Movies like The Winter's Tale (2025)
The best movies like The Winter's Tale (2025) are National Theatre Live: Hamlet (2015), King Lear (2018) and Harvest (2025). If The Winter's Tale hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedHamlet (1948)7.4/10 from 308 votes
- NewestAriel (2025)Released 2025
National Theatre Live: Hamlet (2015)
As a country arms itself for war, a family tears itself apart. Forced to avenge his father's death but paralyzed by the task ahead, Hamlet rages against the impossibility of his predicament, threatening both his sanity and the security of the state.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisKing Lear (2018)
An aging King invites disaster, when he abdicates to his corrupt, toadying daughters, and rejects his loving and honest one.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHarvest (2025)
Over seven hallucinatory days, a village with no name, in an undefined time and place, disappears.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJulia (1977)
At the behest of an old and dear friend, playwright Lillian Hellman undertakes a dangerous mission to smuggle funds into Nazi Germany.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTrue to the Game (2017)
Based on the Terri Woods best selling novel, True to the Game is the love story of Quadir Richards, a charismatic drug lord, and Gena Rollins, a young girl from the projects of Philly. Quadir was able to gain the trust and love of Gena and was on his way out of the game to start a new life with his future bride when tragedy strikes.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972)
Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHome Run (2013)
A pro ball player with a substance abuse problem is forced into rehab in his hometown, finding new hope when he gets honest about his checkered past, and takes on coaching duties for a misfit Little League team
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 thisHamlet (1948)
Winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor, Sir Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet continues to be the most compelling version of Shakespeare’s beloved tragedy. Olivier is at his most inspired—both as director and as the melancholy Dane himself—as he breathes new life into the words of one of the world’s greatest dramatists.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGigi & Nate (2022)
A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFirebrand (2024)
Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of King Henry VIII, is named regent while the tyrant battles abroad. When the king returns, increasingly ill and paranoid, Katherine finds herself fighting for her own survival.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe River (1984)
Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMacbeth (1971)
Scotland, 11th century. Driven by the twisted prophecy of three witches and the ruthless ambition of his wife, warlord Macbeth, bold and brave, but also weak and hesitant, betrays his good king and his brothers in arms and sinks into the bloody mud of a path with no return, sown with crime and suspicion.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisResurrecting the Champ (2007)
Up-and-coming sports reporter rescues a homeless man ("Champ") only to discover that he is, in fact, a boxing legend believed to have passed away. What begins as an opportunity to resurrect Champ's story and escape the shadow of his father's success becomes a personal journey as the ambitious reporter reexamines his own life and his relationship with his family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOthello (1951)
Manipulated by his jealous ensign Iago, the Moorish general Othello is driven to believe that his new wife Desdemona is unfaithful, setting in motion a chain of deception, jealousy, and violence that leads to tragedy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHands of Stone (2016)
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Devil's Double (2011)
A chilling vision of the House of Saddam Hussein comes to life through the eyes of the man who was forced to become the double of Hussein's sadistic son.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFinding Neverland (2004)
During a writing slump, playwright J.M. Barrie meets a widow and her four children, all young boys—who soon become an important part of Barrie’s life and the inspiration that lead him to create his masterpiece. Peter Pan.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Young One (1960)
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFanny Lye Deliver'd (2019)
On an isolated English farm in 1657, Fanny lives a quiet life with her oppressive husband John and their young son. One day their life is rocked with the arrival of young couple Thomas and Rebecca who claim to have been robbed and need a place to stay. But are these strangers really who they say they are?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWilliam Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew (1983)
Lucentio loves Bianca but cannot court her until her shrewish older sister Katherina marries. The eccentric Petruccio marries the reluctant Katherina and uses a number of tactics to render her an obedient wife.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Le Cercle des Poètes disparus (TBA)
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Adventures of Pericles (2016)
A storm at sea brings love into the life of Pericles, Prince of Tyre – and another snatches it away. Filled with music and brilliant spectacle, this magical production of Shakespeare’s epic adventure is a delight for the eye and ear as it follows a fairy-tale hero on his miraculous journey to one of drama’s most poignant reunions. A story rarely told – and one you won’t soon forget.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
& After (2025)
On the eve of a major life change, Abby sorts through memories, unfinished conversations, and the pieces of a friendship strained by ambition. As departure day looms, the past and present collide, forcing her to confront what moving forward really means.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Les Trois masques (1921)
The son of the wealthy Signor Della Corba loves one of his maids. Her brothers and father rebel at the idea of this union. But the girl is pregnant, and after the birth of the child, Della Corba's son decides to kidnap his mistress on Carnival Day. The brothers, having caught wind of the plan, kill him, then, in disguise, take him masked to his father's house, passing him off as a drunken friend. At dawn, Della Corba discovers her lifeless son under the mask. The maid having died in the meantime, he takes the child in and adopts him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Tempest (1911)
Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan, is a kindly man, but a student. His fondness for literature gives his enemies a chance to plot against him, and through the machinations of his own brother, Antonio, and the King of Naples, Prospero is dethroned and Antonio assumes his throne.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Ariel (2025)
An actress goes to Azores to take part in the theatrical tour of The Tempest and on her arrival she finds no one from the company, there is not even a theatre. After meeting Ariel, the actress discovers that the play has already started, the whole island is a theatre and its inhabitants are characters.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street – In Concert with the New York Philharmonic (2014)
In 1846, Anthony Hope sails into London with the mysterious Sweeney Todd, a once-naive barber whose life and marriage was uprooted by a corrupt justice system. Todd confides in Nellie Lovett, the owner of a local meat pie shop, and the two become partners, as Todd swears revenge on those that have wronged him and decides to take up his old profession. (Filmed live at the Lincoln Center with the New York Philharmonic from March 5–8, 2014.)
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Chuck & Buck (2000)
Chuck and Buck are childhood best friends whose lives have taken very different paths. While Chuck moved away and now has a real life, Buck stayed behind and developed a dangerous fixation—on Chuck's life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNational Theatre Live: Antigone (2012)
In the unstable aftermath of a civil war, Creon, the new King of Thebes, asserts his authority by forbidding anyone from honouring the death of the traitor Polyneices. But Antigone, Polyneices' sister, will not obey. When Creon's authority is challenged, a gripping conflict emerges between the power of an individual and the state. Polly Findlay's electric 2012 production brings Sophocles' tragedy into the modern world as a gripping political thriller.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like The Winter's Tale and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Winter's Tale?
The closest matches to The Winter's Tale are National Theatre Live: Hamlet (2015), King Lear (2018) and Harvest (2025). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Winter's Tale?
Start with National Theatre Live: Hamlet (2015), the closest match to The Winter's Tale.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Winter's Tale?
Hamlet (1948), rated 7.4/10 by 308 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Winter's Tale?
Ariel (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Winter's Tale?
Yes: National Theatre Live: Hamlet (2015), King Lear (2018) and Harvest (2025).
How are movies similar to The Winter's Tale chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Winter's Tale, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.