Movies like There Was Such a Thing Before (2025)
The best movies like There Was Such a Thing Before (2025) are Fukushima 50 (2020), House of Bamboo (1955) and The Land of Hope (2012). If There Was Such a Thing Before hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Human Condition II: Road to Eternity (1959)8.2/10 from 242 votes
- NewestMarigold DREAM✴︎STAR Grand Prix 2026 ~ Day 2 (2026)Released 2026
- In JapaneseFukushima 50 (2020)Also in Japanese
Fukushima 50 (2020)
Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi facility in Japan risk their lives and stay at the nuclear power plant to prevent total destruction after the region is devastated by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHouse of Bamboo (1955)
Eddie Kenner is given a special assignment by the Army to get the inside story on Sandy Dawson, a former GI who has formed a gang of fellow servicemen and Japanese locals.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Land of Hope (2012)
An old couple, their only son, the son's wife, a young man and his lover live peacefully in a village. Then, a terrifying earthquake strikes that causes a nearby nuclear station to explode. The residents must evacuate, but the family lives on a farm, with only half of the area designated as an evacuation area.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBarefoot Gen 2 (1986)
Three years after the Hiroshima bombing, a teenager helps a group of orphans to survive and find their new life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlack Rain (1989)
Shigematsu Shizuma, who lives with his family in a village near Fukuyama, was in Hiroshima with his wife and niece just after the devastating atomic bombing, a tragedy that cruelly took the lives of thousands of people and forever marked the harsh existence of the survivors.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHereafter (2010)
Three people — a blue-collar American, a French journalist and a London school boy — are touched by death in different ways.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTokyo Family (2013)
An elderly couple journey to Tokyo to visit their grown children, only to find them preoccupied and self-involved.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMaborosi (1995)
A tragedy strikes a young woman's life without warning or reason. She continues living while searching for meaning in a lonely world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisKabei: Our Mother (2008)
Set in Tokyo in 1940, the peaceful life of the Nogami Family suddenly changes when the father, Shigeru, is arrested and accused of being a Communist. His wife Kayo works frantically from morning to night to maintain the household and bring up her two daughters with the support of Shigeru's sister Hisako and Shigeru's ex-student Yamazaki, but her husband does not return. WWII breaks out and casts dark shadows on the entire country, but Kayo still tries to keep her cheerful determination, and sustain the family with her love. This is an emotional drama of a mother and an eternal message for peace.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBarefoot 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSuzume (2022)
Suzume, 17, lost her mother as a little girl. On her way to school, she meets a mysterious young man. But her curiosity unleashes a calamity that endangers the entire population of Japan, and so Suzume embarks on a journey to set things right.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Outsider (2018)
A former American G.I. joins a yakuza family after his release from prison in post-World War II Osaka.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLove & Pop (1998)
Tokyo schoolgirl Hiromi and her friends engage in a practice known as enjo kosai, or "compensated dating", where older men pay young girls for dates. Hiromi plunges deeper into this world to raise money for an expensive ring.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 thisPanic in Year Zero! (1962)
While on a fishing trip, Harry Baldwin and his family hear an explosion and realize that Los Angeles has been leveled by a nuclear attack. Looters and killers are everywhere. Escaping to the hills with his family, he sets about the business of surviving in a world where, he knows, the old ideals of humanity will be the first casualties.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFemale Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 (1972)
After being used and betrayed by the detective she had fallen in love with, young Matsu is sent to a female prison full of sadistic guards and disobedient prisoners.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAir Doll (2009)
A life-size, inflatable sex doll suddenly comes to life one day. Without her owner knowing, she goes for a walk around town and falls in love with Junichi. She starts to date Junichi and gets a job at the same store where he works. Everything seems to be going perfectly for her until something unexpected happens.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDreams (1990)
Eight visually rich vignettes drawn from Kurosawa’s own dreams—fox weddings and vanished orchards, a soldier’s ghosts, a walk through Van Gogh’s canvases, nuclear nightmares, and a water-mill utopia—meditate on childhood, art, mortality, and humanity’s uneasy bond with nature.
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 thisThe Human Condition II: Road to Eternity (1959)
Kaji, sent to the Japanese army labeled Red, witnesses cruelties in the army and revolts against the abusive treatment against a fellow recruit. He also sees his friend Shinjô defecting to the Russian border, and he ends in the front to fight a lost battle against the Russian tanks division.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisSide Job (2017)
Based on the novel "Kanojo no Jinsei wa Machigai ja Nai" (literal translation: Her life is not at fault) by Director Hiroki, it is a powerful story of survivors, who are all trying to find their own silver linings in life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Seal Of The Sun (2019)
At 2:46 PM on March 11, 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant experiences a black out due to the aftermath of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. The cooling system fails at the nuclear power plant and the temperature of the nuclear reactor rises. The worst case is coming. Scientists face an unexpected situation and government officials are confused by lack of information. Residents says goodbye to their hometown before evacuating.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Shinpei (2024)
An older brother who can't fit into society, a father who has given up on his future, and a younger sister who is tied to the house. This is the story of the small steps these three people take. The Great East Japan Earthquake suddenly changed the peaceful daily life of the people of Fukushima. Many people lost their homes and jobs due to not only the earthquake and tsunami, but also the nuclear accident, and left Fukushima. This is the story of a family living in the aftermath three years later, in Fukushima, where deep scars remain.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Poliske Nets (2021)
Poliske was contaminated with radioactive material after the 1986 Chornobyl disaster. Soviet authorities did everything they could to erase the ancient history of this town, and after Chornobyl, they destroyed its future.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Boy and the Dog (2025)
6 months after the earthquake disaster in Sendai City, Nakagaki Kazumasa is a young man who has lost his job. He encounters a dog named Tamon on its dog tag, who lost its owner in the earthquake disaster. Kazumasa decides to take Tamon in, and the dog becomes attached to him and his family, but Tamon always seems concerned about something in the south direction. One day, while Kazumasa is involved in a dangerous incident, Tamon disappears. Later, in Shiga, Tamon is with Sugai Miwa, who has a sad secret. Kazumasa reunites with Tamon, and they start a new life together. Nevertheless, Tamon heads south because Tamon has a promise it wants to keep to a boy.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Day the Earth Moved (1997)
January 16, 1995. Tsuyoshi Takahashi, a young student at Shiokaze elementary, is driven solely to get excellent grades. Because of this he often ignores those around him in his pursuit of perfection. Miho, a young girl in his class that wishes he would appreciate the people around him. Kazu a sickly and bed ridden classmate that lives near him. January 17, the 1995 Kobe / Hyogoken-Nanbu Earthquake strikes killing more than 6000 people and leaving 300 000 more homeless. Measuring 6.9 on the Richter Scale, it was the largest Earthquake to hit Japan since the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. In the aftermath of the quake, Tsuyoshi's finds his priorities changing. Dealing with the death of one friend while helping another to cope with a very personal loss, Tsuyoshi is forced to mature into someone who can no longer ignore the suffering around him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Lahar: Paraisong Abo (1997)
In the aftermath of the eruption of Mount Pinatubo, a volcano dormant for more than 400 years, the residents of the whole town of San Simon in Pampanga was engulfed by dust and thick mudflow called lahar. The whole surviving residents of the devastated community are relocated to transitional evacuation center, a tent city, where different and unique personalities meet: Sheila, a migrant worker from Germany who is struggling to keep her family intact at all costs; Sonia who is looking for her missing husband while pretending as a handicapped so she can beg on the streets; Ditas, who returns in Pampanga after getting pregnant in Manila; and Elena, a mother who lost her whole family in the eruption, yet she keeps a positive outlook in life that as long as she remembers her relatives no amount of tragedy could keep her from reminiscing of their once peaceful lives.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Marigold DREAM✴︎STAR Grand Prix 2026 ~ Day 2 (2026)
DREAM✴︎STAR Grand Prix 2026 ~ Day 2 was a professional wrestling event promoted by Dream Star★Fighting Marigold, held on August 29, 2026 at Will Fukushima Acty Oroshimachi in Fukushima, Japan. It served as the second show for the company's annual round-robin singles tournament.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
After the Quake (2025)
Based on four of the six short stories compiled in Murakami Haruki's anthology, After the Quake explores the complex aftermath of Japan’s earthquakes and other global crises. (Movie version of the TV drama).
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The House of the Lost on the Cape (2021)
A strange old woman allows a teenage runaway and a young orphan to stay in an abandoned house that overlooks the sea. However, when a menacing entity threatens their new home, they must band together and face their fears to save it.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like There Was Such a Thing Before?
The closest matches to There Was Such a Thing Before are Fukushima 50 (2020), House of Bamboo (1955) and The Land of Hope (2012). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after There Was Such a Thing Before?
Start with Fukushima 50 (2020), the closest match to There Was Such a Thing Before.
What is the highest-rated movie like There Was Such a Thing Before?
The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity (1959), rated 8.2/10 by 242 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like There Was Such a Thing Before?
Marigold DREAM✴︎STAR Grand Prix 2026 ~ Day 2 (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Japanese movies like There Was Such a Thing Before?
Yes: Fukushima 50 (2020), The Land of Hope (2012) and Barefoot Gen 2 (1986).
How are movies similar to There Was Such a Thing Before chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside There Was Such a Thing Before, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.