It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books

1988

1h 25m

5.4(27 votes)

Drama

Overview

A nameless young man travels the country by bus and train, visiting friends and making new ones, having banal conversations, and dedicating his existence to mundane activities.

Links & Resources

IMDbView

Social & External

IMDb

Production Companies

Cast & Crew

13 members

Directing

Richard Linklater

Unknown Role

Acting

James Goodwin

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Dan Kratochvil

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Linda Finney

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Tracy Crabtree

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Linda Levine

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Lisa Schiebold

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Erin McAfee

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

D. Montgomery

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Scott Van Horn

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Daniel Johnston

Unknown Role

Acting

Tammy Gomez

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Keith McCormack

Unknown Role

No Image

Similar Movies

5.4

2005

Mouth to Mouth

An aimless adolescent joins several itinerant misfits who live on the fringe of society and welcome at-risk youths into their fold.

Movie

6.1

2006

Dreamland

A young woman who lives in a desert trailer park must choose between caring for her hapless father and sick friend or fulfilling her own destiny.

Movie

6.4

1990

Alice

Alice Tate, mother of two, with a marriage of 16 years, finds herself falling for a handsome sax player, Joe. Stricken with a backache, she consults herbalist Dr. Yang, who realizes that her problems are not related to her back, but in her mind and heart. Dr. Yang's magical herbs give Alice wondrous powers, taking her out of her well-established rut.

Movie

7.1

2007

City of Men

Best buddies Acerola and Laranjinha, about to turn 18, discover things about their missing fathers' pasts which will shatter their solid friendship, in the middle of a war between rival drug gangs from Rio's favelas.

Movie

6.5

1969

Katzelmacher

A group of young slackers spend most of their time hanging out in front of a Munich apartment building. When a Greek immigrant named Jorgos moves in, however, their aimless lives are shaken up. Soon, new tensions arise both within the group and with Jorgos.

Movie

6.9

2006

The Road to Guantanamo

Part drama, part documentary, The Road to Guantánamo focuses on the Tipton Three, a trio of British Muslims who were held in Guantanamo Bay for two years until they were released without charge.

Movie

7.4

2004

Yesterday

After falling ill, Yesterday learns that she is HIV positive. With her husband in denial and young daughter to tend to, Yesterday's one goal is to live long enough to see her child go to school.

Movie

6.0

2001

Human Nature

Obsessive scientist Nathan and his lover, the naturalist Lila, discover Puff: a man born and raised in the wild. As Nathan trains the wild man in the civilized ways of the world, Lila fights to preserve the man’s natural state. In the power struggle that ensues, an unusual love triangle emerges.

Movie

7.4

1994

Once Were Warriors

A drama about a Maori family living in Auckland, New Zealand. Lee Tamahori tells the story of Beth Heke’s strong will to keep her family together during times of unemployment and abuse from her violent and alcoholic husband.

Movie

7.1

1994

Lisbon Story

Wim Wenders' homage to Lisbon and films. A sound engineer obtains a mysterious postcard from a friend who at the moment is filming a film in Lisbon. He sets out across Europe to find him and help him.

Movie

7.0

2005

Transamerica

A transgender woman takes an unexpected journey when she learns that she had a son, now a teenage runaway hustling on the streets of New York.

Movie

7.4

1963

Barren Lives

In vivid images, the documentary-like story of a drover and his family in the northern badlands of Brazil during the drought. A family in the search of new hope and destiny.

Movie

4.0

1978

Disco Fever

Jaded night club owner stages the comeback of an ex-teen idol for revenge.

Movie

7.0

2005

Me and You and Everyone We Know

Single dad Richard meets Christine, a starving artist who moonlights as a cabbie. They awkwardly attempt to start a romance, but Richard’s divorce has left him emotionally damaged. Meanwhile, Richard’s sons—one a teenager, the other 6-years-old—take part in clumsy experiments with the opposite sex.

Movie

6.8

1992

Laws of Gravity

The lives of two incompetent young men from Brooklyn spin out of control after a friend returns from Florida with guns to sell.

Movie

6.2

2005

Thumbsucker

Justin Cobb, a teenager in suburban Oregon, copes with his thumb-sucking problem, romance, and his diagnosis with ADHD and subsequent experience using Ritalin.

Movie

10.0

2007

Take The Bridge

Take The Bridge is a 2007 independent film from Sergio M. Castilla about four young adults who all try to commit suicide on the same day and how they meet up and become friends. The film Premiering at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.

Movie

5.8

2009

La Mission

Growing up in the Mission district of San Francisco, Che Rivera has always had to be tough to survive. He's a powerful man respected throughout the Mission barrio for his masculinity and his strength, as well as for his hobby building beautiful lowrider cars. A reformed inmate and recovering alcoholic, Che has worked hard to redeem his life and do right by his pride and joy: his only son, Jes, whom he has raised on his own after the death of his wife. Che's path to redemption is tested, however, when he discovers Jes is gay. To survive his neighborhood, Che has always lived with his fists. To survive as a complete man, he'll have to embrace a side of himself he's never shown.

Movie

5.9

1998

Lulu on the Bridge

This film is about a famous jazz saxophonist, Izzy, whose life is forever changed after he is accidentally shot.

Movie

6.5

2010

Children of Invention

Two young children living illegally in a model apartment outside Boston are left to fend for themselves when their hardworking mother disappears

Movie

Recommended Movies

5.9

1991

964 Pinocchio

A memory-wiped and defective cyborg sex slave is tossed onto the streets and taken in by a homeless woman while his corporate creators hunt him down.

Movie

5.9

1988

She's Having a Baby

Jake and Kristy Briggs are newlyweds. Being young, they are perhaps a bit unprepared for the full reality of marriage and all that it (and their parents) expect from them. Do they want babies? Their parents certainly want them to. Is married life all that there is? Things certainly aren't helped by Jake's friend Davis, who always seems to turn up just in time to put a spanner in the works.

Movie

6.7

1993

El Mariachi

El Mariachi just wants to play his guitar and carry on the family tradition. Unfortunately, the town he tries to find work in has another visitor, a killer who carries his guns in a guitar case. The drug lord and his henchmen mistake el Mariachi for the killer, Azul, and chase him around town trying to kill him and get his guitar case.

Movie

6.4

2001

Los

Los Angeles is depicted in 35 stationary shots, each 2½ minutes long, in this non-narrative film, part 2 of Benning's "California Trilogy".

Movie

6.7

1993

The Jim Rose Circus Sideshow

February 5, 1993, in front of a standing room-only-crowd at Seattle's Moore Theatre, impresario Jim Rose performs his own odd tricks - putting a screwdriver up his nose, pounding a nail into his head, and pushing his face into broken glass. He also introduces and provides a running commentary on four other sideshow performers: Mr. Lifto, who can lift and swing heavy objects from various body piercings, the Torture King, who turns himself into a human pincushion, the Enigma, who swallows worms, crickets, and swords, and Matt "The Tube" Crowley, who ingests various things into his nose, mouth, and stomach and bring them back out. The crowd goes wild.

Movie

10.0

1974

Two Sides to Every Story

Two 16mm films are projected in a loop on a thin painted aluminum screen hanging in the middle of a room. We can hear the projectors at each end of the room, which project images on the central screen. We can see the same scene on each side of the screen: a woman, seen from the front and front back depending on the side of the screen, painting it with spray paint. A man then tears up the screen and goes through it, followed by the woman. We can see Michael Snow sitting further away, giving instructions to the woman. We can also see the cameras filming the scene from each side. Visitors in the room can walk around the screen and thus watch the scene from one angle or another. Both films are projected in synchronicity on the two sides of the screen.

8.0

2023

The Learner

L’Apprenante is an American college student in the process of “finding herself abroad” in Paris. She takes French classes to immerse herself in the culture, even though her accent is tragique. In one particular class, she struggles to recount her weekend where she goes to a Parisian party and meets La Femme; a girl she is immediately drawn to.

Movie

5.1

2008

Anger

A married woman with a mute daughter has a forbidden relationship with the single father of a teenage boy.

Movie

6.6

2009

Antichrist

A grieving couple retreats to their cabin 'Eden' in the woods, hoping to repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage. But nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse.

Movie

8.0

1949

Late Spring

Noriko is perfectly happy living at home with her widowed father, Shukichi, and has no plans to marry -- that is, until her aunt Masa convinces Shukichi that unless he marries off his 27-year-old daughter soon, she will likely remain alone for the rest of her life. When Noriko resists Masa's matchmaking, Shukichi is forced to deceive his daughter and sacrifice his own happiness to do what he believes is right.

Movie

7.6

1952

The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice

The arranged marriage between a capricious woman from Tokyo high society and a quiet and rustic man is tested by a marital crisis.

Movie

6.3

2023

Rumble Through the Dark

In the dark landscape of the Mississippi Delta, a former bare-knuckle fighter must win one last fight to pay off his debts to the local mob boss and save his childhood home—the stakes nothing less than life or death.

Movie

7.2

1998

My Name Is Joe

Two thirtysomethings, unemployed former alcoholic Joe and community health worker Sarah, start a romantic relationship in one of the toughest Glasgow neighbourhoods.

Movie

7.2

1963

Black Sabbath

Three short tales of supernatural horror. In “The Telephone,” a woman is plagued by threatening phone calls. In "The Wurdalak,” a family is preyed upon by vampiric monsters. In “The Drop of Water,” a deceased medium wreaks havoc on the living.

Movie

7.2

1965

Chimes at Midnight

Henry IV usurps the English throne, sets in motion the factious War of the Roses and now faces a rebellion led by Northumberland scion Hotspur. Henry's heir, Prince Hal, is a ne'er-do-well carouser who drinks and causes mischief with his low-class friends, especially his rotund father figure, John Falstaff. To redeem his title, Hal may have to choose between allegiance to his real father and loyalty to his friend.

Movie

7.0

1996

Cyclo

Follows a young cyclo driver on his poverty-driven descent into criminality in modern-day Ho Chi Minh City. The boy's struggles to scratch out a living for his two sisters and grandfather in the mean streets of the city lead to petty crime on behalf of a mysterious Madame from whom he rents his cyclo.

Movie

6.1

2020

Lux Æterna

Two actresses, Béatrice Dalle and Charlotte Gainsbourg, are on a film set telling stories about witches.

Movie

6.3

2024

An Ideal Father

Michel, the jovial owner of the only café in a small Normandy town, sees his life turned upside down when his teenage daughter is murdered. The community has his back but soon rumor spreads and Michel is singled out. From the ideal father, he becomes the ideal culprit.

Movie

7.6

1948

Drunken Angel

Doctor Sanada treats gangster Matsunaga after he is wounded in a gunfight, and discovers that he is suffering from tuberculosis. Sanada tries to convince Matsunaga to stay for treatment, which would drastically change his lifestyle. They form an uneasy friendship until Matsunaga's old boss Okada returns from prison.

Movie

6.2

2024

Apartment 7A

A struggling young dancer finds herself drawn in by dark forces when a peculiar, well-connected older couple promise her a shot at fame.

Movie