Movies like That Strange Desire to Love (1977)
The best movies like That Strange Desire to Love (1977) are Things We Don't Say (2026), The Family (1987) and The Dinner (2014). If That Strange Desire to Love hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedMemoir of a Snail (2024)8.1/10 from 860 votes
- NewestThings We Don't Say (2026)Released 2026
- In ItalianThings We Don't Say (2026)Also in Italian
Things 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 thisThe Family (1987)
Formal portraits, bookends in this 80-year saga, enclose the central story, which opens with the baptism of Carlo, a baby in his grandfather's lap, and ends with Carlo as a grandfather with a baby in his arms. And never once do we get out of the house, whose rooms provide structure. Comfort or passion? Carlo can't really decide until it's too late.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Dinner (2014)
Story about two brothers and their wives, and the interactions between them and their two high school age children. When the kids get into serious trouble together, how will the parents relationships change with and among each other? Will the parents protect the kids or force them to face the consequences of their actions?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Chiara (2021)
The Guerrasio family and friends gather to celebrate Claudio and Carmela’s oldest daughter’s 18th birthday. There is a healthy rivalry between the birthday girl and her 15-year-old sister Chiara as they compete on the dancefloor. It is a happy occasion, and the close-knit family are on top form. However, everything changes the next day when the father disappears. Chiara, unconvinced by the cover story, starts to investigate. As she gets closer to the truth, she is forced to decide what kind of future she wants for herself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Good Neighbor (2022)
A nightmarish evening unfolds for neighbors David and Robert when they accidentally hit a woman on her bike and flee the scene. While David is increasingly plagued by feelings of guilt, Robert shows no remorse and becomes overbearing and possessive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 Brother, My Sister (2021)
When their father's will forces them to live together, siblings Nik and Tesla — and Tesla's kids — try to overcome their differences to become a family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBad Tales (2020)
In a small suburb on the outskirts of Rome, the cheerful heat of summer camouflages a stifling atmosphere of alienation. From a distance, the families seem normal, but it’s an illusion: in the houses, courtyards and gardens, silence shrouds the subtle sadism of the fathers, the passivity of the mothers and the guilty indifference of adults. But it’s the desperation and repressed rage of the children that will explode and cut through this grotesque façade, with devastating consequences for the entire community.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Pumpkin Eater (1964)
Jo, the mother of seven children, divorces her second husband in order to marry Jake, a successful but promiscuous screenwriter. Though they are physically and emotionally compatible, they are slowly torn apart.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEuphoria (2018)
Matteo is a young successful businessman, audacious, charming and energetic. Ettore instead, is a calm, righteous, second grade teacher always living in the shadows, still in the small town from where both come from. They’re brothers but with two very different personalities. A dramatic event will force them to live together in Rome for a few months, bringing up the opportunity to face their differences with sympathy and tenderness, in a climax of fear and euphoria.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHungry Hearts (2015)
The relationship of a couple who meet by chance in New York City is put to the test when they encounter a life or death circumstance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Beautiful Country (2004)
After reuniting with his mother in Ho Chi Minh City, a family tragedy causes Binh to flee from Viet Nam to America. Landing in New York, Binh begins a road trip to Texas, where his American father is said to live.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIndivisible (2016)
Daisy and Viola are siamese twin sisters on the verge of turning 18 living in the suburbs of Naples. They are blessed with beautiful voices and thanks to their performances at weddings, communions and baptisms, they get the livelihood for the whole family. Kept isolated from the rest of the world by their own father who just exploits them in order to make money, their life turns upside-down when one of them falls in love for the first time and they discover that they can be separated.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJonathan (2018)
Jonathan is a young man with a strange condition that only his brother understands. But when he begins to yearn for a different life, their unique bond becomes increasingly tested.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisTerraferma (2011)
A Sicilian family deals with the arrival of a group of immigrants on their island.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisShun Li and the Poet (2011)
A study of the friendship between a Chinese woman and a fisherman who came to Italy from Yugoslavia many years ago, who live in a small city-island in the Veneto lagoon.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPiranhas (2019)
A gang of teenage boys stalk the streets of Naples armed with hand guns and AK-47s to do their mob bosses' bidding – until they decide to be the bosses themselves.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFamily Diary (1962)
Enrico is a struggling journalist in the Rome of 1945. He receives a phone call informing him that his younger brother Lorenzo has died. Enrico recalls their long and difficult relationship; he was brought up by their poor but warm-hearted grandmother, Lorenzo was raised as a gentleman by a wealthy local aristocrat. Reunited in the Florence of the 1930s, Enrico becomes his spoilt brother's keeper, forever haunted by a sense of guilty responsibility towards a man he both hates and loves.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEl Chicano (2019)
A pair of twin brothers from East L.A. choose to live their lives differently and end up on opposite sides of the law.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Enforcer (2022)
A noir thriller set in Miami, the film follows an enforcer who discovers his femme fatale boss has branched out into cyber sex trafficking, putting a young runaway he’s befriended at risk. He sacrifices everything to save the young girl from the deadly organization he’s spent his life building.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLéolo (1992)
The story of an imaginative boy who pretends he is the child of a sperm-laden Sicilian tomato upon which his mother accidentally fell.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMemoir of a Snail (2024)
Forcibly separated from her twin brother when they are orphaned, a melancholic misfit learns how to find confidence within herself amid the clutter of misfortunes and everyday life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisBillings (TBA)
Follows a young girl battling cystic fibrosis whose fragile stability is shattered when her access to healthcare and life-sustaining medication is suddenly cut off. With the clock ticking and survival on the line, her brother Easton is forced to confront a broken system — and ultimately take matters into their own hands by robbing pharmacies to obtain the medicines to keep his sister alive, underscoring the sad and unforgiving realities of modern American healthcare.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Devils (2002)
The story of the struggle of an autistic girl and her brother trying to survive without their parents.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChocolate Babies (1996)
Through a campaign of fabulous surprise attacks, an underground band of radical queer HIV+ activists, addicts, and drag queens take to the streets of New York City to combat conservative politicians and government apathy towards the AIDS crisis.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Legend of Billie Jean (1985)
Average Texas teen, Billie Jean Davy, is caught up in an odd fight for justice. She is usually followed and harrased around by local boys, who, one day, decide to trash her brother's scooter for fun. The boys' father refuses to pay them back the price of the scooter. The fight for "fair is fair" takes the teens around the state and produces an unlikely hero.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Last Hour (2017)
Lima, Peru, 1991. After years of fruitless efforts, a group of police officers finally find a lead on the whereabouts of Abimael Guzmán, the bloodthirsty leader of the communist terrorist gang Shining Path.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Sound and the Fury (2015)
A look at the trials and tribulations of The Compson siblings, living in the deep south during the early part of the 20th century.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
A Kind of Loving (1962)
As Vic Brown vacillates between infatuation and disinterest for his co-worker Ingrid Rothwell, she finds out that she is pregnant and Vic has to reconcile how he thought his life would go with what life actually has in store for him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Adults (2023)
Eric returns home for a short visit and finds himself caught between reuniting with his sisters and chasing a victory with his old poker group. As the trip extends, Eric finds it increasingly difficult to avoid confrontations and revelations as his carefully constructed façade of his adulthood gives way to old childhood conflicts.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like That Strange Desire to Love?
The closest matches to That Strange Desire to Love are Things We Don't Say (2026), The Family (1987) and The Dinner (2014). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after That Strange Desire to Love?
Start with Things We Don't Say (2026), the closest match to That Strange Desire to Love.
What is the highest-rated movie like That Strange Desire to Love?
Memoir of a Snail (2024), rated 8.1/10 by 860 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like That Strange Desire to Love?
Things We Don't Say (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Italian movies like That Strange Desire to Love?
Yes: Things We Don't Say (2026), The Family (1987) and The Dinner (2014).
How are movies similar to That Strange Desire to Love chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside That Strange Desire to Love, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.