Movies like The Scarlet Letter (1995)
The best movies like The Scarlet Letter (1995) are Madame Bovary (2015), Restoration (1995) and The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2004). If The Scarlet Letter hooked you with its drama and romance, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedPride & Prejudice (2005)8.1/10 from 9,068 votes
- Newest“Wuthering Heights” (2026)Released 2026
Madame Bovary (2015)
In 19th-century France, doctor's wife Emma Bovary seeks to escape her dull provincial life through various extramarital affairs and extravagant spending, leading to tragic consequences.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisRestoration (1995)
An aspiring young physician, Robert Merivel found himself in the service of King Charles II and saves the life of someone close to the King. Merivel joins the King's court and lives the high life provided to someone of his position. Merivel is ordered to marry his King's mistress in order to divert the queens suspicions. He is given one order by the king and that is not to fall in love. The situation worsens when Merivel finds himself in love with his new wife. Eventually, the King finds out and relieves Merivel of his position and wealth. His fall from grace leaves Merivel where he first started. And through his travels and reunions with an old friend, he rediscovers his love for true medicine and what it really means to be a physician.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Bridge of San Luis Rey (2004)
In 1714 Peru, a friar is tried by the Spanish Inquisition for questioning God's intentions when five die in the collapse of an Andean rope bridge.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisSense and Sensibility (1995)
The Dashwood sisters, sensible Elinor and passionate Marianne, learn that their prospects of marriage seem doomed by their family's sudden loss of fortune. After Henry Dashwood dies unexpectedly, his estate must pass on by law to his son. These circumstances leave Mr. Dashwood's wife and daughters without a home and with barely enough money to live on. As Elinor and Marianne struggle to find romantic fulfillment in a society obsessed with financial and social status, they must learn to mix sense with sensibility in their dealings with both money and men.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPride & Prejudice (2005)
A story of love and life among the landed English gentry during the Georgian era. Mr. Bennet is a gentleman living in Hertfordshire with his overbearing wife and five daughters, but if he dies their house will be inherited by a distant cousin whom they have never met, so the family's future happiness and security is dependent on the daughters making good marriages.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisLady Chatterley's Lover (2022)
After a crippling injury leaves her husband impotent, Lady Chatterly is torn between her love for her husband and her physical desires. With her husband's consent, she seeks out other means of fulfilling her needs.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFar from the Madding Crowd (2015)
In Victorian England, the independent and headstrong Bathsheba Everdene attracts three very different suitors: Gabriel Oak, a hardworking young sheep farmer; Frank Troy, a handsome and reckless Sergeant; and William Boldwood, a prosperous and mature bachelor.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe New World (2005)
A drama about explorer John Smith and the clash between Native Americans and English settlers in the 17th century.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMoll Flanders (1996)
The daughter of a thief, young Moll is placed in the care of a nunnery after the execution of her mother. However, the actions of an abusive priest lead Moll to rebel as a teenager, escaping to the dangerous streets of London. Further misfortunes drive her to accept a job as a prostitute from the conniving Mrs. Allworthy. It is there that Moll first meets Hibble, who is working as Allworthy's servant but takes a special interest in the young woman's well-being. With his help, she retains hope for the future, ultimately falling in love with an unconventional artist who promises the possibility of romantic happiness.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTristan & Isolde (2006)
An affair between the second in line to Britain's throne and the princess of the feuding Irish spells doom for the young lovers.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Crucible (1996)
A Salem resident attempts to frame her ex-lover's wife for being a witch in the middle of the 1692 witchcraft trials.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this“Wuthering Heights” (2026)
Tragedy strikes when Heathcliff falls in love with Catherine Earnshaw, a woman from a wealthy family in 18th-century England.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJane Eyre (2011)
After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meets the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Edward Rochester. Jane and her employer grow close in friendship and she soon finds herself falling in love with him. Happiness seems to have found Jane at last, but could Rochester's terrible secret be about to destroy it forever?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFirelight (1998)
In 1838, lovely governess Elisabeth Laurier agrees to bear a child of an anonymous English landowner, and he will in return pay her father's debt. At birth, she, as agreed, gives up the child. Seven years later, she is hired as governess to a girl on a remote Sussex estate. The girl's father, Charles Godwin, turns out to be that anonymous landowner. So Elisabeth has to be her own daughter's governess, and she can't reveal the secret of her tie with little Louisa.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Duchess (2008)
A chronicle of the life of 18th century aristocrat Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, who was reviled for her extravagant political and personal life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Painted Veil (2006)
A British medical doctor fights a cholera outbreak in a small Chinese village, while also being trapped at home in a loveless marriage to an unfaithful wife.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDangerous Liaisons (1988)
In 18th century France, Marquise de Merteuil asks her ex-lover Vicomte de Valmont to seduce the future wife of another ex-lover of hers in return for one last night with her. Yet things don’t go as planned.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Age of Innocence (1993)
In 19th century New York high society, a young lawyer falls in love with a woman separated from her husband, while he is engaged to the woman's cousin.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSilk (2007)
French silkworm trader Hervé is married to the beautiful Hélène. When an outbreak of disease ravages European silkworms, Hervé must travel to Japan to retrieve healthy eggs. After a long journey, Hervé finally arrives at a village where he can buy them. He becomes infatuated with a young concubine and goes to great lengths to see her again. But, when war breaks out in Japan, the concubine flees, forcing Hervé to return home to his wife.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Other Boleyn Girl (2008)
A sumptuous and sensual tale of intrigue, romance and betrayal set against the backdrop of a defining moment in European history: two beautiful sisters, Anne and Mary Boleyn, driven by their family's blind ambition, compete for the love of the handsome and passionate King Henry VIII.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBel Ami (2012)
Georges Duroy travels through 1890s Paris, from cockroach ridden garrets to opulent salons, using his wits and powers of seduction to rise from poverty to wealth, from a prostitute’s embrace to passionate trysts with wealthy beauties, in a world where politics and media jostle for influence, where sex is power and celebrity an obsession.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisLittle Women (2019)
Four sisters come of age in America in the aftermath of the Civil War.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Beguiled (2017)
During the Civil War, at a Southern girls’ boarding school, young women take in an injured enemy soldier. As they provide refuge and tend to his wounds, the house is taken over with sexual tension and dangerous rivalries, and taboos are broken in an unexpected turn of events.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisJane Eyre (1996)
After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meets the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Edward Rochester. Jane and her employer grow close in friendship and she soon finds herself falling in love with him. Happiness seems to have found Jane at last, but could Rochester's terrible secret be about to destroy it forever?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFanny Lye Deliver'd (2019)
On an isolated English farm in 1657, Fanny lives a quiet life with her oppressive husband John and their young son. One day their life is rocked with the arrival of young couple Thomas and Rebecca who claim to have been robbed and need a place to stay. But are these strangers really who they say they are?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAnna Karenina (2012)
In Imperial Russia, Anna, wife of the officer Karenin, goes to Moscow to visit her brother. On the way, she meets charming cavalry officer Vronsky, to whom she's immediately attracted. But in St. Petersburg’s high society, a relationship like this could destroy a woman’s reputation.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAtonement (2007)
A young girl irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRedeeming Love (2022)
A young couple's relationship clashes with the harsh realities of the California Gold Rush of 1850. Angel, experiencing love for the first time and facing demons unsurmountable, runs from the new life she doesn't believe she deserves. When Michael sets out to find her, Angel discovers that she indeed has the power to choose the life she wants.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisRomeo + Juliet (1996)
In this contemporary take on William Shakespeare's classic tragedy, the Montagues and Capulets have moved their ongoing feud to the sweltering suburb of Verona Beach, where Romeo and Juliet fall in love and secretly wed. Though the film is visually modern, the bard's dialogue remains.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Countess (2009)
Kingdom of Hungary, 17th century. As she gets older, powerful Countess Erzsébet Báthory (1560-1614), blinded by the passion that she feels for a younger man, succumbs to the mad delusion that blood will keep her young and beautiful forever.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Scarlet Letter?
The closest matches to The Scarlet Letter are Madame Bovary (2015), Restoration (1995) and The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2004). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Scarlet Letter?
People who watched The Scarlet Letter most often go on to Madame Bovary (2015), Restoration (1995) and The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2004).
What is the highest-rated movie like The Scarlet Letter?
Pride & Prejudice (2005), rated 8.1/10 by 9,068 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Scarlet Letter?
“Wuthering Heights” (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Scarlet Letter?
Yes: Madame Bovary (2015), Restoration (1995) and The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2004).
How are movies similar to The Scarlet Letter chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Scarlet Letter, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.