Movies like The Vertical Ray of the Sun (2000)
The best movies like The Vertical Ray of the Sun (2000) are Fire with Fire (1986), Inventing the Abbotts (1997) and Dirt Music (2020). If The Vertical Ray of the Sun 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 ratedAtonement (2007)7.6/10 from 4,909 votes
- NewestTime Is Up (2021)Released 2021
Fire with Fire (1986)
A tough, street-smart kid serving a sentence in a state youth reformatory meets a beautiful, innocent girl studying at a nearby convent. When forbidden love blossoms between them, they must fight the prison authorities, their parents and the law.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisInventing the Abbotts (1997)
In the 1950s, brothers Jacey and Doug Holt, who come from the poorer side of their sleepy Midwestern town, vie for the affections of the wealthy, lovely Abbott sisters. Lady-killer Jacey alternates between Eleanor and Alice, wanting simply to break the hearts of rich young women. But sensitive Doug has a real romance with Pamela, which Jacey and the Abbott patriarch, Lloyd, both frown upon.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDirt Music (2020)
Georgie is slowly suffocating in a loveless marriage to fishing tycoon Jim Buckridge. Handsome poacher Lu is an irresistible symbol of the excitement she craves. A passionate affair follows that reveals the dark secrets in Lu’s past and forces him to take flight into the blistering heat of the outback. Georgie follows, determined to find him and bring him back.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Dreamers (2003)
When Isabelle and Theo invite Matthew to stay with them, what begins as a casual friendship ripens into a sensual voyage of discovery and desire in which nothing is off limits and everything is possible.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisClose My Eyes (1991)
After some years of tension, Richard begins a sexual relationship with his sister Natalie. Now married, the relationship proves dangerously obsessional.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisA Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate (1923)
When Marie St. Clair believes she has been jilted by her artist fiance Jean, she decides to leave for Paris on her own. After spending a year in the city as a mistress of the wealthy Pierre Revel, she is reunited with Jean by chance. This leaves her with the choice between a glamorous life in Paris, and the true love she left behind.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAn Officer and a Gentleman (1982)
Zack Mayo is an aloof, taciturn man who aspires to be a navy pilot. Once he arrives at training camp for his 13-week officer's course, Mayo runs afoul of abrasive, no-nonsense drill Sergeant Emil Foley. Mayo is an excellent cadet, but a little cold around the heart, so Foley rides him mercilessly, sensing that the young man would be prime officer material if he weren't so self-involved. Zack's affair with a working girl is likewise compromised by his unwillingness to give of himself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAshes in the Snow (2018)
The coming-of-age tale of 16-year-old Lina Vilkas who is deported to Siberia amid Stalin's reign of terror in the Baltic region during WWII. An aspiring artist, she secretly documents her harrowing journey with her drawings.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTime Is Up (2021)
Vivien, an accomplished student with a passion for physics, and Roy, a troubled young man, are involved in an accident that forces them to reclaim their lives one minute at the time.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisElena Undone (2010)
The wife of a pastor who preaches against homosexuality embarks on an affair with a female writer.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMaria's Lovers (1984)
A World War II prisoner returns home to his childhood sweetheart. However, back home, he discovers that he has to compete to win her love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAtonement (2007)
A young girl irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Fugitive Kind (1960)
Val Xavier, a drifter of obscure origins, arrives at a small town and gets a job in a store run by Lady Torrence. Her husband, Jabe M. Torrance, is dying of cancer. Val is pursued by Carol Cutere, the enigmatic local tramp-of-good-family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Last Time I Saw Paris (1954)
Reporter Charles Wills, in Paris to cover the end of World War II, falls for the beautiful Helen Ellswirth following a brief flirtation with her sister, Marion. After he and Helen marry, Charles pursues his novelistic ambition while supporting his new bride with a deadening job at a newspaper wire service. But when an old investment suddenly makes the family wealthy, their marriage begins to unravel — until a sudden tragedy changes everything.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMiss Saigon: 25th Anniversary Performance (2016)
The epic love story tells the tragic tale of young Vietnamese bar girl Kim, orphaned by war, who falls in love with American GI Chris — but their lives are torn apart by the fall of Saigon.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisOrphans of the Storm (1921)
France, on the eve of the French Revolution. Henriette and Louise have been raised together as sisters. When the plague that takes their parents' lives causes Louise's blindness, they decide to travel to Paris in search of a cure, but they separate when a lustful aristocrat crosses their path.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTwin Falls Idaho (1999)
Francis and Blake Falls are Siamese twins who live in a neat little room in a rundown hotel. While sharing some organs, Blake is always fit and Francis is very sickly. Into their world comes a young lady, who turns their world upside down. She gets involved with Blake, and convinces the two to attend a Halloween party, where they can pass themselves off as wearing a costume. Eventually Francis becomes really ill, and they have to be separated. They then face the physical and mental strains that come from their proposed separation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Beautiful Country (2004)
After reuniting with his mother in Ho Chi Minh City, a family tragedy causes Binh to flee from Viet Nam to America. Landing in New York, Binh begins a road trip to Texas, where his American father is said to live.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJacknife (1989)
A conflict develops between a troubled Vietnam veteran and the sister he lives with when she becomes involved romantically with the army buddy who reminds him of the tragic battle they both survived.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Indian Runner (1991)
Two brothers cannot overcome their opposite perceptions of life. One brother sees and feels bad in everyone and everything, subsequently he is violent, antisocial and unable to appreciate or enjoy the good things which his brother desperately tries to point out to him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Simple Plan (1998)
Captivated by the lure of sudden wealth, the quiet rural lives of two brothers erupt into conflicts of greed, paranoia and distrust when over $4 million in cash is discovered at the remote site of a downed small airplane. Their simple plan to retain the money while avoiding detection opens a Pandora's box when the fear of getting caught triggers panicked behavior and leads to virulent consequences.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHappiness (1998)
The lives of several individuals intertwine as they go about their lives in their own unique ways, engaging in acts which society as a whole might find disturbing in a desperate search for human connection.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Client (1994)
A street-wise kid, Mark Sway, sees the suicide of Jerome Clifford, a prominent Louisiana lawyer, whose current client is Barry 'The Blade' Muldano, a Mafia hit-man. Before Jerome shoots himself, he tells Mark where the body of a Senator is buried. Clifford shoots himself and Mark is found at the scene, and both the FBI and the Mafia quickly realize that Mark probably knows more than he says.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFoxes of Chironup (1987)
Foxes Ken and Chin become the proud parents of cubs, Koro and Kan, who enjoy a carefree life on the northern Japanese island of Chironup. They befriend a fisherman and his wife but are forced to run for their lives when soldiers on a military exercise decide to take home some fox pelts as souvenirs. A sweet little film that obliquely symbolizes the plight of Japan's aboriginal Ainu people and the northern islands that have been contested with Russia since they were occupied by Stalin's soldiers in 1945.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Margarete Steiff (2005)
Based on the life of German toymaker Margarete Steiff, the movie shows her long way from a 10-year-old girl, confined to a wheelchair, to one of the first and most successful creators of toy stuffed animals.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Farinelli (1994)
The life and career of Italian opera singer Farinelli, considered one of the greatest castrato singers of all time.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPeaceful Times (2008)
After fleeing to the West in 1961, peaceful times were supposed to begin for the Striesows. But Irene longs for the familiar GDR, fears her husband Dieter's supposed "second wives" and expects the Third World War every day. When the war finally breaks out in the living room, her children Ute, Wasa and Flori decide to help their mother's happiness along, with unexpected consequences.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Wheels on Meals (1984)
Cousins Thomas and David, owners of a mobile restaurant, team up with their friend Moby, a bumbling private detective, to save the beautiful Sylvia, a pickpocket.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe White Rose (1982)
During the Second World War, a small group of students at Munich University begin to question the decisions and sanity of Germany's Nazi government. The students form a resistance cell which they name the "White Rose" after a newsletter that is secretly distributed to the student body. At first small in numbers and fearful of discovery, the White Rose begins to gain massive support after a Nazi Gauleiter nearly incites a student riot after a provokative speech. At this point, the matter is taken over by the German Gestapo, who pledge to hunt down and destroy the members of the White Rose.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Rhubarb (TBA)
Two adult siblings try their best to navigate the individual and shared grief following their beloved dog's death.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Vertical Ray of the Sun?
The closest matches to The Vertical Ray of the Sun are Fire with Fire (1986), Inventing the Abbotts (1997) and Dirt Music (2020). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Vertical Ray of the Sun?
Start with Fire with Fire (1986), the closest match to The Vertical Ray of the Sun.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Vertical Ray of the Sun?
Atonement (2007), rated 7.6/10 by 4,909 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Vertical Ray of the Sun?
Time Is Up (2021) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to The Vertical Ray of the Sun chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Vertical Ray of the Sun, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.