movielex
movie
L
ex

Movies like Ulysses' Gaze

Key Features:
Filmmaker, Exile, Return, Nostalgia, Historical trauma, Personal history, Identity, Memory, Political conflict, Quest, Existentialism, Director-driven, Cerebral
Tone:
serious, poetic, stylized
Target Audience:
Art house cinema enthusiasts, Film history buffs, Viewers interested in political themes, Fans of auteur cinema
Emotional Arc:
Intrigue → Reflection

Ulysses' Gaze

1995-10-12
Ulysses' Gaze Poster - Find Similar Movies

An exiled filmmaker finally returns to his home country where former mysteries and afflictions of his early life come back to haunt him once more.

Genres
Drama, History, War
Cast
Harvey Keitel, Erland Josephson, Maia Morgenstern, Thanasis Veggos, Giorgos Mihalakopoulos, Dora Volanaki, Mania Papadimitriou, Giorgos Konstas, Thanos Grammenos, Alekos Oudinotis
Crew
Theo Angelopoulos, Theo Angelopoulos
Rating
7.4(116 votes)
Ulysses' GazeUlysses' Gaze
Select exactly what you are looking for


Ulysses
Ulysses(1954)
6.525

A movie adaptation of Homer's second epic, that talks about Ulysses' efforts to return to his home after the end of ten years of war.



Nostalgia
Nostalgia(1983)
7.8

A Russian poet, Andrei and his interpreter, Eugenia travel to Italy to research the life of an 18th-century composer.



The Weeping Meadow
7.5

The first part of an incomplete trilogy telling the story of the greek people. The film begins in 1919, with Greek immigrants from Odessa arriving near Thessaloniki. Led by the charismatic Spyros, they establish a new settlement in the delta of a river. The youngest of the settlers are Spyros' son Alexis and an orphan from Odessa, Eleni. A strong, almost incestuous affection develops between the teenagers, resulting in twins who are given to a foster family. Also standing in the way of love is Spyros, determined to take his foster daughter as his wife. The lovers then decide to flee the village, persecuted by their father, leading a life of exile. As Alexis joins a group of musicians planning to go to the United States, Eleni regains custody of the twins. Angelopoulos, as in previous films, looks at the sacrifice of civilians confronted by the workers' demonstrations of 1935, the rule of Metaxas' fascist junta and forced emigration to America, and finally the civil war of 1944-1949.



My Grandfather's People

A feature film that tells the story of the director's grandfather who was forced to leave Crete in the 1920s during the Greek-Turkish population exchange.



The Return
6.5

After twenty years away, Odysseus washes up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable. The king has finally returned home, but much has changed in his kingdom since he left to fight in the Trojan war.



Eternity and a Day
7.8

Famous writer Alexander contracts a terminal illness. He receives a letter from his wife describing a summer day 30 years ago, and leaves his seaside home to remember his past. This journey will allow him to wander between the past and the present, and encounter unexpected people, allowing him to collect unforgettable memories in the final moments of his life.



Voyager
Voyager(1991)
6.1

Walter Faber has survived a crash with an airplane. His next trip is by ship. On board this ship he meets the enchanting Sabeth and they have a passionate love affair. Together they travel to her home in Greece, but the rational Faber doesn't know what fate has in mind for him for past doings.



Landscape in the Mist
7.621

Two Greek children embark on a journey to search for their father, who supposedly lives in Germany.



The Travelling Players

This expansive Greek drama follows a troupe of theater actors as they perform around their country during World War II. While the production that they put on is entitled "Golfo the Shepherdess," the thespians end up echoing scenes from classic Greek tales in their own lives, as Elektra plots revenge on her mother for the death of her father, and seeks help from her brother, Orestes, a young anti-fascist rebel.



Estranged
Estranged(2015)
5.3

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



Back Home
Back Home(2020)
5.8

The prodigal son of a family in turmoil returns home to his French rural home to reconnect with his family and make sense of their dysfunctions.



America America
6.9

A young Anatolian Greek, entrusted with his family's fortune, loses it en route to Istanbul and dreams of going to America.



Last Year at Marienbad

In a strange and isolated chateau, a man becomes acquainted with a woman and insists that they have met before.



Pity
Pity(2018)
6.3

The story of a man who feels happy only when he is unhappy: addicted to sadness, with such need for pity, that he’s willing to do everything to evoke it from others. This is the life of a man in a world not cruel enough for him.



La Jetée
La Jetée(1962)
7.872

A man confronts his past during an experiment that attempts to find a solution to the problems of a post-apocalyptic world caused by a world war.



The Suspended Step of the Stork

A reporter notices an old man in a border town who may be an important Greek politician who disappeared mysteriously years ago.



The Beekeeper
7.008

Following the wedding of his daughter, stone-faced beekeeper Spyros makes an annual journey from the north of Greece to the south, traveling along with his hives. En route, he meets an erratic, young female drifter, with whom he strikes up an unusual, self-destructive relationship.



Oslo, August 31st
7.479

A recovering drug addict is granted a day’s leave from rehab and returns to Oslo, where he reconnects with friends, faces the weight of his past, and struggles with uncertainty about his future. Over the course of one day, he drifts through encounters that reflect his longing for connection and his deep sense of alienation.



Xenia
Xenia(2014)
6.13

Strangers in their own birthplace, 16-year-old Danny and 18-year-old Odysseus cross the entire country in search of their Greek father, after their Albanian mother passes away.



Ararat
Ararat(2002)
6.1

Interrogated by a customs officer, a young man recounts how his life was changed during the making of a film about the Armenian genocide.



Bittersweet
7.494

An Egyptian-American returns to his homeland after twenty years abroad, filled with nostalgia and high hopes. But as he reconnects with his roots, he finds himself caught between two worlds—and begins to experience the reality of a country he thought he knew.



Remember
Remember(2015)
7.347

With the aid of a fellow Auschwitz survivor and a hand-written letter, an elderly man with dementia goes in search of the person responsible for the death of his family.



Apples
Apples(2021)
6.3

As an unpredictable, sweeping pandemic causes people to develop sudden amnesia, a man finds himself enrolled in a recovery program designed to help him build a new life. His treatment: performing daily tasks prescribed by his doctors on cassette tape, and capturing those with a Polaroid camera.



Time Regained
6.2

In early 1920s France, an author, lying on his deathbed, looks at various photographs and is flooded with memories of the people and events that have shaped his life.



Orpheus
Orpheus(1950)
7.7

A famous poet in postwar Paris, scorned by the Left Bank youth, is in love with both his wife Eurydice and a mysterious princess. Seeking inspiration, the poet becomes obsessed and follows the princess from the world of the living to the land of the dead.



Cinema Paradiso
8.4

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.



Paris, Texas
8.093

A man wanders out of the desert not knowing who he is. His brother finds him, and helps to pull his memory back of the life he led before he walked out on his family and disappeared four years earlier.



The Prophet
7.337

Exiled artist and poet Mustafa embarks on a journey home with his housekeeper and her daughter; together the trio must evade the authorities who fear that the truth in Mustafa's words will incite rebellion.



Triage
Triage(2009)
6

The wife of a photojournalist sets out to discover why he came home from a recent assignment without his colleague.



Pastoral: To Die in the Country

A director faces creative block while working on his latest film – a reimagination of his adolescence growing up in a mountain village in rural Japan.



Hidden
Hidden(2009)
5.6

Painful memories arise when Kai Koss inherits his dead mother's house and goes back to his childhood home after 19 years.



Why
Why(1971)
7.244

Giuseppe Di Noi, an Italian surveyor living in Swiden, gets arrested at the border while going back to Italy with his family for a vacation. But can someone tell the man why?



Blue Cave
Blue Cave(2024)
7.058

When Cem finds himself at the brink of losing the love of his life, Alara, he embarks on an expedition to the Blue Cave, Alara's most beloved archeological site, to feel close to her again.



Aftermath
Aftermath(2012)
6.6

Two brothers are trying to find out the truth from years ago. The whole town is against them.



Vampire Journals
4.859

A 19th century vampire stalks a more powerful vampire lord in his quest to gain revenge over the death of his mistress. In his search for the vampire lord in Eastern Europe he kills many of his servants and fellow vampires while cursing another to vampirism as well.



Memoir of War
6.1

In the last days of the Nazi-occupied France, writer Marguerite Duras awaits the return of her husband, Robert Antelme, arrested for being a Resistance fighter and then deported, while she maintains a tense relationship with her ambiguous lover and a dangerous game with a French collaborationist. Even when the Liberation arrives, she must still endure the unbearable pain of waiting.



Look Back in Anger
6.6

A disillusioned, angry university graduate comes to terms with his grudge against middle-class life and values.



Mr. Roosevelt
6.151

A young woman returns home and must confront her ex-boyfriend when an unexpected tragedy occurs.



8½
(1963)
8.122

Guido Anselmi, a film director, finds himself creatively barren at the peak of his career. Urged by his doctors to rest, Anselmi heads for a luxurious resort, but a sorry group gathers—his producer, staff, actors, wife, mistress, and relatives—each one begging him to get on with the show. In retreat from their dependency, he fantasizes about past women and dreams of his childhood.



The Brutalist
6.955

When an innovative modern architect flees post-war Europe, he is given the opportunity to rebuild his legacy. Set during the dawn of the modern United States (in Pennsylvania), his wife joins him, and their lives are forever changed by a demanding, wealthy patron.



Contempt
Contempt(1963)
7.1

A philistine in the art film business, Jeremy Prokosch is a producer unhappy with the work of his director. Prokosch has hired Fritz Lang to direct an adaptation of "The Odyssey," but when it seems that the legendary filmmaker is making a picture destined to bomb at the box office, he brings in a screenwriter to energize the script. The professional intersects with the personal when a rift develops between the writer and his wife.



Long Day's Journey into Night

Luo Hongwu returns to Kaili, the hometown from which he fled many years ago. He begins the search for the woman he loved and whom he has never been able to forget.



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.



Shadow
Shadow(2009)
5.487

A Young soldier returning from Iraq goes on a high mountain adventure in a desolate place in Europe to forget his past, he will lear truth in a mysterious local legend discovering that reality can be sicker than nightmares.



Elena
Elena(2013)
7.279

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



Home
Home(2021)
6.7

An ex-felon returns home from prison and must confront the demons of his past.



France
France(2021)
5.213

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



The Return
7.286

The relationships among two pre-pubescent brothers and their estranged father are tested on a trip into the Russian wilderness.



Tommaso
Tommaso(2020)
5.754

Tommaso is an American expat film director living in Rome with his young wife and their daughter. Disoriented by his past misgivings and subsequent unexpected blows to his self-esteem, Tommaso wades through this late chapter of his life with an increasingly impaired grasp on reality as he prepares for his next film.



The Comedy
5.717

Indifferent to the notion of inheriting his father's estate, a restless, aging New Yorker passes time with his friends in games of mock sincerity, irreverence, and recreational cruelty towards those around them.



Easy
Easy(2017)
6.8

A 40-year-old loser named Isidoro at the request of his brother drives from Italy to mountainous Carpathian village in Ukraine with a coffin of a diseased Ukrainian worker, who died at a construction site in Italy.



This Must Be the Place

A bored, retired rock star sets out to find his father's tormentor, an ex-Nazi war criminal who is a refugee in the U.S.



My Mother
My Mother(2015)
6.6

Margherita, a director in the middle of an existential crisis, has to deal with the inevitable and still unacceptable loss of her mother.



Transit
Transit(2018)
6.72

In an attempt to flee Nazi-occupied France, Georg assumes the identity of a dead author but soon finds himself stuck in Marseilles, where he falls in love with Maria, a young woman searching for her missing husband.



Passenger
Passenger(1963)
7.211

A German woman on a ship returning to Europe notices a face of another woman which brings recollections from the past. She tells her husband that she had been an overseer in Auschwitz during the war, but she has actually saved a woman's life.



ID:A
ID:A(2011)
6

A woman wakes up in a river. Wounded and without memory, then races to elude mysterious followers and recover from amnesia.



Adam Resurrected
6.2

After again attempting to commit murder, a Jewish man with a mysterious past and extraordinary intelligence, charisma, and body control returns to an insane asylum, where he makes a startling discovery.



Made in Italy
6.067

Riko is an honest and hardworking man who can count on a group of real friends and a loving wife. Things change after he loses his job and experiences a midlife crisis.



The Day He Arrives
6.915

A film director who no longer makes films arrives in Seoul to meet a close friend. When the friend doesn't show up, he wanders the city aimlessly for three days, grabbing drinks and meeting women, with each day playing out like a version of the last.



Finsterworld
6.325

The film tells different stories in a kind of parallel Germany about love, affection and hatred.



The Return
6.8

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



Remember
Remember(2022)
7.536

Pil-ju, an Alzheimer's patient in his 80s, who lost all his family during the Japanese colonial era, and devotes his lifelong revenge before his memories disappear, and a young man in his 20s who helps him.



Wander Darkly
6.1

New parents Adrienne and Matteo are forced to reckon with trauma amidst their troubled relationship. They must revisit the memories of their past and unravel haunting truths in order to face their uncertain future.



Film Socialisme
5.993

A symphony in three movements. Things such as a Mediterranean cruise, numerous conversations, in numerous languages, between the passengers, almost all of whom are on holiday... Our Europe. At night, a sister and her younger brother have summoned their parents to appear before the court of their childhood. The children demand serious explanations of the themes of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Our humanities. Visits to six sites of true or false myths: Egypt, Palestine, Odessa, Hellas, Naples and Barcelona.



Beckett
Beckett(2021)
6.187

An American tourist in Greece finds himself on the run after a tragic accident plunges him into a political conspiracy that makes him a target for assassination.



Deception
Deception(2021)
5.323

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.



Mirrors
Mirrors(2008)
6.285

An ex-cop and his family are the target of an evil force that is using mirrors as a gateway into their home.



Dangerous Game
5.72

A New York film director, working on his latest movie in Los Angeles, begins to reflect the actions in his movie and real life, especially when he begins an affair with the lead actress.



When Father Was Away on Business

Tito's break-up with Stalin in 1948 marked the beginning of not only confusing, but also very dangerous, years for many hard-core Yugoslav communists. A careless remark about the newspaper cartoon is enough for Mesha to join many arrested unfortunates. His family is now forced to cope with the situation and wait for his release from prison.



Katzelmacher
6.382

A group of young slackers spend most of their time hanging out in front of a Munich apartment building. When a Greek immigrant named Jorgos moves in, however, their aimless lives are shaken up. Soon, new tensions arise both within the group and with Jorgos.



Donovan's Echo
6.007

A series of uncanny déjà vu events force a man to re-examine his tragic past, memory, instinct, and future.



Stroszek
Stroszek(1977)
7.315

Bruno Stroszek is released from prison and warned to stop drinking. He has few skills and fewer expectations: with a glockenspiel and an accordion, he ekes out a living as a street musician. He befriends Eva, a prostitute down on her luck and they join his neighbor, Scheitz, an elderly eccentric, when he leaves Germany to live in Wisconsin.



Imprint
Imprint(2006)
6.822

An American journalist travels through 19th-century Japan to find the prostitute he fell in love with but instead learns of the physical and existential horror that befell her after he left.



Everything Is Illuminated

A young Jewish American man endeavors—with the help of eccentric, distant relatives—to find the woman who saved his grandfather during World War II—in a Ukrainian village which was ultimately razed by the Nazis.



Kinetta
Kinetta(2005)
5

At a Greek hotel in the off-season, a chambermaid, a man obsessed with BMW cars, and a photo-store clerk attempt to film and photograph various badly re-enacted struggles between a man and a woman.



Identifying Features

Magdalena makes a journey to find her son, who has disappeared on his way to the Mexican border with the United States. Her odyssey takes her to meet Miguel, a man recently deported from the US. They start to travel together, Magdalena looking for her son, and Miguel hoping to see his mother again.



Black Box
Black Box(2020)
6.391

After losing his wife and his memory in a car accident, a single father undergoes an experimental treatment that causes him to question who he really is.



Marseille
Marseille(2016)
4.885

Faced with the insistence of his brother Joseph, whom he has not seen for 25 years, Paolo resolves to give up his calm and harmonious life in Canada, to return to Marseilles at the bedside of his rugged father. He left, therefore, with his son under his arm, determined not to linger in that city which he had fled years before, after a tragedy. He does not imagine that the affection of his newfound family, his love affair with a young woman and the joyful and simple solidarity of the Marseillais will reconcile him with this city he would never have wanted to leave...Marseillle.



Egg
Egg(2007)
5.8

Poet Yusuf (35-38) returns to his childhood hometown, which he hadn't visited for years, upon his mother's death. He is faced with a neglected, crumbling house. Ayla, a young girl (17-19) awaits him there. Yusuf has been unaware of the existence of this distant relation who had been living with his mother for five years; He stays by his dead mother's bedside for a while on the morning of his return...



Cold War
Cold War(2018)
7.4

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.



Amarcord
Amarcord(1973)
7.9

In an Italian seaside town, young Titta gets into trouble with his friends and watches various local eccentrics as they engage in often absurd behavior. Frequently clashing with his stern father and defended by his doting mother, Titta witnesses the actions of a wide range of characters, from his extended family to Fascist loyalists to sensual women, with certain moments shifting into fantastical scenarios.



Zulu
Zulu(2013)
6.7

As a child, Ali Neuman narrowly escaped being murdered by Inkhata, a militant political party at war with Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. Only he and his mother survived the carnage of those years. But as with many survivors, the psychological scars remain.



The Passion of Anna
7.453

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



Mirror
Mirror(1975)
7.943

A dying man in his forties recalls his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that tell of and juxtapose pivotal moments in Soviet history with daily life.



Lower City
6.4

Best friends Deco and Naldinho co-own a cargo boat in Brazil's Salvador da Bahia. They give a ride to a sultry prostitute named Karinna, and soon both men fall prey to her considerable sexual charms, pushing the bounds of their friendship to the limit.



Romance
Romance(1999)
5.451

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



Ears
Ears(2016)
7.1

A man wakes up one morning with an annoying ringing sound in his ears. A note on the fridge says: "Your friend Luigi has died. P.S. I took the car". The problem is that he does not even remember who this guy Luigi is. This is just the beginning of a tragicomic day during which he will be plunged into the folly of the world. One of those days that changes your life forever.



My Father and My Son

A left-wing journalist whose wife died while giving birth to his son during a military coup returns to his family's farm. Estranged from his father for turning his back on the family and wasting his life with political activism instead, he tries to reconnect with him so that his son will have a place to live as his health is deteriorating due to the extensive torture he had to endure.



Youth
Youth(2015)
6.895

Two lifelong friends bond whilst vacationing in a luxury Swiss Alps lodge as they ponder retirement. While Fred has no plans to resume his musical career despite the urging of his loving daughter Lena, Mick is intent on finishing the screenplay for what may be his last important film for his muse Brenda. And where will inspiration lead their younger friend Jimmy, an actor grasping to make sense of his next performance?



Lazy Eye
Lazy Eye(2016)
5.539

Passions reignite and hidden secrets revealed when a graphic designer in Los Angeles reconnects with an ex-lover he hasn’t seen or heard from in 15 years. Over the course of a weekend at a vacation house in the desert, they must determine whether or not they have a future together.



Toss-Up
Toss-Up(2004)
6.9

Two soldiers return home from their military service in southeastern Turkey with disabilities.



Return
Return(1985)
6.145

After reading an article about hypnotic regression, a woman whose maternal grandfather died when she was only three years old contacts the hypnotic subject named in the article believing that he is the reincarnation of her grandfather, and hoping that she can learn the truth about how he died.



Mr. Blake at Your Service!

Since his wife's death, Andrew Blake is depressed. In an ultimate impetus, he leaves London to go back to France, in the house he met her. This journey through happy days memories won't go as planned.



What?
What?(1972)
5.448

A young American woman traveling through Italy finds herself in a strange Mediterranean villa where nothing seems quite right.



Je T'Aime, Je T'Aime

Recovering from an attempted suicide, a man is selected to participate in a time travel experiment that has only been tested on mice. A malfunction in the experiment causes the man to experience moments from his past in a random order.



La Belle Époque
7.4

Victor, a disillusioned 60-something whose marriage is on the rocks, opts to relive the week of his life when, 40 years earlier, he met his true love through a company that allows customers to return to the time period of their choosing.



Story of a Love Affair

A wealthy, possessive husband's investigation reignites his young wife's past love, leading them to plot against him. As obstacles fall away, their passion faces a new test.



7 Emotions
6.625

Fear, anger, sadness, joy, disgust, envy, shame. Adaś Miauczyński goes back to his childhood days when, like most of us, he used to find it problematic to name the emotions that accompanied him. To improve the quality of his adult life, he decides to return to that time – which proves not so carefree after all – to learn how to experience the seven basic emotions. This extremely unpredictable journey into the past features an abundance of hilarious, even comical, situations but is also filled with lots of touching moments and food for thought.



Kodachrome
6.8

Matt Ryder is convinced to drive his estranged and dying father Benjamin Ryder cross country to deliver four old rolls of Kodachrome film to the last lab in the world that can develop them before it shuts down for good. Along with Ben's nurse Zooey, the three navigate a world changing from analogue to digital while trying to put the past behind them.

AboutPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceContact Us