Movies like Little Buddha (1993)
The best movies like Little Buddha (1993) are Kundun (1997), Tenzing (2026) and Mary (2024). If Little Buddha hooked you with its drama and history, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedI Swear (2025)8.3/10 from 678 votes
- NewestTenzing (2026)Released 2026
Kundun (1997)
From childhood to adulthood, Tibet's fourteenth Dalai Lama deals with Chinese oppression and other problems.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTenzing (2026)
A determined man embarks on a high-stakes quest—and defies seemingly impossible odds—to fulfill his dream of being the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Absolute CinemaMovies 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 thisI Swear (2025)
Diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome at 15, John Davidson navigates his way against the odds through troubled teenage years and into adulthood, finding inspiration in the kindness of others to discover his true purpose in life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisGoya's Ghosts (2006)
Painter Francisco Goya becomes involved with the Spanish Inquisition after his muse, Inés, is arrested by the church for heresy. Her family turns to him, hoping that his connection with fanatical Inquisitor Lorenzo, whom he is painting, can secure her release.
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 thisRichard Jewell (2019)
Richard Jewell thinks quick, works fast, and saves hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives after a domestic terrorist plants several pipe bombs and they explode during a concert, only to be falsely suspected of the crime by sloppy FBI work and sensational media coverage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBelfast (2021)
Buddy is a young boy on the cusp of adolescence, whose life is filled with familial love, childhood hijinks, and a blossoming romance. Yet, with his beloved hometown caught up in increasing turmoil, his family faces a momentous choice: hope the conflict will pass or leave everything they know behind for a new life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDenial (2016)
Acclaimed writer and historian Deborah E. Lipstadt must battle for historical truth to prove the Holocaust actually occurred when David Irving, a renowned denier, sues her for libel.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2017)
An African-American woman becomes an unwitting pioneer for medical breakthroughs when her cells are used to create the first immortal human cell line in the early 1950s.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend (2022)
Follow the launch of Lamborghini’s career as a manufacturer of tractors, a creator of military vehicles during World War II, and the designer of Lamborghini cars, which he launched in 1963 as the high-end sports car company Automobili Lamborghini.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFluke (1995)
Workaholic Thomas Johnson dies in an auto accident and reincarnates as a dog. Remembering some of his previous being, he returns to his wife and son to protect them from the man who caused his accident. But, as time goes by, his memories return, and Thomas realizes he wasn't such a good husband and father.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBrand Upon the Brain! (2007)
After returning home to his long-estranged mother upon a request from her deathbed, a man raised by his parents in an orphanage has to confront the childhood memories that have long haunted him.
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 thisJOY (2024)
A young nurse, a visionary scientist and an innovative surgeon face opposition from the church, state, media and medical establishment, in their pursuit of the world’s first ‘test tube baby’, Louise Joy Brown.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTigertail (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 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 thisOmaha (2025)
A young girl and her brother are awoken by their father and loaded into the car on an early morning in 2008. As they road trip across the American West, she discovers the truth about their seemingly spontaneous journey.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSpringsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (2025)
Bruce Springsteen, a young musician on the cusp of global superstardom, struggles to reconcile the pressures of success with the ghosts of his past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYouth Without Youth (2007)
Professor of language and philosophy Dominic Matei is struck by lightning and ages backwards from 70 to 40 in a week, attracting the world and the Nazis. While on the run, the professor meets a young woman who has her own experience with a lightning storm. Not only does Dominic find love again, but her new abilities hold the key to his research.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Tracker (2002)
Somewhere in Australia in the early 20th century outback, an Aboriginal man is accused of murdering a white woman. Three white men are on a mission to capture him with the help of an experienced Indigenous man.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBarren Lives (1963)
A destitute family tries to escape the drought in the backlands of northeastern Brazil. Fabiano (Átila Iório), Sinhá Vitória (Maria Ribeiro), their two children and their dog Baleia wander aimlessly and almost hopelessly through the remote interior, surviving the forces of nature and the cruelty of men. An adaptation of the work by Graciliano Ramos.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBroken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl (1919)
A frail waif, abused by her brutal boxer father in London's seedy Limehouse District, is befriended by a sensitive Chinese immigrant with tragic consequences.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisImagine Me & You (2006)
During her wedding ceremony, Rachel notices Luce in the audience and feels instantly drawn to her. The two women become close friends, and when Rachel learns that Luce is a lesbian, she realizes that despite her happy marriage to Heck, she is falling for Luce. As she questions her sexual orientation, Rachel must decide between her stable relationship with Heck and her exhilarating new romance with Luce.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThumbsucker (2005)
Justin Cobb, a teenager in suburban Oregon, copes with his thumb-sucking problem, romance, and his diagnosis with ADHD and subsequent experience using Ritalin.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLaws of Gravity (1992)
The lives of two incompetent young men from Brooklyn spin out of control after a friend returns from Florida with guns to sell.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Secrets of a Soul (2012)
Secrets of a Soul: Margarethe, Creator of bizarre sculptures! Night club dancer? Mad woman? Victim of an occult conspiracy?! Dark menaces steal her soul and organs. Though dead they keep her alive...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Day of the Purple Sun: Part I (2017)
The cosmos of the incurable Margarethe. Her journey through the mysteries of the Egyptian underworld. Will she be coming forth by day? Film in two parts by Carsten Frank.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Paranoid Park (2007)
A teenage skateboarder becomes suspected of being connected with a security guard who suffered a brutal death in a skate park called "Paranoid Park".
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Little Buddha?
The closest matches to Little Buddha are Kundun (1997), Tenzing (2026) and Mary (2024). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Little Buddha?
Start with Kundun (1997), the closest match to Little Buddha.
What is the highest-rated movie like Little Buddha?
I Swear (2025), rated 8.3/10 by 678 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Little Buddha?
Tenzing (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Little Buddha?
Yes: Kundun (1997), Tenzing (2026) and Mary (2024).
How are movies similar to Little Buddha chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Little Buddha, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.