Movies like Russian Ark (2002)
The best movies like Russian Ark (2002) are War and Peace, Part I: Andrei Bolkonsky (1966), True Spirit (2023) and Nicholas and Alexandra (1971). If Russian Ark hooked you with its drama and fantasy, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedA Chinese Odyssey Part One: Pandora's Box (1995)7.5/10 from 325 votes
- NewestWhen You Listen to This Song (2025)Released 2025
War and Peace, Part I: Andrei Bolkonsky (1966)
In 1805 St. Petersburg, Pierre Bezukhov, illegitimate son of a rich nobleman, is introduced to high society. His friend, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, joins the Imperial Russian Army as aide-de-camp of General Mikhail Kutuzov in the War of the Third Coalition against General Napoleon Bonaparte. Part one of the four-part adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's 1869 novel.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTrue Spirit (2023)
When the tenacious young sailor Jessica Watson sets out to be the youngest person to sail solo, nonstop and unassisted around the world, many expect her to fail. With the support of her sailing coach and mentor Ben Bryant and her parents, Jessica is determined to accomplish what was thought to be impossible, navigating some of the world’s most challenging stretches of ocean over the course of 210 days.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNicholas and Alexandra (1971)
Tsar Nicholas II, the inept last monarch of Russia, insensitive to the needs of his people, is overthrown and exiled to Siberia with his family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRadium Girls (2020)
Young women toiling in a factory are exposed to hazardous material which takes a disastrous toll on their health.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Last Rifleman (2023)
A WWII veteran escapes his care home in Northern Ireland and embarks on an arduous but inspirational journey to France to attend the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, finding the courage to face the ghosts of his past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMunich - The Edge of War (2021)
At the tense 1938 Munich Conference, former friends who now work for opposing governments become reluctant spies racing to expose a Nazi secret.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSiberiade (1979)
The story about a very small god-forgotten village in Siberia reflects the history of Russia from the beginning of the century till the early 1980s. Three generations try to find the land of happiness and to give it to the people. One builds the road through taiga to the star over horizon, the second 'build communism' and the third searches for oil.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGagarin: First in Space (2013)
The film is dedicated to the first steps of mankind on the path of space exploration and direct the fate of the first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. The main motif - the fight for the right to be first: the competition in the first cosmonaut, competition in missile technology, the confrontation of superpowers - the USSR and the USA. In the first group of astronauts were selected from three thousand fighter pilots across the country. In twenty of the legendary got the best of the best. Which of them will fly first, no one knew. In this way, had to contend not only with the pull of the earth ...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFlyboys (2006)
The adventures of the Lafayette Escadrille, young Americans who volunteered for the French military before the U.S. entered World War I, and became the country's first fighter pilots.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Call to Spy (2020)
The story of Vera Atkins, a crafty spy recruiter, and two of the first women she selects for Churchill's "secret army": Virginia Hall, a daring American undaunted by a disability and Noor Inayat Khan, a pacifist. These civilian women form an unlikely sisterhood while entangled in dangerous missions to turn the tide of the war.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisShattered Glass (2003)
Stephen Glass is a staff writer for the respected current events and policy magazine The New Republic and a freelance feature writer for publications such as Rolling Stone, Harper's and George. By the mid-90s, Glass' articles had turned him into one of the most sought-after young journalists in Washington, but a bizarre chain of events - chronicled in Buzz Bissinger's September 1998 Vanity Fair article - suddenly stopped his career in its tracks.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Scarlet and the Black (1983)
Fr. Hugh O'Flaherty is a Vatican official in 1943-45 who has been hiding downed pilots, escaped prisoners of war, and Italian resistance families. His activities become so large that the Nazis decide to assassinate him the next time he leaves the Vatican.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMary (2024)
A miraculous conception. A merciless king. A murderous pursuit. Mary's journey to give birth to Jesus unfolds in this biblical coming-of-age epic.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChurchill (2017)
A ticking-clock thriller following Winston Churchill in the 24 hours before D-Day.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSnow Flower and the Secret Fan (2011)
A story set in 19th century China and centered on the lifelong friendship between two girls who develop their own secret code as a way to contend with the rigid cultural norms imposed on women.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021)
From the 1960s to the 1980s, evangelist Jim Baker and his ambitious wife, Tammy Faye, rose from humble beginnings to build an empire based on big-time evangelical Christianity--only for the couple to fall from grace because of some all-too-human sins.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFX's A Christmas Carol (2019)
London, 1843. Ebenezer Scrooge, a bitter old man, despises the Christmas holiday. Over the course of Christmas Eve night he is visited by three ghosts to show him his past, present and future.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & fantasy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAlexander the Great (1956)
An engrossing spectacle set in the 4th-century BC, in which Alexander of Greece leads his troops forth, conquering all of the known world, in the belief that the Greek way of thinking will bring enlightenment to people. The son of the barbaric and ruthless King Philip of Macedonia, Alexander achieved glory in his short but remarkable life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Courier (2020)
Cold War spy Greville Wynne and his Russian source try to put an end to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Boy in the Woods (2023)
The remarkable true-life survival story of a Jewish boy hiding and being hunted in the forests of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, based on Maxwell Smart's memoir.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIzo (2004)
Izo is an assassin in the service of a Tosa lord and Imperial supporter. After killing dozens of the Shogun's men, Izo is captured and crucified. Instead of being extinguished, his rage propels him through the space-time continuum to present-day Tokyo. Here Izo transforms himself into a new, improved killing machine.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & fantasy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Chinese Odyssey Part One: Pandora's Box (1995)
When the Goddess of Happiness tosses the Longevity Monk and his disciples out of heaven (because the Monkey King tried to attain immortality), the Monkey King is reincarnated as the Joker. He now spends his time chasing two jealous women. When one of them is dying, the Joker goes back in time in an attempt to save her.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both fantasy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGhost Town (2008)
Bertram Pincus, a cranky, people-hating Manhattan dentist, develops the unwelcome ability to see dead people. Really annoying dead people. Even worse, they all want something from him, particularly Frank Herlihy, a smooth-talking ghost, who pesters him into a romantic scheme involving his widow Gwen. They are soon entangled in a hilarious predicament between the now and the hereafter!
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & fantasy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Time Traveler's Wife (2009)
Due to a genetic disorder, handsome librarian Henry DeTamble involuntarily zips through time, appearing at various moments in the life of his true love, the beautiful artist Clare Abshire.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & fantasy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPeut-être (1999)
Arthur is invited to a New Year's Eve party to celebrate the year 2000. His girlfriend Lucie would like a baby from him but he refuses. Through the ceiling of the toilets, he discovers a passage leading to this futurist Paris. There, he meets an old man Ako who affirms he is his son and that he wants to exist. Otherwise he will vanish into the air. Arthur is still hesitant because his life is an unfulfilled one: a has a little lucrative job, is uncertain about his future and things are getting out of hand when Ako discovers the passage and interferes in the party.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Gamblers (2007)
General arrives in Baden-Baden with his stepdaughter Polina and his mother, seeking social standing and respite. Secretly, they chase casino fortunes alongside a French businessman and beauty. Alexej, Polina’s tutor, struggles with his own gambling past while falling for her. When the wealthy “Babushka” dies, the family’s financial woes vanish, freeing Alexej to court Polina. Yet he loses everything in a sudden winning streak that upends loyalties and reveals the world’s true stakes: love, money, and chance.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Alone in the Dark (2005)
Edward Carnby is a private investigator specializing in unexplainable supernatural phenomena. His cases delve into the dark corners of the world, searching for truth in the occult remnants of ancient civilizations. Now, the greatest mystery of his past is about to become the most dangerous case he has ever faced.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both fantasy
SnoozefestMovies like this¿Puedes Quedarte un Segundo Más? (2021)
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Anna Karenina (1915)
In Imperial Russia, Anna, wife of the officer Karenin, goes to Moscow to visit her brother. On the way, she meets charming cavalry officer Vronsky, to whom she's immediately attracted. But in St. Petersburg’s high society, a relationship like this could destroy a woman’s reputation.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
When You Listen to This Song (2025)
In August 2021, writer Lola Lafon spent a night alone in the Annex of the Anne Frank Museum, where the young girl and her family hid from 1942 to 1944. This experience gave rise to a book, Quand tu écouteras cette chanson, and now its documentary adaptation. Over the course of a night, the author revisits her story. An inner journey around the figure of Anne Frank and the power of writing in the face of oblivion.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Russian Ark?
The closest matches to Russian Ark are War and Peace, Part I: Andrei Bolkonsky (1966), True Spirit (2023) and Nicholas and Alexandra (1971). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Russian Ark?
Start with War and Peace, Part I: Andrei Bolkonsky (1966), the closest match to Russian Ark.
What is the highest-rated movie like Russian Ark?
A Chinese Odyssey Part One: Pandora's Box (1995), rated 7.5/10 by 325 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Russian Ark?
When You Listen to This Song (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Russian Ark chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Russian Ark, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.