Movies like Chinese Roulette (1977)
The best movies like Chinese Roulette (1977) are Heidi (1937), Heidi (2015) and Ghosts (2005). If Chinese Roulette hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedRan (1985)8.0/10 from 1,968 votes
- NewestI Was Octomom: The Natalie Suleman Story (2025)Released 2025
- In GermanHeidi (2015)Also in German
Heidi (1937)
Heidi is orphaned and her uncaring maternal Aunt Dete takes her to the mountains to live with her reclusive, grumpy paternal grandfather, Adolph Kramer. Heidi brings her grandfather back into mountain society through her sweet ways and sheer love. When Dete later returns and steals Heidi away to become the companion of a rich man's wheelchair-bound daughter, the grandfather is heartsick to discover his little girl missing and immediately sets out to get her back.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHeidi (2015)
Heidi, is an eight-year-old Swiss orphan who is given by her aunt to her mountain-dwelling grandfather. She is then stolen back by her aunt from her grandfather to live in the wealthy Sesemann household in Frankfurt, Germany as a companion to Klara, a sheltered, disabled girl in a wheelchair. Heidi is unhappy but makes the best of the situation, always longing for her grandfather.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGhosts (2005)
Nina, a mentally ill teenage orphan, starts a new job as a garden cleaner when she meets Toni. They fall in love but soon Toni starts betraying Nina. Meanwhile, Francoise is picked up at a Berlin psychiatric hospital by her husband, Pierre. After spotting Nina, Francoise believes that she has found her kidnapped daughter Marie, but no one believes her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJerichow (2008)
In a small Northern German town, a dishonourably discharged Afghanistan veteran is offered a job as a deliveryman by an alcoholic Turkish entrepreneur, through which the former meets the latter's gorgeous wife.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlonde Venus (1932)
In an effort to be able to afford expensive treatment for her gravely ill American husband, a retired German entertainer returns to the cabaret as Blonde Venus and catches the eye of a wealthy politician.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAnother Woman (1988)
Marion is a woman who has learned to shield herself from her emotions. She rents an apartment to work undisturbed on her new book, but by some acoustic anomaly she can hear all that is said in the next apartment in which a psychiatrist holds his office. When she hears a young woman tell that she finds it harder and harder to bear her life, Marion starts to reflect on her own life. After a series of events she comes to understand how her unemotional attitude towards the people around her affected them and herself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhat Maisie Knew (2013)
In New York City, six-year-old Maisie is caught in the middle of a bitter custody battle between her self-absorbed parents—an aging rock singer mother and a distracted art dealer father. As both quickly marry new partners to strengthen their legal standing, Maisie is shuttled back and forth in an endless game of emotional point-scoring. Yet amid the chaos and upheaval, Maisie begins to find true comfort and affection in her new step-parents.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLola (1981)
Germany in the autumn of 1957: Lola, a seductive cabaret singer-prostitute exults in her power as a temptress of men, but she wants out—she wants money, property, and love. Pitting a corrupt building contractor against the new straight-arrow building commissioner, Lola launches an outrageous plan to elevate herself in a world where everything, and everyone, is for sale. Shot in childlike candy colors, Fassbinder’s homage to Josef von Sternberg’s classic The Blue Angel stands as a satiric tribute to capitalism.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSleuth (2007)
Locked in a high-tech English manor, bound in a deadly duel of wits, Andrew Wyke and Milo Tindle come together as English gentlemen to discuss the matter of Wyke's wife: the woman both are sleeping with.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisValkyrie (2008)
Wounded in Africa during World War II, Nazi Col. Claus von Stauffenberg returns to his native Germany and joins the Resistance in a daring plan to create a shadow government and assassinate Adolf Hitler. When events unfold so that he becomes a central player, he finds himself tasked with both leading the coup and personally killing the Führer.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTÁR (2022)
As celebrated conductor Lydia Tár starts rehearsals for a career-defining symphony, the consequences of her past choices begin to echo in the present.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMildred Pierce (1945)
A hard-working mother inches towards disaster as she divorces her husband and starts a successful restaurant business to support her spoiled daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOne & Two (2015)
In an isolated farmhouse, located in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by a mysterious wooden wall, Zac and Eva, two siblings gifted with extraordinary abilities, endure every day the wrath of their strict father while witnessing how a cruel sickness lurks their beloved mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCreed III (2023)
After dominating the boxing world, Adonis Creed has thrived in his career and family life. When a childhood friend and former boxing prodigy, Damian Anderson, resurfaces after serving a long sentence in prison, he is eager to prove that he deserves his shot in the ring. The face-off between former friends is more than just a fight. To settle the score, Adonis must put his future on the line to battle Damian — a fighter with nothing to lose.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe German Lesson (2019)
In a small North German village a drama played out during and shortly after the Second World War about duty versus individual conscience and morality.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972)
Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Million Minutes (2024)
Vera and Wolf Küper live in Berlin with their 5-year-old daughter Nina and their one-year-old son Simon. Vera takes care of the children and the household alongside a part-time job, while Wolf works as a scientific advisor to the UN, trying to raise awareness of the seriousness of the coming climate catastrophe. The stressful everyday life in a system that is not exactly family-friendly puts increasing strain on the young family and the couple's relationship. The Küper family's way of life is finally shaken to the core when little Nina is diagnosed with a fine motor and coordination disorder. At this moment, Wolf remembers a wish that his daughter expressed shortly before going to bed. Nina would like to have a million minutes, just for the really nice things.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisColonel Redl (1985)
Set during the fading glory of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the film tells of the rise and fall of Alfred Redl, an ambitious young officer who proceeds up the ladder to become head of the Secret Police only to become ensnared in political deception.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Whole Life (2023)
When Andreas arrives in the remote valley in the Austrian Alps, he is only about four years old - nobody knows for sure. He grows up to become a skilled farmhand and, as a young man, joins a work crew that builds one of the first mountain railroads, bringing light and noise to the valley along with electricity. He also finds the love of his life in Marie, but their happiness is short-lived. Only many years later, when Andreas embarks on his final journey, she is with him once again. And in amazement Andreas looks back at all the years that lie behind him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Bet (1971)
A young woman leaves her older husband, the owner of a village mill, for a truck driver whom she met while he was in their village by business. While trying to find him, she experiences the life in suburbia, and gets back to her husband disappointed, disgraced and humiliated.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
God Bless All Parents (2012)
With so much prestige and value attached to English in Hong Kong, it’s little surprise parents go to extraordinary lengths to give the best language education for their children. In comes the perfect solution: a learning kit that promises a head start in life, a two-in-one answer to a growing kid and a frustrated stay-at-home mom. Its only downside is the price tag – a hefty HK$53,000! Will our couple succumb to pressure sales tactics – by turns forceful, subliminal and persuasive – ignore their better judgment and rise to the bait?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Ran (1985)
Shakespeare's King Lear is reimagined as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan where an aging warlord divides his kingdom between his three sons.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisJealous Jerzy (2010)
Jerzy goes out on a walk to pick up Chinese food for himself and his girlfriend, Thora. He thinks back to meeting Thora's boss at her office, Terry. Then his mind goes somewhere else.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The I Inside (2004)
When Simon awakens in the hospital after surviving a near-fatal accident, amnesia has erased the last two years from his memory. He learns that his brother was killed, he has married a woman he doesn't remember and he's haunted by strange visions of the woman he loved.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisCrimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
A renowned ophthalmologist is desperate to cut off an adulterous relationship…which ends up in murder; and a frustrated documentary filmmaker woos an attractive television producer while making a film about her insufferably self-centered boss.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBora Bora (1968)
A Frenchman finds his runaway wife on an island in the Pacific.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Method (2017)
A seasoned actor and a pop star are cast as leads in a gay romantic play. As the actor teaches the pop star method acting, the line between fiction and reality is blurred and they become drawn to each other.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAngel (2007)
Edwardian England. A precocious girl from a poor background with aspirations to being a novelist finds herself swept to fame and fortune when her tasteless romances hit the best seller lists. Her life changes in unexpected ways when she encounters an aristocratic brother and sister, both of whom have cultural ambitions, and both of whom fall in love with her.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisI Was Octomom: The Natalie Suleman Story (2025)
The movie follows Suleman’s journey starting from her decision to have one more IVF procedure to complete her then family of six, to becoming a mother of 14, having survived her life being torn apart by the tabloid media.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Chinese Roulette?
The closest matches to Chinese Roulette are Heidi (1937), Heidi (2015) and Ghosts (2005). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Chinese Roulette?
Start with Heidi (1937), the closest match to Chinese Roulette.
What is the highest-rated movie like Chinese Roulette?
Ran (1985), rated 8.0/10 by 1,968 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Chinese Roulette?
I Was Octomom: The Natalie Suleman Story (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there German movies like Chinese Roulette?
Yes: Heidi (2015), Ghosts (2005) and Jerichow (2008).
How are movies similar to Chinese Roulette chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Chinese Roulette, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.