Highest-Rated Movies about 'Emotional Complexity'

Straight Up (2019), A Merry War (1997), Jules and Jim (1962), Murmur of the Heart (1971), Grey Gardens (1975), Victor Victoria (1982), Autumn Tale (1998), Lady Bird (2017) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Emotional Complexity movies.

#2. A Merry War (1997)

Storyline: When successful advertiser Gordon Comstock (Richard E. Grant) abruptly walks away from his career to pursue his dream of being a poet, his path is much more difficult than expected. At first encouraged by a prior publishing of his work, Comstock has trouble finding work, and soon financial problems begin to pile up. Also frustrating is that his former co-worker and girlfriend, Rosemary (Helena Bonham Carter), seems uninterested in sex, although she does stand by him despite his struggles.

Plot Keywords: comedy, romance, british film, literary adaptation, satire, black comedy, social commentary ...

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#3. Jules and Jim (1962)

Storyline: In pre-WWI Paris, two friends, Jules (Austrian) and Jim (French), fall in love with the same woman, Catherine. But Catherine loves and marries Jules. When they meet again in Germany after the war, Catherine starts to love Jim - This is the story of three people in love, a love that doesn't affect their friendship, and about how their relationship evolves with the years.

Plot Keywords: love triangle, classic cinema, black and white, literary adaptation, existentialism, war background, friendship ...

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#4. Murmur of the Heart (1971)

Storyline: This is a jolly coming-of-age story about a 14-year-old boy named Laurent Chevalier who is growing up in bourgeois surroundings in Dijon, France. This is France in the mid-1950s rather than America in the 1990s. Thus, Laurent is unharmed by events which would irreparably shatter the self-esteem of a modern American adolescent: he gets drunk, he smokes, he has sex, he is smothered by his mother, he is ignored by his father, a priest makes a pass at him, he gets rheumatoid fever, etc. There's enough scandalous behavior in this film to make 100 made-for-TV movies, and yet this is a very happy and oddly innocent tale.—Tim Horrigan <horrigan@aol.com>

Plot Keywords: coming of age, family, mother-son relationship, adolescence, sexual awakening, french cinema, 1960s ...

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#5. Grey Gardens (1975)

Storyline: The Maysles brothers pay visits to Edith Bouvier Beale, nearing 80, and her daughter Edie. Reclusive, the pair live with cats and raccoons in Grey Gardens, a crumbling mansion in East Hampton. Edith is dry and quick-witted - a singer, married but later separated, a member of high society. Edie is voluble, dresses - as she puts it - for combat in tight ensembles that include scarves wrapped around her head. There are hints that Edie came home 24 years before to be cared for rather than to care for her mother. The women address the camera, talking over each other, moving from the present to events years before. They're odd, with flinty affection for each other.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>

Plot Keywords: documentary, biography, true story, mother-daughter relationship, social outcasts, american culture, high society ...

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#6. Victor Victoria (1982)

Storyline: In 1934 Paris, trained coloratura soprano Victoria Grant, a native Brit, can't get a job as a singer and is having trouble making ends meet. She doesn't even have enough money for the basics of food and shelter. Gay cabaret singer Carole 'Toddy' Todd may befall the same fate as Victoria as he was just fired from his singing gig at a second rate club named Chez Lui. To solve both their problems, Toddy comes up with what he considers an inspired idea: with Toddy as her manager, Victoria, pretending to be a man, get a job singing as a female impersonator. If they pull this scheme off, Toddy vows Victoria, as her male alter ego, will be the toast of Paris and as such be extremely wealthy. That alter ego they decide is Polish Count Victor Grazinski, Toddy's ex-lover who was disowned by his family when they found out he was gay. The Count auditions for the city's leading agent, Andre Cassell, who, impressed, gets him a gig performing in the city's best nightclub. In the audience on the ...

Plot Keywords: musical, comedy, romance, paris, cabaret, song and dance, gender issues ...

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#7. Autumn Tale (1998)

Storyline: Magali, 45, is a wine producer in the south of France. She's a widow, and her best friend, Isabelle, decides to find her a new husband. She puts an ad in the local newspaper and finds a nice man, Gérald. At Isabelle's daughter's wedding, Magali eventually meets Gérald. But there's another man around, Etienne...—G.A. <pitcairn@wanadoo.fr>

Plot Keywords: drama, romance, french film, country life, marriage, friendship, romantic ...

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#8. Lady Bird (2017)

Storyline: Christine "Lady Bird" MacPherson is a high school senior from the "wrong side of the tracks." She longs for adventure, sophistication, and opportunity, but finds none of that in her Sacramento Catholic high school. LADY BIRD follows the title character's senior year in high school, including her first romance, her participation in the school play, and most importantly, her applying for college.

Plot Keywords: coming of age, youth, mother-daughter relationship, family, high school life, first love, self-discovery ...

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#9. 20th Century Women (2016)

Storyline: Love, life, and the struggles of a mother bringing up a son in the the late 70's. The ignorance of a free spirit against the needs of a young man trying to find his true character and beliefs. Living in a bohemian household shared with 3 like minded spirited people to help pay the rent, his mother tries to establish bonds that he cannot deal with. She cannot deal with his inability to talk, and enlists the help of other females in his life to share the burden of his upbringing. Slowly life unravels for them all without understanding how. In spite of their perceived struggles, they all go on to live defined lives without any serious consequences.

Plot Keywords: drama, comedy, coming of age, family, 1970s, american, indie film ...

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#10. Middle of the Night (1959)

Storyline: Fifty-six year old Jerry Kingsley, the co-owner/co-operator of Lock Lee Fashions, a New York based garment manufacturer and wholesaler, has been widowed for two years. His older spinster sister, Evelyn Kingsley, moved in with him in his apartment following Jerry's wife's passing to take care of him, she who has always assumed the role as family caregiver. One of Jerry's married daughters, twenty-five year old Lillian Englander, believes Evelyn has a neurotic fixation on Jerry, Lillian unaware that her own fixation on her father is just as strong. Evelyn tries to arrange dates for Jerry, primarily with lonely widows, something he resists in wanting to find a woman on his own despite his own loneliness. Unlike his married business partner, fifty-nine year old Walter Lockman, who is always chasing after "tootsies" and "floozies", Jerry wants someone to love. After learning her story, Jerry thinks he's found the woman in Lock Lee's twenty-four year old receptionist, Betty Preisser. Betty, who never had much parental guidance, recently got divorced from her musician husband, George Preisser. There had always been a strong physical attraction between Betty and George, but nothing that she would now consider love. Betty is an extremely sad and confused woman, admits that she misses George, but doesn't want to get back together with him, she needing the antithesis of George as the person in her life at this point in time. Jerry and Betty enter into what ends up being a turbulent May-September relationship, their issues based on their own insecurities: Jerry, who realizes that his love for Betty is illogical due to the differences in their ages, admits he will always have pangs of jealousy in believing that she will be more physically attracted to men her own age; and Betty doesn't know if what she feels for Jerry is love or just a sense of being protected, something she never felt with George. Regardless, they decide to get married. That announcement opens up their relationship to the scrutiny of his family and friends, her family and friends, and their co-workers. The situation gets even more complicated when George reenters Betty's life. The questions then become if Jerry and Betty's relationship can withstand all these pressures, or if there is a factor or factors that will show them that their relationship makes sense at this point in their respective lives.—Huggo

Plot Keywords: drama, romance, midlife crisis, new york, marriage, loneliness, emotional struggle ...

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#11. The Taste of Others (2000)

Storyline: Three men, three women, opposites, possibilities, and tastes. Castella owns a industrial steel barrel plant in Rouen; Bruno is his flute-playing driver, Franck is his temporary bodyguard while he negotiates a contract with Iranians, his wife Angélique does frou-frou interior decorating and loves her dog. The conventional Castella hires a forty-year-old actress, Clara, to tutor him in English, and he finds her and her Bohemian lifestyle fascinating. Is this love? What would she say if he declared himself? Through Bruno, Franck meets Manie, a barmaid who deals hash. They begin an affair. Are they in love? They joke about marriage. As the women hold back, the men must make decisions.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>

Plot Keywords: comedy, drama, french film, romance, art film, human relationships, middle class ...

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#12. Heartbeats (2010)

Storyline: In a story interspersed with interview tales of romantic pitfalls, friendship turns to romantic rivalry for gay man Francis and straight woman Marie when a veritable Adonis named Nicolas enters their lives. Sexual tensions mount as Francis and Marie await Nicolas' show of preference.

Plot Keywords: romance, drama, french cinema, lgbt, youth, love triangle, emotion ...

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#13. Beautiful Girls (1996)

Storyline: New York based jazz pianist Willie Conway heads back to his small hometown of Knights Ridge, Massachusetts for a high school reunion. The trip is as much to go to the reunion and see his old friends - none of whom left Knights Ridge after graduation - as it is to get away from his current life, at which he is at a crossroads both personally and professionally. He is just eking out a living with his piano playing gigs, and as such he is thinking about taking a sales job. He's also not sure if he's ready to marry his long time girlfriend, lawyer Tracy Stover. Most of Willie's Knights Ridge blue collar friends' best days were in high school, they still having that "trophy" mentality of girlfriends and wives. Only Michael "Mo" Morris is happily married with a family. Paul Kirkwood, whose room is plastered with magazine pictures of models, wants his waitress ex-girlfriend Jan back only because he knows now that he can't have her. And Tommy "Birdman" Rowland, who was the big man in high ...

Plot Keywords: romantic comedy, coming of age, small town life, midlife crisis, friendship, nostalgia, family relationships ...

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#14. Mansfield Park (1999)

Storyline: At 10, Fanny Price, a poor relation, goes to live at Mansfield Park, the estate of her aunt's husband, Sir Thomas. Clever, studious, and a writer with an ironic imagination and fine moral compass, she becomes especially close to Edmund, Thomas's younger son. Fanny is soon possessed of beauty as well as a keen mind and comes to the attention of a neighbor, Henry Crawford. Thomas promotes this match, but to his displeasure, Fanny has a mind of her own, asking Henry to prove himself worthy. As Edmund courts Henry's sister and as light shines on the link between Thomas's fortunes and New World slavery, Fanny must assess Henry's character and assert her heart as well as her wit.

Plot Keywords: british literature, jane austen, romance, family drama, social class, female perspective, coming of age ...

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#15. Desert Hearts (1985)

Storyline: It is 1950s Nevada, and Professor Vivian Bell arrives to get a quickie divorce. She's unsatisfied with her marriage, and feels out of place at the ranch she stays on, she finds herself increasingly drawn to Cay Rivers, an open and self-assured lesbian, and the ranchowner's daughter. The emotions released by their developing intimacy, and Vivian's insecurities about her feelings towards Cay, are played out against a backdrop of rocky landscapes and country and western songs.—Neil Lewis <njl@cix.compulink.co.uk>

Plot Keywords: romance, lesbian, drama, american, female director, independent film, classic ...

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