Movies like The Human Stain (2003)
The best movies like The Human Stain (2003) are Atonement (2007), Indignation (2016) and Shadowlands (1993). If The Human Stain 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 ratedGabriel's Inferno: Part II (2020)8.3/10 from 1,569 votes
- NewestSurprised by Oxford (2023)Released 2023
Atonement (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 thisIndignation (2016)
In 1951, Marcus Messner, a working-class Jewish student from New Jersey, attends a small Ohio college, where he struggles with anti-Semitism, sexual repression, and the ongoing Korean War.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisShadowlands (1993)
C.S. Lewis, a world-renowned writer and professor, leads a passionless life until he meets spirited poet Joy Gresham.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Great Gatsby (2000)
Stock broker Nick Carraway consents to play Cupid for his rich married cousin Daisy Buchanan and her former love, nouveau riche Jay Gatsby.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Far from Heaven (2002)
In 1950s Connecticut, a housewife's life is upended by a marital crisis and mounting racial tensions in society.
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 thisClosing the Ring (2007)
During the 1940s, a group of young men go off to war, leaving behind Ethel Ann, who is in love with one of them, Teddy. In modern-day Belfast, a man named Jimmy endeavors to return a ring found in the wreckage of a crashed plane. He travels to Michigan, where the grown Ethel Ann, who married another man after Teddy was killed in battle, now lives. Ethel Ann must decide whether to go with Jimmy to meet the soldier who last saw Teddy alive.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Reader (2008)
The story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a teenager in the late 1950s, had an affair with an older woman, Hanna, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a concentration camp guard late in the war. He alone realizes that Hanna is illiterate and may be concealing that fact at the expense of her freedom.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMy Cousin Rachel (2017)
A young Englishman plots revenge against his mysterious, beautiful cousin, believing that she murdered his guardian. But his feelings become complicated as he finds himself falling under the beguiling spell of her charms.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Notebook (2004)
An epic love story centered around an older man who reads aloud to a woman with Alzheimer's. From a faded notebook, the old man's words bring to life the story about a couple who is separated by World War II, and is then passionately reunited, seven years later, after they have taken different paths.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Hours (2002)
The story of three women searching for more potent, meaningful lives. Each is alive at a different time and place, all are linked by their yearnings and their fears. Their stories intertwine, and finally come together in a surprising, transcendent moment of shared recognition.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMonster's Ball (2001)
A prison guard begins a tentative romance with the unsuspecting widow of a man whose execution he presided over.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTotal Eclipse (1995)
Young, wild poet Arthur Rimbaud and his mentor Paul Verlaine engage in a fierce, forbidden romance while feeling the effects of a hellish artistic lifestyle.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIris (2001)
True story of the lifelong romance between novelist Iris Murdoch and her husband John Bayley, from their student days through her battle with Alzheimer's disease.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Beautiful Mind (2001)
From the heights of notoriety to the depths of depravity, John Forbes Nash Jr. experiences it all. As a brilliant but socially awkward mathematician, he made a groundbreaking discovery early in his career and stands on the brink of international acclaim. But as the handsome and arrogant Nash accepts secret work in cryptography, he becomes entangled in a mysterious conspiracy. His life takes a nightmarish turn and he soon finds himself on a painful and harrowing journey of self-discovery.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Secret Scripture (2017)
The hidden memoir of an elderly woman confined to a mental hospital reveals the history of her passionate yet tortured life, and of the religious and political upheavals in Ireland during the 1920s and 30s.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPossession (2002)
Maud Bailey, a brilliant English academic, is researching the life and work of poet Christabel La Motte. Roland Michell is an American scholar in London to study Randolph Henry Ash, now best-known for a collection of poems dedicated to his wife. When Maud and Roland discover a cache of love letters that appear to be from Ash to La Motte, they follow a trail of clues across England, echoing the journey of the couple over a century earlier.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Bridges of Madison County (1995)
Photographer Robert Kincaid wanders into the life of housewife Francesca Johnson for four days in the 1960s.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGabriel's Inferno: Part II (2020)
Professor Gabriel Emerson finally learns the truth about Julia Mitchell's identity, but his realization comes a moment too late. Julia is done waiting for the well-respected Dante specialist to remember her and wants nothing more to do with him. Can Gabriel win back her heart before she finds love in another's arms?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies 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: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Remains of the Day (1993)
In interwar Britain, a rule-bound head butler's world of manners and decorum in the household he maintains is tested by the arrival of a new housekeeper. The possibility of romance and his master's cultivation of ties with the Nazi cause challenge his carefully maintained veneer of servitude.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTo Gillian on Her 37th Birthday (1996)
David loves his wife, Gillian. Unfortunately, she died two years ago. David deals with his grief by continuing his romance with Gillian during walks with her "ghost" on the beach at night. While David lives in the past, other family problems crop up in the present in the real world....
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisAn Education (2009)
Despite her sheltered upbringing, Jenny is a teen with a bright future; she's smart, pretty, and has aspirations of attending Oxford University. When David, a charming but much older suitor, motors into her life in a shiny automobile, Jenny gets a taste of adult life that she won't soon forget.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEvening (2007)
As Constance (Natasha Richardson) and Nina (Toni Collette) gather at the deathbed of their mother, Ann (Vanessa Redgrave), they learn for the first time that their mother lived an entire other lifetime during one evening 50 years ago. In vivid flashbacks, the young Ann (Claire Daines) spends one night with a man named Harris (Patrick Wilson), who was the love of her life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisSylvia (2003)
Story of the relationship between the poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisSurprised by Oxford (2023)
Brilliant but emotionally-guarded Caro Drake arrives in Oxford with the singular goal of attaining her PhD, but through a turbulent friendship with a charming young man she starts to open herself up to mystery, vulnerability, and love.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
Ask the Dust (2006)
Mexican beauty Camilla hopes to rise above her station by marrying a wealthy American. That is complicated by meeting Arturo Bandini, a first-generation Italian hoping to land a writing career and a blue-eyed blonde on his arm.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisInfinity (1996)
Story of the early life of genius and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Book of Love (2004)
Living among fusty academics, an unusual young man gets between a high school history teacher and his wife.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Bella (2006)
An international soccer star is on his way to sign a multimillion dollar contract when something happens that brings his career to an abrupt end. A beautiful waitress, struggling to make it in New York City, discovers something about herself that she's unprepared for. In one irreversible moment, their lives are turned upside down.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Human Stain?
The closest matches to The Human Stain are Atonement (2007), Indignation (2016) and Shadowlands (1993). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Human Stain?
People who watched The Human Stain most often go on to Atonement (2007), Indignation (2016) and Shadowlands (1993).
What is the highest-rated movie like The Human Stain?
Gabriel's Inferno: Part II (2020), rated 8.3/10 by 1,569 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Human Stain?
Surprised by Oxford (2023) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Human Stain?
Yes: Atonement (2007), Indignation (2016) and Shadowlands (1993).
How are movies similar to The Human Stain chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Human Stain, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.