Movies like City of Life and Death (2009)
The best movies like City of Life and Death (2009) are The Flowers of War (2011), Dead to Rights (2025) and The Eight Hundred (2020). If City of Life and Death 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 ratedHotel Rwanda (2004)7.7/10 from 3,339 votes
- NewestRescue at Dongji (2025)Released 2025
- In ChineseThe Flowers of War (2011)Also in Chinese
The Flowers of War (2011)
A Westerner finds refuge with a group of women in a church during Japan's rape of Nanking in 1937. Posing as a priest, he attempts to lead the women to safety.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDead to Rights (2025)
During the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, a postman poses as a photo developer, helping Japanese forces while secretly sheltering Chinese refugees. He later risks his life evacuating them and revealing evidence of the atrocities.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Eight Hundred (2020)
In 1937, eight hundred Chinese soldiers fight under siege from a warehouse in the middle of the Shanghai battlefield, completely surrounded by the Japanese army.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRescue at Dongji (2025)
Inspired by the real life rescue of over 300 British soldiers in 1942, Dongji Rescue is a rousing, action-packed story of heroism on the high seas. When the Japanese warship Lisbon Maru is torpedoed off the coast of Dongji Island, the lives of over 300 British POWs on board are at risk of being claimed by the sea. Their only hope is a small group of defiant Chinese fisherman who will do anything to rescue and protect them from their captors.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisFlags of Our Fathers (2006)
There were five Marines and one Navy Corpsman photographed raising the U.S. flag on Mt. Suribachi by Joe Rosenthal on February 23, 1945. This is the story of three of the six surviving servicemen - John 'Doc' Bradley, Pvt. Rene Gagnon and Pvt. Ira Hayes - who fought in the battle to take Iwo Jima from the Japanese.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFirst They Killed My Father (2017)
A 5-year-old girl embarks on a harrowing quest for survival amid the sudden rise and terrifying reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSavior (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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPork Chop Hill (1959)
Korean War, April 1953. Lieutenant Clemons, leader of the King company of the United States Infantry, is ordered to recapture Pork Chop Hill, occupied by a powerful Chinese Army force, while, just seventy miles away, at nearby the village of Panmunjom, a tense cease-fire conference is celebrated.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTora! Tora! Tora! (1970)
In the summer of 1941, the United States and Japan seem on the brink of war after constant embargos and failed diplomacy come to no end. "Tora! Tora! Tora!", named after the code words used by the lead Japanese pilot to indicate they had surprised the Americans, covers the days leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, which plunged America into the Second World War.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHotel Rwanda (2004)
Inspired by true events, this film takes place in Rwanda in the 1990s when more than a million Tutsis were killed in a genocide that went mostly unnoticed by the rest of the world. Hotel owner Paul Rusesabagina houses over a thousand refuges in his hotel in attempt to save their lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Children of Huang Shi (2008)
About young British journalist, George Hogg, who with the assistance of a courageous Australian nurse, saves a group of orphaned children during the Japanese occupation of China in 1937.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKing Rat (1965)
When Singapore surrendered to the Japanese in 1942, the Allied POWs, mostly British but including a few Americans, were incarcerated in Changi prison. Among the American prisoners is Cpl. King, a wheeler-dealer who has managed to establish a pretty good life for himself in the camp. King soon forms a friendship with an upper-class British officer who is fascinated with King's enthusiastic approach to life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHidden Blade (2023)
Follows the story of underground workers who risked their lives to send intelligence and defend the motherland, set after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor when the Wang Jingwei regime declared war on Britain and the U.S.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTo End All Wars (2001)
Based on a real-life story, this drama focuses on a small group of Allied soldiers in Burma who are held captive by the Japanese. Capt. Ernest Gordon, Lt. Jim Reardon and Maj. Ian Campbell are among the military officers kept imprisoned and routinely beaten and deprived of food. While Campbell wants to rebel and attempt an escape, Gordon tries to take a more stoic approach, an attitude that proves to be surprisingly resonant.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Secrets We Keep (2020)
In post-World War II America, a woman, rebuilding her life in the suburbs with her husband, kidnaps her neighbor and seeks vengeance for the heinous war crimes she believes he committed against her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Battle at Lake Changjin (2021)
Korean War, winter 1950. In the frozen and snowy area of Changjin Lake, a bloody battle is about to begin between the elite troops of the United States and China.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Warlords (2007)
The civil war in China has ruined many lives including General Pang's. A wounded General Pang is saved by a beautiful young woman along with two other men. Together they vow to eradicate the rebels.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBattleground (1949)
Members of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division are fighting for their country amidst the rugged terrain of Bastogne, Belgium, in December 1944. Holley and his American compatriots have already seen one of their own, Roderigues, perish under enemy fire. The men try to rebuff another series of Nazi attacks, but what they really need is a change in the weather. Without clear skies, they'll never get the air support they need.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLetters from Iwo Jima (2006)
The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Last Samurai (2003)
Nathan Algren is an American hired to instruct the Japanese army in the ways of modern warfare, which finds him learning to respect the samurai and the honorable principles that rule them. Pressed to destroy the samurai's way of life in the name of modernization and open trade, Algren decides to become an ultimate warrior himself and to fight for their right to exist.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBury My Heart at Wounded Knee (2007)
Beginning just after the bloody Sioux victory over General Custer at Little Big Horn, the story is told through two unique perspectives: Charles Eastman, a young, white-educated Sioux doctor held up as living proof of the alleged success of assimilation, and Sitting Bull the proud Lakota chief whose tribe won the American Indians’ last major victory at Little Big Horn.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisManikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi (2019)
Story of Rani Lakshmibai, one of the leading figures of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and her resistance to the British Rule.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRaazi (2018)
An Indian spy is married to a Pakistani military officer during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTombstone of the Fireflies (2008)
Set during World War II, the film follows a young brother and sister as they attempt to survive the aftermath of the firebombing of Kobe City.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Doomsday Gun (1994)
Dr Gerald Bull was a genius at designing and building superguns (very large long range guns capable of shooting at ranges more than 100 miles). When an operational plan by the CIA to export sanctioned arms to apartheid-South Africa through him was exposed, the CIA denied all knowledge and he went to jail. He was later released, and moved to Belgium to start a subsidiary, of which a major project was to help Saddam Hussein build a new supergun capable of firing over 500 miles.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history & drama
The Bad Poet (2021)
1936. Giovanni Comini, the youngest Federal in Fascist Italy, is summoned to Rome for a delicate mission: to surveil aging national poet Gabriele D'Annunzio, whose increasingly restless behavior Mussolini fears could damage his alliance with Nazi Germany. However, after spending time with D'Annunzio, Comini finds himself torn between loyalty to the Party and his fascination with the poet, who will put his burgeoning career at risk.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Double (2012)
In a gloomy era of Taiwan under Japanese rule, there's a noble family, the mother of the twins of different sexes died early, and their father works for the government away from home. YU, the twin brother, have nightmares every night about being drowned by someone. He is lonely and longing to talk to his sister, but he could not meet her. Because AMEKO, the twin sister, has been in illness isolation since childhood. Things become strange while their cousin WEN CHENG was returning from Japan. YU finds out a big secret of the whole family, about his sister and the killer in the dream.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
We Are Your Friends (2015)
Young Cole Carter dreams of hitting the big time as a Hollywood disc jockey, spending his days and nights hanging with buddies and working on the one track that will set the world on fire. Opportunity comes knocking when he meets James Reed, a charismatic DJ who takes the 23-year-old under his wing. Soon, his seemingly clear path to success gets complicated when he starts falling for his mentor's girlfriend, jeopardizing his new friendship and the future he seems destined to fulfill.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Tarnished Angels (1957)
In the 1930s, once-great World War I pilot Roger Shumann performs as a daredevil barnstorming pilot at aerial stunt shows while his wife, LaVerne, works as a parachutist. When newspaper reporter Burke Devlin arrives to do a story on the Shumanns’ act, he quickly falls in love with the beautiful--and neglected--LaVerne.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisShanghai (2010)
An American man returns to a corrupt, Japanese-occupied Shanghai four months before Pearl Harbor and discovers his friend has been killed. While he unravels the mysteries of the death, he falls in love and discovers a much larger secret that his own government is hiding.
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 City of Life and Death?
The closest matches to City of Life and Death are The Flowers of War (2011), Dead to Rights (2025) and The Eight Hundred (2020). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after City of Life and Death?
Start with The Flowers of War (2011), the closest match to City of Life and Death.
What is the highest-rated movie like City of Life and Death?
Hotel Rwanda (2004), rated 7.7/10 by 3,339 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like City of Life and Death?
Rescue at Dongji (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Chinese movies like City of Life and Death?
Yes: The Flowers of War (2011), Dead to Rights (2025) and The Eight Hundred (2020).
How are movies similar to City of Life and Death chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside City of Life and Death, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.