Movies like Carla's Song (1996)
The best movies like Carla's Song (1996) are Ae Fond Kiss... (2004), Ladybird Ladybird (1994) and Sweet Sixteen (2002). If Carla's Song hooked you with its war and drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedWhere Hands Touch (2018)7.9/10 from 543 votes
- NewestWhere Hands Touch (2018)Released 2018
Ae Fond Kiss... (2004)
A young man upsets his Punjabi family when he falls in love with an Irish schoolteacher.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLadybird Ladybird (1994)
Maggie has had four children, by four different fathers, removed by social services because of a previous violent relationship. When she meets Jorge, a gentle Latin American refugee, she gradually sees her chance for happiness, but her past still haunts her.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSweet Sixteen (2002)
Determined to have a normal family life once his mother gets out of prison, a Scottish teenager from a tough background sets out to raise the money for a home.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIt's a Free World... (2007)
Working-class Angie, sacked from a recruitment agency for bad public behaviour, teams up with her flatmate to run a similar business from their kitchen. With immigrants desperate for work, the opportunities are considerable, particularly for two girls so in tune with these times.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Name Is Joe (1998)
Two thirtysomethings, unemployed former alcoholic Joe and community health worker Sarah, start a romantic relationship in one of the toughest Glasgow neighbourhoods.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRaining Stones (1993)
Proud, though poor, Bob wants his little girl to have a beautiful (and costly) brand-new dress for her First Communion. His stubbornness and determination get him into trouble as he turns to increasingly questionable measures, in his desperation to raise the needed money. This tragic flaw leads him to risk all that he loves and values, his beloved family, indeed even his immortal soul and salvation, in blind pursuit of that goal.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJimmy's Hall (2014)
In Depression-era Ireland, Jimmy Gralton returns home after a decade's exile in America. Witnessing the levels of poverty and oppression, his inner activist reawakens and he seeks to reopen the dance hall that led to his deportation.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRiff-Raff (1991)
Stevie, fresh from prison in Scotland, finds a job on a London construction site. Working conditions are poor and most of the men are working under aliases, due to immigration status and to not conflict with unemployment. Some help Stevie secure housing, squatting in a council estate. Then Stevie meets Susan, from Ireland, an aspiring singer.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLooking for Eric (2009)
Middle-aged postman and football fan Eric Bishop struggles with his increasingly chaotic existence, but receives some life coaching from the famously philosophical Éric Cantona.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMeantime (1983)
A working-class family in London's East End is struggling to stay afloat during the recession under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's premiership. Only the mother Mavis is working; father Frank and the couple's two sons Colin, a timid, chronically shy individual and Mark, an outspoken, headstrong young man, are on the dole. This situation is contrasted by the presence of Mavis's sister Barbara, and her husband John, whose financial and social loftiness appears to be a comfortable facade over the unspoken soreness of a lackluster marriage.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMichael Collins (1996)
Michael Collins plays a crucial role in the establishment of the Irish Free State in the 1920s, but becomes vilified by those hoping to create a completely independent Irish republic.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Land Girls (1998)
During World War II, the organisation "The Women's Land Army" recruited women to work on British farms while the men were off to war. Three such "land girls" of different social backgrounds - quiet Stella, young hairdresser Prue, and Cambridge graduate Ag - become best friends in spite of their different backgrounds.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Titanic Town (1998)
Belfast 1972: The politically naive Bernie is trying to bring up a normal family in less than normal surroundings. Her best friend is accidentally shot dead by the IRA, and her neighbours are constantly raided by the army. In this climate of fear she stands up and condemns the murders. Criticising both factions, her call for a ceasefire is interpreted as an attack against the IRA, and as her peace movement takes momentum, she and her family are placed in the frontline.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
The Navigators (2001)
In South Yorkshire, a small group of railway maintenance men discover that due to privatisation, their lives will never be the same. When the trusty British Rail sign is replaced by one reading East Midland Infrastructure, it becomes clear that there will be the inevitable winners and losers as downsizing and efficiency become the new buzzwords.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDurango (1999)
In 1939 Ireland, a young man decides to lead a forty mile cattle drive rather than selling his cattle to an unscrupulous local buyer.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
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 & romance
The 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 thisReg (2016)
In June 2003, Reg Keys and his wife Sally return to their home in the Welsh countryside. As they switch on the TV to hear six military policemen have been murdered in Iraq, two men arrive bearing the terrible news that their son, Tom, was among them.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Some Mother's Son (1996)
Based on the true story of the 1981 hunger strike in a British prison, in which IRA prisoner Bobby Sands led a protest against the treatment of IRA prisoners as criminals rather than as prisoners of war. The film focuses on the mothers of two of the strikers, and their struggle to save the lives of their sons.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Playboys (1992)
A young woman, Tara Maguire (Robin Wright) scandalizes her provincial Irish village in the 1950s by having a baby out of a wedlock, and refusing to name the father. She has a rare beauty and every man in town desires her, especially Sergeant Hegarty (Albert Finney). The arrival of a dramatic troupe stirs things up even more, especially when she falls in love with one f the "Playboys", Tom Casey (Aidan Quinn).
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Omagh (2005)
The movie starts at the 1998 bomb attack by the Real IRA at Omagh, Northern Ireland. The attack killed 31 people. Michael Gallagher one of the relatives of the victims starts an examination to bring the people responsible to court.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Route Irish (2011)
A private security contractor in Iraq rejects the official explanation of his friend's death and sets out to uncover the truth.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Angels' Share (2012)
Robbie is a Glasgow boy locked in a family feud who just wants a way out. On community service, he meets Rhino, Albert and Mo. Little did Robbie imagine that turning to drink might change their lives, leading them to the distilleries of the Scottish Highlands and the biggest gamble of his life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both 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
Bread and Roses (2000)
In Los Angeles, undocumented Mexican immigrant Maya finds work as a janitor through her sister, Rosa. However, as both work non-union, conditions are grim. After enduring abuse from her superiors, Maya is open to the pro-union rhetoric offered by organiser Sam Shapiro. Rosa, meanwhile, is far less interested in clashing with management, given the needs of her family, and a rift forms between the sisters.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe History of Love (2016)
The story of a long-lost book that mysteriously reappears and connects an old man searching for his son with a girl seeking a cure for her mother's loneliness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBitter Harvest (2017)
Set between the two World Wars and based on true historical events, Bitter Harvest conveys the untold story of the Holodomor, the genocidal famine engineered by the tyrant Joseph Stalin. The film displays a powerful tale of love, honour, rebellion and survival at a time when Ukraine was forced to adjust to the horrifying territorial ambitions of the burgeoning Soviet Union.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisWhere Hands Touch (2018)
Germany, 1944. Leyna, the fifteen-year-old daughter of a white German mother and a black African father, meets Lutz, a compassionate member of the Hitler Youth whose father is a prominent Nazi soldier, and they form an unlikely connection in this quickly changing world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Four Feathers (2002)
A young British officer resigns his post when he learns of his regiment's plan to ship out to the Sudan for the conflict with the Mahdi. His friends and fiancée send him four white feathers as symbols of what they view as his cowardice. To redeem his honor, he disguises himself as an Arab and secretly saves their lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Carla's Song?
The closest matches to Carla's Song are Ae Fond Kiss... (2004), Ladybird Ladybird (1994) and Sweet Sixteen (2002). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Carla's Song?
People who watched Carla's Song most often go on to Ae Fond Kiss... (2004), Ladybird Ladybird (1994) and Sweet Sixteen (2002).
What is the highest-rated movie like Carla's Song?
Where Hands Touch (2018), rated 7.9/10 by 543 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Carla's Song?
Where Hands Touch (2018) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Carla's Song?
Yes: Ae Fond Kiss... (2004), Ladybird Ladybird (1994) and Sweet Sixteen (2002).
How are movies similar to Carla's Song chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Carla's Song, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.