Movies like Esquisse (2025)
The best movies like Esquisse (2025) are Tigertail (2020), Helen (2009) and Out of Season (2024). If Esquisse hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedRequiem for a Dream (2000)8.0/10 from 11,482 votes
- NewestAt Work (2026)Released 2026
- In FrenchOut of Season (2024)Also in French
Tigertail (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 thisHelen (2009)
On the outside, Helen has it all – a loving family and a successful career – but when her suppressed mental illness resurfaces, the world crumbles around her. Crippled by depression, Helen finds solace through her friendship with Mathilda, a kindred spirit struggling with bipolar disorder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOut of Season (2024)
Mathieu lives in Paris, Alice in a small seaside resort in Western France. He is a famous actor, about to turn fifty. She is a piano teacher in her forties. They were in love fifteen years ago, then separated. Time has passed. They each went their ways and slowly healed. When Mathieu goes try to overcome his melancholia in a thermal spa, he stumbles upon Alice.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Girl in the Book (2015)
The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisSecret Name (2021)
Nelie escaped a miserable existence by becoming a frontline nurse in 1914. One day, she takes the identity of Rose, a young woman from a good family, who dies in front of her. She presents herself in her place at Madame de Lengwil's house, to become the reader of this wealthy woman.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Sense of an Ending (2017)
A man becomes haunted by his past and is presented with a mysterious legacy that causes him to re-think his current situation in life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStrange Weather (2016)
Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisAt Work (2026)
A successful photographer gives up everything to devote himself to writing and discovers poverty.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGoodbye June (2025)
Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMichael Jackson: Searching for Neverland (2017)
Based on the best-selling book, Remember the Time: Protecting Michael Jackson in His Final Days, and told through the eyes of Jackson's trusted bodyguards, Bill Whitfield and Javon Beard. The movie will reveal firsthand the devotion Michael Jackson had to his children, and the hidden drama that took place during the last two years of his life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAmateur (2018)
14-year-old basketball phenom Terron Forte has to navigate the under-the-table world of amateur athletics when he is recruited to an elite NCAA prep school.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlue Chips (1994)
Pete Bell, a college basketball coach is under a lot of pressure. His team isn't winning and he cannot attract new players. The stars of the future are secretly being paid by boosters. This practice is forbidden in the college game, but Pete is desperate and has pressures from all around.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEleanor the Great (2025)
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStranger Things (2013)
Oona, a recent graduate in anthropology, has returned to her dead mother’s seaside cottage in southern England to prepare it for sale. Her arrival disturbs Mani, a wary vagrant who has been squatting on the property.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisRequiem for a Dream (2000)
The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisCardboard Boxer (2016)
Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAlex of Venice (2015)
After her stay-at-home husband leaves her, a workaholic lawyer finds that she is not completely up to the tasks of caring for her young son, ailing father and household all by herself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like this150 Milligrams (2016)
In the hospital where she works in Brest, France, a lung specialist discovers a direct link between suspicious deaths and state-approved medicine. She fights single-handedly for the truth to come out.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRoad to Paloma (2014)
While Native American Wolf is being pursued by the FBI for having taken the law into his own hands, when his mother was raped and killed on their reservation he crosses paths with Cash, a down and out musician who is coping with the end of his marriage. An unlikely friendship develops, as they ride together towards the Teton mountain range, where Wolf will spread his mothers ashes.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisNothing Personal (2009)
Alone in her empty flat, from her window Anne observes the people passing by who nervously snatch up the personal belongings and pieces of furniture she has put out on the pavement. Her final gesture of taking a ring off her finger signals she is leaving her previous life in Holland behind. She goes to Ireland, where she chooses to lead a solitary, wandering existence, striding through the austere landscapes of Connemara. During her travels, she discovers a house that is home to a hermit, Martin.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Bronx Tale (1993)
Set in the Bronx during the tumultuous 1960s, an adolescent boy is torn between his honest, working-class father and a violent yet charismatic crime boss. Complicating matters is the youngster's growing attraction - forbidden in his neighborhood - for a beautiful black girl.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisSearching (2023)
A high school student revisits his local theater along with a friend to complete a photography assignment for class. There, they ponder the importance of nostalgia and how it shapes who we are.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Sleepwalker (2022)
A recluse painter’s careful routine is shaken up when a mysterious young woman knocks on his door. An encounter that will confront him with his past.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Avalon (1990)
A Polish-Jewish family comes to the U.S. at the beginning of the twentieth century. There, the family and their children try to make themselves a better future in the so-called promised land.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLand of Green Ginger (1973)
Faced with the prospect of being sent to work abroad, Sally Brown returns home from London to Hull, to see if she still feels the same attachment for her home town - and for her old boyfriend Mike Thurlow. Will she decide to take the job abroad or return to live with Mike in Hull?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Aliens (2016)
A young woman arrives in a city for the first time. She observes the people around her and realizes that she does not belong to that world, everything is alien to her. Even so, she tries to pretend to be one of them, to fit into this strange place.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Home (2014)
Four outsiders of three generations band together in a sweet and funny paean to non-conformism. After her husband's death, elderly Frida comes to know her introverted, friendless adult granddaughter, Lou, from whom she had long been kept apart by Frida's estranged daughter. Frida invites another misfit into her household: 10-year-old Tom, who welcomes the chance to spend time away from both his home and his bullying classmates. Meanwhile, Lou reluctantly gets drawn into a friendship with secondhand bookseller Henrik.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Madame Favre's (2026)
In a nursing home, a young man visits his grandmother. As she constantly repeats that she wants to go home, his grandson visits her now empty apartment, seeking to capture memories of a fading past.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Song of Sway Lake (2019)
In the wake of his father’s suicide, young record collector Ollie Sway returns to the family lake house with his friend Nikolai in tow to lay claim to an invaluable jazz recording. An unexpected visit from Ollie’s estranged grandmother and a chance encounter with a girl from across the lake derail their search, forcing them to confront the Sway family history and a suffering that has resounded through generations.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The House by the Sea (2017)
By a little bay near Marseille lies a picturesque villa owned by an old man. His three children have gathered by his side for his last days. It’s time for them to weigh up what they have inherited of their father’s ideals and the community spirit he created in this magical place. The arrival, at a nearby cove, of a group of boat people will throw these moments of reflection into turmoil.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Esquisse?
The closest matches to Esquisse are Tigertail (2020), Helen (2009) and Out of Season (2024). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Esquisse?
Start with Tigertail (2020), the closest match to Esquisse.
What is the highest-rated movie like Esquisse?
Requiem for a Dream (2000), rated 8.0/10 by 11,482 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Esquisse?
At Work (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like Esquisse?
Yes: Out of Season (2024), Secret Name (2021) and At Work (2026).
How are movies similar to Esquisse chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Esquisse, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.