Movies like Way Down East (1935)
The best movies like Way Down East (1935) are The Passionate Friends (1949), My Brilliant Career (1979) and The Lost Husband (2020). If Way Down East 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 ratedWhat's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)7.7/10 from 4,443 votes
- NewestThe Secret: Dare to Dream (2020)Released 2020
The Passionate Friends (1949)
A woman is torn between the love of her life, who's married to someone else, and her older husband.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Brilliant Career (1979)
A young woman who is determined to maintain her independence finds herself at odds with her family who wants her to tame her wild side and get married.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Lost Husband (2020)
Trying to put her life back together after the death of her husband, Libby and her children move to her estranged Aunt's goat farm in central Texas.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBad Girl (1931)
A man and woman, skeptical about romance, nonetheless fall in love and are wed, but their lack of confidence in the opposite sex haunts their marriage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFlamingo Road (1949)
A stranded carnival dancer takes on a corrupt political boss when she marries into small-town society.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTwin Falls Idaho (1999)
Francis and Blake Falls are Siamese twins who live in a neat little room in a rundown hotel. While sharing some organs, Blake is always fit and Francis is very sickly. Into their world comes a young lady, who turns their world upside down. She gets involved with Blake, and convinces the two to attend a Halloween party, where they can pass themselves off as wearing a costume. Eventually Francis becomes really ill, and they have to be separated. They then face the physical and mental strains that come from their proposed separation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Secret: Dare to Dream (2020)
A widow with three children hires a handyman to fix her house during a major storm. When not doing home repairs, he shares his philosophy of believing in the power of the universe to deliver what we want.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisChristmas Cottage (2008)
Inspired by the picturesque paintings of Thomas Kinkade, The Christmas Cottage tells the semi-autobiographical tale of how a young boy is propelled to launch a career as an artist after he learns that his mother is in danger of losing the family home.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAn Uncommon Grace (2017)
An army nurse returning from Afghanistan discovers her purpose in a rural Ohio farm community, along with a deep connection with a neighbor whose conservative Amish sect strictly forbids relationships with those outside his church community.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Capture the Castle (2003)
In 1930s England, 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain and her eccentric family struggle to survive in a decaying English castle.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThey Won't Believe Me (1947)
On trial for murdering his girlfriend, philandering stockbroker Larry Ballentine takes the stand to claim his innocence and describe the actual, but improbable sounding, sequence of events that led to her death.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhat's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)
Gilbert Grape is a small-town young man with a lot of responsibility. Chief among his concerns are his mother, who is so overweight that she can't leave the house, and his mentally impaired younger brother, Arnie, who has a knack for finding trouble. Settled into a job at a grocery store and an ongoing affair with local woman Betty Carver, Gilbert finally has his life shaken up by the free-spirited Becky.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTim (1979)
Handsome but backward gardener Tim Melville has a new woman in his life. She is Mary, his widowed employer, a woman who had given up on love until she had found Tim. At first they are friends. But soon they become lovers, as Mary, drawn to Tim's innocence and magnetism, begins to teach him all about life - and love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Magic of Ordinary Days (2005)
Pregnant out of wedlock, an educated young woman is pressured by her father into an arranged marriage with a lonely farmer in this drama set during WWII.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDeparture (2016)
An English mother and her teenage son spend a week preparing the sale of their remote holiday house in the South of France. Fifteen-year-old Elliot struggles with his dawning sexuality and an increasing alienation from his mother, Beatrice. She in turn is confronted by the realisation that her marriage to his father, Philip, has grown loveless and the life she knows is coming to an end. When an enigmatic local teenager, Clément, quietly enters their lives, both mother and son are compelled to confront their desires and, finally, each other.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFlowers in the Attic (2014)
After the sudden death of their father, four children face cruel treatment from their ruthless grandmother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Whales of August (1987)
Two aged sisters reflect on life and the past during a late summer day in Maine.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Red House (1947)
An old man and his sister are concealing a terrible secret from their adopted teen daughter, concerning a hidden abandoned farmhouse, located deep in the woods.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOne & Two (2015)
In an isolated farmhouse, located in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by a mysterious wooden wall, Zac and Eva, two siblings gifted with extraordinary abilities, endure every day the wrath of their strict father while witnessing how a cruel sickness lurks their beloved mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Strange Woman (1946)
In early 19th century New England, an unscrupulous woman uses her beauty and wits to seduce, deceive and control the men around her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMeet Me in St. Louis (1944)
A year in the life of a turn-of-the-century middle class family, leading up to the opening of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGuess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
A couple's attitudes are challenged when their daughter brings home a fiancé who is black.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMoonstruck (1987)
37-year-old Italian-American widow Loretta Castorini believes she is unlucky in love, and so accepts a marriage proposal from her boyfriend Johnny, even though she doesn't love him. When she meets his estranged younger brother Ronny, an emotional and passionate man, she finds herself drawn to him. She tries to resist, but Ronny, who blames his brother for the loss of his hand, has no scruples about aggressively pursuing her while Johnny is out of the country. As Loretta falls for Ronny, she learns that she's not the only one in her family with a secret romance.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004)
The turbulent personal and professional life of actor Peter Sellers (1925-1980), from his beginnings as a comic performer on BBC Radio to his huge success as one of the greatest film comedians of all time; an obsessive artist so dedicated to his work that neglected his loved ones and sacrificed part of his own personality to convincingly create that of his many memorable characters.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Party (1980)
A thirteen-year-old French girl deals with moving to a new city and school in Paris, while at the same time her parents are getting a divorce.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSarah, Plain and Tall (1991)
Kansas, 1910. Widowed farmer Jacob Witting finds that taking care of both his farm and two children, Anna and Caleb, is too difficult to handle alone. John takes out an ad in a newspaper for a mail-order bride, to which the "plain and tall" Sarah Wheaton answers, soon traveling from Maine to Kansas to become John's wife. Despite the love that grows between Sarah and the family, Sarah finds herself homesick, and she must ultimately choose whether or not to stay.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Rajakumarudu (1999)
While on a holiday, Raja meets and falls in love with Rani but breaks off the relationship due to family compulsions. Later, when he has all but given up hope of seeing her again, he gets a surprise.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Skal vi danse først? (1979)
About sixteen-year-old Susanne and her relationship with her parents and friends. To make her friend Peter jealous, she flirts heavily with a forty-year-old silversmith from the sailing club where she works.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Parenthood (1989)
The story of the Buckman family and friends, attempting to bring up their children. They suffer/enjoy all the events that occur: estranged relatives, the 'black sheep' of the family, the eccentrics, the skeletons in the closet, and the rebellious teenagers.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIn the Bedroom (2001)
Summertime on the coast of Maine, "In the Bedroom" centers on the inner dynamics of a family in transition. Matt Fowler is a doctor practicing in his native Maine and is married to New York born Ruth Fowler, a music teacher. His son is involved in a love affair with a local single mother. As the beauty of Maine's brief and fleeting summer comes to an end, these characters find themselves in the midst of unimaginable tragedy.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Way Down East?
The closest matches to Way Down East are The Passionate Friends (1949), My Brilliant Career (1979) and The Lost Husband (2020). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Way Down East?
Start with The Passionate Friends (1949), the closest match to Way Down East.
What is the highest-rated movie like Way Down East?
What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), rated 7.7/10 by 4,443 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Way Down East?
The Secret: Dare to Dream (2020) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Way Down East?
Yes: The Passionate Friends (1949), My Brilliant Career (1979) and The Lost Husband (2020).
How are movies similar to Way Down East chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Way Down East, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.