Movies like To Live (1994)
The best movies like To Live (1994) are The History of Love (2016), Private Peaceful (2012) and Youth (2017). If To Live 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 ratedThe Best of Youth (2003)8.0/10 from 625 votes
- NewestGezhi Town (2025)Released 2025
- In ChineseYouth (2017)Also in Chinese
The History of Love (2016)
The story of a long-lost book that mysteriously reappears and connects an old man searching for his son with a girl seeking a cure for her mother's loneliness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPrivate Peaceful (2012)
Set in the fields of Devon and the WW1 battlefields of Flanders, two brothers fall for the same girl while contending with the pressures of their feudal family life, the war, and the price of courage and cowardice.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYouth (2017)
A group of performing art troupe members each face their own trials and tribulations in Chengdu; from escaping a family scandal to dealing with unrequited love, each experiences rejection that shapes their lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
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 thisCoco Chanel (2008)
Fashion icon Coco Chanel, steeped in wealth and fame, still issues game-changing designs and collections. The audience is taken backwards in time to the woman's upbringing in an orphanage, and traces her path to ubiquity as it winds through poverty, wars, doomed romances, and rather glamorous betrayals.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGezhi Town (2025)
A group of Chinese refugees and straggler soldiers, led by a machinist, defend their mountain town, "Gezhi," against a surprise attack by Japanese reconnaissance troops in a desperate fight using civilian ingenuity against a trained military force.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNot Easily Broken (2009)
A car accident and shifting affections test the bond between a married couple.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNorthanger Abbey (2007)
A young woman's penchant for sensational Gothic novels leads to misunderstandings in the matters of the heart.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhen Nietzsche Wept (2007)
Viennese doctor Josef Bruer meets with philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche to help him deal with his despair.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJade Dynasty (2019)
After the massacre of his village, Zhang Xiaofan is taken in by the Qing Yun Sect where he begins his journey of cultivation. When he finds out the truth behind the deaths of his parents, he succumbs to his rage and demonic tendencies and becomes the enemy of Qing Yun Sect.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHome for Christmas Day (2017)
Jane is a single mother dead set on protecting her teenage daughter Betsy from the harsh realities of life. When Betsy falls in love with an enlisted man, Jane tries her best to steer Betsy away from heartache. Little does Jane realize she and her daughter are about to learn important lessons of the heart and that taking chances can sometimes lead to the most extraordinary happy endings.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisPossession (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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisToo Close for Christmas (2020)
When Hayley accepts an invitation to spend Christmas with her sister’s new in-laws, her seemingly perfect holiday takes a turn when Paul, Hayley's brother-in-law's brother, unexpectedly shows up. Still harboring a grudge against Paul for ending her last relationship, Hayley reluctantly spends time with Paul and slowly realizes she may have been too quick a judge on Paul
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Shanghai Gesture (1941)
A gambling queen uses blackmail to stop a British financier from closing her Chinese clip joint.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBreathe (2017)
Based on the true story of Robin, a handsome, brilliant and adventurous man whose life takes a dramatic turn when polio leaves him paralyzed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPride and Prejudice (1940)
In early 19th century England, Mr and Mrs Bennet's five unmarried daughters vie for the affections of rich and eligible Mr Bingley and his status-conscious friend, Mr Darcy, who have moved into their neighbourhood. While Bingley takes an immediate liking to eldest daughter Jane, Darcy has difficulty adapting to local society and repeatedly clashes with second-eldest Elizabeth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLove Everlasting (2016)
Bridger is a young outsider who's always wanted more. He and his mother flee an abusive home, eventually finding a small town in the middle of nowhere. Once there, Bridger finds true acceptance with another misfit.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisReturn to Dust (2022)
Humble, unassuming Ma and timid Cao have been cast off by their families and forced into an arranged marriage. They have to combine their strength and build a home to survive. In the face of much adversity, an unexpected bond begins to blossom, as both Ma and Cao, uniting with Earth's cycles, create a haven for themselves in which they can thrive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOur Daily Bread (1934)
John and Mary Sims are city-dwellers hit hard by the financial fist of The Depression. Driven by bravery (and sheer desperation) they flee to the country and, with the help of other workers, set up a farming community - a socialist mini-society. The newborn community suffers many hardships - drought, vicious raccoons and the long arm of the law - but ultimately pull together to reach a bread-based Utopia.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWomen in Love (1969)
Growing up in the sheltered confines of a 1920s English coal-mining community, free-spirited sisters Gudrun and Ursula explore erotic love with a wealthy playboy and a philosophical educator, with cataclysmic results for all four.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWar and Peace (1956)
The love story of young Countess Natasha Rostova and Count Pierre Bezukhov is interwoven with the Great Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon's invading army.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both war & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Majestic (2001)
Set in 1951, a blacklisted Hollywood writer gets into a car accident, loses his memory and settles down in a small town where he is mistaken for a long-lost son.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Best of Youth (2003)
After a fateful encounter in the summer of 1966, the lifepaths of two brothers from a middle-class Roman family diverge, intersecting with some of the most significant events of postwar Italian history in the following decades.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisMona Lisa Smile (2003)
Katherine Watson is a recent UCLA graduate hired to teach art history at the prestigious all-female Wellesley College, in 1953. Determined to confront the outdated mores of society and the institution that embraces them, Katherine inspires her traditional students, including Betty and Joan, to challenge the lives they are expected to lead.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThree Times (2005)
In three separate segments, set respectively in 1966, 1911, and 2005, three love stories unfold between three sets of characters, under three different periods of Taiwanese history and governance.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Zone of Interest (2023)
The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies 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: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisQuo Vadis (1951)
After fierce Roman commander Marcus Vinicius becomes infatuated with beautiful Christian hostage Lygia, he begins to question the tyrannical leadership of the despotic emperor Nero.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisKitchen Stories (2003)
Swedish efficiency researchers come to Norway for a study of Norwegian men, to optimize their use of their kitchen. Folke Nilsson (Tomas Norström) is assigned to study the habits of Isak Bjørvik (Joachim Calmeyer). By the rules of the research institute, Folke has to sit on an umpire's chair in Isak's kitchen and observe him from there, but never talk to him. Isak stops using his kitchen and observes Folke through a hole in the ceiling instead. However, the two lonely men slowly overcome the initial post-war Norwegian-Swede distrust and become friends.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Zodiac (2005)
An elusive serial killer known as the Zodiac terrorizes the San Francisco Bay in the late 1960s, while detectives aim to stop him before he claims more victims. Based on a true story.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like To Live?
The closest matches to To Live are The History of Love (2016), Private Peaceful (2012) and Youth (2017). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after To Live?
Start with The History of Love (2016), the closest match to To Live.
What is the highest-rated movie like To Live?
The Best of Youth (2003), rated 8.0/10 by 625 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like To Live?
Gezhi Town (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Chinese movies like To Live?
Yes: Youth (2017), Gezhi Town (2025) and Jade Dynasty (2019).
How are movies similar to To Live chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside To Live, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.