Movies like Story of a Beloved Wife (1951)
The best movies like Story of a Beloved Wife (1951) are Shirley (2020), Effie Gray (2014) and Train Dreams (2025). If Story of a Beloved Wife hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedSunset Boulevard (1950)8.3/10 from 3,096 votes
- NewestTrain Dreams (2025)Released 2025
Shirley (2020)
A famous horror writer finds inspiration for her next book after she and her husband take in a young couple.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEffie Gray (2014)
A look at the mysterious relationship between Victorian art critic John Ruskin and his teenage bride Effie Gray.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTrain Dreams (2025)
A logger leads a life of quiet grace as he experiences love and loss during an era of monumental change in early 20th-century America.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBlack Bear (2020)
At a remote lake house in the Adirondack Mountains, a couple entertains an out-of-town guest looking for inspiration in her filmmaking. The group quickly falls into a calculated game of desire, manipulation, and jealousy, unaware of how dangerously intertwined their lives will soon become.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDeep Water (2022)
A well-to-do husband who allows his wife to have affairs in order to avoid a divorce becomes a prime suspect in the disappearance of her lovers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Pumpkin Eater (1964)
Jo, the mother of seven children, divorces her second husband in order to marry Jake, a successful but promiscuous screenwriter. Though they are physically and emotionally compatible, they are slowly torn apart.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHands of Stone (2016)
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Safety of Objects (2002)
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOthello (1951)
Manipulated by his jealous ensign Iago, the Moorish general Othello is driven to believe that his new wife Desdemona is unfaithful, setting in motion a chain of deception, jealousy, and violence that leads to tragedy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDie My Love (2025)
After inheriting a remote Montana house, Jackson moves there from New York with his partner Grace, and the couple soon welcome a child. As Jackson becomes increasingly absent and rural isolation sets in, Grace struggles with loneliness, creative frustration, and unresolved emotional wounds. What begins as an attempt at renewal gradually turns into an intense psychological descent, placing strain on their relationship and exposing the fragile balance between love, identity, and motherhood.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
Three childhood friends, Martha, Walter and Sam, share a terrible secret. Over time, the ambitious Martha and the pusillanimous Walter have married. She is a cold businesswoman; he is the district attorney: a perfect combination to dominate the corrupt city of Iverstown at will. But the unexpected return of Sam, after years of absence, deeply disturbs the life of the odd couple.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWon't Back Down (2012)
Jamie Fitzpatrick and Nona Alberts are two women from opposites sides of the social and economic track, but they have one thing in common: a mission to fix their community's broken school and ensure a bright future for their children. The two women refuse to let any obstacles stand in their way as they battle a bureaucracy that's hopelessly mired in traditional thinking, and they seek to re-energize a faculty that has lost its passion for teaching.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGirl in the Box (2016)
The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHoly Lands (2019)
When lapsed Jew and former cardiologist Harry suddenly decides to spend his retirement as a pig farmer in Nazareth, Israel, the move deeply shocks his family and his new neighbours. Back in New York, Harry’s ex-wife Monica is trying to manage the lives of their adult children, Annabelle and David, as well as her own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFathers and Daughters (2015)
A Pulitzer-winning writer grapples with being a widower and father after a mental breakdown, while, 27 years later, his grown daughter struggles to forge connections of her own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisI Walk the Line (1970)
Henry Tawes, a middle-aged sheriff in a rural Tennessee town, is usually the first man to criticize others for their bad behavior. Miserable in his marriage, Henry falls in love with teenage seductress Alma, who is the daughter of local criminal and moonshiner Carl McCain. Henry's moral character comes further into question when he is tempted to conceal Carl's crimes in order to prolong his relationship with Alma.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisHigher Ground (2011)
Inspired by screenwriter Carolyn S. Briggs' memoir This Dark World, a tight-knit spiritual community is thrown off-kilter when one of their own begins to question her faith, love, and trust - in human relationships as well as in God.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisTalhotBlond (2012)
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSky (2016)
A woman embarks on a journey alone across the United States after fleeing from her violent husband.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHounddog (2008)
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBarton Fink (1991)
A renowned New York playwright is enticed to California to write for the movies and discovers the hellish truth of Hollywood.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Player (1992)
A Hollywood studio executive is being sent death threats by a writer whose script he rejected - but which one?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Merchant of Four Seasons (1971)
Hans is a street fruit peddler and born loser. His choice of career upsets his bourgeois family, causing him to turn to drinking and violence. After recovering from a debilitating heart attack, his business finally begins to take off. However, the more he becomes a credit to his family, the more depressed he becomes.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSunset Boulevard (1950)
A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisContempt (1963)
Art film producer Jeremy Prokosch, unhappy with the work of his director, hires Fritz Lang (as himself) to direct an adaptation of The Odyssey, but when it seems that the legendary filmmaker is making a picture destined to bomb, he brings in a screenwriter to energise the script. The professional intersects with the personal when a rift develops between the writer and his wife.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLeaving Las Vegas (1995)
Ben Sanderson, an alcoholic Hollywood screenwriter who lost everything because of his drinking, arrives in Las Vegas to drink himself to death. There, he meets and forms an uneasy friendship and non-interference pact with prostitute Sera.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIn a Lonely Place (1950)
A violent screenwriter and a female neighbor fall in love after she clears him of murder, but she begins to have second thoughts.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMr. Misunderstood (2023)
When overwhelming expectations tower over him, Cecil must silence the doubt controlling him, while an aspiring film career slowly becomes the least of his worries. Written and directed by newcomer Aaron Fisher, Mr. Misunderstood takes a close look at the endless pressures that loom over one aspiring filmmaker's life, as he conveys the beautiful imperfection of our most human characteristics.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Russian Dolls (2005)
Five years after their summer together in Barcelona, Xavier, William, Wendy, Martine and Isabelle reunite.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Big Meet (2013)
"The Big Meet" follows drunken writer Blake (Lane Carlson) on an absurd adventure with a macho stranger called Nate (Mike Genovese) he meets in a bar. Several drinks later, the impaired writer is lured into a haphazard plot to murder his newfound companion.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Story of a Beloved Wife?
The closest matches to Story of a Beloved Wife are Shirley (2020), Effie Gray (2014) and Train Dreams (2025). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Story of a Beloved Wife?
Start with Shirley (2020), the closest match to Story of a Beloved Wife.
What is the highest-rated movie like Story of a Beloved Wife?
Sunset Boulevard (1950), rated 8.3/10 by 3,096 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Story of a Beloved Wife?
Train Dreams (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Japanese movies like Story of a Beloved Wife?
The closest matches are in other languages.
How are movies similar to Story of a Beloved Wife chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Story of a Beloved Wife, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.