Movies like Sayonara (1957)
The best movies like Sayonara (1957) are Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), Mr. and Mrs. Loving (1996) and Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955). If Sayonara 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 ratedGuess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)7.6/10 from 953 votes
- NewestDear John (2010)Released 2010
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
A couple's attitudes are challenged when their daughter brings home a fiancé who is black.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMr. and Mrs. Loving (1996)
A moving and uplifting drama about the effects of interracial marriage in the 1960s. Friends since childhood, and loved by both families, this couple are exiled after their wedding and have to wage a courageous battle to find their place in America as a loving family.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955)
A widowed doctor of both Chinese and European descent falls in love with a married American correspondent in Hong Kong during China's Communist revolution.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Proud and Profane (1956)
In this romantic drama, beautiful Red Cross volunteer Lee Ashley arrives on the South Pacific island of New Caledonia to learn more about the circumstances surrounding the death of her husband, Howard, in the Battle of Guadalcanal. There, Ashley falls for the gruff, seductive Marine Lt. Col. Colin Buck, but struggle and tragedy follow when the widow learns about the reality of Buck's life back home.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
The World of Suzie Wong (1960)
A Hong Kong prostitute tries modeling and falls for the artist who's painting her.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSouth Pacific (1958)
Can a girl from Little Rock find happiness with a mature French planter she got to know one enchanted evening away from the military hospital where she is a nurse? Or should she just wash that man out of her hair? Bloody Mary is the philosopher of the island and it's hard to believe she could be the mother of Liat who has captured the heart of Lt. Joseph Cable USMC. While waiting for action in the war in the South Pacific, sailors and nurses put on a musical comedy show. The war gets closer and the saga of Nellie Forbush and Emile de Becque becomes serious drama.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPicnic (1955)
Labor Day in a small Kansas farm town. Hal, a burly and resolute drifter, jumps off a dusty freight train car with the purpose of visiting Alan, a former college classmate and son of the richest man in town.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFrom Here to Eternity (1953)
In 1941 Hawaii, a private is cruelly punished for not boxing on his unit's team, while his captain's wife and second in command are falling in love.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisImitation of Life (1959)
In 1940s New York, a white widow who dreams of being on Broadway has a chance encounter with a black single mother, who becomes her maid.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThis Property Is Condemned (1966)
Owen Legate, a railroad official, comes to Dodson, Mississippi to shut down the local railway - the town's main income. But Owen unexpectedly finds love with Dodson's flirt and main attraction, Alva Starr.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisToward the Unknown (1956)
Tortured into a false confession while a POW in Korea, Major Lincoln Bond returns to active service as a test pilot. Determined to clear his name, Bond battles a hard-nosed base commander, prejudiced officers and his own insecurities.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
A Summer Place (1959)
A self-made businessman rekindles a romance with a former flame while their two teenage children begin a romance of their own with drastic consequences for both couples.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWild River (1960)
A young bureaucrat for the Tennessee Valley Authority goes to rural Tennessee to oversee the building of a dam. He encounters opposition from the local people, in particular a farmer who objects to his employment (with pay) of local black laborers. Much of the plot revolves around the eviction of a stubborn octogenarian from her home on an island in the river, and the young man's love affair with that woman's widowed granddaughter.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Way We Were (1973)
Opposites attract when, during their college days, Katie Morosky, a politically active Jew, meets Hubbell Gardiner, a feckless WASP. Years later, in the wake of World War II, they meet once again and, despite their obvious differences, attempt to make their love for each other work.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSplendor in the Grass (1961)
A fragile Kansas girl's unrequited and forbidden love for a handsome young man from the town's most powerful family drives her to heartbreak and madness.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPeyton Place (1957)
In the outwardly respectable New England community of Peyton Place, shopkeeper Constance McKenzie tries to make up for a past indiscretion -- which resulted in her illegitimate daughter Allison -- by adopting a chaste, prudish attitude towards all things sexual. In spite of herself, Constance can't help but be attracted to handsome new teacher Michael Rossi. Meanwhile, the restless Allison, who'd like to be as footloose and fancy-free as the town's "fast girl" Betty Anderson, falls sincerely in love with mixed-up mama's boy Norman Page.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Farewell to Arms (1957)
An English nurse and an American soldier on the Italian front during World War I fall in love, but the horrors surrounding them test their romance to the limit.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · 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: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Patch of Blue (1965)
A blind, uneducated white girl is befriended by a black man, who becomes determined to help her escape her impoverished and abusive home life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWritten on the Wind (1956)
Mitch Wayne is a geologist working for the Hadleys, an oil-rich Texas family. While the patriarch, Jasper, works hard to establish the family business, his irresponsible son, Kyle, is an alcoholic playboy, and his daughter, Marylee, is the town tramp. Mitch harbors a secret love for Kyle's unsatisfied wife, Lucy -- a fact that leaves him exposed when the jealous Marylee accuses him of murder.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Sandpiper (1965)
A free-spirited single mother forms a connection with the wedded headmaster of an Episcopalian boarding school in Monterey, California.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYanks (1979)
During WWII, the United States set up army bases in Great Britain as part of the war effort. Against their proper sensibilities, many of the Brits don't much like the brash Yanks, especially when it comes to the G.I.s making advances on the lonely British girls. One relationship that develops is between married John, an Army Captain, and the aristocratic Helen, whose naval husband is away at war. Helen loves her husband, but Helen and John are looking for some comfort during the difficult times.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisNever Say Goodbye (1956)
In present-day U.S., Dr. Michael Parker, a prominent surgeon, unexpectedly runs into his German-born wife whom he thought was dead. Victor, an artist and his "dead" wife's now boyfriend, berates Dr. Parker for "killing" her. The bulk of the story flashes back to Austria during World War II as we learn how Dr. Parker met and married his wife, and the one mistake that may have cost him his family.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
The Rose Tattoo (1955)
A grieving widow embarks on a new romance when she discovers her late husband had been cheating on her.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBright Victory (1951)
A soldier blinded in war returns home and attempts to adjust to civilian life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Ode to Billy Joe (1976)
Set in sultry 1950s Mississippi, two teenagers grapple with surging hormones and the enticing promise of love, unknowing of the tragedy that looms ahead.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958)
A German soldier home on leave falls in love with a girl, then returns to World War II.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Chosen (1981)
In a 1940s New York, two Jewish teenage boys are determined to remain friends despite the deep differences between their families.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Dear John (2010)
While Sergeant John Tyree is home on two weeks leave from Germany, he meets Savannah after he dives into the ocean to retrieve Savannah's purse that had fallen off a pier. John eventually falls in love with Savannah, who promises to write to him until he returns from overseas.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWings (1927)
Two young men, one rich, one middle class, both in love with the same woman, become US Air Corps fighter pilots and, eventually, heroic flying aces during World War I. Devoted best friends, their mutual love of the girl eventually threatens their bond. Meanwhile, a hometown girl who's the lovestruck lifelong next door neighbor of one of them pines away.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Sayonara?
The closest matches to Sayonara are Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), Mr. and Mrs. Loving (1996) and Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Sayonara?
People who watched Sayonara most often go on to Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), Mr. and Mrs. Loving (1996) and Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955).
What is the highest-rated movie like Sayonara?
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), rated 7.6/10 by 953 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Sayonara?
Dear John (2010) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Sayonara?
Yes: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), Mr. and Mrs. Loving (1996) and Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955).
How are movies similar to Sayonara chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Sayonara, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.