Movies like Waterman
The best movies like Waterman are In the Bedroom (2001), The Greatest (2009) and Versa (2025). If Waterman hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedIf Anything Happens I Love You (2020)7.7/10 from 1,029 votes
- NewestRedwood Diaries (2026)Released 2026
In the Bedroom (2001)
Summertime on the coast of Maine, "In the Bedroom" centers on the inner dynamics of a family in transition. Matt Fowler is a doctor practicing in his native Maine and is married to New York born Ruth Fowler, a music teacher. His son is involved in a love affair with a local single mother. As the beauty of Maine's brief and fleeting summer comes to an end, these characters find themselves in the midst of unimaginable tragedy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Greatest (2009)
Teenagers Rose and Bennett were in love, and then a car crash claimed Bennett's life. He left behind a grieving mother, father and younger brother, and Rose was left all alone. She has no family to turn to for support, so when she finds out she's pregnant, she winds up at the Brewer's door. She needs their help, and although they can't quite admit it, they each need her so they can begin to heal.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVersa (2025)
A young couple looking to start a family who experience emotions—from grief and loss to ultimate joy—as they embark on an ethereal, abstract, and imaginative cosmic dance of life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Thing with Feathers (2025)
Following the death of his wife, a young father's hold on reality crumbles, and a strange presence begins to stalk him from the shadowy recesses of the apartment he shares with his two young sons.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIf Anything Happens I Love You (2020)
Grieving parents journey through an emotional void as they mourn the loss of a child after a tragic school shooting.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRabbit Hole (2010)
Life for a happy couple is turned upside down after their young son dies in an accident.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them (2014)
A New York couple's relationship is tested after the loss of their child. This film is the wide-released combination of the original two :him and :her volumes that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDon't Make Me Go (2022)
A terminally ill man and his teenage daughter embark on a road trip from California to New Orleans for his 20th college reunion. While there, he secretly hopes she can reunite with the mother who left them long ago.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPieces of a Woman (2020)
When a young mother's home birth ends in unfathomable tragedy, she begins a year-long odyssey of mourning that fractures relationships with loved ones in this deeply personal story of a woman learning to live alongside her loss.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDear Frankie (2004)
Nine-year-old Frankie and his single mum Lizzie have been on the move ever since Frankie can remember, most recently arriving in a seaside Scottish town. Wanting to protect her deaf son from the truth that they've run away from his father, Lizzie has invented a story that he is away at sea on the HMS Accra. Every few weeks, Lizzie writes Frankie a make-believe letter from his father, telling of his adventures in exotic lands. As Frankie tracks the ship's progress around the globe, he discovers that it is due to dock in his hometown. With the real HMS Accra arriving in only a fortnight, Lizzie must choose between telling Frankie the truth or finding the perfect stranger to play Frankie's father for just one day...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGod's Creatures (2022)
In a windswept fishing village, a mother is torn between protecting her beloved son and her own sense of right and wrong. A lie she tells for him rips apart their family and close-knit community.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHours (2013)
A father struggles to keep his infant daughter alive in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe River Wild (1994)
Gail and Tom Hartman are struggling to stay together and decide to take a white-water rafting holiday adventure in Montana for their son Roarke's 10th birthday, only to meet up with a pair of mysterious men whose desperation grows, turning their vacation into a nightmare.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisManchester by the Sea (2016)
After his older brother passes away, Lee Chandler is forced to return home to care for his 16-year-old nephew. There he is compelled to deal with a tragic past that separated him from his family and the community where he was born and raised.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStillwater (2021)
Bill Baker, an American oil-rig roughneck from Oklahoma, travels to Marseille to visit his estranged daughter, Allison, who is in prison for a murder she claims she did not commit. Confronted with language barriers, cultural differences, and a complicated legal system, Bill builds a new life for himself in France as he makes it his personal mission to exonerate his daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Shack (2017)
A grieving man receives a mysterious, personal invitation to meet with God at a place called 'The Shack'.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCast Away (2000)
Chuck Noland, a top international manager for FedEx, and Kelly, a Ph.D. student, are in love and heading towards marriage. Then Chuck's plane to Malaysia crashes at sea during a terrible storm. He's the only survivor, and finds himself marooned on a desolate island. With no way to escape, Chuck must find ways to survive in his new home.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Great Lie (1941)
After a newlywed's husband apparently dies in a plane crash, she discovers that her rival for his affections is pregnant with his child.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this13 Minutes (2021)
As a new day begins in the small American town of Minninnewah, the residents start their day as ordinary as the next. Mother Nature, however, has other plans for them. Inhabitants have just 13 minutes to seek shelter before the largest tornado on record ravages the town, leaving them struggling to protect their loved ones and fighting for their lives. Left to deal with the aftermath, four families must overcome their differences and find strength in each other in order to survive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisSomewhere (2010)
After withdrawing to the Chateau Marmont, a passionless Hollywood actor reexamines his life when his eleven-year-old daughter surprises him with a visit.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRedwood Diaries (2026)
When strange entries begin appearing in her diary written in handwriting that isn't hers, new student Evie Quinn is pulled into a chilling mystery as the messages reveal secrets, predict impossible events, and point toward a truth someone has desperately tried to bury.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
¡Tango! (1933)
¡Tango! follows a formula established by Carlos Gardel with films such as Luces de Buenos Aires (The Lights of Buenos Aires, 1931) in which a melodramatic story is interspersed with tango songs. However, the film had less dialog and more music, making it more like a musical revue. This format would be copied by many subsequent films. The plot is derived from tango songs. Many of these songs tell of the seduction of an innocent slum girl by a rich man who promises her a glamorous life, but who abandons her when her looks fade. The stylized and sentimental plot of ¡Tango! revolves around a young man who is abandoned by his girlfriend for an older rich man and is heartbroken. The film follows his misfortunes.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Camp (2021)
Grieving a recent tragedy, a young woman and her friends take a camping trip deep in the woods, where they encounter a malevolent force more ancient than the forest itself.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Blonde Crazy (1931)
The adventures of a cocky con man and his beautiful accomplice.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDissonance (2023)
A young boy must relearn piano in order to rekindle the broken relationship between him and his mother.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Vela (2023)
Young Xime hopes to restore her grieving family by arranging a Día de Los Muertos altar...meanwhile a looming presence closes in.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Perfect Host: A Southern Gothic Tale (2018)
While sorting her dead grandmother's affairs, a young woman boards in a southern mansion and soon discovers the matriarch may desire more than just her company.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
When Day Breaks (TBA)
When Day Breaks is a silent, visually driven meditation on loss, memory, and the fragile thread between the living and the dead. Set against the chaos of armed conflict, a daughter killed as a civilian lingers between life and memory as she observes her mother grief from beyond. Her final presence becomes an unspoken act of comfort, reaching across the divide. What does it mean for the living to hold on? And what does it take to keep living?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Loop (2017)
Some time ago, Mima had a car accident and a man died. She has almost managed to forget about it when someone starts sending her birthday cards perfumed with a man's fragrance.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Faith's Song (2017)
A young girl's faith is tested, when her parents are suddenly killed in a car accident and she's forced to move in with relatives who don't share her belief in God. A talented singer, who desires to worship God with her songs, she finds herself in a new city, a new school and no friends. With her uncle and others at school challenging her faith, one boy emerges, who seems to see the greatness in her. Now she must come to grips with either fitting in or following God - which could cost her more than just her faith.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Waterman?
The closest matches to Waterman are In the Bedroom (2001), The Greatest (2009) and Versa (2025). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Waterman?
Start with In the Bedroom (2001), the closest match to Waterman.
What is the highest-rated movie like Waterman?
If Anything Happens I Love You (2020), rated 7.7/10 by 1,029 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Waterman?
Redwood Diaries (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Waterman?
Yes: In the Bedroom (2001), The Greatest (2009) and Versa (2025).
How are movies similar to Waterman chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Waterman, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.