midst of a civil war, a pair of former violinists in a tempestuous marriage oversee a farm on a rural island. In spite of their best efforts to escape their homeland, the war impinges on every aspect of their lives.

Aviator Marie Vallières de Beaumont goes on a journey to find her lover Bill Lancaster after his plane disappears in the Sahara. After her plane is forced down in the Ténéré she meets Lieutenant Antoine Chauvet of the French Camel Corps who joins in the hunt for Lancaster. As the two endure hardships in the desert, they begin to develop feelings for each other.

Couple Andrea and Giulia, an outwardly successful couple, are having problems in the bedroom. When Giulia invites Max, an old friend from high school, to stay in the family home with their teenage son, some new attitudes begin to form.

Plagued by a series of apocalyptic visions, a young husband and father questions whether to shelter his family from a coming storm, or from himself.

A union pensioner and his wife are robbed, but find that merely getting the assailants brought to justice is not enough for their consciences.

A grieving couple retreats to their cabin 'Eden' in the woods, hoping to repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage. But nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse.

A survival story about a honeymooning couple who get lost in the wide expanse of the Grand Canyon.

A penetrating study of a marriage on the rocks, set against the backdrop of a small Mediterranean fishing village. Both a stylized depiction of the complicated relationship between a married couple and a documentary-like look at the daily struggles of the inhabitants of Sète in the South of France.

A lonely telephone operator leading an empty, amoral life finds God – only to have her faith continually tested in ways beyond what she could have imagined.

After escaping unscathed from a car accident, photo model Simone decides that having a baby is the only way to give her vacant life some meaning. She asks her best friend Philippe to get her pregnant, and he reluctantly agrees, on the condition that they conceive somewhere in a desert, so they leave Montréal on a 24-hour round-trip to Salt Lake City to find a suitable spot.

Pierre, a Parisian engineer, goes up in the Alps for his work. Irresistibly attracted by what surrounds him, he camps out alone high in the mountains and leaves behind his everyday life. Up there he meets Léa, a chef of an alpine restaurant, while mysterious glows glitter in the deep mountains…

Along with her husband and three children, Marthe lives in an eden of her own creation, nearly isolated from the rest of the world. The arrival of a construction vehicle, however, pierces their tranquil, hermetic existence—before long a disused highway has been re-opened, and the family finds their home situated in the midst of rush-hour traffic. While the privileges of clean air, quietude and privacy are thus denied them, Marthe remains determined to stay no matter the cost.

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

Claudia and Anna join Anna's lover, Sandro, on a boat trip to a remote volcanic island. When Anna goes missing, a search is launched. In the meantime, Sandro and Claudia become involved in a romance despite Anna's disappearance, though the relationship suffers from guilt and tension.

After falling in love in Paris, Marina and Neil come to Oklahoma, where problems arise. Their church's Spanish-born pastor struggles with his faith, while Neil encounters a woman from his childhood.

An airline pilot and his wife are forced to face the consequences of her alcoholism when her addictions threaten her life and their daughter's safety. While the woman enters detox, her husband must face the truth of his enabling behavior.

After their airplane crashes behind enemy lines, four soldiers must survive and try to find a way back to their battalion. However, when they come across a local peasant girl the horrors of war quickly become apparent.

A father and daughter journey from Denmark to an unknown desert that exists in a realm beyond the confines of civilization.

A young woman left her family for an unspecified reason. The husband determines to find out the truth and starts following his wife. At first, he suspects that a man is involved. But gradually, he finds out more and more strange behaviors and bizarre incidents that indicate something more than a possessed love affair.

In a dazzling, dreamlike Las Vegas, longtime couple Hank and Frannie break up on their fifth anniversary and each pursue the fantasy of new love over one neon-soaked night—he with a free-spirited acrobat, she with a seductive musician. But as illusion and reality blur, both must decide whether passion or devotion truly defines the heart.

Pierre Lachenay is a well-known publisher and lecturer, married to Franca and father of Sabine. He starts a love affair with air hostess Nicole, which Pierre is hiding, but he cannot stay away from her.

A cargo aircraft crashes in a sandstorm in the Sahara with less than a dozen men on board. One of the passengers is an airplane designer who comes up with the idea of ripping off the undamaged wing and using it as the basis for a replacement aircraft they need to build before their food and water run out.

In the near future, breathable air is nonexistent. Virtually all of humanity has disappeared, and those chosen to reestablish society reside in a controlled state of suspended animation. Two engineers tasked with guarding the last hope for mankind struggle to preserve their own sanity and lives while administering to the vital task at hand.

Four couples, all friends, descend on a tropical island resort. Though one husband and wife are there to work on their marriage, the others just want to enjoy some fun in the sun. They soon find, however, that paradise comes at a price: Participation in couples therapy sessions is mandatory. What started out as a cut-rate vacation turns into an examination of the common problems many face.

A woman is taken along with her mother in 1910 to a far-away desert by her husband, and after his passing, is forced to spend the next 59 years of her life hopelessly trying to escape it.

Two men and a woman circle the globe in a satellite armed with a nuclear device. The third world war breaks out, and a few months later the satellite crashes. They survive the crash but one man gets killed by survivors and the other man gets caught. The woman stays by the remains of the the satellite but is soon caught by evil punks who have taken power.

In 1999, a woman's life is forever changed after she survives a car crash with two bank robbers, who enlist her help to take the money to a drop in Paris. On the way, she runs into another fugitive from the law — an American doctor on the run from the CIA. They want to confiscate his father's invention – a device which allows anyone to record their dreams and visions.

Episodic journey of journalist Marcello who struggles to find his place in the world, torn between the allure of Rome's elite social scene and the stifling domesticity offered by his girlfriend, all the while searching for a way to become a serious writer.

Middle-aged suburban husband Richard abruptly tells his wife, Maria, that he wants a divorce. As Richard takes up with a younger woman, Maria enjoys a night on the town with her friends and meets a younger man. As the couple and those around them confront a seemingly futile search for what they've lost -- love, excitement, passion -- this classic American independent film explores themes of aging and alienation.

After surviving a plane crash that kills many others, Max Klein develops a sense of invulnerability, leading to radical, compulsive actions. Can a psychologist and a fellow guilt-ridden survivor bring him down to earth?

A man and a woman meet in the ruins of post-war Poland. With vastly different backgrounds and temperaments, they are fatally mismatched and yet drawn to each other.

Bobby Deerfield, a famous American race car driver on the European circuit, falls in love with the enigmatic Lillian Morelli, who is terminally ill.

A recently divorced man and an emotionally devastated widow begin a love affair.

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

Bruno is a young film editor who has just broke up his marriage with Regina, and returned living in his mother's house. Drowned in deep sorrow, something very weird happens in his life: people around him are gradually disappearing. But only for him. Some kind of blindness.

A woman on the run from the mob is reluctantly accepted in a small Colorado community in exchange for labor, but when a search visits the town, she learns that their support has a price.

A bourgeois housewife, planning to go back to work as a physiotherapist after having devoted 20 years to her husband and two children, has her comfortable, elegant life turned upside down when she falls for a Spanish builder and begins a runaway affair.

Frustrated by the lack of intimacy in her relationship, a young schoolteacher goes through a series of intimidating and often violent sexual partners.

A husband and wife reevaluate their marriage after their closest friends, another couple decide to split up after twelve years.

When her husband goes missing at the beach, a female professor begins to mentally disintegrate as her denial of his disappearance becomes delusional.

After the end of WWII, a young Lithuanian woman and a young Italian man from Stromboli impulsively marry, but married life on the island is more demanding than she can accept.

On their road trip through the southwestern desert, Alex and his girlfriend Scarlett arrive in a town in the middle of nowhere and take a room in a mysterious hotel so that Scarlett, who is feeling increasingly ill, can get some rest.

Bruno and Amanda have to face the difficulties of a long distance relationship after meeting in a flight forced into an emergency landing.

Trapped in a loveless marriage, a troubled writer experiences a sexual awakening when she meets a carefee American in Italy.

In the 1930s, Count Almásy is a Hungarian map maker employed by the Royal Geographical Society to chart the vast expanses of the Sahara Desert along with several other prominent explorers. As World War II unfolds, Almásy enters into a world of love, betrayal, and politics.

Man was made to be happy for simple reasons and unhappy for even simpler ones – just as he is born for simple reasons and dies for even simpler ones... Isa and Bahar are two lonely figures dragged through the ever-changing climate of their inner selves in pursuit of a happiness that no longer belongs to them.

Ruth and Harry decide to take a romantic backpacking trip through the Pacific Northwest, but amongst the beautiful scenery, Ruth makes an unexpected discovery that sets her off on a strange, frightening new path. The couple aren't alone in the woods, and they might not be the same when they come out...if they come out.

Following a breakdown and suicide attempt, an aging actor becomes involved with a much younger woman but soon finds that it's difficult to keep pace with her.

As an asteroid nears Earth, a man finds himself alone after his wife leaves in a panic. He decides to take a road trip to reunite with his high school sweetheart. Accompanying him is a neighbor who inadvertently puts a wrench in his plan.

While filing for a divorce, beautiful ex-stripper Roslyn Taber ends up meeting aging cowboy-turned-gambler Gay Langland and former World War II aviator Guido Racanelli. The two men instantly become infatuated with Roslyn and, on a whim, the three decide to move into Guido's half-finished desert home together. When grizzled ex-rodeo rider Perce Howland arrives, the unlikely foursome strike up a business capturing wild horses.

This romantic drama by Michelangelo Antonioni follows the love life of Vittoria, a beautiful literary translator living in Rome. After splitting from her writer boyfriend, Riccardo, Vittoria meets Piero, a lively stockbroker, on the hectic floor of the Roman stock exchange. Though Vittoria and Piero begin a relationship, it is not one without difficulties, and their commitment to one another is tested during an eclipse.

When a housewife finds out she is pregnant, she runs out of town looking for freedom to reevaluate her life decisions.

It tells the story of Marcos and Ana, who have been married for more than 25 years, but enter into an existential crisis that leads them to separate. The life of singles seems fascinating and exciting at first, but soon it also becomes monotonous for her and nightmarish for him.

Karrer plods his way through life in quiet desperation. His environment is drab and rainy and muddy. Eaten up with solitude, his hopelessness would be incurable but for the existence of the Titanik Bar and its beautiful, haunting singer. But the lady is married and Karrer is determined to keep her husband away...

A photographer and an unemployed woman embark on a chaotic trip to the California desert for a photo shoot, filled with passionate encounters and frequent fights. Their seemingly empty relationship takes a dark turn when a brutal incident abruptly ends their journey.

In 1950s Connecticut, a housewife's life is upended by a marital crisis and mounting racial tensions in society.

After his wife leaves him, a disillusioned director dives into the drug scene, trying anything his friend suggests.

In Japan's Aokigahara Forest, a troubled teacher meets a mysterious lost stranger who takes him on a life-changing journey of love and redemption.

While vacationing on a remote German island with his younger pregnant wife, an artist has an emotional breakdown while confronting his repressed desires.

Two strangers become dangerously close after witnessing a deadly accident. On a beautiful cloudless day a young couple celebrate their reunion with a picnic. Joe has planned a postcard-perfect afternoon in the English countryside with his partner, Claire. But as Joe and Claire prepare to open a bottle of champagne, their idyll comes to an abrupt end. A hot air balloon drifts into the field, obviously in trouble. The pilot catches his leg in the anchor rope, while the only passenger, a boy, is too scared to jump down. Joe and three other men rush to secure the basket. But fate has other ideas...

A Jewish boy living in Amsterdam at the onset of World War II is taken to a concentration camp with his parents. Based on the memoir of Holocaust survivor Jona Oberski.

Odd couple Ivo Salvini, recently released from a mental asylum, and former prefect Gonnella wander through the countryside and discover a dystopia made of television commercials, beauty pageants, rock music, Catholicism, and pagan rituals.

Ethan and Sophie are a married couple on the brink of separation when, at the urging of their therapist, they decide to salvage their relationship by escaping to a beautiful vacation house for the weekend.

Three people and a baby set off on separate journeys, along the same road; their disparate dreams and stories intertwine amidst the breathtaking deserted Patagonic route.

Set in a small town near the North Pole where roads lead to nowhere, the story follows Roman and Lucy, two burning souls who come together to make a leap for life and inner peace.

When their best friends announce that they're separating, a professor and his wife discover the faults in their own marriage.

Samuel, a widower, is taking care of his 7-year-old daughter alone. Overwhelmed and stressed out, he decides to isolate in a chalet he was renovating with his wife in the Italian Alps. Indifferent to the anger of locals who help police to hunt down migrants, he comes across a woman who fled Afghanistan. Samuel decides to help her reach the border, thinking it will take them a few hours. But an agressive group of men comes after them…

On the beaches of Kenya they’re known as "Sugar Mamas" —European women who seek out African boys selling love to earn a living. Teresa, a 50-year-old Austrian and mother of a daughter entering puberty, travels to this vacation paradise, moving from beach to beach.

A long-time married couple who've spent their lives together in the same New York apartment become overwhelmed by personal and real estate-related issues when they plan to move away.

When a deadly secret rots the mind of a grieving widower, the decision to work alone on a deserted island morphs into a terrifying race to save his sanity and his life.

A couple becomes lost in a massive storm and seek refuge at a nearby farmhouse, only to be captured by deranged killers.


