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Movies like To Live

Key Features:
Historical drama, Family saga, Resilience, Loss, Survival, Political upheaval, Cultural revolution, Adaptation, Social change, Parent-child relationship, Tragedy
Tone:
serious, dramatic, restrained
Target Audience:
Historical drama enthusiasts, World cinema viewers, Viewers interested in Chinese history, Those who appreciate character-driven stories
Emotional Arc:
Prosperity → Hardship → Endurance

To Live

1994-05-18
To Live Poster - Find Similar Movies

Married couple Fugui and Jiazhen endure tumultuous events in mid-20th century mainland China as their personal fortunes move from wealthy landownership to peasantry.

Genres
Drama, Romance, War
Cast
Ge You, Gong Li, Niu Ben, Guo Tao, Jiang Wu, Ni Dahong, Liu Tianchi, Zhang Lu, Dong Fei, Huang Zongluo
Crew
Lu Wei, Zhang Yimou, Yu Hua
Rating
8.1(349 votes)
To LiveTo Live
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So Long, My Son
7.694

Two married couples adjust to the vast social and economic changes taking place in China from the 1980s to the present.



To Live
To Live(2010)
6.472

Early autumn, godforsaken Russian countryside. A local hunter Michail witnesses a skirmish in the middle of the forest - three men want to kill the forth, Andrey. Kind-hearted Michail helps Andrey escape and together they run from the villains who chase them. Thus, two totally different men start a long and dangerous journey together, constantly arguing with each other regarding their ideology, morals and opinions about life. But life will put everything on its place and make the men understand who they really are.



Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains

In the Chinese town of Fuyang, four brothers go about their day-to-day lives, their destinies shaped by love and challenges.



The Time to Live and the Time to Die

An autobiographical film based on Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien's memories of his youth growing up in Taiwan after emigrating from mainland China.



Sacrifice
Sacrifice(2010)
6

For generations the Zhao family has wielded power, until their mortal enemy TU’AN GU slaughters the entire clan, determined to wipe out their influence forever. But one Zhao baby survives hidden by CHENG YING the doctor who delivered him. When Tu’an Gu learns of the baby’s escape he seizes every infant in the city, vowing to kill them all unless the Zhao baby is surrendered. As the tyrant’s soldiers arrive at Cheng Ying’s home the frantic doctor hides his wife with their own baby whilst surrendering the Zhao child as his own. But his family is discovered; his baby is presumed to be the Zhao heir and murdered along with his wife for harboring the infant. Now set on revenge Cheng Ying enrolls the Zhao orphan into the service of the Tu’an Gu household, plotting to use him as an instrument of vengeance when he comes of age.



Hibiscus Town
7.855

Based on a novel by the same name written by Gu Hua, a melodrama about the life and travails of a young woman who lives through the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution.



Platform
Platform(2001)
6.978

China’s rapid changes from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, as seen through the lives of four performers in a theater troupe.



Return to Dust
7.251

Humble, unassuming Ma and timid Cao have been cast off by their families and forced into an arranged marriage. They have to combine their strength and build a home to survive. In the face of much adversity, an unexpected bond begins to blossom, as both Ma and Cao, uniting with Earth's cycles, create a haven for themselves in which they can thrive.



A Simple Life
7.463

The relationship between a middle-aged man and the elderly woman who has been the family's helper for sixty years.



Raise the Red Lantern

In 1920s China, 19-year-old Songlian becomes a concubine of a powerful lord and is forced to compete with his three wives for the privileges gained.



One Second
7.3

A movie fan escapes from a labour camp during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and strikes up a relationship with a homeless female vagabond.



Coming Home
7.253

Lu and Feng are a devoted couple forced to separate when Lu is arrested and sent to a labor camp as a political prisoner during the Cultural Revolution. He finally returns home only to find that his beloved wife no longer remembers him.



Ju Dou
Ju Dou(1990)
7.1

A woman married to the brutal and infertile owner of a dye mill in rural China conceives a boy with her husband's nephew but is forced to raise her son as her husband's heir without revealing his parentage in this circular tragedy. Filmed in glowing technicolour, this tale of romantic and familial love in the face of unbreakable tradition is more universal than its setting.



Confucius
Confucius(2010)
5.962

In 500 B.C., during Chinas famed 'Spring and Autumn Period', Kong Ze (Confucius), a commoner reverred for his outstanding wisdom, is made Minister of Law in the ancient Kingdom of Lu. Under his inspired leadership, Lu ascends to new heights but becomes a target of conquest for the warlike nation of Qi. Threatened with annihilation by their powerful neighbour, a desperate people turn to their greatest teacher to lead their most powerful army. When Confucius delivers a stunning victory against all odds, a jealous aristocracy sets out to destroy him, but they should never under-estimate a remarkable man whose wisdom is more powerful than the sword.



Still Life
7.207

A town in Fengjie county is gradually being demolished and flooded to make way for the Three Gorges Dam. A man and woman visit the town to locate their estranged spouses, and become witness to the societal changes.



The Story of Qiu Ju
7.309

When her husband is kicked in the groin by the village head, Qiu Ju, a peasant woman, despite her pregnancy, travels to a nearby town, and later a big city to deal with its bureaucrats and find justice.



Out Live
Out Live(2000)
6.5

A sweeping, epic tale of a martial arts warrior who attempts to defy a kingdom to be with his love.



Love Life
Love Life(2022)
7.2

Taeko and her husband, Jirō, are living a peaceful existence with her young son, Keita, when a tragic accident brings the boy's long-lost father, Park, back into her life. To cope with the pain and guilt, Taeko throws herself into helping this deaf and homeless man.



Red Sorghum
7.2

An old leper who owned a remote sorghum winery dies. Jiu'er, the wife bought by the leper, and her lover, identified only as "my Grandpa" by the narrator, take over the winery and set up an idealized quasi-matriarchal community headed by Jiu'er. When the Japanese invaders subject the area to their rule and cut down the sorghum to make way for a road, the community rises up and resists as the sorghum grows anew.



The Grandmaster
6.6

Ip Man's peaceful life in Foshan changes after Gong Yutian seeks an heir for his family in Southern China. Ip Man then meets Gong Er who challenges him for the sake of regaining her family's honor. After the Second Sino-Japanese War, Ip Man moves to Hong Kong and struggles to provide for his family. In the mean time, Gong Er chooses the path of vengeance after her father was killed by Ma San.



Per tutta la vita
5.9

Four married couples find out their marriage is invalid because it was officiated by a fraudulent priest and have to decide what to do next.



Lan Yu
Lan Yu(2001)
6.9

A love story between a country boy in Beijing to study and a wealthy businessman set against the backdrop of the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident.



City of Life and Death

In 1937, during the height of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Imperial Japanese Army has just captured Nanjing, then-capital of the Republic of China. What followed was known as the Nanking Massacre, or the Rape of Nanking, a six week period wherein tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed.



Mountains May Depart

The life of Tao, and those close to her, is explored in three different time periods: 1999, 2014, and 2025.



Boat People
7.616

A Japanese photojournalist revisits Vietnam after the liberation to document the nation, and begins following and documenting the young children from a poor Vietnamese family.



How I Live Now
6.6

An American girl, sent to the English countryside to stay with relatives, finds love and purpose while fighting for her survival as war envelops the world around her.



Yellow Earth
7.211

A communist soldier is sent to a remote region of China in order to collect folk songs. Staying with a peasant family (a widower with two small children), he discovers a community whose way of life is completely alien to him, but he gradually wins their trust…



I Live in Fear
7.3

An aging foundry patriarch, gripped by terror of nuclear annihilation, tries to uproot his family to Brazil. When they petition to have him declared incompetent, a family-court counselor witnesses his obsession slide into ruin—and asks whether ignoring the atomic threat is any saner.



Memoirs of a Geisha
7.651

In the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.



Dying to Survive
8.1

When a mysterious visitor appears, the life of Yong Cheng, owner of a store that stocks aphrodisiac products, changes dramatically. He becomes the exclusive selling agent of a cheap Indian generic drug against Chronic Granulocytic Leukemia in China. Not only does Yong Cheng see his profits skyrocket, but he is dubbed the god of medicine“ by his customers



Wolf Totem
6.5

In 1969, a young Beijing student, Chen Zhen, is sent to live among the nomadic herdsmen of Inner Mongolia. Caught between the advance of civilization from the south and the nomads' traditional enemies - the marauding wolves - to the north; humans and animals, residents and invaders alike, struggle to find their true place in the world.



Center Stage
7.2

Based on the tragic true story of China's first prima donna of the silver screen, Ruan Lingyu, chronicling her rise to fame as a movie actress in Shanghai during the 1930s.



Live and Become
7.4

In 1980, the black Falashas in Ethiopia are recognised as genuine Jews and are secretly carried to Israel. The day before the transport the son of a Jewish mother dies. In his place and with his name (Schlomo) she takes a Christian 9-year-old boy.



Barren Lives
7.3

In vivid images, the documentary-like story of a drover and his family in the northern badlands of Brazil during the drought. A family in the search of new hope and destiny.



Shanghai Triad
6.74

Shanghai, China, 1930. When young Shuisheng arrives from the countryside, his uncle Liushu puts him at the service of Bijou, the mistress of Laoda, supreme boss of the Tang Triad, constantly threatened by his enemies, both those he knows and those lurking in the shadows.



We Live in Time
7.255

An up-and-coming chef and a recent divorcée find their lives forever changed when a chance encounter brings them together, in a decade-spanning, deeply moving romance.



Farewell My Concubine

Two boys meet at an opera training school in Peking in 1924. Their resulting friendship will span nearly 70 years and endure some of the most troublesome times in China's history.



Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing

A widowed doctor of both Chinese and European descent falls in love with a married American correspondent in Hong Kong during China's Communist revolution.



Double Suicide
6.893

Successful and married with children, paper-mill owner Jihei knows better than to contradict the strict social and moral codes of 18th-century Japan. But when he meets the lovely courtesan Koharu, he becomes a man obsessed. Koharu returns his love, even foregoing other customers while Jihei schemes to somehow buy her freedom. His efforts yield ruinous consequences for his business and his family life, and Koharu is meanwhile purchased by another client.



Youth
Youth(2017)
7.29

A group of performing art troupe members each face their own trials and tribulations in Chengdu; from escaping a family scandal to dealing with unrequited love, each experiences rejection that shapes their lives.



Timbuktu
Timbuktu(2014)
6.966

Just outside of the Malian city of Timbuktu, now occupied by militant Islamic rebels who impose the Sharia on civilians and inconvenience their daily life, a cattleman kills a fisherman.



They Live
They Live(1988)
7.3

A lone drifter stumbles upon a unique pair of sunglasses that reveal aliens are systematically gaining control of the Earth by masquerading as humans and lulling the public into submission.



Somebody to Love
7.212

How much do we really know about ourselves when we make a decision? What if there are multiple versions of our I within us, each with something to say?



Dearest
Dearest(2014)
7.1

A story centered around a divorced couple living in a southern Chinese city Shenzhen and dealing with the disappearance of their missing son.



Survival Family
7.266

A world wide electrical outage occurs. Everything that requires electricity comes to a stop. Tokyo is nearly ruined. Yoshiyuki Suzuki decides to escape from Tokyo with his family.



Ne Zha 2
Ne Zha 2(2025)
8.036

After a catastrophic event leaves their bodies destroyed, Ne Zha and Ao Bing are granted a fragile second chance at life. As tensions rise between the dragon clans and celestial forces, the two must undergo a series of perilous trials that will test their bond, challenge their identities, and decide the fate of both mortals and immortals.



The Last Emperor
7.585

A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.



The Emperor and the Assassin

In pre-unified China, the King of Qin sends his concubine to a rival kingdom to produce an assassin for a political plot, but as the king's cruelty mounts she finds her loyalty faltering.



From the Life of the Marionettes

An account of the events before and after a murder committed by a disturbed businessman in a strained marriage, and what led him to perform such a shocking act.



Families
Families(2015)
4.6

Jérôme Varenne, a French financier, lives and works in Shanghai with Chen-Li, his life and business partner. One day, during a short stay in Paris, while paying a call to his mother, he is very displeased to learn from her and his hated brother, that the family house in Ambray is going to be sold. Jerome decides to go to the town where he grew up to see what is going on. Little does he know how eventful his escapade will be. Little does he know that it will change his life from soup to nuts...



House of Flying Daggers

In 9th century China, a corrupt government wages war against a rebel army called the Flying Daggers. A romantic warrior breaks a beautiful rebel out of prison to help her rejoin her fellows, but things are not what they seem.



Shower
Shower(1999)
6.873

An aged father and his younger, mentally challenged son have been working hard every day to keep the bathhouse running for a motley group of regular customers. When his elder son, who left years ago to seek his fortune in the southern city of Shenzhen, abruptly returns one day, it once again puts under stress the long-broken father-son ties. Presented as a light-hearted comedy, Shower explores the value of family, friendship, and tradition.



1911
1911(2011)
5.7

China's first President Sun Yat-Sen and military commander Huang Xing lead the revolutionary Wuchang Uprising in a bid to put an end to the reign of the Qing Dynasty.



Duel to the Death
6.7

In 16th century, during the Ming dynasty era, every ten years the greatest swordsman from Japan faces the greatest swordsman from China in a duel to the death for their nation's honor. As a duel approaches, Chinese champion Bo Ching-Wan and Japanese champion Miyamoto uncover a plot to rig the fight.



Samurai Rebellion
8.212

The mother of a feudal lord's only heir is kidnapped away from her husband by the lord. The husband and his samurai father must decide whether to accept the unjust decision, or risk death to get her back.



Curse of the Golden Flower

During China's Tang dynasty the emperor has taken the princess of a neighboring province as his wife. She has borne him two sons and raised his eldest. Now his control over his dominion is complete, including the royal family itself.



Lust, Caution
7.2

During World War II, a secret agent must seduce and assassinate an official who works for the Japanese puppet government in Shanghai.



Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

During the Cultural Revolution, two young men are sent to a remote mining village where they fall in love with the local tailor's beautiful granddaughter and discover a suitcase full of forbidden Western novels.



A Man Called Hero
5.79

After Hero Hua marries Jade and leaves her in China, he goes to America to work as a servant and rebels against cruel labour conditions. Jade soon joins him in New York, where they build a family.



Ride or Die
6.683

Rei helps the woman she's been in love with for years escape her abusive husband. While on the run, their feelings for each other catch fire.



The Road Home
7.5

Prompted by the death of his father and the grief of his mother, a man recalls the story of how they met in flashback.



All About Ah-Long
7.2

Ah-Long, a father living a low-class lifestyle, while trying to raise his son, Porky. The strong bond between father and son is tested when a chance encounter from Ah-Long's ex-girlfriend changes the course of their lives.



Dynasty Warriors
5.927

In the turbulent late Eastern Han Dynasty, ambitious Dong Zhuo controls the court and the commonalty, and heroes from all over the country begin to rise.



Back to 1942
6.597

In 1942, Henan Province was devastated by one of the most tragic famines in modern Chinese history, resulting in the deaths of at least three million men, women and children. Although the primary cause of the famine was a severe drought, it was exacerbated by locusts, windstorms, earthquakes, epidemic disease and the corruption of the ruling Kuomintang government.



To Kill with Intrigue

Young master Cao Le chases his pregnant girlfriend away from the family castle. He does it in order to save her from vicious bandits who are going to murder his family.



So Young 2: Never Gone

A wealthy young man pursues a young woman of modest means, but circumstances often separate them as the years pass.



Successor
Successor(2024)
6.925

Ma Chenggang, a wealthy man in Xihong City, worries that his eldest son is too spoiled to succeed him. Determined to raise a capable successor, he takes an unconventional approach. They conceal their wealth, moving the family to a dilapidated neighborhood, and maintain an illusion of poverty, so that his son could develop qualities such as hard work, knowledge, careful budgeting, physical fitness, and perseverance.



True Legend
6.6

Su Qi-Er, a wealthy man living during the Qing Dynasty who loses his fortune and reputation as a result of a conspiracy against him. After being forced out onto the streets, Su dedicates his life to martial arts and reemerges as a patriotic hero known as the "King of Beggars."



Life, and Nothing More…

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



Surviving with Wolves
6.241

In 1942, the young Jewish girl Misha, her Russian mother Gerusha and her German father Reuven hide from the Germans in a small house in Ardennes, Belgium. Misha is very connected to her mother that advises her that if one day a person comes to her saying "love of my life", she would follow him or her without any question. When her parents are captured by the Nazis, Misha is delivered to a German family and the abusive matriarch gives a bad treatment to the girl. However, she finds support in the family of Ernest and his deranged wife Marthe that supplies groceries to foster family. Misha loves Ernest's dogs and the old man gives a compass to her and tells that her parents have been sent to East to forced labor. When the old couple is denounced for sheltering the girl and arrested by the Germans, Misha flees through the woods heading east. Along her journey seeking out her parents...



Still the Water
6.8

On the Japanese island of Amami, despite lacking parental guidance, Kaito and his girlfriend Kyoko try to find their place in the world. While Kaito suffers from the absence of his father, who moved to Tokyo after his birth, Kyoko must come to grips with her mother’s terminal illness.



Alive
Alive(2003)
5.814

Tenshu is imprisoned and sentenced to death for murdering the men who raped his girlfriend. However, he manages to survive his execution and is presented with an option: face another execution attempt or subject himself to their bizarre and dangerous experiments.



Tokyo Sonata
7.4

A young boy takes interest in piano while his family begins to disintegrate around him after his father loses his job.



Black Rain
7.5

Shigematsu Shizuma, who lives with his family in a village near Fukuyama, was in Hiroshima with his wife and niece just after the devastating atomic bombing, a tragedy that cruelly took the lives of thousands of people and forever marked the harsh existence of the survivors.



The Lives of Others

In 1984 East Berlin, dedicated Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler begins spying on a famous playwright and his actress-lover Christa-Maria. Wiesler becomes unexpectedly sympathetic to the couple, and faces conflicting loyalties when his superior takes a liking to Christa-Maria.



The New Land
7.52

A Swedish immigrant family struggles to adapt to their new life on the American frontier during the second half of the 19th century amidst civil war, native uprising and the lure of gold in California.



I Give My First Love to You

Takuma knows that his life is shorter than the others and he feels that his demise is getting near. He chose to stay away from the girl that he loves so that she can easily move on. What he didn't know is that he is under-estimating her.



I Can't Live Without You

After ruining a family event, a workaholic receives an ultimatum from his wife that forces him to choose between his two loves: his cell phone or his 20-year marriage.



One Child Nation
7.214

Through interviews with both victims and instigators, Nanfu Wang, a first-time mother, breaks open decades of silence on a vast, unprecedented social experiment that shaped — and destroyed — countless lives in China.



Funan
Funan(2019)
6.9

Cambodia, once the ancient kingdom of Funan, April 17th, 1975. The entire country falls under the tyranny of Angkar, the communist party of the Khmer Rouge. The cities are abandoned, the population is thrown to the roads and forced to walk towards an uncertain future…



Us and Them
7.559

Ten years ago, on a train home during the busy Spring Festival travel period, fate brings Xiaoxiao and Jianqing together. Like many young couples, they meet, fall in love, and strive to make it work, but eventually, the harsh realities of life make them drift apart. Ten years later, they run into each other again. Will they make the most of this second chance and rekindle what they once lost?



The House of Sand
6.594

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.



Fearless
Fearless(2006)
7.508

After going through a series of tragic events in his life, martial arts master Huo Yuanjia returns to Tianjin and must fight four international soldiers, in order to safeguard his nation's pride.



Lost in Beijing
6.5

A look at modern-day life in China's capital centered on a ménage-a-quatre involving a young woman, her boss, her husband and her boss's wife.



John Rabe
John Rabe(2009)
7.1

A true-story account of a German businessman who saved more than 200,000 Chinese during the Nanjing massacre in 1937-38.



A Touch of Sin
7.179

Four independent stories set in modern China about random acts of violence.



The Blue Kite
7.182

A young man recalls his childhood growing up in a poor alley in Beijing during the 1950s and 1960s.



Living
Living(2022)
6.965

London, 1953. Mr. Williams, a veteran civil servant, is an important cog within the city's bureaucracy as it struggles to rebuild in the aftermath of World War II. Buried under paperwork at the office and lonely at home, his life has long felt empty and meaningless. Then a devastating medical diagnosis forces him to take stock, and to try and grasp some fulfilment before it passes permanently beyond reach.



Life and a Day
7.87

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



Breathe
Breathe(2017)
7.45

Based on the true story of Robin, a handsome, brilliant and adventurous man whose life takes a dramatic turn when polio leaves him paralyzed.



The Sun Also Rises
7.344

A polyptych of interconnected stories in different time-zones, shifting between a Yunnan village, a campus, and the Gobi Desert.



The Inn of the Sixth Happiness

All her life, Englishwoman Gladys Aylward knew that China was the place where she belonged. Not qualified to be sent there as a missionary, Gladys works as a domestic to earn the money to send herself to a poor, remote village. There she eventually lives a full and happy life: running the inn, acting as "foot inspector", advising the local Mandarin, and even winning the heart of mixed race Captain Lin Nan. But Gladys discovers her real destiny when the country is invaded by Japan and the Chinese children need her to save their lives. Based on a true story.



Devils on the Doorstep

During the Japanese occupation of China, two prisoners are dumped in a peasant's home in a small town. The owner is bullied into keeping the prisoners until the next New Year, at which time they will be collected. The village leaders convene to interrogate the prisoners. The townspeople then struggle to accommodate the prisoners. One is a bellicose Japanese nationalist, the other a nervous translator. Will the townspeople manage to keep the prisoners until the New Year?



The Assassins
5.658

In the year 198, Cao Cao, Prime Minister of the Han Dynasty, ventured to the east and defeated China's greatest warrior Lu Bu, terrifying every ambitious warlord across the country. Several years later, after taking the Han Emperor under his wing, Cao crowns himself King of Wei. He built a magnificent Bronze Sparrow Island to symbolize his power and rumors spread that he would replace the Emperor. Meanwhile, young lovers Mu Shun and Ling Ju are taken from a prison camp to a hidden tomb, where they spend five cruel years together, training as assassins for a secret mission. In the year 220 astronomical signs predict dramatic change. As a result, Cao's son Cao Pi and Cao's followers urge Cao to become the new Emperor - but unknown opposing forces plot against him.



An Empress and the Warriors

After the death of her father, a woman is forced to take over as empress and fight to save her kingdom.



We Can't Live Without Cosmos

Two cosmonauts, two friends, try to do their best in their everyday training life to make their common dream a reality. But this story is not only about the dream.



The Assassin
6.379

9th century China. Ten year old general’s daughter Nie Yinniang is abducted by a nun who initiates her into the martial arts, transforming her into an exceptional assassin charged with eliminating cruel and corrupt local governors. One day, having failed in a task, she is sent back by her mistress to the land of her birth, with orders to kill the man to whom she was promised – a cousin who now leads the largest military region in North China. After 13 years of exile, the young woman must confront her parents, her memories and her long-repressed feelings.



Pather Panchali
7.846

Impoverished priest Harihar Ray leaves his rural Bengal village in search of work. His wife, Sarbojaya, looks after their rebellious daughter, Durga, and young son, Apu. The children enjoy the small pleasures of their difficult life.



Mars One
Mars One(2022)
7.3

A middle-class Black family in Brazil copes with the election of a far-right extremist president. The mother believes that she's cursed after an unexpected encounter, while her husband puts all of his hopes into their son's soccer career.

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