Movies like The Eighth Day (1996)
The best movies like The Eighth Day (1996) are Hail Mary (1985), Three Colors: Blue (1993) and Thank You, Life (1991). If The Eighth Day hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe 400 Blows (1959)8.0/10 from 2,424 votes
- NewestAll of a Sudden (2026)Released 2026
- In FrenchHail Mary (1985)Also in French
Hail Mary (1985)
A college student gets pregnant without having intercourse, affecting people close and unrelated to her in different ways.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThree Colors: Blue (1993)
The wife of a famous composer survives a car accident that kills her husband and daughter. Now alone, she shakes off her old identity and explores her newfound freedom but finds that she is unbreakably bound to other humans, including her husband’s mistress, whose existence she never suspected.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThank You, Life (1991)
Camille, a naïve schoolgirl, meets an intriguing influence in Joelle, a slightly older and much more experienced spirit. Camille follows her new friend through the discovery of sex and the darker side of life. As the film progresses, Camille discovers AIDS and the fear that she may have picked up the disease in her early encounters.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe 400 Blows (1959)
For young Parisian boy Antoine Doinel, life is one difficult situation after another. Surrounded by inconsiderate adults, including his neglectful parents, Antoine spends his days with his best friend, Rene, trying to plan for a better life. When one of their schemes goes awry, Antoine ends up in trouble with the law, leading to even more conflicts with unsympathetic authority figures.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisPeaceful (2021)
A son in denial of a serious illness. A mother facing the unbearable. And between them a doctor fighting to do his job and bring them to acceptance. The three of them have one year and four seasons to come together and understand what it means to die while living.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWit (2001)
A renowned professor is forced to reassess her life when she is diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisJean de Florette (1986)
In a rural French village, an old man and his only remaining relative cast their covetous eyes on an adjoining vacant property. They need its spring water for growing their flowers, and are dismayed to hear that the man who has inherited it is moving in. They block up the spring and watch as their new neighbour tries to keep his crops watered from wells far afield through the hot summer. Though they see his desperate efforts are breaking his health and his wife and daughter's hearts, they think only of getting the water.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCold Water (1994)
An outer suburb of Paris, 1972. Gilles and Christine, both sixteen, are classmates and lovers who have become frustrated with the aloofness of their families and the general monotony of their lives. When the pair are caught shoplifting, Christine's father ships her off to a home for emotionally disturbed children, temporarily putting space between her and Gilles. Luckily for them, though, she escapes and the couple contemplate running away together.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)
Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor-in-chief of French fashion bible Elle magazine, has a devastating stroke at age 43. The damage to his brain stem results in locked-in syndrome, with which he is almost completely paralyzed and only able to communicate by blinking an eye. Bauby painstakingly dictates his memoir via the only means of expression left to him.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Doctor (1991)
Jack McKee is a doctor with it all: he's successful, he's rich, and he has no problems.... until he is diagnosed with throat cancer. Now that he has seen medicine, hospitals, and doctors from a patient's perspective, he realises that there is more to being a doctor than surgery and prescriptions.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIt All Starts Today (1999)
In a mining town which has been blighted by economic downturns, an elementary school headmaster struggles to obtain social services on behalf of his students.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAll of a Sudden (2026)
Director of a care facility for the elderly, Marie-Lou strives to introduce an innovative care philosophy based on listening and respecting residents’ dignity, despite resistance from part of her staff. Her encounter with Mari, a Japanese theater director battling cancer, will profoundly reshape her path. By forming a deep, supportive friendship, the two women join forces in a shared struggle to make the impossible possible.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Children of the Marshland (1999)
The film is set in Marais, a quiet region along the banks of Loire river in 1918. Riton is afflicted with a bad-tempered wife and three unruly children. Garris lives alone with his recollections of World War I trenches. Their daily life consists of seasonal work and visits from their two pals: Tane, the local train conductor and Amédée, a dreamer and voracious reader of classics.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisJacquot (1991)
Jacquot Demy, the son of a garage owner and a hairdresser, is fascinated by cinema and decides to pursue his dream of becoming a filmmaker by any means necessary.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIn Praise of Love (2001)
Someone we hear talking - but whom we do not see - speaks of a project which describes the four key moments of love: meeting, physical passion, arguments/separation and making up. This project is to be told through three couples: young, adult and old. We do not know if the project is for a play, a film, a novel or an opera. The author of the project is always accompanied by a kind of servant. Meanwhile, two years earlier, an American civil servant meets with an elderly French couple who had fought in the Resistance during World War II, brokering a deal with a Hollywood director to buy the rights to tell their story. The members of the old couple's family discuss heatedly questions of nation, memory and history.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Favorite Season (1993)
Elderly woman Berthe leaves her house to live with her daughter Emilie. Emilie and her brother Antoine had a falling out three years ago and have not seen each other since, but Emilie invites him for Christmas. Memories will resurface and impact both Berthe's destiny and the strange relationship between Emilie and Antoine.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Hairdresser's Husband (1990)
Antoine has always been fascinated by a hairdresser's delicate touch, the beguiling perfume, and the enticing figure of a woman with an opulent bosom. After all, he had always known he would marry one, completing his idealized love fantasy.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTime to Leave (2005)
Romain, 31, a fashion photographer with terminal cancer, elects to die alone, preparing others to live past him rather than prolong the inevitable with chemotherapy or be smothered in sympathy by those who know him.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSummer Hours (2008)
After the death of a septuagenarian woman, her three children deliberate over what to do with her estate.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHideaway (Le refuge) (2009)
Mousse and Louis are young, beautiful, rich and in love. But drugs have invaded their lives. One day, they overdose and Louis dies. Mousse survives, but soon learns she's pregnant. Feeling lost, Mousse runs away to a house far from Paris. Several months later, Louis' brother joins her in her refuge.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMonsieur Ibrahim (2003)
Paris, 1960s. Momo, a resolute and independent Jewish teenager who lives with his father, a sullen and depressed man, in a working-class neighborhood, develops a close friendship with Monsieur Ibrahim, an elderly Muslim who owns a small grocery store.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCléo from 5 to 7 (1962)
Agnès Varda eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time portrait of a singer set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of the minutes of one woman’s life, Cléo from 5 to 7 is a spirited mix of vivid vérité and melodrama, featuring a score by Michel Legrand and cameos by Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMemories of Tomorrow (2006)
After being stricken with Alzheimer's disease in the prime of his life, a successful young businessman slips slowly away from his loving family.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
In Safe Hands (2018)
Théo is given up for adoption by his biological mother on the very day he is born. After this anonymous birth, the mother has two months to change her mind… Or not. The child welfare services and adoption service spring into action… The former have to take care of the baby and support it during this limbo-like time, this period of uncertainty, while the latter must find a woman to become his adoptive mother. She is called Alice, and she has spent the last ten years fighting to have a child.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAll the Invisible Children (2006)
Seven short films - each one focused on the plight of a different child protagonist.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThree Colors: White (1994)
Polish immigrant Karol Karol finds himself out of a marriage, a job and a country when his French wife, Dominique, divorces him after six months due to his impotence. Forced to leave France after losing the business they jointly owned, Karol enlists fellow Polish expatriate Mikołaj to smuggle him back to their homeland.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFlight of the Red Balloon (2008)
The first part in a new series of films produced by Musée d'Orsay, 'Flight of the Red Balloon' tells the story of a French family as seen through the eyes of a Chinese student. The film was shot in August and September 2006 on location in Paris. This is Hou Hsiao-Hsien's first Western film. It is based on the classic French short The Red Balloon directed by Albert Lamorisse.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Memory Keeper's Daughter (2008)
During a blizzard in 1964, Dr. David Henry delivers his son Paul with the help of nurse Caroline. But when Henry realizes his wife is also carrying a girl with Down syndrome, he hands the second child over to Caroline without his wife's knowledge. Henry's fateful decision yields grave consequences for his family over the next 20 years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Child Is Waiting (1963)
Dr. Matthew Clark is the head of a state institution for intellectually disabled children. Jean Hansen, a former music teacher anxious to give her life some meaning, joins the staff of the hospital. Jean, who tries to shelter the children with her love, suspiciously regards Dr. Clark's stern training methods. She becomes emotionally involved with 12-year-old Reuben Widdicombe, who has been abandoned by his divorced parents.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Eighth Day?
The closest matches to The Eighth Day are Hail Mary (1985), Three Colors: Blue (1993) and Thank You, Life (1991). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Eighth Day?
People who watched The Eighth Day most often go on to Hail Mary (1985), Three Colors: Blue (1993) and Thank You, Life (1991).
What is the highest-rated movie like The Eighth Day?
The 400 Blows (1959), rated 8.0/10 by 2,424 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Eighth Day?
All of a Sudden (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like The Eighth Day?
Yes: Hail Mary (1985), Three Colors: Blue (1993) and Thank You, Life (1991).
How are movies similar to The Eighth Day chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Eighth Day, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.