Famine, Hunger and Starvation in Movies
by mariojacobs | created - 05 May 2021 | updated - 10 months ago | PublicThese movies are at some point related to the terrible keywords: famine, hunger or starvation, fictional or historical.
Which is your favorite title?
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1. Harakiri (1962)
Not Rated | 133 min | Action, Drama, Mystery
When a ronin requesting seppuku at a feudal lord's palace is told of the brutal suicide of another ronin who previously visited, he reveals how their pasts are intertwined - and in doing so challenges the clan's integrity.
Director: Masaki Kobayashi | Stars: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Ishihama, Shima Iwashita, Tetsurô Tanba
Votes: 68,602
2. Into the Wild (2007)
R | 148 min | Adventure, Biography, Drama
After graduating from Emory University, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandons his possessions, gives his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhikes to Alaska to live in the wilderness. Along the way, Christopher encounters a series of characters that shape his life.
Director: Sean Penn | Stars: Emile Hirsch, Vince Vaughn, Catherine Keener, Marcia Gay Harden
Votes: 657,984 | Gross: $18.35M
3. Andrei Rublev (1966)
R | 189 min | Biography, Drama, History
The life, times and afflictions of the fifteenth-century Russian iconographer St. Andrei Rublev.
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky | Stars: Anatoliy Solonitsyn, Ivan Lapikov, Nikolay Grinko, Nikolay Sergeev
Votes: 57,035 | Gross: $0.10M
4. Mother India (1957)
Not Rated | 172 min | Action, Comedy, Drama
In this melodrama, a poverty-stricken woman raises her sons through many trials and tribulations. But no matter the struggles, she always sticks to her own moral code.
Director: Mehboob Khan | Stars: Nargis, Sunil Dutt, Rajendra Kumar Tuli, Raaj Kumar
Votes: 9,855
5. Gone with the Wind (1939)
Passed | 238 min | Drama, Romance, War
A sheltered and manipulative Southern belle and a roguish profiteer face off in a turbulent romance as the society around them crumbles with the end of slavery and is rebuilt during the Civil War and Reconstruction periods.
Directors: Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood | Stars: Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Thomas Mitchell, Barbara O'Neil
Votes: 334,185 | Gross: $198.68M
6. The Martian (2015)
PG-13 | 144 min | Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi
An astronaut becomes stranded on Mars after his team assume him dead, and must rely on his ingenuity to find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive and can survive until a potential rescue.
Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Kate Mara
Votes: 924,855 | Gross: $228.43M
7. The Pianist (2002)
R | 150 min | Biography, Drama, Music
During WWII, acclaimed Polish musician Wladyslaw faces various struggles as he loses contact with his family. As the situation worsens, he hides in the ruins of Warsaw in order to survive.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Frank Finlay, Emilia Fox
Votes: 911,796 | Gross: $32.57M
8. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Passed | 129 min | Drama
An Oklahoma family, driven off their farm by the poverty and hopelessness of the Dust Bowl, joins the westward migration to California, suffering the misfortunes of the homeless in the Great Depression.
Director: John Ford | Stars: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charley Grapewin
Votes: 99,924 | Gross: $0.06M
9. Ratatouille (2007)
G | 111 min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy
A rat who can cook makes an unusual alliance with a young kitchen worker at a famous Paris restaurant.
Directors: Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava | Stars: Brad Garrett, Lou Romano, Patton Oswalt, Ian Holm
Votes: 824,540 | Gross: $206.45M
10. Pather Panchali (1955)
Not Rated | 125 min | Drama
Impoverished priest Harihar Ray, dreaming of a better life for himself and his family, leaves his rural Bengal village in search of work.
Director: Satyajit Ray | Stars: Kanu Bannerjee, Karuna Bannerjee, Subir Banerjee, Chunibala Devi
Votes: 38,525 | Gross: $0.54M
11. Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
Not Rated | 89 min | Animation, Drama, War
A young boy and his little sister struggle to survive in Japan during World War II.
Director: Isao Takahata | Stars: Tsutomu Tatsumi, Ayano Shiraishi, Akemi Yamaguchi, Yoshiko Shinohara
Votes: 310,247
12. Black Hawk Down (2001)
R | 144 min | Action, Drama, History
The story of 160 elite U.S. soldiers who dropped into Mogadishu in October 1993 to capture two top lieutenants of a renegade warlord, but found themselves in a desperate battle with a large force of heavily armed Somalis.
Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore, Eric Bana
Votes: 423,459 | Gross: $108.64M
13. The Field (1990)
PG-13 | 107 min | Drama, Thriller
When a field (which has been farmed by the McCabe family for generations) goes up for auction, the patriarch of the McCabe family will stop at nothing to prevent a rich American from buying it.
Director: Jim Sheridan | Stars: Richard Harris, John Hurt, Sean Bean, Frances Tomelty
Votes: 6,765 | Gross: $1.41M
14. The Good Earth (1937)
Passed | 138 min | Drama, Romance
Although married Chinese farmers Wang and O-Lan initially experience success, their lives are complicated by declining fortunes and lean times, as well as the arrival of the beautiful young Lotus.
Directors: Sidney Franklin, Victor Fleming, Gustav Machatý, Sam Wood | Stars: Paul Muni, Luise Rainer, Walter Connolly, Tilly Losch
Votes: 5,410
15. Live and Become (2005)
Unrated | 140 min | Drama
A Christian boy escapes to Israel from famine-stricken Ethiopia by pretending to be Jewish.
Director: Radu Mihaileanu | Stars: Yaël Abecassis, Roschdy Zem, Moshe Agazai, Moshe Abebe
Votes: 6,310
16. The Barefoot Battalion (1953)
Approved | 89 min | Drama, War
A young survivor of World War II and former member of the reputed "Barefoot Battalion", a close-knit pack of disciplined orphaned boys, recounts to a homeless street urchin the story of 160 orphans who aided the Resistance.
Director: Gregg G. Tallas | Stars: Maria Kosti, Nikos Fermas, Vasileios Fragedakis, Antonis Voulgaris
Votes: 235
17. Les Misérables (2012)
PG-13 | 158 min | Drama, Musical, Romance
In 19th-century France, Jean Valjean, who for decades has been hunted by the ruthless policeman Javert after breaking parole, agrees to care for a factory worker's daughter. The decision changes their lives forever.
Director: Tom Hooper | Stars: Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried
Votes: 345,957 | Gross: $148.81M
18. Empire of the Sun (1987)
PG | 153 min | Drama, War
A young English boy struggles to survive under Japanese occupation of China during World War II.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Christian Bale, John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson, Nigel Havers
Votes: 134,270 | Gross: $22.24M
19. Defiance (I) (2008)
R | 137 min | Action, Drama, History
Jewish brothers in German-occupied Eastern Europe escape into a Belorussian forest, where they join Russian resistance fighters, and endeavor to build a village, in order to protect themselves and about one thousand Jewish non-combatants.
Director: Edward Zwick | Stars: Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, Alexa Davalos
Votes: 155,646 | Gross: $28.64M
20. The Year of Living Dangerously (1982)
PG | 115 min | Drama, Romance, War
A young Australian reporter tries to navigate the political turmoil of Indonesia during the rule of President Sukarno with the help of a diminutive photographer.
Director: Peter Weir | Stars: Mel Gibson, Sigourney Weaver, Linda Hunt, Bembol Roco
Votes: 22,868 | Gross: $10.28M
21. 1900 (1976)
Unrated | 317 min | Drama, History
The epic tale of a class struggle in twentieth-century Italy as seen through the eyes of two childhood friends on opposing sides.
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci | Stars: Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu, Dominique Sanda, Francesca Bertini
Votes: 27,279
22. Manderlay (2005)
Not Rated | 139 min | Drama
A story of slavery, set in the southern U.S. in the 1930s.
Director: Lars von Trier | Stars: Bryce Dallas Howard, Isaach De Bankolé, Danny Glover, Willem Dafoe
Votes: 25,175 | Gross: $0.08M
23. The Field (1990)
PG-13 | 107 min | Drama, Thriller
When a field (which has been farmed by the McCabe family for generations) goes up for auction, the patriarch of the McCabe family will stop at nothing to prevent a rich American from buying it.
Director: Jim Sheridan | Stars: Richard Harris, John Hurt, Sean Bean, Frances Tomelty
Votes: 6,765 | Gross: $1.41M
24. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019)
TV-PG | 113 min | Biography, Drama, History
Against all the odds, a thirteen-year-old boy in Malawi invents an unconventional way to save his family and village from famine.
Director: Chiwetel Ejiofor | Stars: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Maxwell Simba, Felix Lemburo, Robert Agengo
Votes: 44,357
25. Delicatessen (1991)
R | 99 min | Comedy, Crime
Post-apocalyptic surrealist black comedy about the landlord of an apartment building who occasionally prepares a delicacy for his odd tenants.
Directors: Marc Caro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet | Stars: Marie-Laure Dougnac, Dominique Pinon, Pascal Benezech, Jean-Claude Dreyfus
Votes: 90,027 | Gross: $1.79M
26. The Ten Commandments (1956)
G | 220 min | Adventure, Drama, Family
Moses, raised as a prince of Egypt in the Pharaoh's household, learns of his true heritage as a Hebrew and his divine mission as the deliverer of his people from slavery.
Director: Cecil B. DeMille | Stars: Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter, Edward G. Robinson
Votes: 77,822 | Gross: $93.74M
27. Mr. Jones (2019)
119 min | Biography, Drama, Thriller
A Welsh journalist breaks the news in the western media of the famine in Ukraine in the early 1930s.
Director: Agnieszka Holland | Stars: James Norton, Vanessa Kirby, Peter Sarsgaard, Joseph Mawle
Votes: 16,235
28. Bitter Harvest (2017)
R | 103 min | Drama, History, Romance
Set in 1930s Ukraine, as Stalin advances the ambitions of communists in the Kremlin, young artist Yuri battles to save his lover Natalka from the Holodomor, the death-by-starvation program that ultimately killed millions of Ukrainians.
Director: George Mendeluk | Stars: Max Irons, Samantha Barks, Terence Stamp, Barry Pepper
Votes: 4,165 | Gross: $5.66M
29. The Greedy (1967)
100 min | Comedy
The story of a greedy man with a larger-than-life appetite for more, more, more.
Director: Dimis Dadiras | Stars: Giannis Gionakis, Maro Kodou, Dionysis Papagiannopoulos, Mary Lalopoulou
Votes: 181
30. Leningrad (2009)
R | 110 min | Drama, War
Winter, 1941. World War II rages on as Nazi troops invade the Soviet Union and besiege the devastated city of Leningrad. Foreign journalists are quickly evacuated, but in the chaos that ensues, Kate Davies is left behind.
Director: Aleksandr Buravskiy | Stars: Mira Sorvino, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Olga Sutulova, Gabriel Byrne
Votes: 4,796
31. Beyond Borders (2003)
R | 127 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
The world's cruelty is confronted with the love of two different people who try to save humanity from poverty and war.
Director: Martin Campbell | Stars: Clive Owen, Angelina Jolie, Linus Roache, Teri Polo
Votes: 29,057 | Gross: $4.43M
32. Black '47 (2018)
R | 100 min | Action, Drama, History
Set in Ireland during the Great Famine, the drama follows an Irish Ranger who has been fighting for the British Army abroad, as he abandons his post to reunite with his family.
Director: Lance Daly | Stars: Hugo Weaving, James Frecheville, Stephen Rea, Freddie Fox
Votes: 13,183 | Gross: $0.05M
33. The Survivalist (2015)
Not Rated | 104 min | Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller
In a time of starvation, a survivalist lives off a small plot of land hidden deep in forest. When two women seeking food and shelter discover his farm, he finds his existence threatened.
Director: Stephen Fingleton | Stars: Martin McCann, Mia Goth, Olwen Fouéré, Douglas Russell
Votes: 18,670
34. Kandahar (2001)
Not Rated | 81 min | Drama
After an Afghanistan-born woman who lives in Canada receives a letter from her suicidal sister, she takes a perilous journey through Afghanistan to try to find her.
Director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf | Stars: Nelofer Pazira, Hassan Tantai, Ike Ogut, Sadou Teymouri
Votes: 7,064 | Gross: $0.02M
35. Asura (I) (2012)
76 min | Animation, Action, Drama
Abandoned in the barren wasteland of Kyoto, a savage, enraged orphan does whatever it takes to survive in the wild. When he crosses paths with civilization, he must learn to tame the beast within.
Director: Kei'ichi Sato | Stars: Masako Nozawa, Tesshô Genda, Megumi Hayashibara, Hiroaki Hirata
Votes: 1,406
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