Movies like Winter Light (1963)
The best movies like Winter Light (1963) are Au Hasard Balthazar (1966), Diary of a Country Priest (1951) and Wild Strawberries (1957). If Winter Light hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedWild Strawberries (1957)8.1/10 from 1,884 votes
- NewestSaraband (2003)Released 2003
Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)
The story of a donkey Balthazar as he is passed from owner to owner, some kind and some cruel but all with motivations beyond his understanding. Balthazar, whose life parallels that of his first keeper, Marie, is truly a beast of burden, suffering the sins of humankind. But despite his powerlessness, he accepts his fate nobly.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDiary of a Country Priest (1951)
An inexperienced, sickly priest shows up in the rural French community of Ambricourt, where he joins the community's clergy. But the locals don't take kindly to the priest, and his ascetic ways and unsociable demeanor make him an outcast. During Bible studies at the nearby girls school, he is continually mocked by his students. Then his attempt to intervene in a family feud backfires into a scandal. His failures, compounded with his declining health, begin to erode his faith.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWild Strawberries (1957)
Crotchety retired doctor Isak Borg travels from Stockholm to Lund, Sweden, with his unhappy daughter-in-law, Marianne, in order to receive an honorary degree from his alma mater. Along the way, they encounter a series of hitchhikers, each of whom causes the elderly doctor to muse upon the pleasures and failures of his own life. These include the vivacious young Sara, a dead ringer for the doctor's own first love.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisPrison (1949)
A filmmaker sets out to create the greatest film in history, but finds out that human abilities have limits.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMouchette (1967)
A young girl living in the French countryside suffers constant indignities at the hand of alcoholism and her fellow man.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Sacrifice (1986)
Alexander, a journalist, philosopher and retired actor, celebrates a birthday with friends and family when it is announced that nuclear war has begun.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThrough a Glass Darkly (1961)
Karin hopes to recover from her recent stay at a mental hospital by spending the summer at her family's cottage on a tiny island. Her husband, Martin, cares for her but is frustrated by her physical withdrawal. Her younger brother, Minus, is confused by Karin's vulnerability and his own budding sexuality. Their father, David, cannot overcome his haughty remoteness. Beset by visions, Karin descends further into madness.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCries and Whispers (1972)
As Agnes slowly dies of cancer, her sisters are so immersed in their own psychic pains that they are unable to offer her the support she needs.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Silence (1963)
Traveling through an unnamed European country on the brink of war, sickly, intellectual Ester, her sister Anna and Anna's young son, Johan, check into a near-empty hotel. A basic inability to communicate among the three seems only to worsen during their stay. Anna provokes her sister by enjoying a dalliance with a local man, while the boy, left to himself, has a series of enigmatic encounters that heighten the growing air of isolation.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Passion of Anna (1969)
A recently divorced man and an emotionally devastated widow begin a love affair.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGuns of the Trees (1961)
Barbara, a young woman consumed by despair, contemplates suicide, while a man she meets in a church and a married couple struggle to persuade her that life is still worth living. Mekas’s film weaves this intimate drama into a larger reflection on alienation, politics, and the turbulence of early 1960s America.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
The Rite (1969)
Called to court on obscenity charges, a theatre troupe are forced to expose their neuroses and inner psychological torments.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNazarín (1959)
A Catholic priest in a poor community lives a charitable life in accordance with his religious principles, but others do not return the favor.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPersona (1966)
A young nurse, Alma, is put in charge of Elisabeth Vogler: an actress who is seemingly healthy in all respects, but will not talk. As they spend time together, Alma speaks to Elisabeth constantly, never receiving any answer.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisOrdet (1955)
The three sons of devout Danish farmer Morten have widely disparate religious beliefs. Youngest son Anders shares his father's religion, but eldest son Mikkel has lost his faith, while middle child Johannes has become delusional and proclaims that he is Jesus Christ himself. When Mikkel's wife, Inger goes into a difficult childbirth, everyone's beliefs are put to the test.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisShame (1968)
In the midst of a civil war, a pair of former violinists in a tempestuous marriage oversee a farm on a rural island. In spite of their best efforts to escape their homeland, the war impinges on every aspect of their lives.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDecalogue I (1989)
Krzysztof, a semantics professor and computer hobbyist, is raising his young son, Paweł, to look to science for answers, while Irena, Paweł’s aunt, lives a life rooted in faith. Over the course of one day, both adults are forced to question their belief systems.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Virgin Spring (1960)
Devout Christians Töre and Märeta send their only daughter, the virginal Karin, and their foster daughter, the unrepentant Ingeri, to deliver candles to a distant church. On their way through the woods, the girls encounter a group of savage goat herders who brutally rape and murder Karin as Ingeri remains hidden. When the killers unwittingly seek refuge in the farmhouse of Töre and Märeta, Töre plots a fitting revenge.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Seventh Seal (1957)
When disillusioned Swedish knight Antonius Block returns home from the Crusades to find his country in the grips of the Black Death, he challenges Death to a chess match for his life. Tormented by the belief that God does not exist, Block sets off on a journey, meeting up with traveling players Jof and his wife, Mia, and becoming determined to evade Death long enough to commit one redemptive act while he still lives.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Magician (1958)
A traveling magician and his troupe arrive in a Swedish town in the 1840s, where their act is scrutinized by local authorities and a skeptical medical official. Their stay leads to a series of confrontations that test the boundaries between performance, belief, and deception.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisI Am Curious (Blue) (1968)
The same movie with the same characters, cast and crew as I am Curious (Yellow), but with some different scenes and a different political slant. The political focus in Blue is personal relationships, religion, prisons and sex. Blue omits much of the class consciousness and non-violence interviews of the first version. Yellow and Blue are the colors of the Swedish flag.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
A Gentle Woman (1969)
When his young wife commits suicide with no explanation, an introspective pawnbroker looks back on their life together.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Serpent's Egg (1977)
In 1923 Berlin, following the suicide of his brother, an American acrobat struggles to survive while facing unemployment, depression, alcoholism, and the social decay of Germany during the Weimar Republic.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe White Dove (1960)
A poetic film about a dove getting lost on its way to Prague getting shot down by a paralyzed boy. An artist who finds the dove becomes friends with the boy. Together they take care of it bringing it back to recovery.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Heart of Glass (1976)
A small Bavarian village is renowned for its "Ruby Glass" glass blowing works. When the foreman of the works dies suddenly without revealing the secret of the Ruby Glass, the town slides into a deep depression, and the owner of the glassworks becomes obssessed with the lost secret.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAutumn Sonata (1978)
After a seven-year absence, Charlotte Andergast travels to Sweden to reunite with her daughter Eva. The pair have a troubled relationship: Charlotte sacrificed the responsibilities of motherhood for a career as a classical pianist. Over an emotional night, the pair reopen the wounds of the past. Charlotte gets another shock when she finds out that her mentally impaired daughter, Helena, is out of the asylum and living with Eva.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Long Absence (1961)
Therese, a café owner, mourns the mysterious disappearance of her husband sixteen years earlier. A tramp arrives in the town and she believes him to be her husband. But he is suffering from amnesia and she tries to bring back his memory of earlier times.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHour of the Wolf (1968)
While vacationing on a remote German island with his younger pregnant wife, an artist has an emotional breakdown while confronting his repressed desires.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFace to Face (1976)
A psychiatrist temporarily separated from her family begins to experience severe psychological distress while working at a mental hospital and returning to her childhood home. As her professional responsibilities and personal relationships intersect, she undergoes a breakdown that forces her to confront long-suppressed memories and fears. (Note: This entry refers to the 1976 theatrical feature film (approximately 135 minutes), created by condensing and re-editing the four-part Swedish television miniseries originally produced the same year.)
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSaraband (2003)
Reuniting the characters of Johan and Marianne three decades after "Scenes from a Marriage," "Saraband" follows Marianne’s visit to her reclusive ex-husband, where she finds him locked in a destructive conflict with his troubled son Henrik and Henrik’s musically gifted daughter Karin. Told as an intimate chamber drama, the film explores love, resentment, forgiveness, and the inescapable pull of family bonds.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Winter Light?
The closest matches to Winter Light are Au Hasard Balthazar (1966), Diary of a Country Priest (1951) and Wild Strawberries (1957). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Winter Light?
People who watched Winter Light most often go on to Au Hasard Balthazar (1966), Diary of a Country Priest (1951) and Wild Strawberries (1957).
What is the highest-rated movie like Winter Light?
Wild Strawberries (1957), rated 8.1/10 by 1,884 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Winter Light?
Saraband (2003) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Winter Light chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Winter Light, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.