Movies like Dark River (1990)
The best movies like Dark River (1990) are TalhotBlond (2012), Iron Jawed Angels (2004) and Little Lord Fauntleroy (1980). If Dark River hooked you with its drama and tv movie, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedHunting Season (2025)7.4/10 from 486 votes
- Newest180 (2026)Released 2026
TalhotBlond (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 thisIron Jawed Angels (2004)
Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLittle Lord Fauntleroy (1980)
Young Cedric Errol and his widowed mother live in genteel poverty in 1880s Brooklyn after the death of his father. Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, has long ago disowned his son for marrying an American. But after the death of the Earl's remaining son, he decides to accept Cedric as his heir.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNormal (2003)
A Midwestern husband and father announces his plan to have a sex change operation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIntroducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999)
An acclaimed stage performer, Dorothy still struggled with the challenge of her color, in a time that wouldn't let some stars in by the front door. Yet against the odds she beat out many more famous rivals for the role of "Carmen Jones", becoming the first black woman ever nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award. Marriages and affairs would break her heart, but her heart was strong. Seductive and easily seduced, she was born to be a star - with all the glory and all the pain of being loved, abused, cheated, glorified, undermined and undefeated. Here was a woman who wouldn't wait in the wings. Halle Berry stars as Dorothy Dandrige.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMeltdown: Days of Destruction (2006)
Despite scientist Nathan's warnings, his boss continues an experiment meant as publicity for his satellite firm: exploding an asteroid. Instead it splits, and the major piece, the size of Iceland, changes course to earth. It is deflected but so close that it shift our course closer to the sun, causing rapid extreme heating, hopefully only mid-term. Nathan warns his sister, TV journalist Carly, and she her lover, police detective Tom. He brings his unruly daughter Kim, her ex-con lover C.J. and her mother, nurse Bonnie, when Nathan offers a flight to a friend's Arctic weather station. Tom takes charge of a dangerous trip to the airport, as everywhere on earth things catch fire and people fight for water, transport and sheer looting.
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 thisHello Sister, Goodbye Life (2006)
A college student must take care of her 7-year-old half sister after the death of their parents.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Dinner with Hervé (2018)
An unlikely friendship evolves over one wild night in LA between a struggling journalist and actor Hervé Villechaize, the world's most famous gun-toting dwarf, resulting in life-changing consequences for both.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Christmas Shoes (2002)
Two separate stories mesh - in the first, a young music teacher, Maggie Andrews, begins dying of a heart condition and her son Nathan tries to get a pair of Christmas shoes for her before she dies. In the second, lawyer Robert Layton and his wife Kate are slowly drifting apart and the matter comes to a head during Christmas when Kate takes over for Maggie for the school choir.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996)
A dramatization of the life of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (Don Cheadle), with a lot of factual based occurrences. A reformed junkie returns from prison to clean up his act and devote the rest of his life to the young kids of Harlem. 1996 was the 25th anniversary of the first tournament named after him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCheaters (2000)
In the fall of 1994, a teacher at Chicago's run-down Steinmetz High conspires with the school's academic decathlon team to cheat on an academic competition.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this180 (2026)
When an unexpected road rage incident puts his son in critical condition, an enraged father spirals down a dark path of emotional turmoil and vengeance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe River (1984)
Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Good Neighbor (2022)
A nightmarish evening unfolds for neighbors David and Robert when they accidentally hit a woman on her bike and flee the scene. While David is increasingly plagued by feelings of guilt, Robert shows no remorse and becomes overbearing and possessive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPride (2004)
The story of Suki, a lioness cub, who rebels against her mother and her Pride to mate with an unsuitable lion from the other side of the river.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Truth About Emanuel (2013)
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Congress (2013)
An aging, out-of-work actress accepts one last job, though the consequences of her decision affect her in ways she didn't consider.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhere the Red Fern Grows (1974)
Billy Coleman works hard and saves his earnings for two years to achieve his dream of buying two red-bone coonhound pups. He develops a new trust in life as he faces overwhelming challenges in adventure and tragedy roaming the river bottoms of Cherokee country with his dogs, Old Dan and Little Ann.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHunting Season (2025)
When a reclusive survivalist and his daughter rescue a mysterious, wounded woman from a river, they become entangled in a deadly web of violence and revenge, forcing them to confront a brutal criminal to survive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe First Murder (1972)
Based on the novel "Šta bi učinio Zobec?" (What Would Zobec Do?) by Svetozar Vlajković. It's a short movie about a young man who is afraid of being turned down by a girl.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
House by the River (1950)
Wealthy writer Stephen Byrne tries to seduce the family maid, but when she resists, he kills her. Long jealous of his brother John, Stephen does his best to pin the blame for the murder on his sibling. Also affected by Stephen's arrogant dementia is his long-suffering wife Marjorie.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe River Named Modhumoti (1996)
During the 1971 liberation war of Bangladesh, in a remote village, a landlord collaborated with the Pakistani army. After the death of his brother, he married his sister-in-law who had a young son. A teacher in the village, with a widowed daughter, taught the young man had a daughter. When the war broke out, the young man joined the Bengali guerrillas, shattering his innocence. In the village, the landlord's action get worse and worse, until he kills the teacher and compels the daughter to marry him. Now the young man must return to his village with new determination.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Host (2006)
A teenage girl is captured by a giant mutated squid-like creature that appears from Seoul's Han River after toxic waste was dumped in it, prompting her family into a frantic search for her.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMaria am Wasser (2009)
"Maria am Wasser" tells a story of the search in symbolic allusions and beautiful, fairytale pictures. The search for love, past, reconciliation and forgiveness. Summer 1983 in Saxony. A tank drives with four children of the orphanage "Frohe Zukunft" through the Elbe. The excursion seems to end fatally for all children, as the tank sinks. 22 years later, organ builder Marcus Lenk returns to his home village of Neusorge and claims to be one of the children. Marcus is perplexed: no one recognizes him. Not even his father Hannes, who lives with a few sheep, nor his mother Mary, who runs the orphanage with a strict hand, believe in his identity.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Deliverance (1972)
Intent on seeing the Cahulawassee River before it's turned into one huge lake, outdoor fanatic Lewis Medlock takes his friends on a river-rafting trip they'll never forget into the dangerous American back-country.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRules of Engagement (2000)
A Marine Colonel is brought to court-martial after ordering his men to fire on demonstrators surrounding the American embassy in Yemen.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFather and Son (2017)
Living by a river, a father and son make their living by fishing every day. The little boy, Ca, contracts a serious illness. The treatment is very expensive. Will the father be able to catch enough fish to pay for it?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Man from Snowy River (1982)
Jim Craig has lived his first 18 years in the mountains of Australia on his father's farm. The death of his father forces him to go to the lowlands to earn enough money to get the farm back on its feet.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDangerous Waters (1999)
A single mom and her boyfriend, along with her young son and teenage daughter, go whitewater rafting where they find themselves menaced by a pair of escaped convicts searching for stolen money.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Dark River?
The closest matches to Dark River are TalhotBlond (2012), Iron Jawed Angels (2004) and Little Lord Fauntleroy (1980). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Dark River?
Start with TalhotBlond (2012), the closest match to Dark River.
What is the highest-rated movie like Dark River?
Hunting Season (2025), rated 7.4/10 by 486 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Dark River?
180 (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Dark River?
Yes: TalhotBlond (2012), Iron Jawed Angels (2004) and Little Lord Fauntleroy (1980).
How are movies similar to Dark River chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Dark River, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.