Highest-Rated Movies about 'Emotional Repression'

Fists in the Pocket (1965), Everyone Else (2009), Thérèse (1986), Tokyo Story (1953), Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974), Through a Glass Darkly (1961), 3-Iron (2004), What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Emotional Repression movies.

#1. Fists in the Pocket (1965)

Storyline: Augusto (Marino Mase) is the oldest son in a dysfunctional Italian family that includes a blind mother (Liliana Gerace), a selfish sister, Giulia (Paola Pitagora), and two epileptic brothers, Alessandro (Lou Castel) and Leone (Pier Luigi Troglio). Augusto is planning to marry Lucia (Jennie MacNeil) despite Giulia's repeated attempts to drive them apart, but cannot do so while taking care of the clan. An angry and unstable Alessandro decides to help Augusto by killing their mother and siblings.

Plot Keywords: psychological drama, family conflict, mental illness, moral dilemma, black comedy, social critique, existentialism ...

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#3. Thérèse (1986)

Storyline: In this true story of a 19th-century nun who achieved sainthood, Thérèse Martin (Catherine Mouchet) hopes to follow in the footsteps of her two older sisters, who became members of the Carmelite order of nuns. Although the church resists initially because of her age, Thérèse stubbornly continues her quest to serve God, and even lobbies Pope Leo XIII (Armand Meppiel). Her wish is granted at age 15, when she joins the order and performs extraordinary works in a life abbreviated by illness.

Plot Keywords: drama, romance, historical, french, literary adaptation, female protagonist, 19th century ...

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#4. Tokyo Story (1953)

Storyline: Elderly couple Shukishi and Tomi Hirayama live in the small coastal village of Onomichi, Japan with their youngest daughter, schoolteacher Kyoko Hirayama. Their other three surviving adult children, who they have not seen in quite some time, live either in Tokyo or Osaka. As such, Shukishi and Tomi make the unilateral decision to have an extended visit in Tokyo with their children, pediatrician Koichi Hirayama and beautician Shige Kaneko, and their respective families (which includes two grandchildren). In transit, they make an unexpected stop in Osaka and stay with their other son, Keiso Hirayama. All of their children treat the visit more as an obligation than a want, each trying to figure out what to do with their parents while they continue on with their own daily lives. At one point, they even decide to ship their parents off to an inexpensive resort at Atami Hot Springs rather than spend time with them. The only offspring who makes a concerted effort on this trip is Noriko ...

Plot Keywords: family, generation gap, aging, loneliness, tradition, modernity, parent-child relationship ...

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#5. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)

Storyline: Emmi, a German woman in her mid-sixties, falls in love with Ali, a Moroccan immigrant worker around twenty-five years younger. When they abruptly decide to marry, everyone around them seems appalled. When the folks calm down a bit, Emmi and Ali's relationship grows uncertain.

Plot Keywords: drama, romance, social issues, racism, immigration, loneliness, marriage ...

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#6. Through a Glass Darkly (1961)

Storyline: A young woman, Karin, has recently returned to the family island after spending some time in a mental hospital. On the island with her is her lonely brother and kind, but increasingly desperate husband ('Max von Sydow'). They are joined by Karin's father ('Gunnar Björnstrand'), who is a world-traveling author that is estranged to his children. The film depicts how Karin's grip on reality slowly slips away and how the bonds between the family members are changing in light of this fact.

Plot Keywords: psychological drama, family relationships, mental illness, crisis of faith, isolation, father-daughter relationship, existentialism ...

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#7. 3-Iron (2004)

Storyline: A young drifter enters strangers' houses - and lives - while owners are away. He spends a night or a day squatting in, repaying their unwitting hospitality by doing laundry or small repairs. His life changes when he runs into a beautiful woman in an affluent mansion who is ready to escape her unhappy, abusive marriage.

Plot Keywords: romance, crime, drama, loneliness, silence, korean cinema, poetic ...

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#9. Splendor in the Grass (1961)

Storyline: It's 1928 in oil rich southeast Kansas. High school seniors Bud Stamper and Deanie Loomis are in love with each other. Bud, the popular football captain, and Deanie, the sensitive soul, are "good" kids who have only gone as far as kissing. Unspoken to each other, they expect to get married to each other one day. But both face pressures within the relationship, Bud who has the urges to go farther despite knowing in his heart that if they do that Deanie will end up with a reputation like his own sister, Ginny Stamper, known as the loose, immoral party girl, and Deanie who will do anything to hold onto Bud regardless of the consequences. They also face pressures from their parents who have their own expectation for their offspring. Bud's overbearing father, Ace Stamper, the local oil baron, does not believe Bud can do wrong and expects him to go to Yale after graduation, which does not fit within Bud's own expectations for himself. And the money and image conscious Mrs. Loomis just wants...

Plot Keywords: romance, youth, passion, repression, psychological conflict, 1920s, family pressure ...

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#10. The Pawnbroker (1964)

Storyline: In a poor neighborhood of New York, the bitter and lonely Jewish pawnbroker Sol Nazerman is a survivor from Auschwitz that has no emotions or feelings. Sol lost his dearest family and friends in the war and his faith in God and belief in mankind. Now he only cares for money and is haunted by daydreams, actually flashbacks from the period of the concentration camp. Sol's assistant is the ambitious Latino Jesus Ortiz, who wants to learn with Sol how to run a business of his own. When Sol realizes that the obscure laundry business he has with the powerful gangster Rodriguez comes also from brothels, Sol recalls the fate of his beloved wife in the concentration camp and has a nervous breakdown. His attitude leads Jesus Ortiz to tragedy and Sol finds a way to cry.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Plot Keywords: drama, crime, racial discrimination, jewish, new york, psychological trauma, loneliness ...

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#11. Family Life (1971)

Storyline: A 19 years old London girl received agressive psychiatric treatments for her schizophrenic behaviour by a doctor who still wants her family to insure the guard of the child without any regards to the facts that it is this family who's agravating her situation.—Jean-Marie Berthiaume <jiembe@videotron.ca>

Plot Keywords: family, drama, british film, social issues, psychological drama, realism, independent film ...

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#12. Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

Storyline: Jim Stark is the new kid in town. He has been in trouble elsewhere; that's why his family has had to move before. Here he hopes to find the love he doesn't get from his middle-class family. Though he finds some of this in his relation with Judy, and a form of it in both Plato's adulation and Ray's real concern for him, Jim must still prove himself to his peers in switchblade knife fights and "chickie" games in which cars race toward a seaside cliff.

Plot Keywords: family conflict, identity crisis, generation gap, social pressure, loneliness, antihero, suburban life ...

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#13. Control (2007)

Storyline: Ian Curtis is a quiet and rather sad lad who works for an employment agency and sings in a band called Warsaw. He meets a girl named Debbie whom he promptly marries and his band, of which the name in the meantime has been changed to Joy Division, gets more and more successful. Even though Debbie and he become parents, their relationship is going downhill rapidly and Ian starts an affair with Belgium Annik whom he met after one of the gigs and he's almost never at home. Ian also suffers from epilepsy and has no-good medication for it. He doesn't know how to handle the feelings he has for Debbie and Annik and the pressure the popularity of Joy Division and the energy performing costs him.

Plot Keywords: british film, depression, 1970s, music history, indie film, based on true story, music culture ...

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#14. Maurice (1987)

Storyline: Two male English school chums find themselves falling in love at Cambridge. To regain his place in society, Clive gives up his forbidden love, Maurice (pronounced "Morris") and marries. While staying with Clive and his shallow wife, Anne, Maurice finally discovers romance in the arms of Alec, the gamekeeper. Written from personal pain, it's E.M. Forster's story of coming to terms with sexuality in the Edwardian age.

Plot Keywords: homosexual, british literature, romance, period drama, forbidden love, class divide, self-discovery ...

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#15. The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1973)

Storyline: From the Pullizer Prize winning play by Paul Zindel, this is the story of Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters, Ruth and Matilda. A middle-aged widowed eccentric, Beatrice is looking for her life in the classified ads while all about her is the rubble of an unkempt house. All she needs is the right opportunity, she says puffing on a cigarette. Poorly equipped to survive the vagaries of modern life, she has nonetheless always managed to muddle through. Ruth, epileptic and making her way through the rebellious phase of adolescence, seems doomed to make the same mistakes as her mother. Quiet Matilda, on the other hand, seeks refuge in her animals and her schoolwork. "Jesus, don't you hate the world, Matilda?" Beatrice asks her youngest daughter. The title of the film is also the subject of Matilda's science project at school and serves as a metaphor for the way life affects each of us differently -- how some are able to find opportunity in adversity and thrive and how some succumb when the burden becomes too heavy. This is the story of slowly drowning and grasping desperately for a lifeline only to find that there's none there and you must save yourself. "No, Mama," Matilda says, "I don't hate the world." (Nell Potts, who stars as Matilda, is the stage name of Eleanor Newman -- Joanne Woodward's real-life daughter. She also appeared as the young Rachel in *Rachel, Rachel*.)—Mark Fleetwood <mfleetwo@mail.coin.missouri.edu>

Plot Keywords: drama, family, psychological, coming of age, mother-daughter relationship, loneliness, hope ...

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