Movies like The Circus of Death (1916)
The best movies like The Circus of Death (1916) are Skin (2009), 40 Seconds (2025) and Gioia (2026). If The Circus of Death hooked you with its drama, these 20 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedCharm City Kings (2020)7.8/10 from 508 votes
- NewestGioia (2026)Released 2026
- In Italian40 Seconds (2025)Also in Italian
Skin (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 this40 Seconds (2025)
It explores the tragic events leading up to the murder of 21-year-old Willy Monteiro Duarte, highlighting the intertwining of chance encounters, rivalries, and latent tensions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGioia (2026)
Gioia is a high school teacher who has never known any other love than the oppressive bond with her own parents, with whom she still lives. One of the students at her school, Alessio, is cashing in on his own body to make a couple of hundred euros to help his mother, a cashier in a supermarket. The relationship that dawns between Gioia and Alessio is forbidden fruit, fragile yet, inexplicably, one they can’t do without. Still, Alessio’s desire to improve his social standing is a silent killer that prevents him from ultimately accepting Gioia’s surprising affection for him. He goes and destroys it all, cancelling the only person who has ever loved him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Kindness of Strangers (2019)
Clara and her two sons escape from her abusive husband with little more than their car and plan to start over in New York. After the car towed away, the family meets Alice, who gets them into an emergency shelter. While stealing food at a Russian restaurant called ‘Winter Palace’, Clara meets Marc, who has been given the chance to help the old eatery regain its former glory. The ‘Winter Palace’ soon becomes a place of unexpected encounters between people who are all undergoing some sort of crisis and whom fate has now brought together.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFinally Dawn (2024)
A young Roman woman during the 1950s is on the verge of becoming engaged to a man. She goes to Cinecittà to do an audition as an extra and is thrust into this almost infinite night during which she discovers herself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMost (2003)
A poetic and powerful story of a father forced to choose between love and duty.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Nest (2020)
Rory is an ambitious entrepreneur who brings his American wife and kids to his native country, England, to explore new business opportunities. After abandoning the sanctuary of their safe American suburban surroundings, the family is plunged into the despair of an archaic '80s Britain and their unaffordable new life in an English manor house threatens to destroy the family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThings We Don't Say (2026)
Carlo and Elisa are a successful couple. He’s a university professor and writer facing a creative block; she’s a brilliant, sharp-witted journalist, known for her internationally published editorials. They live in Rome, moving between accomplishments and routine, affection and something that might be fading. In search of new energy, they travel to Morocco with their lifelong friends, Anna and Paolo, and their thirteen-year-old daughter Vittoria—bright, curious, a little eccentric. Tensions soon rise.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChrist Stopped at Eboli (1979)
In the fascist Italy of 1935, a painter trained as a doctor is exiled to a remote region near Eboli. Over time, he learns to appreciate the beauty and wisdom of the peasants, and to overcome his isolation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Mass Is Ended (1985)
Young Father Giulio returns to Rome, where he was born and raised, to replace a priest who has left the clergy to start a family. He is delighted to reunite with his loved ones, especially his mother, sister, and old friends. Once radical leftists like Giulio himself, the latter are now each coping in their own way with the defeat of the revolution. Soon, however, Giulio realizes that despite his best efforts, he seems unable to solve the problems troubling those around him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCharm City Kings (2020)
Mouse desperately wants to join The Midnight Clique, the infamous Baltimore dirt bike riders who rule the summertime streets. When Midnight’s leader, Blax, takes 14-year-old Mouse under his wing, Mouse soon finds himself torn between the straight-and-narrow and a road filled with fast money and violence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDormant Beauty (2012)
A mosaic of several intertwined stories questioning the meaning of life, love and hope, set during the last six days in the life of Eluana Englaro, a young woman who spent 17 years in a vegetative state.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBebo's Girl (1964)
At the end of World War II, shallow, self-centered Mara is the prettiest girl in her small Italian village; Bebo is a Communist partisan who is finding it difficult to adjust to the dull banalities of life in peacetime. When Mara’s father, a passionate Communist, declares that his daughter will marry the returning hero, her reactions range from joy to bitter resentment.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLady Driver (2020)
When a rebellious teen embarks on a solo summer journey to connect with her roots, she finds herself in a new world, geared up for the ride of her life, and discovers she had the drive in her all along.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHungry Hearts (2015)
The relationship of a couple who meet by chance in New York City is put to the test when they encounter a life or death circumstance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFamily Diary (1962)
Enrico is a struggling journalist in the Rome of 1945. He receives a phone call informing him that his younger brother Lorenzo has died. Enrico recalls their long and difficult relationship; he was brought up by their poor but warm-hearted grandmother, Lorenzo was raised as a gentleman by a wealthy local aristocrat. Reunited in the Florence of the 1930s, Enrico becomes his spoilt brother's keeper, forever haunted by a sense of guilty responsibility towards a man he both hates and loves.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWhat Maisie Knew (2013)
In New York City, six-year-old Maisie is caught in the middle of a bitter custody battle between her self-absorbed parents—an aging rock singer mother and a distracted art dealer father. As both quickly marry new partners to strengthen their legal standing, Maisie is shuttled back and forth in an endless game of emotional point-scoring. Yet amid the chaos and upheaval, Maisie begins to find true comfort and affection in her new step-parents.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTragedy of a Ridiculous Man (1981)
The son of the owner of a large Italian cheese factory is kidnapped, but as the factory is on the verge of bankruptcy the owner hatches a plan to use the ransom money as reinvestment in the factory.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Family (1987)
Formal portraits, bookends in this 80-year saga, enclose the central story, which opens with the baptism of Carlo, a baby in his grandfather's lap, and ends with Carlo as a grandfather with a baby in his arms. And never once do we get out of the house, whose rooms provide structure. Comfort or passion? Carlo can't really decide until it's too late.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTigertail (2020)
A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Circus of Death?
The closest matches to The Circus of Death are Skin (2009), 40 Seconds (2025) and Gioia (2026). Below are 17 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Circus of Death?
Start with Skin (2009), the closest match to The Circus of Death.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Circus of Death?
Charm City Kings (2020), rated 7.8/10 by 508 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Circus of Death?
Gioia (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Italian movies like The Circus of Death?
Yes: 40 Seconds (2025), Gioia (2026) and Finally Dawn (2024).
How are movies similar to The Circus of Death chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Circus of Death, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.