Movies like Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)
The best movies like Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) are The Long Day Closes (1992), The Neon Bible (1995) and Plenty (1985). If Distant Voices, Still Lives hooked you with its drama and music, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedSecrets & Lies (1996)7.6/10 from 758 votes
- NewestBetter Man (2024)Released 2024
The Long Day Closes (1992)
Bud is a lonely and quiet boy whose moments of solace occur when he sits in rapture at the local cinema, watching towering and iconic figures on the movie screen. The movies give Bud the strength to get through another day as he deals with his oppressive school environment and his burgeoning homosexuality.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Neon Bible (1995)
During a train ride, a teenager recalls his upbringing in 1940s small-town Georgia and the events that have led to this point.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Plenty (1985)
David Hare's account of a one-time French freedom fighter who gradually realizes that her post-war life is not meeting her expectations.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987)
A penniless middle-aged spinster scrapes by giving piano lessons in the Dublin of the 1950s. She makes a sad last bid for love with a fellow resident of her rundown boarding house, who imagines she has the money to bankroll the business he hopes to open.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Vera Drake (2004)
Abortionist Vera Drake finds her beliefs and practices clash with the mores of 1950s Britain – a conflict that leads to tragedy for her family.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Music Room (1958)
An aging, decadent landlord’s passion for music becomes the undoing of his legacy as he sacrifices his wealth in order to compete with the opulent music room of his younger, richer neighbour.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & music
Worth the HypeMovies like thisInsignificance (1985)
Four 1950s icons meet in the same hotel room, and two of them discover more in common between them than they ever anticipated.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWish You Were Here (1987)
In a staid English seaside town after the Second World War, young Lynda grows up with her widowed father and younger sister. Rebellious Lynda has been swearing constantly from an early age. At sixteen, she becomes more exhibitionist and seeks out sexual encounters challenging the prevailing lower-middle class attitudes to sex.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMahler (1974)
Famed composer Gustav Mahler reflects on the tragedies of his life and failing marriage while traveling by train.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Dead (1987)
After a convivial holiday dinner party, things begin to unravel when a husband and wife address some prickly issues concerning their marriage.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSunset Song (2015)
The daughter of a Scottish farmer comes of age in the early 1900s.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Music Lovers (1971)
Composer, conductor and teacher Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky struggles against his homosexual tendencies by marrying, but unfortunately, he chooses wacky nymphomaniac Nina, whom he is unable to satisfy.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Deep Blue Sea (2011)
The wife of a British Judge is caught in a self-destructive love affair with a Royal Air Force pilot.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisMy Life as a Dog (1985)
A boy, obsessed with comparing himself with those less fortunate, experiences a different life at the home of his aunt and uncle in 1959 Sweden.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLadybird Ladybird (1994)
Maggie has had four children, by four different fathers, removed by social services because of a previous violent relationship. When she meets Jorge, a gentle Latin American refugee, she gradually sees her chance for happiness, but her past still haunts her.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Horse Thief (1986)
Devout Buddhists, Norbu and Dolma live with their young son Tashi in a clan in Tibet. Norbu is a highwayman. After Norbu is charged with stealing from the temple, he and his family are banished. Impoverished and marginalized, they can do little when their beloved son becomes ill. Tashi dies of a fever. After a second son is born, Norbu focuses his every action on keeping this child alive, seeking re-admission to the clan for his wife and child, then risking all to save them from isolation and starvation in winter.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSecrets & Lies (1996)
After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense, a successful black optometrist, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to Cynthia, a working class white woman.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLuna (1979)
While touring in Italy, a recently-widowed American opera singer has an incestuous relationship with her 15-year-old son to help him overcome his heroin addiction.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStevie (1978)
For a poet with a gift for crafting words into barbs, Stevie Smith lives a relatively conventional life. Sheltered in a London suburb, she spends her days engaged in tedious housework, crafting verse and conversing with her aunt. But while her body may be committed to drudgery, Stevie's mind is constantly trying to break free, which causes her to rail against religion and middle-class values, and prevents her from finding happiness with a man interested in her.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Buddies (1985)
David, a naive graduate student, has volunteered to work as a 'buddy' for people dying of AIDS. Assigned to the intensely political Robert, a lifelong activist whose friends and family have abandoned him following his diagnosis, the two men, each with notably different world views, soon discover common bonds, as David's inner activist awakens and Robert's need for emotional release is fulfilled.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Mouth Agape (1974)
Monique is dying of cancer, lying in bed in the apartment above the store her family owns. Her philandering husband carries on with life, her son remains aloof, and her daughter-in-law wonders if she is witnessing her own decline. They all struggle to express, or feel, their love for one another.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Terence Davies Trilogy (1983)
In stark black and white, Terence Davies excavates the life of his fictional alter ego, Robert Tucker, in a narrative that slips between childhood, middle age and death, shaping the raw materials of his own life into a rich tapestry of experiences and impressions.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Dancing at Lughnasa (1998)
Five unmarried sisters make the most of their simple existence in rural Ireland in the 1930s.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCasa de Lava (1995)
The film tells a story of Mariana, a nurse who leaves Lisbon to accompany an immigrant worker in a comatose sleep on his trip home to Cape Verde. The devoted Portuguese nurse took a journey only to find herself lost in abstract drama.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
An Angel at My Table (1990)
Based on the autobiographical work of New Zealand writer Janet Frame, this production depicts the author at various stage of her life. Afflicted with mental and emotional issues, Frame grows up in an impoverished family and experiences numerous tragedies while still in her youth, including the deaths of two of her siblings. Portrayed as an adult by Kerry Fox, Frame finds acclaim for her writing while still in a mental institution, and her success helps her move on with her life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisYeelen (1987)
A young man with magical powers journeys to his uncle to request help in fighting his sorcerer father.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWetherby (1985)
The mysterious death of an enigmatic young man newly arrived in the suburb of Wetherby releases the long-repressed, dark passions of some of its residents.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTaurus (2022)
A rising but troubled musician searches for the inspiration to record one last song, pushing himself deep into the void.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Mambo Kings (1992)
The Mambo Kings tells the story of César and Nestor Castillo, brothers and aspiring musicians who flee from Cuba to America in search of the American Dream.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBetter Man (2024)
Follow Robbie Williams' journey from childhood, to being the youngest member of chart-topping boyband Take That, through to his unparalleled achievements as a record-breaking solo artist – all the while confronting the challenges that stratospheric fame and success can bring.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Distant Voices, Still Lives?
The closest matches to Distant Voices, Still Lives are The Long Day Closes (1992), The Neon Bible (1995) and Plenty (1985). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Distant Voices, Still Lives?
People who watched Distant Voices, Still Lives most often go on to The Long Day Closes (1992), The Neon Bible (1995) and Plenty (1985).
What is the highest-rated movie like Distant Voices, Still Lives?
Secrets & Lies (1996), rated 7.6/10 by 758 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Distant Voices, Still Lives?
Better Man (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Distant Voices, Still Lives?
Yes: The Long Day Closes (1992), The Neon Bible (1995) and Plenty (1985).
How are movies similar to Distant Voices, Still Lives chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Distant Voices, Still Lives, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.