Movies like A Story Written with Water (1965)
The best movies like A Story Written with Water (1965) are The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952), Sisters of the Gion (1936) and The Only Son (1936). If A Story Written with Water hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedTokyo Story (1953)8.1/10 from 1,290 votes
- NewestHere (2024)Released 2024
- In JapaneseThe Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952)Also in Japanese
The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952)
The arranged marriage between a capricious woman from Tokyo high society and a quiet rustic man is tested by a marital crisis.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSisters of the Gion (1936)
A geisha in the Gion district of Kyoto feels obliged to help her lover when he asks to stay with her after going bankrupt and leaving his wife. However, her younger sister opposes this, thinking that they should both find wealthy patrons to support them.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Only Son (1936)
A rural widow sends her only son to Tokyo to receive a better education. Years later, she visits him and finds he has become a night school teacher struggling to support his wife and son.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMuseum (2016)
In Tokyo, Japan, several grotesque murders take place on rainy days. Detective Sawamura, who is in charge of the case, soon discovers that his own family is connected to the crimes.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIntentions of Murder (1964)
The neglected common-law wife of a Japanese librarian is repeatedly harassed by a young man with a heart condition who seduces her with the prospect of a better life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisShoplifters (2018)
In the outskirts of Tokyo, a poor but close-knit group living on the fringes of society survives through shoplifting and odd jobs. When Osamu and his son take in a neglected young girl, their already fragile existence begins to unravel. As the family grows attached to her, buried secrets surface, forcing them to confront the true meaning of love, belonging, and what makes a family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCall Me Chihiro (2023)
An unapologetic former sex worker starts working at a bento stand in a small seaside town, bringing comfort to the lonely souls who come her way.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Man (2022)
Akira works as a lawyer. One day, he meets with his former client Rie, who asks Akira to perform a background check on her late husband Daisuke.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNobody Knows (2004)
In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisMOTHER (2020)
Shuhei is leading a tough life. His alcoholic mother Akiko can only hook up with bad guys and order Shuhei to go get money from his disapproving grandparents instead of going to school. Except raising the little half-sister, his rock-bottom life seems to have no end.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Geisha (1953)
Fleeing a distressing family situation, Eiko, a very young girl, becomes an apprentice to Miyoharu, a veteran geisha. Both, determined to preserve their professional integrity, must face the selfishness and ambition of several petty people.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLate Spring (1949)
Noriko is perfectly happy living at home with her widowed father, Shukichi, and has no plans to marry -- that is, until her aunt Masa convinces Shukichi that unless he marries off his 27-year-old daughter soon, she will likely remain alone for the rest of her life. When Noriko resists Masa's matchmaking, Shukichi is forced to deceive his daughter and sacrifice his own happiness to do what he believes is right.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisHimizu (2012)
Two 14-year-olds from troubled, abusive homes come together sharing misery and pain. In the aftermath of an earthquake, the classmates learn how to survive while relying on one another for emotional and physical support.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAfter the Storm (2016)
Ryota is an unpopular writer although he won a literary award 15 years ago. Now, Ryota works as a private detective. He is divorced from his ex-wife Kyoko and he has an 11-year-old son Shingo. His mother Yoshiko lives alone at her apartment. One day, Ryota, his ex-wife Kyoko, and son Shingo gather at Yoshiko's apartment. A typhoon passes and the family must stay there all night long.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTokyo Story (1953)
The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Insect Woman (1963)
A woman, Tome, is born to a lower class family in Japan in 1918. The title refers to an insect, repeating its mistakes, as in an infinite circle. Imamura, with this metaphor, introduces the life of Tome, who keeps trying to change her poor life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFamily Romance, LLC (2019)
Love is a business at Family Romance, a company that rents human stand-ins for any occasion. Founder Yuichi Ishii helps make his clients’ dreams come true. But when the mother of 12-year-old Mahiro hires Ishii to impersonate her missing father, the line between acting and reality threatens to blur.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMoving (1993)
Physically separated from her father and at odds with her distraught mother, a girl must negotiate her own passage to maturity.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHere (2024)
An odyssey through time and memory, centered on a place in New Jersey where—from wilderness, and then, later, from a home—love, loss, struggle, hope and legacy play out between couples and families over generations.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHer Love Boils Bathwater (2016)
After being diagnosed with a terminal illness, Futaba resolves to spend her remaining time reuniting her broken family, reopening the long-closed bathhouse, and helping her shy daughter Azumi learn to stand on her own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWho's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
A history professor and his wife entertain a young couple who are new to the university's faculty. As the drinks flow, secrets come to light, and the middle-aged couple unload onto their guests the full force of the bitterness, dysfunction, and animosity that defines their marriage.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisElsa & Fred (2014)
After his daughter persuades him to move into a new apartment, aged widower Fred strikes up a friendship with his eccentric 74-year-old neighbour Elsa, who convinces him it's never too late to keep enjoying life. Although he seemed resigned to a miserable bedridden existence, Fred embraces Elsa's youthful enthusiasm as she introduces him to the path of life and entertains him with outlandish stories about her past life. But when he discovers Elsa's terminally ill, Fred decides to accompany her on the trip of her dreams to the eternal city of Rome to help her fulfil a lifelong ambition.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMemoirs of a Geisha (2005)
In the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTyler Perry's The Family That Preys (2008)
Wealthy socialite Charlotte Cartwright and her dear friend Alice Pratt, a working class woman of high ideals, have enjoyed a lasting friendship throughout several decades. Recently, their lives have become mired in turmoil as their adult children’s extramarital affairs, unethical business practices, and a dark secret threaten to derail family fortunes and unravel the lives of all involved. Charlotte and Alice decide to take a breather from it all by making a cross-country road trip in which they rediscover themselves and possibly find a way to save their families from ruin.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Morning Sea (TBA)
After the stillbirth of his child, a young photographer Hiroshi, begins to see spirits as he searches for new purpose.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Parasyte: Part 1 (2014)
Humanity is suffering from a series of mysterious murders across the globe, known as the 'Mincemeat murders'. High school student Izumi Shinichi has a parasite living off him, having replaced his right hand, and he might be the discoverer of truth.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNever Steady, Never Still (2017)
A mother struggles to take control of her life in the face of advanced Parkinson's disease, while her son battles his sexual and emotional identity amongst the violence of Alberta's oil field work camps.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Aban (2022)
Under constant pressure from her ex-husband, Nazanin should turn their child - Aban, nine years old - away from a very driven feminine taste. One day, Aban goes to the hospital thinking of undergoing life-changing surgery.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
What Grown-Ups Know (2004)
Teenage boy Roy and his ailing mother Elizabeth live an aimless life on the road, shuttling between gas stations, temp jobs and cheap motels. When they end up at a desolate caravan park, fractures begin to appear in Roy's relationship with his mother as he starts to fall head over heels for park manager Maurice.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Mehman (TBA)
A joyous wedding dance rehearsal in a Pakistani immigrant household turns into a night of confrontation between a matriarch and her son when he brings home an unexpected guest.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like A Story Written with Water and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like A Story Written with Water?
The closest matches to A Story Written with Water are The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952), Sisters of the Gion (1936) and The Only Son (1936). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after A Story Written with Water?
Start with The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952), the closest match to A Story Written with Water.
What is the highest-rated movie like A Story Written with Water?
Tokyo Story (1953), rated 8.1/10 by 1,290 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like A Story Written with Water?
Here (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Japanese movies like A Story Written with Water?
Yes: The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952), Sisters of the Gion (1936) and The Only Son (1936).
How are movies similar to A Story Written with Water chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside A Story Written with Water, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.