Film

Ida

Name: Ida
Genre: Drama
Released: 2013
Cast: Agata Trzebuchowska, Agata Kulesza, Dawid Ogrodnik, Jerzy Trela, Adam Szyszkowski

Shot in near-square black and white, this is a film built on stillness: long static shots, unbroken silences, faces held just a beat too long. A novice nun and her hard-drinking aunt drive through 1960s Poland unearthing a buried wartime secret. It's austere, exacting, and quietly devastating — for viewers who want cinema that trusts them to sit with discomfort rather than explain it away.

TMDb rating

7.2

If you liked this

Cold War2018

Same director, same monochrome rigor, same sense of history pressing down on private lives — but here it's a doomed love story instead of a spiritual one. Gorgeous, spare, heartbreaking.

But If Ida's stillness already felt slow, this one adds decades of separation and repetition — patience required twice over.

Son of Saul2015

A formally audacious Holocaust film shot almost entirely in tight close-up, refusing spectacle at every turn. It shares Ida's conviction that atrocity is best approached obliquely, through one exhausted face.

But Unrelentingly intense and claustrophobic — this asks much more of a viewer emotionally than Ida ever does.

The White Ribbon2009

Haneke's chilling black-and-white village drama shares Ida's cold formal beauty and its interest in a society quietly rotten beneath its piety. A slow-burn moral reckoning.

But Colder and more punishing than Ida, with an ambiguity that offers no comfort or resolution at all.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Passion of Joan of Arc1928

Both films treat a young woman's face as the entire landscape of a spiritual crisis, using extreme stillness and close-up to make interior conviction visible on screen.

A silent film built almost entirely from close-ups of one woman's face as she confronts faith, doubt, and institutional power — Dreyer invented the visual language Ida still speaks.

But Silent and nearly a century old — the acting style and title cards take real adjustment for modern viewers.

Roma2018

Another black-and-white memory piece built from composed, patient long takes, following a quiet woman navigating a household and a country in upheaval. Visually breathtaking, emotionally restrained.

But Longer and more diffuse than Ida — its rewards come from accumulation, not tight economy.

Nebraska2013

A black-and-white road trip toward a family truth, with the same dry, unsentimental tone and an odd-couple dynamic between generations. Funnier than Ida, but cut from similar cloth.

But Warmer and more comic — if you wanted Ida's austerity, this softens it considerably.

A Man Escaped1956

Bresson's spare, disciplined prison drama, stripped of music and melodrama, built entirely on procedure and faith. Ida's minimalism has clear roots here.

But Even more austere than Ida — some will find its detachment cold rather than moving.

Winter Light1963

Bergman's terse chamber drama about a pastor's collapsing faith shares Ida's interest in belief under pressure, told in the same spare, wintry black and white.

But Very theatrical and dialogue-heavy — the opposite of Ida's visual quiet, which may jar if you loved that stillness.

Phoenix2014no page yet

A postwar German drama about identity, disguise, and a past nobody wants fully uncovered — thematically a close cousin to Ida's investigation into buried history.

But More melodramatic and plot-driven than Ida, building to a twist rather than sitting in ambiguity.

Manchester by the Sea2016

A quietly devastating study of grief and restraint, told through underplayed performances and long silences rather than speeches. Similar emotional register, different world entirely.

But Contemporary and in color, with a warmth and specificity that's quite far from Ida's chilly formalism.

Night and Fog1956

Where Ida fictionalizes one family's reckoning with wartime complicity, Resnais confronts the same history directly, as documentary — the buried past made literal rather than personal.

A 32-minute documentary essay that walks through the sites of the Holocaust years later, asking what memory does to atrocity — the same historical wound Ida approaches through fiction.

But Brief, unflinching, and genuinely upsetting — this offers no narrative distance to hide behind.

Paper Moon1973

Strip out the theology and the horror, and the structural bones match: an odd pair on a journey, hidden identities, a young woman quietly working out who she is beneath someone else's lies.

A wry, black-and-white road movie pairing a world-weary adult with a sharp, watchful young woman, both concealing who they really are as they drive across a fading landscape.

But Playful and often funny where Ida is solemn — a genuine tonal 180 that some may find too light.