Movies like Forbidden Games (1952)
The best movies like Forbidden Games (1952) are Au Revoir les Enfants (1987), Europa Europa (1990) and The Notebook (2013). If Forbidden Games hooked you with its drama and war, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedGrave of the Fireflies (1988)8.4/10 from 6,950 votes
- NewestZoo (2018)Released 2018
- In FrenchAu Revoir les Enfants (1987)Also in French
Au Revoir les Enfants (1987)
Au revoir les enfants tells a heartbreaking story of friendship and devastating loss concerning two boys living in Nazi-occupied France. At a provincial Catholic boarding school, the precocious youths enjoy true camaraderie—until a secret is revealed. Based on events from writer-director Malle’s own childhood, the film is a subtle, precisely observed tale of courage, cowardice, and tragic awakening.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEuropa Europa (1990)
A Jewish boy separated from his family in the early days of WWII poses as a German orphan and is taken into the heart of the Nazi world as a 'war hero' and eventually becomes a Hitler Youth.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Notebook (2013)
In a village on the Hungarian border, two young brothers grow up during war time with their cruel grandmother and must learn every trick of evil to survive in the absurd world of adults.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDiamonds of the Night (1964)
Two Jewish boys escape from a train transporting them from one concentration camp to another. Beyond themes of war and anti-Nazism, the film concerns itself with man's struggle to preserve human dignity.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIvan's Childhood (1962)
In WW2, twelve year old Soviet orphan Ivan Bondarev works for the Soviet army as a scout behind the German lines and strikes a friendship with three sympathetic Soviet officers.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCome and See (1985)
The invasion of a village in Belarus by German forces sends young Flyora into the forest to join the weary Resistance fighters, against his family's wishes. There he meets a girl, Glasha, who accompanies him back to his village. On returning home, Flyora finds his family and fellow peasants massacred. His continued survival amidst the brutal debris of war becomes increasingly nightmarish, a battle between despair and hope.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisA Generation (1955)
Stach is a wayward teen living in squalor on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Warsaw. Guided by an avuncular Communist organizer, he is introduced to the underground resistance—and to the beautiful Dorota. Soon he is engaged in dangerous efforts to fight oppression and indignity, maturing as he assumes responsibility for others’ lives.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHope and Glory (1987)
A middle-aged man recalls his childhood growing up in and around London during World War II.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Silence of the Sea (1949)
In a small town in WWII France, a German officer is billeted in the house of an elderly man and his niece who resist the occupation by refusing to interact with him, even as he speaks to them candidly about his life and hopes for the future of France and Germany.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWe Were One Man (1979)
During the final days of World War II, a simple French peasant rescues a wounded German soldier and nurses him back to health. As their playful camaraderie grows, two young men who should be enemies begin to bond in ways neither thought possible.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Paisan (1946)
Six stories unfold in various regions, from Sicily to the northern Po Valley as American military personnel interact with a variety of Italian locals over eighteen months in the push north during the Italian Campaign of WWII as German forces retreat.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGermany, Year Zero (1948)
In the ruins of post-WWII Berlin, a twelve-year-old boy is left to his own devices in order to help provide for his family.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAshes and Diamonds (1958)
A young academy soldier, Maciek Chelmicki, is ordered to shoot the secretary of the KW PPR. A coincidence causes him to kill someone else. Meeting face to face with his victim, he gets a shock. He faces the necessity of repeating the assassination. He meets Krystyna, a girl working as a barmaid in the restaurant of the "Monopol" hotel. His affection for her makes him even more aware of the senselessness of killing at the end of the war. Loyalty to the oath he took, and thus the obligation to obey the order, tips the scales.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe 25th Hour (1967)
A Romanian peasant fights to get back to his family after he's imprisoned by the Nazis.The picture is based on real events. It includes Hungary's government in collaboration with the Nazis, the encroachment of Romania by Stalin's troopers, and other happenings.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGrave of the Fireflies (1988)
In the final months of World War II, 14-year-old Seita and his sister Setsuko are orphaned when their mother is killed during an air raid in Kobe, Japan. After a falling out with their aunt, they move into an abandoned bomb shelter. With no surviving relatives and their emergency rations depleted, Seita and Setsuko struggle to survive.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisKanal (1957)
In the last few days of the Warsaw Uprising during World War II, a modest group of Resistance members remains. The band must take refuge in the sewers under the orders of leader Zadra, but it's only a matter of time before they will have to emerge. However, when they try, they are met only with intense hostility from the Nazis. Despite their attempts stay resolute through immense mental strain, it becomes increasingly apparent that they may be doomed.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLittle Boy (2015)
An eight-year-old boy is willing to do whatever it takes to end World War II so he can bring his father home. The story reveals the indescribable love a father has for his little boy and the love a son has for his father.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Diary of Anne Frank (1959)
The true, harrowing story of a young Jewish girl who, with her family and their friends, is forced into hiding in an attic in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisYear of Enlightment (1986)
April, 1940. Manolo, 16 years old, and Jesus, who is just 8, are taken by their older brother Pepe, a lieutenant in the Army, to a sanatorium for children suffering from tuberculosis, situated on the border with Portugal. Once in the sanatorium, Manolo, surrounded by boys all much younger than he is, feels a bit like the cock of the walk since the only other man around is the handyman Emilio who looks after the gardens and does whatever needs to be done about the place. His wife, Rafaela, is the cook. Manolo meets Irene, a falangist who runs the sanatorium, and the school teacher, Miss Transito, a crabby spinster. He has his first sexual experience, albeit as a voyeur, with his nurse Vicenta. When she has to leave, her place is taken by a girl from the village, Maria Jesus, with whom Manolo falls hopelessly in love. A relationship grows up between them which will mark them both for ever.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Zoo (2018)
Young Tom and his misfit friends fight to save 'Buster' the baby elephant during the German air raid bombings of Belfast in 1941.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEmpire of the Sun (1987)
Jamie Graham, a privileged English boy, is living in Shanghai when the Japanese invade and force all foreigners into prison camps. Jamie is captured with an American sailor, who looks out for him while they are in the camp together. Even though he is separated from his parents and in a hostile environment, Jamie maintains his dignity and youthful spirit, providing a beacon of hope for the others held captive with him.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSunflower (1970)
After World War II, a woman refuses to believe her husband, missing on the Russian front, is dead. Flashbacks reveal their brief courtship and marriage. Years later, she travels to Russia with his photo, determined to find him. What will she discover?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRome, Open City (1945)
During the Nazi occupation of 1944 Rome, Resistance leader Giorgio Manfredi is pursued by the Nazis as he seeks refuge and a means of escape.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Tin Drum (1979)
In 1924, Oskar Matzerath is born in the Free City of Danzig. At age three, he falls down a flight of stairs and stops growing. In 1939, World War II breaks out.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Shop on Main Street (1965)
In a small town in Nazi-occupied Slovakia during World War II, decent but timid carpenter Tono is named "Aryan comptroller" of a button store owned by an old Jewish widow, Rozalie. Since the post comes with a salary and standing in the town's corrupt hierarchy, Tono wrestles with greed and guilt as he and Rozalie gradually befriend each other. When the authorities order all Jews in town to be rounded up, Tono faces a moral dilemma unlike any he's known before.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLong Live Death (1971)
At the end of the Spanish civil war, Fando, a boy of about ten, tries to make sense of war and his father's arrest. His mother is religious, sympathetic to the Fascists; his father is accused of being a Red. Fando discovers that his mother may have aided in his father's arrest. Sometimes we witness Fando imagining explanations for what's going on; sometimes we see him at play, alone or with his friend Thérèse. Oedipal fantasies and a lad's natural curiosity about sex and death mix with his search for his mother's nature and his father's fate. Will Fando survive the search?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
SnoozefestMovies like thisBallad of a Soldier (1959)
During World War II, earnest young Russian soldier Alyosha Skvortsov is rewarded with a short leave of absence for performing a heroic deed on the battlefield. Feeling homesick, he decides to visit his mother. Due to his kindhearted nature, however, Alyosha is repeatedly sidetracked by his efforts to help those he encounters, including a lovely girl named Shura. In his tour of a country devastated by war, he struggles to keep hope alive.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisTrain of Life (1998)
In 1941, the inhabitants of a small Jewish village in Central Europe organize a fake deportation train so that they can escape the Nazis and flee to Palestine.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEntre Nous (1983)
In 1942 in occupied France, a Jewish refugee marries a soldier to escape deportation to Germany. Meanwhile a wealthy art student loses her first husband to a stray Resistance bullet; at the Liberation she meets an actor, gets pregnant, and marries him. Lena and Madeleine meet at their children's school in Lyon in 1952 and the intensity of their relationship strains both their marriages to the breaking point.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStory of Women (1988)
France, World War II. In order to somehow make ends meet, the mother of two children, Marie Latour, does underground abortions and rents a room to a familiar prostitute. She doesn't pay any attention to her husband, who returned from the war because of his injury, and lives her own life. Abortions gradually begin to bring a good income, and boredom can be easily dispelled by starting up with a young lover.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Forbidden Games?
The closest matches to Forbidden Games are Au Revoir les Enfants (1987), Europa Europa (1990) and The Notebook (2013). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Forbidden Games?
People who watched Forbidden Games most often go on to Au Revoir les Enfants (1987), Europa Europa (1990) and The Notebook (2013).
What is the highest-rated movie like Forbidden Games?
Grave of the Fireflies (1988), rated 8.4/10 by 6,950 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Forbidden Games?
Zoo (2018) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like Forbidden Games?
Yes: Au Revoir les Enfants (1987), The Silence of the Sea (1949) and We Were One Man (1979).
How are movies similar to Forbidden Games chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Forbidden Games, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.