Movies like Illumination
The best movies like Illumination are Love Me (2025), Never Let Me Go (2010) and Fingernails (2023). If Illumination hooked you with its drama and romance, these 20 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Illumination
Quick picks
- Highest ratedLife in a Year (2020)8.2/10 from 2,027 votes
- NewestWhen I'm Ready (2025)Released 2025
Love Me (2025)
In a story that spans billions of years, a buoy and a satellite meet online long after humanity’s extinction. As they learn what life was like on Earth, they discover themselves and what it means to be alive and in love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNever Let Me Go (2010)
As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy spend their childhood at an idyllic and secluded English boarding school. As they grow into adults, they must come to terms with the complexity and strength of their love for one another while also preparing for the haunting reality awaiting them.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFingernails (2023)
Anna and Ryan have found true love together. It's been proven by a controversial test. There's just one problem: Anna still isn't sure. Then she meets Amir.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Discovery (2017)
In the near future, due to a breakthrough scientific discovery by Dr. Thomas Harbor, there is now definitive proof of an afterlife. While countless people have chosen suicide to reset their existence, others try to decide what it all means. Among them is Dr. Harbor's son Will, who has arrived at his father's isolated compound with a mysterious young woman named Isla. There, they discover the strange acolytes who help Dr. Harbor with his experiments.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBacklight (2010)
Several characters who are each at critical stages of their lives are strangely impelled towards an uncharted lake in the middle of the desert where they all have the opportunity to save each other.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBicentennial Man (1999)
Richard Martin buys a gift, a new NDR-114 robot. The product is named Andrew by the youngest of the family's children. "Bicentennial Man" follows the life and times of Andrew, a robot purchased as a household appliance programmed to perform menial tasks. As Andrew begins to experience emotions and creative thought, the Martin family soon discovers they don't have an ordinary robot.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWhen I'm Ready (2025)
It's the end of the world. Seeking meaning and thrills in their last days alive, Rose and Michael embark on a cross-country road trip to see Rose's grandmother as a devastating asteroid threatens to wipe out life on Earth. Along the way they encounter other lost souls, each with their own very different perspective on the impending doom.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEquals (2015)
A futuristic love story set in a world where emotions have been eradicated.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMarjorie Prime (2017)
A service which creates holographic projections of late family members allows an elderly woman to spend time with a younger version of her deceased husband.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVesper (2022)
After the collapse of Earth's ecosystem, Vesper, a 13-year-old girl struggling to survive with her paralyzed Father, meets a mysterious Woman with a secret that forces Vesper to use her wits, strength and bio-hacking abilities to fight for the possibility of a future.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Mandela Effect (2019)
A man becomes obsessed with facts and events that have been collectively misremembered by thousands of people. Believing the phenomena to be the symptom of something larger, his obsession eventually leads him to question reality itself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPeter Ibbetson (1935)
When his mother dies, young Peter Ibbetson leaves Paris and his best friend, Mary, behind to live with a severe uncle in England. Years later, Peter is an architect with little time for women, until he begins a project with the Duke and Duchess of Towers. When Peter and the duchess become great friends, she reveals that she is Mary — but the duke soon suspects his wife of infidelity and challenges Peter to a duel, threatening the pair's second chance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWinter's Tale (2014)
A burglar falls for an heiress as she dies in his arms. When he learns that he has the gift of reincarnation, he sets out to save her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJonathan (2018)
Jonathan is a young man with a strange condition that only his brother understands. But when he begins to yearn for a different life, their unique bond becomes increasingly tested.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisLife in a Year (2020)
A 17 year old finds out that his girlfriend is dying, so he sets out to give her an entire life, in the last year she has left.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisAshes in the Snow (2018)
The coming-of-age tale of 16-year-old Lina Vilkas who is deported to Siberia amid Stalin's reign of terror in the Baltic region during WWII. An aspiring artist, she secretly documents her harrowing journey with her drawings.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlind (2017)
A novelist is blinded in a car crash that killed his wife and several years later rediscovers his passion for life and writing when he embarks on an affair with the neglected wife of an indicted businessman.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTime Is Up (2021)
Vivien, an accomplished student with a passion for physics, and Roy, a troubled young man, are involved in an accident that forces them to reclaim their lives one minute at the time.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIn Secret (2014)
In 1860s Paris, a young woman, Therese, is trapped in a loveless marriage to the sickly Camille by her domineering aunt, Madame Raquin. She spends her days behind the counter of a small shop and her evenings watching Madame play dominos with an eclectic group. After she meets her husband’s alluring friend, Laurent, she embarks on an illicit affair that leads to tragic consequences. Based on Emile Zola’s novel, Thérèse Raquin.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe History of Love (2016)
The story of a long-lost book that mysteriously reappears and connects an old man searching for his son with a girl seeking a cure for her mother's loneliness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Illumination?
The closest matches to Illumination are Love Me (2025), Never Let Me Go (2010) and Fingernails (2023). Below are 17 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Illumination?
Start with Love Me (2025), the closest match to Illumination.
What is the highest-rated movie like Illumination?
Life in a Year (2020), rated 8.2/10 by 2,027 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Illumination?
When I'm Ready (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Illumination?
Yes: Love Me (2025), Never Let Me Go (2010) and Fingernails (2023).
How are movies similar to Illumination chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Illumination, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.