Highest-Rated Movies about 'Family History'

Into the Wild (2007), Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), Big Fish (2003), Elle s'appelait Sarah (2010), Sunshine (1999), Italianamerican (1974), Lone Star (1996), Winter in Vail (2020) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Family History movies.

#1. Into the Wild (2007)

Storyline: Based on a true story. After graduating from Emory University, Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions, gave his entire savings account to charity, and hitchhiked to Alaska to live in the wilderness. Along the way, Christopher encounters a series of characters who shape his life.

Plot Keywords: wilderness, self discovery, alaska, based on true story, journey, following a dream, isolation ...

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#2. Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

Storyline: Bohemian Rhapsody is a foot-stomping celebration of Queen, their music and their extraordinary lead singer Freddie Mercury. Freddie defied stereotypes and shattered convention to become one of the most beloved entertainers on the planet. The film traces the meteoric rise of the band through their iconic songs and revolutionary sound. They reach unparalleled success, but in an unexpected turn Freddie, surrounded by darker influences, shuns Queen in pursuit of his solo career. Having suffered greatly without the collaboration of Queen, Freddie manages to reunite with his bandmates just in time for Live Aid. While bravely facing a recent AIDS diagnosis, Freddie leads the band in one of the greatest performances in the history of rock music. Queen cements a legacy that continues to inspire outsiders, dreamers and music lovers to this day.

Plot Keywords: rock band, title based on song, rock music, aids, gay, music band, ethnic slur ...

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#3. Big Fish (2003)

Storyline: United Press International journalist Will Bloom and his French freelance photojournalist wife Josephine Bloom, who is pregnant with their first child, leave their Paris base to return to Will's hometown of Ashton, Alabama on the news that his father, Edward Bloom, stricken with cancer, will soon die, he being taken off chemotherapy treatment. Although connected indirectly through Will's mother/Edward's wife, Sandra Bloom, Will has been estranged from his father for three years since his and Josephine's wedding. Will's issue with his father is the fanciful tales Edward has told of his life all his life, not only to Will but the whole world. As a child when Edward was largely absent as a traveling salesman, Will believed those stories, but now realizes that he does not know his father, who, as he continues to tell these stories, he will never get to know unless Edward comes clean with the truth before he dies. On the brink of his own family life beginning, Will does not want to be the ...

Plot Keywords: fish, father son relationship, death of father, liar, based on novel, legend, father son estrangement ...

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#4. Elle s'appelait Sarah (2010)

Storyline: One of the darkest moments in French history occurred in 1942 Paris when French officials rounded up over 10,000 Jews and placed them in local camps. Eventually over 8,000 were sent off to German concentration camps. As 10-year old Sarah and her family are being arrested, she hides her younger brother in a closet. After realizing she will not be allowed to go home, Sarah does whatever she can to get back to her brother. In 2009, a journalist named Julia is on assignment to write a story on the deported Jews in 1942. When she moves into her father-in-law's childhood apartment, she realizes it once belonged to the Strazynski family, and their daughter Sarah.

Plot Keywords: apartment, separation from family, secret past, guilt, suicide of mother, paris france, journalist ...

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#5. Sunshine (1999)

Storyline: The film follows a Jewish family living in Hungary through three generations, rising from humble beginnings to positions of wealth and power in the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire. The patriarch becomes a prominent judge but is torn when his government sanctions anti-Jewish persecutions. His son converts to Christianity to advance his career as a champion fencer and Olympic hero, but is caught up in the Holocaust. Finally, the grandson, after surviving war, revolution, loss and betrayal, realizes that his ultimate allegiance must be to himself and his heritage.

Plot Keywords: one word title, man in shower, sex scene, jewish, female frontal nudity, eastern europe, family business ...

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#6. Italianamerican (1974)

Storyline: Martin Scorsese interviews his mother and father about their life in New York City and the family history back in Sicily. These are two people who have lived together for a long time and know each other very well. They have retained individual identities and differing opinions, yet have found a way to live with each other, and both are fascinating story-tellers.—alfiehitchie

Plot Keywords: marriage, mother son relationship, italian american, immigrant, husband wife relationship, food, father son relationship ...

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#7. Lone Star (1996)

Storyline: John Sayles' murder-mystery explores interpersonal and interracial tensions in Rio County, Texas. Sam Deeds is the local sheriff who is called to investigate a 40-year-old skeleton found in the desert....As Sam delves deeper into the town's dark secrets, he begins to learn more about his father, the legendary former sheriff Buddy Deeds, who replaced the corrupt Charlie Wade. While Sam puzzles out the long-past events surrounding the mystery corpse, he also longs to rekindle a romance with his old high-school flame. Sayles' complex characters are brought together as the tightly woven plot finally draws to its dramatic close.

Plot Keywords: neo western, father son relationship, family history, told in flashback, interracial relationship, whodunit, nonlinear timeline ...

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#8. Winter in Vail (2020)

Storyline: "Winter Journey" is based on American radio host Martin Goldsmith's book about his Jewish parents, who fled Nazi Germany. Both were talented musicians, but after the Nuremberg Laws were enacted in 1935 they were only able to perform as members of the Jewish Cultural Federation, a bizarre propaganda organization fully controlled by the Reich Chamber of Culture. This film brings to life the reality of their beautiful and painful love story, using remarkable and ingenuously edited archive material. It also includes reenactments of the conversations Goldsmith had with his father in preparation for his book. The dynamic that emerges in the interaction between Martin Goldsmith himself, as the unseen interviewer, and a vulnerable Bruno Ganz, playing his father Georg Goldsmith, is fascinating. On one occasion Ganz even references his legendary role as Hitler in Der Untergang (2004), when Goldsmith, Sr., mimics an agitated Nazi official who stamps his visa. In ways like this, the story transcends its modest place in the history of the war.—International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam 2019

Plot Keywords: third reich, family history, reenactment, nazi germany, father, reference to ludwig van beethoven, tucson arizona ...

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#9. The Names of Love (2010)

Storyline: Bahia Benmahmoud, a free-spirited young woman, has a particular way of seeing political engagement, as she doesn't hesitate to sleep with those who don't agree with her to convert them to her cause - which is a lot of people, as all right-leaning people are concerned. Generally, it works pretty well. Until the day she meets Arthur Martin, a discreet forty-something who doesn't like taking risks. She imagines that with a name like that, he's got to be slightly fascist. But names are deceitful and appearances deceiving...—Happy_Evil_Dude

Plot Keywords: public nudity, female rear nudity, female frontal nudity, female full frontal nudity, female nudity, bare breasts, nudity ...

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#10. Bright Leaves (2003)

Storyline: North Carolina produces more tobacco than any other state in America. Bright Leaves describes a journey taken across the social, economic, and psychological tobacco terrain of North Carolina by a native Carolinian, Ross McElwee, whose great-grandfather created the famous brand of tobacco known as Bull Durham. The comedic chronicle is a subjective, autobiographical meditation on the allure of cigarettes and their troubling legacy for the state of North Carolina. It's also a film about family history, addiction, denial, and filmmaking--as McElwee, noted director of Sherman's March, grapples with the legacy of an obscure Hollywood melodrama that is purportedly based on this curious man that was his great-grandfather.—Sujit R. Varma

Plot Keywords: cigarette, rise and fall, parade, doctor, cathedral, affair, smoking ...

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#11. The House of the Spirits (1993)

Storyline: Chile, second half of the 20th century. The poor Esteban marries Clara and they get a daughter, Blanca. Esteban works hard and eventually gets money to buy a hacienda, eventually to become a local patriarch. He becomes very conservative and is feared by his workers. When Blanca grows up, she falls in love with a young revolutionary, Pedro, who urges the workers to fight for socialism. It is unavoidable that Pedro and Esteban are pitted against each other. Esteban tries to stop the love affair between Pedro and his daughter by all means possible but soon Blanca becomes pregnant and has a daughter. The void between father and daughter seems unbridgeable when Blanca moves in with Pedro.

Plot Keywords: patriarch, oppression, class conflict, catholic church, catholic, cemetery, childbirth ...

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#13. The Undying Monster (1942)

Storyline: A werewolf prowls around at night but only kills certain members of one family. It seems like just a coincidence but the investigating Inspector soon finds out that this tradition has gone on for generations and tries to find a link between the werewolf and the family, leading to a frightening conclusion.—Graeme Huggan <hia95gh@sheffield.ac.uk>

Plot Keywords: howling, great dane, brother sister relationship, wales, stained glass window, secret room, supernatural power ...

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#14. They All Kissed the Bride (1942)

Storyline: Margaret Drew runs her trucking company single-mindedly, if not ruthlessly. The only thorn in her side is writer Michael Holmes who is writing a book on some of her tough ways. With no time for men, the effect an attractive stranger has on her at her sister's wedding is unnerving. When it turns out this is the hated writer, she starts seriously to lose her bearings. Surely it can't become Maggie and Mike?—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}

Plot Keywords: 1940s, gas station attendant, investigation, investigator, irish american, marine, minister ...

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#15. My Forbidden Past (1951)

Storyline: Barbara Beaurevel lives with her aunt and cousin in New Orleans in the late 1800's. In love with Mark Lucas, a research doctor at Tulane University, her plans to marry him are thwarted. Barbara's family is of the high society stratum, but her late grandmother was not in fact, and the connection with her is something Barbara's aunt is most anxious to conceal. After Barbara inherits a fortune from her grandmother's side of the family, she uses it to try and win back Mark.—Ron Kerrigan <mvg@whidbey.com>

Plot Keywords: family relationships, repentance, opportunist, murder, murderer, louisiana, judge ...

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