Movies like Cyclo (1995)
The best movies like Cyclo (1995) are Three Seasons (1999), The Vertical Ray of the Sun (2000) and The Scent of Green Papaya (1993). If Cyclo hooked you with its drama and crime, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedA Brighter Summer Day (1991)8.2/10 from 416 votes
- NewestViệt and Nam (2024)Released 2024
Three Seasons (1999)
The residents of Ho Chi Minh City face modernization amid widespread poverty. A retired American Marine arrives on a search for his daughter, whom he abandoned at the end of the Vietnam War. Elsewhere, a cyclo driver falls for a troubled prostitute and schemes to raise money so he can spend time with her. Additionally, a young women begins harvesting lotuses for a writer suffering from leprosy, and a child trinket seller loses his traveling case.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
The Vertical Ray of the Sun (2000)
Hanoi comes across almost picture-perfect in director Tran Anh Hung's beautiful, elegiac tale about the lives and loves of three Vietnamese sisters. A mood characteristic of Hung's films is set early on with the vivid sounds of birds, insects and water and the way the lighting enhances the subtle use of color. They all combine to gem-like effect here.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Scent of Green Papaya (1993)
1950s Saigon through the eyes of Mui, a Vietnamese servant girl. At 10 years-old, Mui leaves her village to work for an affluent, troubled family. As she comes of age, Mui finds work in the household of a pianist she has admired since childhood, and finds their relationship growing in complexity.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisInside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (2023)
After a Vietnamese woman dies in a car crash in Saigon, her brother-in-law and her young son transport her body back to the former’s hometown in rural Vietnam, where they plan to give her a funeral.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Third Wife (2019)
Though only 14 years old, May is selected to be the third wife of a wealthy landowner. Her new home seems idyllic, her husband favours her, and she quickly becomes pregnant with what she is certain will be the desired male progeny. But trouble is quietly brewing: she witnesses a forbidden tryst that will spark a chain reaction of misfortunes — and stir in May urges that until now had been dormant.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJourney from the Fall (2007)
Thirteen years after the end of the Vietnam War, a family who was tragically affected by the war are forced to emigrate to America.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Việt and Nam (2024)
In the depths of the underground coal mines, where danger awaits and darkness prevails, Nam and Việt, both young miners, cherish fleeting moments, knowing that one of them will soon leave for a new life across the sea.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
When the Tenth Month Comes (1984)
In the final days of the war, Duyên faces a daily struggle to take care of her young son and ailing father-in-law, all the while hiding from them the fact that her husband has recently been killed in battle.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Ilo Ilo (2013)
During the late 1990s, a busy working-class Singaporean couple hires a Filipino woman as a maid and nanny to their young son.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Brighter Summer Day (1991)
A boy experiences first love, friendships and injustices growing up in 1960s Taiwan.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both crime & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisSong Lang (2018)
Set against a gloriously filmed backdrop of the distinctly jaded charm of mid-90s Saigon, the lives of two men intertwine as they are both bound by traditions and honor. One to his mafia family, the other to the traveling troupe that performs elaborate classic operas. Yet they have much more in common than either wants to admit.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Monsoon (2020)
Kit can’t remember much of his native Vietnam. When he returns to the Land of the Golden Star for the first time in over thirty years, he takes in his local surroundings as any Western tourist would, and the environment is as exotic as the language is incomprehensible. The aim of Kit’s travels – to find a place to scatter his parents’ ashes – thus becomes part of a journey back to his roots and to the discovery of his identity, which external circumstances have rendered ambiguous and complex.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisGoodbye, Dragon Inn (2003)
On a dark, wet night in Taipei City, a cavernous old picture palace is about to close its doors forever. A meager audience, the remaining few staff, and perhaps even a ghost or two, watch King Hu’s wuxia classic "Dragon Inn", each haunted by memories and desires evoked by cinema itself.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Boys from Fengkuei (1983)
Ah-Ching and his friends have just finished school in their island fishing village, and now spend most of their time drinking and fighting. Three of them decide to go to the port city of Kaohsiung to look for work. They find an apartment through relatives, and Ah-Ching is attracted to the girlfriend of a neighbor. There they face the harsh realities of the big city.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDaughter of the Nile (1987)
Lin Hsiao-yang tries to keep her family together while working as a waitress at Kentucky Fried Chicken and going to night school. With no mother and her father currently working out of town, it is up to Lin Hsiao-yang to take care of her younger siblings, who are slipping into a life of crime.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & crime
Yi Yi (2000)
Each member of a family in Taipei asks hard questions about life's meaning as they live through everyday quandaries. NJ is morose: his brother owes him money, his mother is in a coma, his wife suffers a spiritual crisis when she finds her life a blank and his business partners make bad decisions.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisTaipei Suicide Story (2020)
A receptionist at a suicide hotel in Taipei forms a fleeting friendship over the course of one night with a guest who can’t decide if she wants to live or die.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRebels of the Neon God (1994)
In Taipei, four youths face alienation, loneliness, and moments of existential crisis amidst a series of minor crimes.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBoat People (1982)
A Japanese photojournalist revisits Vietnam after the liberation to document the nation, and begins following and documenting the young children from a poor Vietnamese family.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMoon Young (2017)
Mute Moon-young records people's faces with her small camcorder on the subway. One day, she avoids her drunk father at home and films Hee-soo who is crying over saying goodbye to her boyfriend and gets caught. The two feel some sort of kinship and become closer.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Goodbye Mother (2019)
Văn comes back to Ho Chi Minh City from the US with his boyfriend Ian to visit his mother. Being the male heir of the family, everyone expects him to take a wife soon. And to top it all, his grandmother, who has Alzheimer, mistakes Ian for her grandson.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Vive L'Amour (1994)
Three lonely young denizens of Taipei unknowingly share an apartment: May, a real estate agent who uses it for her sexual affairs; Ah-jung, her current lover; and Hsiao-kang, who's stolen the key and uses the apartment as a retreat.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOld Fox (2023)
Set in the late 1980s, this family drama is about an 11-year-old boy who befriends his landlord, nicknamed Old Fox, and learns from him how to survive in a rapidly changing world as well as things his poor father would never be able to teach him.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
What Time Is It There? (2001)
A street vendor with a grim home-life forges a connection with a young woman on her way to Paris.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStray Dogs (2014)
An alcoholic man and his two young children barely survive in Taipei. They cross paths with a lonely grocery clerk who might help them make a better life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Born Losers (1967)
A biker gang incites a reign of terror in a California coastal town that culminates in four teenage girls being raped. Vietnam veteran Billy Jack has had enough, however, and takes on the depraved bikers single-handedly. He rescues young Vicky Barrington from their clutches, but then has to contend with not only the thugs, but also the ineffectual and racist local lawmen, who have it out for the half-Native American Billy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTaxi Driver (1976)
Suffering from insomnia, disturbed loner Travis Bickle takes a job as a New York City cabbie, haunting the streets nightly, growing increasingly detached from reality as he dreams of cleaning up the filthy city.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisGangs of New York (2002)
In early 1860s New York, Irish immigrant Amsterdam Vallon is released from prison and returns to the Five Points, seeking revenge against his father's killer, William Cutting, a powerful anti-immigrant gang leader. He knows that revenge can only be attained by infiltrating Cutting's inner circle. Vallon's journey becomes a fight for personal survival and to find a place for the Irish people.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Corruptor (1999)
Danny is a young cop partnered with Nick, a seasoned but ethically tainted veteran. As the two try to stop a gang war in Chinatown, Danny relies on Nick but grows increasingly uncomfortable with the way Nick gets things done.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDead Presidents (1995)
On the streets they call cash dead presidents. And that's just what a Vietnam veteran is after when he returns home from the war only to find himself drawn into a life of crime. With the aid of his fellow vets he plans the ultimate heist -- a daring robbery of an armored car filled with unmarked U.S. currency!
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Cyclo?
The closest matches to Cyclo are Three Seasons (1999), The Vertical Ray of the Sun (2000) and The Scent of Green Papaya (1993). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Cyclo?
People who watched Cyclo most often go on to Three Seasons (1999), The Vertical Ray of the Sun (2000) and The Scent of Green Papaya (1993).
What is the highest-rated movie like Cyclo?
A Brighter Summer Day (1991), rated 8.2/10 by 416 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Cyclo?
Việt and Nam (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Cyclo chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Cyclo, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.