Movies like Before the Rain (1994)
The best movies like Before the Rain (1994) are On the Milky Road (2016), Twice Born (2012) and Shot Through the Heart (1998). If Before the Rain hooked you with its drama and war, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Pianist (2002)8.4/10 from 10,616 votes
- NewestQuo Vadis, Aida? (2021)Released 2021
On the Milky Road (2016)
Spring in wartime. Each day a milkman crosses the frontline on a donkey, dodging bullets to bring his precious wares to the soldiers. Blessed with good fortune on his mission, loved by a beautiful villager, a peaceful future seems to await him… until the arrival of a mysterious Italian woman turns his life upside down. Thus begins a story of passionate, forbidden love that will plunge them both into a series of fantastic and dangerous adventures. They have been joined by fate, and nothing and no one seems able to stop them… Two-times Palme D'Or winner Emir Kusturica directs and stars in this story of love and war, rich in emotion, comedy and adventure.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTwice Born (2012)
Full-throttle melodrama about an ill-starred romance set against the backdrop of the siege of Sarajevo. A mother brings her teenage son to Sarajevo, where his father died in the Bosnian conflict years ago.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisShot Through the Heart (1998)
The horrors of war are examined from the view points of lifelong friends (Linus Roache, Vincent Perez), who end up on opposing sides in the civil war in Sarajevo. One is an expert marksman, who trains the snipers used to terrify the city and the other becomes a freedom fighter, who rejects his friend's offer to gain an escape from the city. As might be expected, the two eventually have to face-off against one another.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Pretty Village, Pretty Flame (1996)
In the opening stages of the Bosnian War, a small group of Serbian soldiers are trapped in a tunnel by a Muslim force.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisSky Hook (2000)
Belgrade during the height of the war Yugoslavia in 1999. Kaja struggles with daily destruction and the constant threat of being drafted, but also with his impending divorce from his wife Tijana, who wants to emigrate with their son.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Savior (1998)
A hardened mercenary in the Foreign Legion begins to find his own humanity when confronted with atrocities during the fighting in Bosnia.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHarrison's Flowers (2000)
1991. Harrison Lloyd, a renowned photojournalist covering the war in Yugoslavia, is reported missing. Sarah, his wife, convinced that he is not dead, decides to go to Bosnia to find him.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisQuo Vadis, Aida? (2021)
Bosnia, July 1995. Aida is a translator for the UN in the small town of Srebrenica. When the Serbian army takes over the town, her family is among the thousands of citizens looking for shelter in the UN camp. As an insider to the negotiations Aida has access to crucial information that she needs to interpret. What is at the horizon for her family and people – rescue or death? Which move should she take?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAs If I Am Not There (2010)
A harsh dose of cinematic realism about a harsh time – the Bosnian War of the 1990s – Juanita Wilson's drama is taken from true stories revealed during the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague. Samira is a modern schoolteacher in Sarajevo who takes a job in a small country village just as the war is beginning to ramp up. When Serbian soldiers overrun the village, shoot the men and keep the women as laborers (the older ones) and sex objects (the younger ones), Samira is subjected to the basest form of treatment imaginable.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Life Is a Miracle (2004)
Set during the Bosnian war in the early 1990s, Luka is a mild-mannered railway clerk whose life is turned upside down, not just by the outbreak of the war, but when his wife runs off with a local musician. Then Luka's son is conscripted and eventually captured in the fighting. To recover his son, Luka is commanded to guard a pretty young Muslim nurse who will be used in a hostage swapping operation.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWelcome to Sarajevo (1997)
Follow a group of international journalists into the heart of the once cosmopolitan city of Sarajevo—now a danger zone of sniper and mortar attacks where residents still live. While reporting on an American aid worker who’s trying to get children out of the country, a British correspondent decides to take an orphaned girl home to London.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBeautiful People (1999)
In London, during October 1993, England is playing Holland in the preliminaries of the World Cup. The Bosnian War is at its height, and refugees from the ex-Yugoslavia are arriving. Football rivals, and political adversaries from the Balkans all precipitate conflict and amusing situations. Meanwhile, the lives of four English families are affected in different ways by encounter with the refugees.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
No Man's Land (2001)
Two soldiers from opposite sides get stuck between the front lines in the same trench. The UN is asked to free them and both sides agree on a ceasefire, but will they stick to it?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTangerines (2013)
War in Abkhazia, 1992. An Estonian man Ivo has stayed behind to harvest his crops of tangerines. In a bloody conflict at his door, a wounded man is left behind, and Ivo is forced to take him in.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIn the Land of Blood and Honey (2011)
During the Bosnian War, Danijel, a soldier fighting for the Serbs, re-encounters Ajla, a Bosnian who's now a captive in his camp he oversees. Their once promising connection has become ambiguous as their motives have changed.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
SnoozefestMovies like thisGrbavica: The Land of My Dreams (2006)
A woman and her daughter struggle to make their way through the aftermath of the Balkan war.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
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: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006)
In 1920s Ireland young doctor Damien O'Donovan prepares to depart for a new job in a London hospital. As he says his goodbyes at a friend's farm, British Black and Tans arrive, and a young man is killed. Damien joins his brother Teddy in the Irish Republican Army, but political events are soon set in motion that tear the brothers apart.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Perfect Day (2015)
Somewhere in the Balkans, 1995. A team of aid workers must solve an apparently simple problem in an almost completely pacified territory that has been devastated by a cruel war, but some of the local inhabitants, the retreating combatants, the UN forces, many cows and an absurd bureaucracy will not cease to put obstacles in their way.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCircles (2013)
Circles (Serbian: Krugovi) is a Serbian movie based on the true story of a Serbian soldier who risked his life to protect a Muslim civilian during the war in Bosnia. During the war in Bosnia in 1993, a Serbian soldier pays for his life after protecting a Muslim civilian from being attacked by three other soldiers. 12 years later, the consequences of this act of heroism are still having their repercussions.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMarooned in Iraq (2002)
During the war between Iran and Iraq, a group of Iranian Kurd musicians set off on an almost impossible mission. They will try to find Hanareh, a singer with a magic voice who crossed the border and may now be in danger in the Iraqi Kurdistan. As in his previous films, this Kurdish director is again focusing on the oppression of his people.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
The Perfect Circle (1997)
An alcoholic Bosnian poet sends his wife and daughter away from Sarajevo so they can avoid the troubles there. However, he is soon descended upon by a pair of orphaned brothers. The brothers have escaped a massacre in their own village and have come to the Bosnian capital in search of a long lost Aunt. The poet befriends the boys and together they try to survive the horror of the siege of Sarajevo.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Bomb: A Love Story (2018)
It’s 1988 and, at the height of the Iran-Iraq War, Tehran is bombed relentlessly. The days that pass are full of foreboding, and yet, love, affection, hope and life itself manage to sweep away the fear of death from those surrounded by it. Love may often be difficult to comprehend, but death is a horrible certitude. ‘Bomb, A Love Story’ shows how, even when faced with the darkness of death, love and hope will find a way.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Talk of Angels (1998)
This is the story of a young Irish woman who comes to Spain to escape from the pressures she feels about her impending marriage to a political activist in Ireland. But in Spain in the 1930's, taking a job of governess in a wealthy family, she finds the same kinds of political unrest. In fact, it isn't long before she finds herself attracted to a married man who is similarly involved in the struggle against fascism and Franco. This awakens her to her nature that brings her to such men and resolves for her what she must do about the life she left in Ireland
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
The 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: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisArarat (2002)
Interrogated by a customs officer, a young man recounts how his life was changed during the making of a film about the Armenian genocide.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Man Who Cried (2000)
A young refugee travels from Russia to America in search of her lost father and falls in love with a gypsy horseman.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisScream for Me Sarajevo (2018)
In 1994, Sarajevo was a city under siege. Mortars and rocket propelled grenades rained onto the city, killing indiscriminately, every day. Amongst the madness, two United Nations personnel: a British military officer and another Brit working for the UN Fire Department, decided it would be fun to persuade a global rock star, Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden, to come and play a gig to the population. Scream for Me Sarajevo brings that story, in all its madness, to the big screen. A story of musicians who risked their lives to play a gig to people who risked their lives to live them.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war
Time of the Gypsies (1988)
Perhan is a gypsy teenager with telekinetic powers. A wealthy gypsy, Ahmed, visits the village and promises to get Perhan's sister the medical treatment she needs if they join him to Italy. Perhan soon discovers that Ahmed's business activities are in fact quite shady and he is soon lured into the elder's corrupt surroundings.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Border Post (2006)
At a small border-post on the Yugoslav-Albanian border, yet another generation of soldiers suffering the usual amount of boredom awaits the end of their service, counting days to the moment when they should take their uniforms off for good. However, when their liuetenant is secretly diagnosed with siphilis, he decides to keep them at their positions in order to ensure a safe and secretive treatment by the medic, inventing a fictional military conflict as a means to keeping them in line.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like this
Like Before the Rain and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Before the Rain?
The closest matches to Before the Rain are On the Milky Road (2016), Twice Born (2012) and Shot Through the Heart (1998). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Before the Rain?
People who watched Before the Rain most often go on to On the Milky Road (2016), Twice Born (2012) and Shot Through the Heart (1998).
What is the highest-rated movie like Before the Rain?
The Pianist (2002), rated 8.4/10 by 10,616 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Before the Rain?
Quo Vadis, Aida? (2021) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Before the Rain chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Before the Rain, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.