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Movies that feel like Dersu Uzala (1975)

If you loved Dersu Uzala, the closest films we have are The Hidden Fortress (1958), Where Is The Friend's House? (1987) and Throne of Blood (1957). All three share Dersu Uzala's epic and contemplative feel, which is what we rank on before quality. 11 of the 12 picks below are included with a subscription right now on HBO Max, Criterion Channel and Hoopla and others, checked against today's data.

A military explorer meets and befriends a Goldi man in Russia’s unmapped forests. A deep and abiding bond evolves between the two men, one civilized in the usual sense, the other at home in the glacial Siberian woods.

🍅 73% Rotten Tomatoes8.2 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Akira Kurosawaepiccontemplativewarm
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If Dersu Uzala hit the spot, these will too

The Hidden Fortress poster
The Hidden Fortress
1958 · dir. Akira Kurosawa
🍅 96%8drama · action · adventure

The same hand behind both of them: Akira Kurosawa

The difference: Sits closer to action than Dersu Uzala does

In feudal Japan, during a bloody war between clans, two cowardly and greedy peasants, soldiers of a defeated army, stumble upon a mysterious man who guides them to a fortress hidden in the mountains.

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Where Is The Friend's House? poster
Where Is The Friend's House?
1987 · dir. Abbas Kiarostami
🍅 100%8.1drama · adventure

The same mix in both: scale, then stillness

The difference: Critics rated this one higher still

An 8-year-old boy must return his friend's notebook he took by mistake, lest his friend be punished by expulsion from school.

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Throne of Blood poster
Throne of Blood
1957 · dir. Akira Kurosawa
🍅 96%8drama · history

Both are Akira Kurosawa's work, and they rhyme

The difference: None of the warmth Dersu Uzala is built on

Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit's prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.

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The Elephant Man poster
The Elephant Man
1980 · dir. David Lynch
🍅 91%8.2drama · history

Both keep coming back to the same thing: friendship

A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man being mistreated by his "owner" as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of great intelligence and sensitivity. Based on the true story of Joseph Merrick (called John Merrick in the film), a severely deformed man in 19th century London.

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Midnight Cowboy poster
Midnight Cowboy
1969 · dir. John Schlesinger
🍅 89%7.8drama

Common ground: friendship

Joe Buck is a wide-eyed hustler from Texas hoping to score big with wealthy New York City women; he finds a companion in Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo, an ailing swindler with a bum leg and a quixotic fantasy of escaping to Florida.

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The Journey of Natty Gann poster
The Journey of Natty Gann
1985 · dir. Jeremy Kagan
🍅 91%7adventure · family · drama

Both lean on warmth more than on adventure

America is in the depths of the Great Depression. Families drift apart when faraway jobs beckon. A courageous young girl confronts overwhelming odds when she embarks on a cross-country search for her father. During her odyssey, she forms a close bond with two diverse traveling companions: a magnificent, protective wolf, and a hardened drifter.

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The Wages of Fear poster
The Wages of Fear
1953 · dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot
🍅 100%8.1drama · thriller · adventure

Epic drama in both cases

The difference: Made in the 1950s, in a different era of the craft

In a run-down South American town, four men are paid to drive trucks loaded with nitroglycerin into the jungle through to the oil field. Friendships are tested and rivalries develop as they embark upon the perilous journey.

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Watership Down poster
Watership Down
1978 · dir. Martin Rosen
🍅 83%7.5adventure · animation · drama

Adventure built on stillness, twice over

When the warren belonging to a community of rabbits is threatened, a brave group led by Fiver, Bigwig, Blackberry and Hazel leave their homeland in a search of a safe new haven.

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Fitzcarraldo poster
Fitzcarraldo
1982 · dir. Werner Herzog
🍅 78%7.9drama · adventure

Epic drama, and it commits to that

Fitzcarraldo is a dreamer who plans to build an opera house in Iquitos, in the Peruvian Amazon, so, in order to finance his project, he embarks on an epic adventure to collect rubber, a very profitable product, in a remote and unexplored region of the rainforest.

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In a Better World poster
In a Better World
2010 · dir. Susanne Bier
🍅 77%7.6drama

Drama with a pulse of warmth, in both cases

The lives of two Danish families cross each other, and an extraordinary but risky friendship comes into bud. But loneliness, frailty and sorrow lie in wait.

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Wendy and Lucy poster
Wendy and Lucy
2008 · dir. Kelly Reichardt
🍅 85%7.1drama

Both lean on stillness more than on adventure

A near-penniless drifter's journey to Alaska in search of work is interrupted when she loses her dog while attempting to shoplift food for it.

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Aguirre, the Wrath of God poster
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
1972 · dir. Werner Herzog
🍅 96%7.8history · adventure · drama

Both know what they want from adventure

A few decades after the destruction of the Inca Empire, a Spanish expedition led by the infamous Aguirre leaves the mountains of Peru and goes down the Amazon River in search of the lost city of El Dorado. When great difficulties arise, Aguirre’s men start to wonder whether their quest will lead them to prosperity or certain death.

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The best-reviewed films that share Dersu Uzala’s defining feeling.