Movies like When the Wind Blows (1986)
The best movies like When the Wind Blows (1986) are Barefoot Gen (1983), Ethel & Ernest (2016) and Animal Farm (1954). If When the Wind Blows hooked you with its animation and war, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedGrave of the Fireflies (1988)8.4/10 from 6,951 votes
- NewestThe Most Precious of Cargoes (2024)Released 2024
Barefoot Gen (1983)
A story about the effect of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on a boy's life and the lives of the Japanese people.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEthel & Ernest (2016)
This hand drawn animated film, based on the award winning graphic novel by Raymond Briggs, is an intimate and affectionate depiction of the life and times of his parents, two ordinary Londoners living through extraordinary events.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAnimal Farm (1954)
Animals on a farm lead a revolution against the farmers to put their destiny in their own hands. However this revolution eats their own children and they cannot avoid corruption.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Plague Dogs (1982)
Two dogs, Rowf and Snitter, struggle to survive in the countryside after escaping from an animal research laboratory. They're pursued by search parties and then the military after rumours spread that they could be carrying the bubonic plague.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGrave of the Fireflies (1988)
In the final months of World War II, 14-year-old Seita and his sister Setsuko are orphaned when their mother is killed during an air raid in Kobe, Japan. After a falling out with their aunt, they move into an abandoned bomb shelter. With no surviving relatives and their emergency rations depleted, Seita and Setsuko struggle to survive.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Wolf House (2018)
After escaping from a religious colony in Chile, Maria seeks shelter in a mansion where she’s taken in by two pigs, its only inhabitants. Like in a stop-motion dream, the universe of the house reacts to her feelings. The animals slowly morph into humans and the house into a dark, menacing world.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisUnicorn Wars (2022)
An army of bear cubs train and indoctrinate young recruits for the war against the unicorns, which threatens the safety of the cubs. Brothers Bluey and Tubby, along with a group of inexperienced cadets, are sent on a dangerous mission to save the Magic Forest, where the unicorns live, and start a terrible battle.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPersepolis (2007)
In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Satrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisWatership Down (1978)
When the warren belonging to a community of rabbits is threatened, a brave group led by Fiver, Bigwig, Blackberry and Hazel leave their homeland in a search of a safe new haven.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWaltz with Bashir (2008)
A film director from Israel interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBuñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles (2019)
Paris, 1930. Luis Buñuel is penniless after the scandal surrounding the release of his last movie. Sculptor Ramón Acín, a good friend, buys a lottery ticket and promises Buñuel that he will pay for his next movie if he wins the prize.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this$9.99 (2009)
Have you ever wondered "What is the meaning of life? Why do we exist?" The answer to this vexing question is now within your reach! You'll find it in a small yet amazing booklet, which will explain, in easy to follow, simple terms your reason for being! The booklet, printed on the finest paper, contains illuminating, exquisite colour pictures, and could be yours for a mere $9.99.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisAlois Nebel (2011)
A train dispatcher encounters a mute stranger who appears out of nowhere, and finds himself mysteriously involved with a murder in Poland. The end of the eighties in the twentieth century. Alois Nebel works as a dispatcher at the small railway station in Bílý Potok, a remote village on the Czech–Polish border. He's a loner, who prefers old timetables to people, and he finds the loneliness of the station tranquil – except when the fog rolls in. Then he hallucinates, sees trains from the last hundred years pass through the station. They bring ghosts and shadows from the dark past of Central Europe. Alois can’t get rid of these nightmares and eventually ends up in sanatorium. In the sanatorium, he gets to know The Mute, a man carrying an old photograph who was arrested by the police after crossing the border. No one knows why he came to Bílý Potok or who he’s looking for, but it is his past that propels Alois on his journey…
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Most Precious of Cargoes (2024)
Once upon a time, a poor woodcutter and his wife lived in a great forest. Cold, hunger, poverty, and a war raging all around them meant their lives were very hard. One day, the woodcutter's wife rescues a baby. A baby girl thrown from one of the many trains that constantly pass through the forest. This baby, this "most precious of cargoes", will transform the lives of the poor woodcutter's wife and her husband, as well as those whose paths the child will cross—including the man who threw her from the train. And some will try to protect her, whatever the cost. Their story will reveal the worst and the best in the hearts of men.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCharlotte (2022)
The true story of Charlotte Salomon, a young German-Jewish painter who comes of age in Berlin on the eve of the Second World War. Fiercely imaginative and deeply gifted, she dreams of becoming an artist. Her first love applauds her talent, which emboldens her resolve. When anti-Semitic policies inspire violent mobs, she escapes to the safety of the South of France. There she begins to paint again, and finds new love. But her work is interrupted, this time by a family tragedy that reveals an even darker secret. Believing that only an extraordinary act will save her, she embarks on the monumental adventure of painting her life story.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & drama
Fritz the Cat (1972)
In late 1960s New York City, fed up with monotonous college life and police repression, free-spirited Fritz, an impenitent seducer and unrestrained party-animal, decides to explore the world. And just like that, as he flees NYC, heading to San Francisco, Fritz embarks on an endless adventure of illumination. Immersed in a world surrounded by drugs and sex, Fritz participates in mad orgies, brings about a revolution, incites mass urban riots, and crosses paths with drug-addled Nazi bikers.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMary and Max (2009)
A tale of friendship between two unlikely pen pals: Mary, a lonely, eight-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max, a forty-four-year old, severely obese man living in New York.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Breadwinner (2017)
A headstrong young girl in Afghanistan, ruled by the Taliban, disguises herself as a boy in order to provide for her family.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTo Your Last Death (2019)
In order to save her siblings, a young woman takes on her father and the powerful entity known as Gamemaster, who ensnares humans into diabolical plots while her species gambles on the outcome.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Wind Rises (2013)
A lifelong love of flight inspires Japanese aviation engineer Jiro Horikoshi, whose storied career includes the creation of the A-6M World War II fighter plane.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBirdboy: The Forgotten Children (2015)
Teenagers Birdboy and Dinki have decided to escape from an island devastated by ecological catastrophe: Birdboy by shutting himself off from the world, Dinki by setting out on a dangerous voyage in the hope that Birdboy will accompany her.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAnother Day of Life (2018)
In 1975, Ryszard Kapuściński, a veteran Polish journalist, embarked on a seemingly suicidal road trip into the heart of the Angola's civil war. There, he witnessed once again the dirty reality of war and discovered a sense of helplessness previously unknown to him. Angola changed him forever: it was a reporter who left Poland, but it was a writer who returned…
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPeace on Earth (1939)
Two baby squirrels ask grandpa to explain what "men" are when he comes in singing "peace on earth, goodwill to men". Grandpa tells the story of man's last war. This classic animation short was an Academy Award Best Short Subject, Cartoons nominee.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFantastic Planet (1973)
On the planet Ygam, the Draags, extremely technologically and spiritually advanced blue humanoids, consider the tiny Oms, human beings descendants of Terra's inhabitants, as ignorant animals. Those who live in slavery are treated as simple pets and used to entertain Draag children; those who live hidden in the hostile wilderness of the planet are periodically hunted and ruthlessly slaughtered as if they were vermin.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMy Dog Tulip (2010)
The story of a man who rescues a German Shepherd and how the two become fast friends. Based on the 1956 memoir of the same name by BBC editor, novelist and memoirist J. R. Ackerley.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & drama
Threads (1984)
Documentary style account of a nuclear holocaust and its effect on the working class city of Sheffield, England; and the eventual long run effects of nuclear war on civilization.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisChicago 10 (2008)
Archival footage, animation and music are used to look back at the eight anti-war protesters who were put on trial following the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & war
Robot Dreams (2023)
A lonely dog's friendship with his robot companion takes a sad turn when an unexpected malfunction forces him to abandon Robot at the beach. Will Dog ever meet Robot again?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisFelidae (1994)
A domestic house cat named Francis investigates the grisly feline murders taking place in his new neighborhood.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHeroic Times (1984)
The tragic medieval tale of a man of inhuman strength, fierce temper and a desire for noble knighthood. While on the run as a murderer, he finds new life as a knight, only to face disillusionment, the horrors of war and ugly human vices.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both animation & war
Like When the Wind Blows and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like When the Wind Blows?
The closest matches to When the Wind Blows are Barefoot Gen (1983), Ethel & Ernest (2016) and Animal Farm (1954). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after When the Wind Blows?
People who watched When the Wind Blows most often go on to Barefoot Gen (1983), Ethel & Ernest (2016) and Animal Farm (1954).
What is the highest-rated movie like When the Wind Blows?
Grave of the Fireflies (1988), rated 8.4/10 by 6,951 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like When the Wind Blows?
The Most Precious of Cargoes (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like When the Wind Blows?
Yes: Ethel & Ernest (2016), Animal Farm (1954) and The Plague Dogs (1982).
How are movies similar to When the Wind Blows chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside When the Wind Blows, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.