Movies like The Swimmer (1968)
The best movies like The Swimmer (1968) are NYAD (2023), Puzzle (2018) and Pride (2007). If The Swimmer hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedBig Fish (2003)7.7/10 from 8,042 votes
- NewestEleanor the Great (2025)Released 2025
NYAD (2023)
Athlete Diana Nyad sets out at 60 to achieve a nearly impossible lifelong dream: to swim from Cuba to Florida across more than 100 miles of open ocean.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPuzzle (2018)
After years of caring exclusively for the needs of her husband and children, Agnes, a devoted housewife living in a small town near New York, has found something she really enjoys doing: solving puzzles.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPride (2007)
Coach Jim Ellis shocks the community and changes lives when, aided by a local janitor, he sets out to form Philadelphia's first black swim team. But the odds are against them as they battle rigid rules, racism and more.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Gift (2015)
Simon and Robyn are a young married couple whose life is going as planned until a chance run-in with Simon's high school acquaintance sends their world into a tailspin.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSynecdoche, New York (2008)
A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDark Waters (2019)
A tenacious attorney uncovers a dark secret that connects a growing number of unexplained deaths to one of the world's largest corporations. In the process, he risks everything — his future, his family, and his own life — to expose the truth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Life of Chuck (2025)
In this extraordinary story of an ordinary man, Charles 'Chuck' Krantz experiences the wonder of love, the heartbreak of loss, and the multitudes contained in all of us.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Hours (2002)
The story of three women searching for more potent, meaningful lives. Each is alive at a different time and place, all are linked by their yearnings and their fears. Their stories intertwine, and finally come together in a surprising, transcendent moment of shared recognition.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHere (2024)
An odyssey through time and memory, centered on a place in New Jersey where—from wilderness, and then, later, from a home—love, loss, struggle, hope and legacy play out between couples and families over generations.
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 thisA Map of the World (1999)
School nurse Alice Goodwin lives with her husband and two daughters on a dairy farm in a small Wisconsin community. After an accident on her property involving a friend's child, the town turns against her and Alice finds herself fighting charges of child abuse.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSafe (1995)
Carol White, a Los Angeles housewife in the late 1980s, comes down with a debilitating illness with no clear diagnosis.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSeptember (1987)
After a suicide attempt, Lane has moved into her country house to recuperate. Her best friend, Stephanie, has come to join her for the summer. Lane's mother, Diane, has recently arrived with her husband Lloyd, Lane's stepfather. Lane is close to two neighbors: Peter, and Howard. Howard is in love with Lane, Lane is in love with Peter, and Peter is in love with Stephanie.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBig Fish (2003)
Throughout his life Edward Bloom has always been a man of big appetites, enormous passions and tall tales. In his later years, he remains a huge mystery to his son, William. Now, to get to know the real man, Will begins piecing together a true picture of his father from flashbacks of his amazing adventures.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Sound of Silence (2019)
A successful "house tuner" in New York City, who calibrates the sound in people's homes in order to adjust their moods, meets a client with a problem he can't solve.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisHereafter (2010)
Three people — a blue-collar American, a French journalist and a London school boy — are touched by death in different ways.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEleanor the Great (2025)
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Never Sang for My Father (1970)
A man living in the towering shadow of his aging father finds it difficult to start a new chapter in his life by marrying his girlfriend and moving to California.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Childhood of a Leader (2016)
The chilling story of a young American boy living in France in 1918 whose father is working for the US government on the creation of the Treaty of Versailles. What he witnesses helps to mold his beliefs – and we witness the birth of a terrifying ego.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBang the Drum Slowly (1973)
The story of a New York pro baseball team and two of its players. Henry Wiggen is the star pitcher and Bruce Pearson is the normal, everyday catcher who is far from the star player on the team and friend to all of his teammates. During the off-season, Bruce learns that he is terminally ill, and Henry, his only true friend, is determined to be the one person there for him during his last season with the club. Throughout the course of the season, Henry and his teammates attempt to deal with Bruce's impending illness, all the while attempting to make his last year a memorable one.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBridge to Terabithia (2007)
Jesse Aarons trained all summer to become the fastest runner in school. So he's very upset when newcomer Leslie Burke outruns him and everyone else. Despite this and other differences including that she's rich, he's poor, she's a city girl, and he's a country boy the two become fast friends. Together they create Terabithia, a land of monsters, trolls, ogres, and giants where they rule as king and queen.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLucy (2018)
A solitary Foley Artist secretly films his neighbor and reconstructs the sounds of her life, while creating an imaginary relationship that leads him to discover closely the true sound of his obsession: Lucy.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Cesta ženy (1975)
A chronicle of dramatic events capturing the fates of people living in a Slovak village just after World War II. Thirty years later, the main character Anna recalls a decision that fundamentally changed her life. During the period of incipient collectivization, she chose happiness and a difficult life with a poor man founding a cooperative in the village, although this significantly weakened her relationship with her own mother and at the same time interrupted a long-standing tradition in relation to the preservation of family property.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Down with the King (2021)
Sent to the Berkshires to focus on his next album, disillusioned rap star Money Merc abruptly announces his retirement on Twitter. After Merc's announcement, his manager rushes to the countryside to lure him back into the music industry.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Spanglish (2004)
Mexican immigrant and single mother Flor Moreno finds housekeeping work with Deborah and John Clasky, a well-off couple with two children of their own. When Flor admits she can't handle the schedule because of her daughter, Cristina, Deborah decides they should move into the Clasky home. Cultures clash and tensions run high as Flor and the Claskys struggle to share space while raising their children on their own, and very different, terms.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTriptych o láske (1981)
TV movie "Triptych of love" was created by short stories by famous Slovak writer Ladislava Nádaši - Jégeho. Historical themes in his works have an ambition to bring over to look attractive environment and time bygone era strong dramatic stories and exciting human destinies. Renaissance short stories from the collection "Italy" are a variety of views from different backgrounds, linking theme of many forms of love, its tones and semitones, from bitterly ridiculous after tragic. Screenwriter Ján Števček that dramatically processed three Jégeho stories.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Wednesdays (2011)
Every Wednesday, 8 year old Kris accompanies 28 year old Willem to the swimming pool. They swim, go down the slide and have a lot of fun. But one Wednesday Willem confronts Kris with a frightening request...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
As Good as It Gets (1997)
A misanthropic author, a single mother and waitress, and a gay artist form an unlikely friendship after the artist is assaulted in a robbery.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisExistuje vlastně Mr. Johns? (1963)
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Tara Road (2005)
A grieving Connecticut mother temporarily switches houses with a woman in Dublin, Ireland.
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 The Swimmer?
The closest matches to The Swimmer are NYAD (2023), Puzzle (2018) and Pride (2007). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Swimmer?
Start with NYAD (2023), the closest match to The Swimmer.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Swimmer?
Big Fish (2003), rated 7.7/10 by 8,042 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Swimmer?
Eleanor the Great (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Swimmer?
Yes: NYAD (2023), Puzzle (2018) and Pride (2007).
How are movies similar to The Swimmer chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Swimmer, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.