Movies like Friends Forever (2012)
The best movies like Friends Forever (2012) are Taking Sides (2002), Swing Kids (1993) and Europa Europa (1990). If Friends Forever hooked you with its drama and music, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedSchindler's List (1993)8.6/10 from 18,170 votes
- NewestStella. A Life. (2024)Released 2024
- In GermanEuropa Europa (1990)Also in German
Taking Sides (2002)
One of the most spectacular and renowned conductors of the 1930s, Wilhelm Furtwangler's reputation rivaled that of Toscanini's. After the war, he was investigated as part of the Allies' de-Nazification programme. In the bombed-out Berlin of the immediate post-war period, the Allies slowly bring law and order to bear on an occupied Germany. An American major is given the Furtwangler file, and is told to find everything he can and to prosecute the man ruthlessly. Tough and hard-nosed, Major Steve Arnold sets out to investigate a world of which he knows nothing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSwing Kids (1993)
The story of a close-knit group of young kids in Nazi Germany who listen to banned swing music from the US. Soon dancing and fun leads to more difficult choices as the Nazis begin tightening the grip on Germany. Each member of the group is forced to face some tough choices about right, wrong, and survival.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEuropa Europa (1990)
A Jewish boy separated from his family in the early days of WWII poses as a German orphan and is taken into the heart of the Nazi world as a 'war hero' and eventually becomes a Hitler Youth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Ogre (1996)
Frenchman Abel Tiffauges is a naive man who lives a simple life working as a mechanic. Falsely accused of being a child abuser, he is recruited as a soldier when World War II begins, but is captured soon and taken to the heart of Nazi Germany.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPlaying for Time (1980)
When a Jewish songstress is plucked from the stage and sent to Auschwitz, she and other musicians find themselves assigned to a terrible task—using their talents to soothe fellow prisoners who are sentenced to die in the gas chambers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Island on Bird Street (1997)
Alex is an 11-year old boy who, during WWII, hides in the Jewish ghetto from Nazis after all his relatives have been sent to the concentration camp. The movie portrays the ghetto through his eyes.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
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 & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Harmonists (1997)
Comedian Harmonists tells the story of a famous, German male sextet, five vocals and piano, the "Comedian Harmonists", from the day they meet first in 1927 to the day in 1934, when they become banned by the upcoming Nazis, because three of them are Jewish.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)
When his family moves from their home in Berlin to a strange new house in Poland, young Bruno befriends Shmuel, a boy who lives on the other side of the fence where everyone seems to be wearing striped pajamas. Unaware of Shmuel's fate as a Jewish prisoner or the role his own Nazi father plays in his imprisonment, Bruno embarks on a dangerous journey inside the camp's walls.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGlorious 39 (2009)
A mysterious tale set around a traditional British family on the eve of World War Two. Oblivious to the looming shadow of World War II, the wealthy Keyes maintain a confident façade in the British countryside until daughter Anne becomes an unexpected pawn. Her accidental discovery of secret recordings creates a rift in the family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStella. A Life. (2024)
Stella, grows up in Berlin during the rule of the Nazi regime. She dreams of a career as a jazz singer, despite all the repressive measures she is forced to go into hiding with her parents in 1944, her life turns into a culpable tragedy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
SnoozefestMovies like thisNaked Among Wolves (2015)
Taking place at the Concentration camp Buchenwald at the end of March 1945, prisoner Hans Pippig discovers in a carrying case of an incoming prisoner a Jewish child. If reported the three-year-old is sure to die. On the other hand, a violation of the rules of the camp would threaten the long prepared uprising of the concentration camp prisoners against the SS.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Pianist (2002)
The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisHitler: The Last Ten Days (1973)
Hitler: The Last Ten Days takes us into the depths of der Furher’s Berlin bunker during his final days. Based on the book by Gerhard Boldt, it provides a bleak look at the goings-on within, and without.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChess Story (2021)
1938. While the Nazi troops march into Vienna, the lawyer Josef Bartok hastily tries to escape to the USA with his wife but is arrested by the Gestapo. Bartok remains steadfast and refuses to cooperate with the Gestapo that requires confidential information from him. Thrown into solitary confinement, Bartok is psychologically tormented for months and begins to weaken. However, when he steals an old book about chess it sets him on course to overcome the mental suffering inflicted upon him, until it becomes a dangerous obsession.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Tin Drum (1979)
In 1924, Oskar Matzerath is born in the Free City of Danzig. At age three, he falls down a flight of stairs and stops growing. In 1939, World War II breaks out.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWaiting for Anya (2020)
During the harrows of WWII, Jo, a young shepherd along with the help of the widow Horcada, helps to smuggle Jewish children across the border from southern France into Spain.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAdam Resurrected (2008)
After again attempting to commit murder, a Jewish man with a mysterious past and extraordinary intelligence, charisma, and body control returns to an insane asylum, where he makes a startling discovery.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSchindler's List (1993)
The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler (2009)
Irena Sendler is a Catholic social worker who has sympathized with the Jews since her childhood, when her physician father died of typhus contracted while treating poor Jewish patients. When she initially proposes saving Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto, her idea is met with skepticism by fellow workers, her parish priest, and even her own mother Janina.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFatherland (1994)
Fictional account of what might have happened if Hitler had won the war. It is now the 1960s and Germany's war crimes have so far been kept a secret. Hitler wants to talk peace with the US president. An American journalist and a German homicide cop stumble into a plot to destroy all evidence of the genocide.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Devil's General (1955)
The adaptation of the eponymous play by Carl Zuckmayer tells the story of renegade general Harras of the German Luftwaffe, who during WWII openly criticizes the Nazi regime. As a consequence, he is put under surveillance, and even imprisoned for a brief period of time. Still remaining outspoken, Harras realizes the horrific dimensions of this hopeless and injust war waged by Germany.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUnderground (1995)
Black marketeers Marko and Blacky manufacture and sell weapons to the Communist resistance in WWII Belgrade, living the good life along the way. Marko's surreal duplicity propels him up the ranks of the Communist Party, and he eventually abandons Blacky and steals his girlfriend. After a lengthy stay in a below-ground shelter, the couple reemerges during the Yugoslav Civil War of the 1990s as Marko sees the opportunity to exploit the situation.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNeporažení (1956)
As Nazi troops prepare to occupy the already truncated Czechoslovak Republic, a small military garrison made up of communists defies orders to abandon their post.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
The Zone of Interest (2023)
The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTenkrát o vánocích (1958)
A Czechoslovak battalion, led by Captain Hloušek, conquers a Slovak mountain village two days before Christmas Eve 1944. Christmas and classical music is heard from nearby German positions. The soldiers get permission from their commanders to celebrate Christmas. The only one against is the austere second lieutenant Jílek, about whose past there are various rumours and whom the soldiers distrust. Captain Hloušek decides to reconnoitre the enemy positions, which, despite a minor incident, goes off without a hitch. The holiday of peace and tranquility can begin both with ours and the enemy...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Vera (2022)
Vera has young woman as the main heroine, who is in the jaws of the war spy network in WW2 and also of the patriarchal society in the Balkans with full of powerful, arrogant men with whom she deals bravely and arrogantly.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Mystic Pizza (1988)
Three teenage girls come of age while working at a pizza parlor in Mystic, Connecticut.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOperation Belgrade (1968)
In Autumn of 1943 American plane carrying Soviet colonel is shot down near Nazi-occupied Belgrade. Germans capture the colonel and begin interrogations, because he knows everything about forecoming Allied summit in Tehran. Group of Yugoslav Partizans is sent to Belgrade in order to rescue the colonel before he starts talking.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both war
1941 (1979)
In the days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, panic grips California, where a military officer leads a mob chasing a Japanese sub.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both war
SnoozefestMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Friends Forever?
The closest matches to Friends Forever are Taking Sides (2002), Swing Kids (1993) and Europa Europa (1990). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Friends Forever?
Start with Taking Sides (2002), the closest match to Friends Forever.
What is the highest-rated movie like Friends Forever?
Schindler's List (1993), rated 8.6/10 by 18,170 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Friends Forever?
Stella. A Life. (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there German movies like Friends Forever?
Yes: Europa Europa (1990), The Ogre (1996) and The Harmonists (1997).
How are movies similar to Friends Forever chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Friends Forever, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.