Movies like Circle of Friends (1995)
The best movies like Circle of Friends (1995) are Wish You Were Here (1987), The Nephew (1998) and The Go-Between (1971). If Circle of Friends hooked you with its drama and romance, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedAtonement (2007)7.6/10 from 4,909 votes
- NewestIn the Land of Saints and Sinners (2023)Released 2023
Wish You Were Here (1987)
In a staid English seaside town after the Second World War, young Lynda grows up with her widowed father and younger sister. Rebellious Lynda has been swearing constantly from an early age. At sixteen, she becomes more exhibitionist and seeks out sexual encounters challenging the prevailing lower-middle class attitudes to sex.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Nephew (1998)
Twenty years ago, Tony Egan's sister went to America. Nobody ever heard of her again. But now, the message of her death arrives in her town of birth. Only days later, her only son Chad arrives, too. Obviously, his mother took a black husband. Soon, Chad falls for Aislin, who has a bit of a crush on him too. But there is an old conflict going on between her father and Chad's uncle. This conflict resurfaces and begins to draw circles, wider and wider.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
The Go-Between (1971)
British teenager Leo Colston spends a summer in the countryside, where he develops a crush on the beautiful young aristocrat Marian. Eager to impress her, Leo becomes the "go-between" for Marian, delivering secret romantic letters to Ted Burgess, a handsome neighboring farmer.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Boxer (1997)
Nineteen-year-old Danny Flynn is imprisoned for his involvement with the I.R.A. in Belfast. He leaves behind his family and his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Maggie Hamill. Fourteen years later, Danny is released from prison and returns to his old working class neighborhood to resume his life as a boxer.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Remains of the Day (1993)
In interwar Britain, a rule-bound head butler's world of manners and decorum in the household he maintains is tested by the arrival of a new housekeeper. The possibility of romance and his master's cultivation of ties with the Nazi cause challenge his carefully maintained veneer of servitude.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies 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
Brideshead Revisited (2008)
Befriended by aristocrat Sebastian Flyte, Oxford student Charles Ryder finds that the power and privilege experienced by the family is seductive. On a visit to the ancestral home, Brideshead, he falls in love with his friend's sister, Julia. However, as his ties to the Flytes deepen, Ryder finds himself at odds with their strong Roman Catholicism.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI.Q. (1994)
Albert Einstein helps a young man who's in love with Einstein's niece to catch her attention by pretending temporarily to be a great physicist.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHowards End (1992)
A saga of class relations and changing times in an Edwardian England on the brink of modernity, the film centers on liberal Margaret Schlegel, who, along with her sister Helen, becomes involved with two couples: wealthy, conservative industrialist Henry Wilcox and his wife Ruth, and the downwardly mobile working-class Leonard Bast and his mistress Jackie.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Man in the Moon (1991)
Maureen Trant and her younger sibling Dani share a strong connection, but local boy Court Foster threatens to throw their bond off balance. Dani and Court meet first and have a flirtatious rapport -- but when he meets Maureen, he falls hard and they begin a passionate affair. The new couple try to keep their love hidden from Dani, but she soon learns the truth, disavowing her sister. But a heartbreaking accident later reunites the girls.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Field (1990)
"Bull" McCabe's family has farmed a field for generations, sacrificing much in the name of the land. When the widow who owns the field decides to sell it in a public auction, McCabe knows that he must own it. While no local dare bid against him, a wealthy American decides he requires the field to build a highway. "Bull" and his son decide they must try to convince the American to let go of his ambition and return home, but the consequences of their plot prove sinister.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDifferent for Girls (1997)
Paul and Kim meet when their vehicles collide. Paul is fascinated with the attractive Kim. It turns out that the two were childhood friends in Catholic boys' school, but back then, before the operation, Kim was named Karl.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGuinevere (1999)
A young girl from an affluent family rebels and becomes involved with a much older photographer.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisWild Mountain Thyme (2020)
Headstrong farmer Rosemary Muldoon has her heart set on winning her neighbour Anthony Reilly's love. The problem is, Anthony seems to have inherited a family curse, and remains oblivious to his beautiful admirer. Stung by his father's plans to sell the family farm to his American nephew, Anthony is jolted into pursuing his dreams.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisFiorile (1993)
The Benedetti family's wealth comes from gold stolen from the French army during the 18th century. When Jean (Michael Vartan), the lieutenant guarding the coins -- and lover of Elisabette Benedetti (Galatea Ranzi) -- is executed for a crime he did not commit, Elisabette curses the family. Bad luck travels from generation to generation. As the latest Benedettis tell their children about their eccentric grandfather, the children worry that the family curse will be passed on.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Possession (2002)
Maud Bailey, a brilliant English academic, is researching the life and work of poet Christabel La Motte. Roland Michell is an American scholar in London to study Randolph Henry Ash, now best-known for a collection of poems dedicated to his wife. When Maud and Roland discover a cache of love letters that appear to be from Ash to La Motte, they follow a trail of clues across England, echoing the journey of the couple over a century earlier.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAtonement (2007)
A young girl irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Portrait of a Lady (1996)
Ms. Isabel Archer isn't afraid to challenge societal norms. Impressed by her free spirit, her kindhearted cousin writes her into his fatally ill father's will. Suddenly rich and independent, Isabelle ventures into the world, along the way befriending a cynical intellectual and romancing an art enthusiast. However, the advantage of her affluence is called into question when she realizes the extent to which her money colors her relationships.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisMrs. Winterbourne (1996)
Connie Doyle is eighteen, pregnant and alone. She accidentally ends up on a train where she meets Hugh Winterbourne and his wife pregnant Patricia. The train wrecks and she wakes up in the hospital to find out that it's been assumed that she's Patricia. Hugh's mother takes her in and she falls in love with Hugh's brother Bill. Just when she thinks everything is going her way, her ex-boyfriend shows up.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisInsignificance (1985)
Four 1950s icons meet in the same hotel room, and two of them discover more in common between them than they ever anticipated.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAnd When Did You Last See Your Father? (2007)
The story of a son's conflicting memories of his dying father.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhere Angels Fear to Tread (1991)
An English widow goes to Italy, falls in love with a dentist's son and marries him, against her straitlaced family's wishes.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
An Ideal Husband (1999)
Sir Robert Chiltern is a successful government minister, well-off and with a loving wife. All this is threatened when Mrs Cheveley appears in London with damning evidence of a past misdeed. Sir Robert turns for help to his friend Lord Goring, an apparently idle philanderer and the despair of his father. Goring knows the lady of old, and, for him, takes the whole thing pretty seriously.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Room for Romeo Brass (2000)
Two twelve-year-old boys, Romeo and Gavin, undergo an extraordinary test of character and friendship when Morell, a naive but eccentric and dangerous stranger, comes between them. Morell befriends with the two boys and later asks them to help him pursue Romeo's beautiful elder sister. He gradually becomes more violent after she rejects him.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Van (1996)
In a working-class quarter of Dublin, 'Bimbo' Reeves gets laid off from his job and, with his redundancy payout, buys a van and sells fish and chips with his buddy, Larry. Due to Ireland's surprising success at the 1990 FIFA World Cup, their business starts off well, but the relationship between the two friends soon becomes strained as Bimbo behaves more like a typical boss.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Quiet Man (1952)
An American man returns to the village of his birth in Ireland, where he finds love and conflict.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIris (2001)
True story of the lifelong romance between novelist Iris Murdoch and her husband John Bayley, from their student days through her battle with Alzheimer's disease.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIn the Land of Saints and Sinners (2023)
In a remote Irish village, a damaged Finbar is forced to fight for redemption after a lifetime of sins, but what price is he willing to pay? In the land of saints and sinners, some sins can't be buried.
Why it matches: Fans watch both
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFire with Fire (1986)
A tough, street-smart kid serving a sentence in a state youth reformatory meets a beautiful, innocent girl studying at a nearby convent. When forbidden love blossoms between them, they must fight the prison authorities, their parents and the law.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMaria's Lovers (1984)
A World War II prisoner returns home to his childhood sweetheart. However, back home, he discovers that he has to compete to win her love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Circle of Friends?
The closest matches to Circle of Friends are Wish You Were Here (1987), The Nephew (1998) and The Go-Between (1971). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Circle of Friends?
People who watched Circle of Friends most often go on to Wish You Were Here (1987), The Nephew (1998) and The Go-Between (1971).
What is the highest-rated movie like Circle of Friends?
Atonement (2007), rated 7.6/10 by 4,909 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Circle of Friends?
In the Land of Saints and Sinners (2023) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Circle of Friends?
Yes: Wish You Were Here (1987), The Nephew (1998) and The Go-Between (1971).
How are movies similar to Circle of Friends chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Circle of Friends, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.