Movies like Youth (2017)
The best movies like Youth (2017) are The Last Rifleman (2023), The Scarlet and the Black (1983) and Railway Heroes (2021). If Youth hooked you with its drama and history, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedFarewell My Concubine (1993)8.1/10 from 774 votes
- NewestGezhi Town (2025)Released 2025
- In ChineseRailway Heroes (2021)Also in Chinese
The Last Rifleman (2023)
A WWII veteran escapes his care home in Northern Ireland and embarks on an arduous but inspirational journey to France to attend the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, finding the courage to face the ghosts of his past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Scarlet and the Black (1983)
Fr. Hugh O'Flaherty is a Vatican official in 1943-45 who has been hiding downed pilots, escaped prisoners of war, and Italian resistance families. His activities become so large that the Nazis decide to assassinate him the next time he leaves the Vatican.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRailway Heroes (2021)
The historical story of an enemy fighting the wits and courage of an extraordinary brave group of ordinary heroes known as the "Lunan Railway Brigade" who desperately fight to defend their homeland.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisZulu (1964)
In 1879, during the Anglo-Zulu War, man-of-the-people Lt. Chard and snooty Lt. Bromhead are in charge of defending the isolated and vastly outnumbered Natal outpost of Rorke's Drift from tribal hordes.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Boy in the Woods (2023)
The remarkable true-life survival story of a Jewish boy hiding and being hunted in the forests of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, based on Maxwell Smart's memoir.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe War Below (2021)
During World War I, a group of British miners are recruited to tunnel underneath no man's land and set bombs from below the German front in hopes of breaking the deadly stalemate of the Battle of Messines.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTobruk (1967)
In September 1942, the German Afrika Korps under Rommel have successfully pushed the Allies back into Egypt. A counter-attack is planned, for which the fuel dumps at Tobruk are a critical impediment. In order to aid the attack, a group of British commandos and German Jews make their way undercover through 800 miles of desert, to destroy the fuel dumps starving the Germans of fuel.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHitler: The Last Ten Days (1973)
Hitler: The Last Ten Days takes us into the depths of der Furher’s Berlin bunker during his final days. Based on the book by Gerhard Boldt, it provides a bleak look at the goings-on within, and without.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPalestine 36 (2025)
Year 1936. As villages across Palestine rise against British colonial rule, Yusuf drifts between his rural home and the restless energy of Jerusalem, longing for a future beyond the growing unrest. But history is relentless. With rising numbers of Jewish immigrants escaping antisemitism in Europe and some arriving with nefarious Zionist-colonial ambitions, and the Palestinian population uniting in the largest and longest uprising against Britain’s 30-year dominion, all sides spiral towards inevitable collision in a decisive moment for the British Empire and the future of the entire region.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPath to War (2003)
A powerful drama of soaring ambition and shattered dreams that takes a provocative insider's look at the way the USA goes to war—as seen from inside the LBJ White House leading up to and during the Vietnam War.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe War (1994)
The son of a Vietnam War Veteran must deal with neighborhood bullies as well as his dad's post-traumatic stress disorder while growing up in the deep south in the 1970's.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955)
A dramatization of the American general and his court martial for publically complaining about High Command's dismissal and neglect of the aerial fighting forces.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWaiting for Anya (2020)
During the harrows of WWII, Jo, a young shepherd along with the help of the widow Horcada, helps to smuggle Jewish children across the border from southern France into Spain.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA City of Sadness (1989)
The story of a family embroiled in the "White Terror," the Kuomintang government's anti-communist political repression that was wrought on the Taiwanese people from 1947-1987.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe One That Got Away (1957)
Based on the true story of Oberleutnant Franz von Werra, the only German prisoner of war captured in Britain to escape back to Germany during the Second World War.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGezhi Town (2025)
A group of Chinese refugees and straggler soldiers, led by a machinist, defend their mountain town, "Gezhi," against a surprise attack by Japanese reconnaissance troops in a desperate fight using civilian ingenuity against a trained military force.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMunich - The Edge of War (2021)
At the tense 1938 Munich Conference, former friends who now work for opposing governments become reluctant spies racing to expose a Nazi secret.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSnow Flower and the Secret Fan (2011)
A story set in 19th century China and centered on the lifelong friendship between two girls who develop their own secret code as a way to contend with the rigid cultural norms imposed on women.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRadium Girls (2020)
Young women toiling in a factory are exposed to hazardous material which takes a disastrous toll on their health.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBelfast (2021)
Buddy is a young boy on the cusp of adolescence, whose life is filled with familial love, childhood hijinks, and a blossoming romance. Yet, with his beloved hometown caught up in increasing turmoil, his family faces a momentous choice: hope the conflict will pass or leave everything they know behind for a new life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSight (2023)
Ming Wang is an impoverished Chinese prodigy who flees Communist China to become a pioneering eye surgeon in America. When tasked with restoring the sight of an orphan in India, who was blinded by her stepmother, Wang must confront the trauma of living through the violent uprising in his youth, the Cultural Revolution.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Best of Youth (2003)
After a fateful encounter in the summer of 1966, the lifepaths of two brothers from a middle-class Roman family diverge, intersecting with some of the most significant events of postwar Italian history in the following decades.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & history
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisHibiscus Town (1987)
Based on a novel by the same name written by Gu Hua, a melodrama about the life and travails of a young woman who lives through the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & history
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisPlatform (2001)
China’s rapid changes from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, as seen through the lives of four performers in a theater troupe.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisViva Cuba (2005)
The friendship between two children is threatened by their parents’ differences. Malú is from a family that was upper-class before the Revolution and remains well-to-do through remittances from relatives overseas, and her single mother (Larisa Vega Alamar) does not want her to play with Jorgito, as she thinks his background coarse and commonplace. Jorgito’s mother (Luisa María Jiménez Rodríguez),
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDisco's Revenge (2024)
Born underground, on the heels of the Civil Rights Movement and the Stonewall Riots, disco’s nascent popularity saw the spectacular takeover of the dancefloor, the airwaves and burgeoning fashion trends that reflected the joy and freedom inherent to the genre. Co-opted and exploited through references like John Travolta’s strut and shiny Swedish tracksuits, disco eventually reaches the mainstream, losing its original flair and purpose rooted in radical politics and social change.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
Farewell My Concubine (1993)
In an epic tale of theater, gender, love and class, two Beijing opera actors navigate political turmoil as their friendship evolves over decades.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisPeking Opera Blues (1986)
In 1913 Beijing, three fierce women—disguised rebel Tsao Wan, jewel-seeking Sheung Hung, and opera heiress Pai Niu—embark on a daring quest filled with intrigue and betrayal, challenging societal norms amidst political turmoil and the vibrant world of Peking Opera.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisColorful Cobblestones (2012)
The world was in a cold war in the late 1960s and early 1970s. After the Sino-Soviet Treasure Island conflict, Beijing teenager Qi Weizhi evacuated with his mother to Hanzhong City in the hinterland of the Qinling Mountains, and experienced a pure juvenile sexual maturity out of touch with the political atmosphere of that era. Hanzhong was China's third-tier town during the Cold War. Mother Qi Xiuxuan deliberately concealed her husband's death because of her husband's emotional betrayal, and was quite indifferent to her son. Qi Weizhi's missing mother's love was rewarded by class teacher Zhou Wenyao, so he had a subtle affection for Zhou Wenyao.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
If Not Us, Who? (2011)
In the early 60s, Bernward Vesper and fellow university student Gudrun Ensslin begin a passionate love in the stifling atmosphere of provincial West Germany. Dedicated to the power of the written word, Bernward and Gudrun found a publishing house whose first publication is, paradoxically to many, a controversial past work of Bernward's ostracized father, an infamous Nazi author. Bernward defends his father's writing ability, even if he is haunted by his father's suspicious past.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like Youth and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Youth?
The closest matches to Youth are The Last Rifleman (2023), The Scarlet and the Black (1983) and Railway Heroes (2021). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Youth?
Start with The Last Rifleman (2023), the closest match to Youth.
What is the highest-rated movie like Youth?
Farewell My Concubine (1993), rated 8.1/10 by 774 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Youth?
Gezhi Town (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Chinese movies like Youth?
Yes: Railway Heroes (2021), A City of Sadness (1989) and Gezhi Town (2025).
How are movies similar to Youth chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Youth, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.