Movies like Tornado (1985)
The best movies like Tornado (1985) are Septembers of Shiraz (2015), And Life Goes On (1992) and The Young One (1960). If Tornado hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedClose-Up (1990)8.0/10 from 474 votes
- NewestLeili’s Photo (2026)Released 2026
Septembers of Shiraz (2015)
In this adaptation of the critically acclaimed debut novel by Iranian American author Dalia Sofer, a secular Jewish family is caught up in the maelstrom of the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisAnd Life Goes On (1992)
After the earthquake of Guilan, a film director and his son travel to the devastated area to search for the actors from the movie the director made there a few years previously. In their search, they see how people who have lost everything in the earthquake still have hope and try to live life to the fullest.
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 thisWomen Without Men (2009)
Against the tumultuous backdrop of Iran's 1953 CIA-backed coup d'état, the destinies of four women converge in a beautiful orchard garden, where they find independence, solace and companionship.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTehran Taboo (2017)
The lives of three strong-willed women and a young musician cross paths in Tehran’s schizophrenic society where sex, adultery, corruption, prostitution and drugs coexist with strict religious law. In this bustling modern metropolis, avoiding prohibition has become an everyday sport and breaking taboos can be a means of personal emancipation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRoad to Paloma (2014)
While Native American Wolf is being pursued by the FBI for having taken the law into his own hands, when his mother was raped and killed on their reservation he crosses paths with Cash, a down and out musician who is coping with the end of his marriage. An unlikely friendship develops, as they ride together towards the Teton mountain range, where Wolf will spread his mothers ashes.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies 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 thisClose-Up (1990)
This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life event—the arrest of a young man on charges that he fraudulently impersonated the well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf—as the basis for a stunning, multilayered investigation into movies, identity, artistic creation, and existence, in which the real people from the case play themselves.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Operative (2019)
A young Western woman is recruited by the Mossad to go undercover in Tehran where she becomes entangled in a complex triangle with her handler and her subject.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisTestament (1983)
It's just another day in the small town of Hamlin until something disastrous happens. Suddenly, news breaks that a series of nuclear warheads has been dropped along the Eastern Seaboard and, more locally, in California. As people begin coping with the devastating aftermath of the attacks — many suffer radiation poisoning — the Wetherly family tries to survive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCircumstance (2011)
A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager's growing sexual rebellion and her brother's newfound conservatism.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Caveman's Valentine (2001)
Romulus, a misunderstood musician turned recluse hiding from personal demons in a New York City cave, finds the frozen body of a young drifter in a tree. The authorities, including his police officer daughter, claim the death is accidental. Romulus is convinced the man was murdered by a prominent art photographer but how can he prove he's right when everyone thinks he's insane?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisA Dry White Season (1989)
During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Truth About Emanuel (2013)
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRemember (2015)
With the aid of a fellow Auschwitz survivor and a hand-written letter, an elderly man with dementia goes in search of the person responsible for the death of his family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisShock Corridor (1963)
With the help of his girlfriend Cathy and Dr. Fong, a psychiatrist, ambitious journalist Johnny Barrett poses as a madman in order to be admitted to a mental institution where a bloody murder has been committed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Day After (1983)
In the mid-1980s, the U.S. is poised on the brink of nuclear war. This shadow looms over the residents of a small town in Kansas as they continue their daily lives. Dr. Russell Oakes maintains his busy schedule at the hospital, Denise Dahlberg prepares for her upcoming wedding, and Stephen Klein is deep in his graduate studies. When the unthinkable happens and the bombs come down, the town's residents are thrust into the horrors of nuclear winter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Wind Will Carry Us (1999)
Irreverent city engineer Behzad comes to a rural Kurdish village in Iran to keep vigil for a dying relative. In the meanwhile the film follows his efforts to fit in with the local community and how he changes his own attitudes as a result.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMeltdown: Days of Destruction (2006)
Despite scientist Nathan's warnings, his boss continues an experiment meant as publicity for his satellite firm: exploding an asteroid. Instead it splits, and the major piece, the size of Iceland, changes course to earth. It is deflected but so close that it shift our course closer to the sun, causing rapid extreme heating, hopefully only mid-term. Nathan warns his sister, TV journalist Carly, and she her lover, police detective Tom. He brings his unruly daughter Kim, her ex-con lover C.J. and her mother, nurse Bonnie, when Nathan offers a flight to a friend's Arctic weather station. Tom takes charge of a dangerous trip to the airport, as everywhere on earth things catch fire and people fight for water, transport and sheer looting.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBastard Out of Carolina (1996)
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Angel and the Gamekeeper (TBA)
Set in Rural Iran, this musical tale of love and fantasy revolves around Davood, a ten-year-old theatre kid, who finds himself torn between familial expectations and artistic aspirations, as he is forced to act as a gamekeeper during the night, shouting and sacring away wild boars from his father’s land, while practicing a musical play during the day.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Leili’s Photo (2026)
Eight-year-old Leili needs to take a pinhole picture of her family for school the next day, but her family will not cooperate.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
One of These Days, Khosrow Will Die (TBA)
Khosrow is an elderly man living alone, exercising his daily routine, haunted by the overwhelming fear that one day he will die in solitude and his body will go unnoticed, left to rot. Beneath his strange isolation, however, Khosrow harbors a dark and terrifying secret.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Word (2021)
A young boy and his father arguing on the road while the son teaching his father how to drive. Gradually, the tension between the two increases and causes a conflict between them.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Thawing of Ice (2024)
Louise Denoncourt, a parole officer, skillfully operates an experimental rehabilitation wing for criminals who have committed homicides. When she finds herself in front of Marc St-Germain, a new inmate whom her father suspects of being her mother's murderer, she embarks on a mission that quickly overwhelms her. She then puts everything at stake, even her life, in order to prevent any desire to reoffend. But will she be overtaken by the desire to avenge her family history?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Lieutenant Kachura's Plot. The Illusion of Hunting (2010)
A girl accused of murder must prove her innocence. A detective about the mysteries of the Belarusian countryside.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Guerrilla Girl (1953)
During World War II, Helmut Dantine specialized in playing villainous Nazis in Hollywood melodramas. He offers a compelling performance in a variation of these earlier roles in this suspense filled and politically loaded tale of intrigue. The story opens in German-occupied Athens during the darkest hours of the war. Civilians are not allowed on the streets after dark.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Sk8 Life (2006)
A skater group's attempt to shoot a movie at a famous location, only to discover plans for its demolition.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Wes and Ella (2010)
The randomness in your life is never the randomness you think. Wes, a mobile artist, randomly discovers Ella during a pivotal moment in her life. After an introspective road trip, Ella comes to discover a few things about herself which might give her the strength to make some changes and find out who Wes really is.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Confessions of a Cam Girl (2024)
Kristen is set to become the first in her family to graduate college. Her working-class parents are furious when she reveals a plan to attend fashion school instead of college. Her parents refuse to use her college fund for her farfetched dream. Determined to pay for it herself, Kristen secretly creates an online explicit content page to raise $10,000 for dream program. Confident that she can keep her side hustle under wraps, Kristen’s secret unravels and threatens not just her future, but the safety of her family as well.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like Tornado and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Tornado?
The closest matches to Tornado are Septembers of Shiraz (2015), And Life Goes On (1992) and The Young One (1960). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Tornado?
Start with Septembers of Shiraz (2015), the closest match to Tornado.
What is the highest-rated movie like Tornado?
Close-Up (1990), rated 8.0/10 by 474 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Tornado?
Leili’s Photo (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Tornado chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Tornado, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.