Movies like Desire (1990)
The best movies like Desire (1990) are The Butcher (1998), Rogue Agent (2022) and Eleanor the Great (2025). If Desire hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedOn My Skin (2018)8.0/10 from 1,908 votes
- NewestGioia (2026)Released 2026
- In ItalianThe Butcher (1998)Also in Italian
The Butcher (1998)
Alina is a brilliant and enterprising woman who runs a successful art gallery in Palermo. Her husband Daniele, a successful orchestra conductor, cultured and intelligent, is not a regular presence. One day, while accompanying Daniele to the airport, Alina feels a sense of emptiness. She will try to fill it with a butcher who is always joking and full of erotic allusions and who arouses a strong attraction in her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRogue Agent (2022)
Conman Robert Freegard poses as an undercover MI5 agent and kidnaps countless victims amidst a high-stakes manhunt, until the woman who fell for him brings him to justice.
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 thisThe Trials of Cate McCall (2013)
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Brutalist (2024)
When an innovative modern architect flees post-war Europe, he is given the opportunity to rebuild his legacy. Set during the dawn of the modern United States (in Pennsylvania), his wife joins him, and their lives are forever changed by a demanding, wealthy patron.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThings We Don't Say (2026)
Carlo and Elisa are a successful couple. He’s a university professor and writer facing a creative block; she’s a brilliant, sharp-witted journalist, known for her internationally published editorials. They live in Rome, moving between accomplishments and routine, affection and something that might be fading. In search of new energy, they travel to Morocco with their lifelong friends, Anna and Paolo, and their thirteen-year-old daughter Vittoria—bright, curious, a little eccentric. Tensions soon rise.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHounddog (2008)
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Roof (1956)
Under provincial Italian law at the time, once a roof is erected, the occupants cannot be evicted from a building. This film follows the efforts of a family to erect the roof on a house overnight so that a newlywed couple can have their own home.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEffie Gray (2014)
A look at the mysterious relationship between Victorian art critic John Ruskin and his teenage bride Effie Gray.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEverything's Gonna Be Alright (2020)
Bruno Salvati is a director of little success, fresh from the separation from his wife Anna with whom he had two children, the twenty-year-old Adele and the seventeen-year-old Tito. Following a sudden illness, Bruno is diagnosed with a disease that requires the intervention of a donor. All his family relationships are called into question, including that with his father Umberto, the custodian of a secret that will force Bruno to embark on a journey in search of someone who can help him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGoal II: Living the Dream (2007)
Tempted away from Newcastle United to join Real Madrid, rising star Santiago Munez finds this latest change of fortune the greatest challenge yet - personally as well as professionally. He is reunited with Gavin Harris, though they must compete to be on the team, and estranged from fiancee Roz, whose nursing career keeps her back home.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies 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 thisMy Tennis Maestro (2025)
Italy, 1989. After years of hard training, 13-year-old Felice, carrying his father's expectations on his shoulders, finally sets out to compete in the national tennis tournaments. While dreaming of a simple summer vacation, he's instead placed under the wing of ex tennis champion Raul, an unconventional coach hired by his father. Match after match, the two embark on a journey that will lead Felice to discover the taste of freedom, and Raul to glimpse the possibility of a fresh start. As they travel along the Italian coast, an unexpected, deep, and sincere bond between them develops.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGioia (2026)
Gioia is a high school teacher who has never known any other love than the oppressive bond with her own parents, with whom she still lives. One of the students at her school, Alessio, is cashing in on his own body to make a couple of hundred euros to help his mother, a cashier in a supermarket. The relationship that dawns between Gioia and Alessio is forbidden fruit, fragile yet, inexplicably, one they can’t do without. Still, Alessio’s desire to improve his social standing is a silent killer that prevents him from ultimately accepting Gioia’s surprising affection for him. He goes and destroys it all, cancelling the only person who has ever loved him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTigertail (2020)
A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOn My Skin (2018)
The incredible true story behind the most controversial Italian court cases in recent years. Stefano Cucchi was arrested for a minor crime and mysteriously found dead during his detention. In one week's time, a family is changed forever.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisHands of Stone (2016)
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJungleland (2020)
Stanley manages his boxer brother Lion but when a devastating loss in the ring leaves the pair in debt, an opportunity to recoup the cash leads to a series of misadventures that threaten to break the bond between them.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBobby Jones: Stroke of Genius (2004)
The story of golf icon and legend, Bobby Jones, who retired from competition at the tender age of 28.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisHusbands and Lovers (1991)
Stefan finds that he can no longer tolerate the arrangement of his cheating wife ... he, the husband, gets her during the week and her lover gets her on the weekends. At the same time the wife finds herself increasingly drawn to the violence of her lover versus the adoration of her husband.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLa Grande Bouffe (1973)
Four friends gather at a villa with the intention of eating themselves to death.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLittle Women (1994)
Four sisters come of age in America in the aftermath of the Civil War.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLolita (1997)
Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged British novelist who is both appalled by and attracted to the vulgarity of American culture. When he comes to stay at the boarding house run by Charlotte Haze, he soon becomes obsessed with Lolita, the woman's teenaged daughter.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisProof (2005)
Catherine is a woman in her late twenties who is strongly devoted to her father, Robert, a brilliant and well-known mathematician whose grip on reality is beginning to slip away. As Robert descends into madness, Catherine begins to wonder if she may have inherited her father's mental illness along with his mathematical genius.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhere the Truth Lies (2005)
An ambitious reporter probes the reasons behind the sudden split of a 1950s comedy team.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWild Things 2 (2004)
Two Florida high school vixens hatch a murderous plan to win an inheritance, but they hadn't bargained for an escalating whirlpool of blackmail and sexual games with a sleazy insurance investigator who has his own plans for the money.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Good Girl (2002)
A discount store clerk strikes up an affair with a stock boy who considers himself the incarnation of Holden Caulfield.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhat Goes Up (2009)
Set in the mid-80s, when a reporter is sent to cover the Challenger Space Shuttle launch only to become mixed up in the lives of some local students.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Rampage: The Hillside Strangler Murders (2006)
Kenneth Bianchi, one of the two serial rapists and killers who terrorized the Los Angeles area in the late 1970s, is giving police station interviews to psychiatrist Samantha Stone, who has disquieting lifestyle issues of her own. It falls to her to delve into the details of the case to determine the veracity of Bianchi's claims of multiple personality disorder, but in so doing, she is forced to relive the horrific crimes, one of which occurs at her very doorstep.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (2008)
Based on Michael Chabon's novel, the film chronicles the defining summer of a recent college graduate who crosses his gangster father and explores love, sexuality, and the enigmas surrounding his life and his city.
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 Desire?
The closest matches to Desire are The Butcher (1998), Rogue Agent (2022) and Eleanor the Great (2025). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Desire?
Start with The Butcher (1998), the closest match to Desire.
What is the highest-rated movie like Desire?
On My Skin (2018), rated 8.0/10 by 1,908 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Desire?
Gioia (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Italian movies like Desire?
Yes: The Butcher (1998), Things We Don't Say (2026) and The Roof (1956).
How are movies similar to Desire chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Desire, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.