Movies like The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988)
The best movies like The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) are Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012), Allied (2016) and Anna Karenina (1935). If The Unbearable Lightness of Being 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 ratedA Walk to Remember (2002)7.7/10 from 4,375 votes
- NewestThe Shape of Water (2017)Released 2017
Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012)
Writer Ernest Hemingway begins a romance with fellow scribe Martha Gellhorn.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAllied (2016)
In 1942, an intelligence officer in North Africa encounters a female French Resistance fighter on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. When they reunite in London, their relationship is tested by the pressures of war.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAnna Karenina (1935)
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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Quiet American (2002)
Cynical British journalist Fowler falls in love with a young Vietnamese woman but is dismayed when a naïve U.S. official also begins vying for her attention. In retaliation, Fowler informs the communists that the American is selling arms to their enemy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhite Palace (1990)
Max Baron is a Jewish advertising executive in his 20s who's still getting over the death of his wife. Nora Baker is a 40-something diner waitress who enjoys the wilder side of life. Mismatched or not, their attraction is instant and smoldering. With time, however, their class and age differences become an obstacle in their relationship, especially since Max can't keep Nora a secret from his Jewish friends and upper-crust associates forever.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Promise (2016)
Set during the last days of the Ottoman Empire, a love triangle develops between Mikael, a brilliant medical student, the beautiful and sophisticated artist Ana, and Chris, a renowned American journalist based in Paris.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Honorary Consul (1983)
Set in a small politically unstable Latin American country, the story follows the half English and half Latino Dr. Eduardo Plarr, who left his home to find a better life. Along the way he meets an array of people, including British Consul Charley Fortnum, a representative in Latin America who is trying to keep Revolution from occurring. He is also a remorseful alcoholic. Another person the doctor meets is Clara, whom he immediately falls in love with, but there is a problem: Clara is Charley's wife.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisCloser (2004)
The relationships of two couples become complicated and deceitful when the man from one couple meets the woman of the other.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Shape of Water (2017)
An other-worldly story, set against the backdrop of Cold War era America circa 1962, where a mute janitor working at a lab falls in love with an amphibious man being held captive there and devises a plan to help him escape.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisShining Through (1992)
Spirited New Yorker Linda Voss goes to work for international lawyer and secret Office of Strategic Services operative Ed Leland just before World War II. As they fall in love, the United States enters the fight against Hitler, and Linda volunteers to work for Ed spying undercover behind Nazi lines. Assigned to uncover information about a German bomb, Linda also has personal motives to fulfill: discovering the fate of her Jewish family members in Berlin.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUnfaithful (2002)
A New York suburban couple's marriage goes dangerously awry when the wife indulges in an adulterous fling.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRevolutionary Road (2008)
A young couple living in a Connecticut suburb during the mid-1950s struggle to come to terms with their personal problems while trying to raise their two children. Based on a novel by Richard Yates.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Year of Living Dangerously (1982)
A young Australian reporter tries to navigate the political turmoil of Indonesia during the rule of President Sukarno with the help of a diminutive photographer.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe End of the Affair (1999)
On a rainy London night in 1946, novelist Maurice Bendrix has a chance meeting with Henry Miles, husband of his ex-mistress Sarah, who abruptly ended their affair two years before. Bendrix's obsession with Sarah is rekindled; he succumbs to his own jealousy and arranges to have her followed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Burning Plain (2008)
A trailer is burning in the middle of a plain. The bodies of two adulterous lovers are found. Scenes from both families, before and after the dramatic events, suggest an unusual connection between them. But what is their secret?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisArch of Triumph (1948)
In the winter of 1938, Paris is crowded with refugees from the Nazis, who live in the black shadows of night, trying to evade deportation. One such is Dr. Ravic, who practices medicine illegally and stalks his old Nazi enemy Haake with murder in mind. One rainy night, Ravic meets Joan Madou, a kept woman cast adrift by her lover's sudden death. Against Ravic's better judgment, they become involved in a doomed affair.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLonely Hearts (2006)
In the late 1940s, a murderous couple known as the 'The Lonely Hearts Killers' kills close to a dozen people. Two detectives try to nab the duo who find their targets via the personals in the paper.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUnder Fire (1983)
Three U.S. journalists get too close to one another and their work in 1979 Nicaragua.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMaking Love (2000)
Costanza is drinking a beer in a Prague pub, a summer night in 1968, while a violinist enters and starts playing a "canone inverso" for her. It is not a case, that music and that violin have a story behind that could concern her. It is the love story between Jeno Varga and the music, between Jeno and Sophie.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhere the Truth Lies (2005)
An ambitious reporter probes the reasons behind the sudden split of a 1950s comedy team.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHideous Kinky (1999)
In 1972, disenchanted about the dreary conventions of English life, 25-year-old Julia heads for Morocco with her daughters, six-year-old Lucy and precocious eight-year-old Bea.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both romance & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisA Walk to Remember (2002)
When the popular, restless Landon Carter is forced to participate in the school drama production, he falls in love with Jamie Sullivan, the daughter of the town's minister. Jamie has a "to-do" list for her life, as well as a very big secret she must keep from Landon.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Prince of Tides (1991)
A troubled Southern man talks to his suicidal sister's psychiatrist about their family history and falls in love with her (and New York City) in the process.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Taste of Others (2000)
Unpolished and ultra-pragmatic industrialist Jean-Jacques Castella reluctantly attends Racine's tragedy "Berenice" in order to see his niece play a bit part. He is taken with the play's strangely familiar-looking leading lady Clara Devaux. During the course of the show, Castella soon remembers that he once hired and then promptly fired the actress as an English language tutor. He immediately goes out and signs up for language lessons. Thinking that he is nothing but an ill-tempered philistine with bad taste, Clara rejects him until Castella charms her off her feet.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIt Could Happen to You (1994)
Charlie Lang is a simple, kindhearted New York City cop. When he realizes he has no money to tip waitress Yvonne Biasi, Lang offers her half the winnings of his lottery ticket. Amazingly, the ticket happens to be a winner, in the sum of $4 million. True to his word, Lang proceeds to share the prize money with Biasi, which infuriates his greedy wife, Muriel. Not content with the arrangement, Muriel begins scheming to take all the money.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Midsummer Night's Dream (1999)
Mistaken identity, unrequited love, and the supernatural are combined in Shakespeare's classic set in the woods of Greece on a moonlit night.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Sweet Hereafter (1997)
A small mountain community in Canada is devastated when a school bus accident leaves more than a dozen of its children dead. A big-city lawyer arrives to help the survivors' and victims' families prepare a class-action suit, but his efforts only seem to push the townspeople further apart. At the same time, one teenage survivor of the accident has to reckon with the loss of innocence brought about by a different kind of damage.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Simple Plan (1998)
Captivated by the lure of sudden wealth, the quiet rural lives of two brothers erupt into conflicts of greed, paranoia and distrust when over $4 million in cash is discovered at the remote site of a downed small airplane. Their simple plan to retain the money while avoiding detection opens a Pandora's box when the fear of getting caught triggers panicked behavior and leads to virulent consequences.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMoby Dick (1956)
In 1841, young Ishmael signs up for service aboard the Pequod, a whaler sailing out of New Bedford. The ship is under the command of Captain Ahab, a strict disciplinarian who exhorts his men to find Moby Dick, the great white whale. Ahab lost his leg to that creature and is desperate for revenge. As the crew soon learns, he will stop at nothing to gain satisfaction.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRakastunut rampa (1975)
Krokelby in the 1920s. Sakris Kukkelman is a crippled, Nietzsche reading village idiot who believes himself to be a romantic hero.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Unbearable Lightness of Being?
The closest matches to The Unbearable Lightness of Being are Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012), Allied (2016) and Anna Karenina (1935). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Unbearable Lightness of Being?
Start with Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012), the closest match to The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Unbearable Lightness of Being?
A Walk to Remember (2002), rated 7.7/10 by 4,375 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Unbearable Lightness of Being?
The Shape of Water (2017) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Unbearable Lightness of Being?
Yes: Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012), Allied (2016) and Anna Karenina (1935).
How are movies similar to The Unbearable Lightness of Being chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Unbearable Lightness of Being, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.