Movies like Traitors (1980)
The best movies like Traitors (1980) are One Second (2020), A Dry White Season (1989) and Hands of Stone (2016). If Traitors hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedFarewell My Concubine (1993)8.1/10 from 774 votes
- NewestEleanor the Great (2025)Released 2025
- In ChineseOne Second (2020)Also in Chinese
One Second (2020)
A movie fan escapes from a labour camp during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and strikes up a relationship with a homeless female vagabond.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Dry White Season (1989)
During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHands of Stone (2016)
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Young One (1960)
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHounddog (2008)
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHardball (2001)
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCaught by the Tides (2024)
Years after her boyfriend left her for the big city and promised to bring her there after he’s settled down, a Chinese woman sets out on a journey to be reunited with him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYouth (2017)
A group of performing art troupe members each face their own trials and tribulations in Chengdu; from escaping a family scandal to dealing with unrequited love, each experiences rejection that shapes their lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBuddha Mountain (2011)
In Chengdu, China, a retired female opera singer named Master Chang takes in a trio of young tenants into her boarding home. The tenants include a rock singer and a college student who has run away from home.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCome Sunday (2018)
Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisEl Chicano (2019)
A pair of twin brothers from East L.A. choose to live their lives differently and end up on opposite sides of the law.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEleanor the Great (2025)
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Girl in the Book (2015)
The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisTalhotBlond (2012)
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSkin (2009)
Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBastard Out of Carolina (1996)
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Cut (2025)
A retired boxer intends to return to the ring for one last shot at the title, but first he must make the weight. Holed up in a room in Las Vegas with an unscrupulous trainer, he embarks on an intensive and illegal weight-cutting program.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisBack to Back, Face to Face (1994)
Wang Shuangli is Deputy Director of the local Cultural Centre, and hopes to be appointed Director. However Old Ma is brought in from the country and installed as Director. This starts a long train of events with Wang's cronies using the bureaucracy to try to oust the new director.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972)
Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSalomé (2013)
After the lewd and frenetic Dance of the Seven Veils, and with the solemn pledge from the very lips of Herod himself that she could have whatever her heart desires up to half his kingdom, wanton and proud young Salomé comes before her king with an unreasonable demand. Beguiled by John the Baptist, and then scorned for the sake of his god, lascivious Salomé—encouraged by her mother, the vindictive, Herodias—commands that John be executed and his head delivered on a silver platter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBalzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (2002)
During the Cultural Revolution, two young men are sent to a remote mining village where they fall in love with the local tailor's beautiful granddaughter and discover a suitcase full of forbidden Western novels.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKhadak (2006)
Set in the frozen steppes of Mongolia, a young nomad is confronted with his destiny after animals fall victim to a plague which threatens to eradicate nomadism.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Breaking with Old Ideas (1975)
The film tells the story of the Communist Labour College that opened in the 1960s. Long Guozheng, an emissary from the Communist government and Li Jinfeng, a female peasant student, must fight against the school's more conservative elements. In the film's climax, Li is put on trial and is about to be expelled from the school when she is saved by a pronouncement from Chairman Mao himself.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Ta men bing bu shi mo sheng (1982)
After the cultural revolution
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Chen Mo and Meiting (2002)
The touching encounter of two drifting beings - Meiting, a hairdresser, and Chen Mo, a street vendor, in Beijing. A strange relationship on the background of survival and anonymous urbanization, a chronicle on the survival of feelings.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Best of Youth (2003)
After a fateful encounter in the summer of 1966, the lifepaths of two brothers from a middle-class Roman family diverge, intersecting with some of the most significant events of postwar Italian history in the following decades.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisFarewell My Concubine (1993)
In an epic tale of theater, gender, love and class, two Beijing opera actors navigate political turmoil as their friendship evolves over decades.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisViva Cuba (2005)
The friendship between two children is threatened by their parents’ differences. Malú is from a family that was upper-class before the Revolution and remains well-to-do through remittances from relatives overseas, and her single mother (Larisa Vega Alamar) does not want her to play with Jorgito, as she thinks his background coarse and commonplace. Jorgito’s mother (Luisa María Jiménez Rodríguez),
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSight (2023)
Ming Wang is an impoverished Chinese prodigy who flees Communist China to become a pioneering eye surgeon in America. When tasked with restoring the sight of an orphan in India, who was blinded by her stepmother, Wang must confront the trauma of living through the violent uprising in his youth, the Cultural Revolution.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPeking Opera Blues (1986)
In 1913 Beijing, three fierce women—disguised rebel Tsao Wan, jewel-seeking Sheung Hung, and opera heiress Pai Niu—embark on a daring quest filled with intrigue and betrayal, challenging societal norms amidst political turmoil and the vibrant world of Peking Opera.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Traitors?
The closest matches to Traitors are One Second (2020), A Dry White Season (1989) and Hands of Stone (2016). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Traitors?
Start with One Second (2020), the closest match to Traitors.
What is the highest-rated movie like Traitors?
Farewell My Concubine (1993), rated 8.1/10 by 774 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Traitors?
Eleanor the Great (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Chinese movies like Traitors?
Yes: One Second (2020), Caught by the Tides (2024) and Youth (2017).
How are movies similar to Traitors chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Traitors, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.