Movies like The Red Dress (1978)
The best movies like The Red Dress (1978) are Light of My Life (2019), Hounddog (2008) and Bastard Out of Carolina (1996). If The Red Dress hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedHunting Season (2025)7.4/10 from 490 votes
- NewestBlood Lines (2026)Released 2026
Light of My Life (2019)
Years after a pandemic wipes out most of the female population, a father struggles to shield his daughter from a dangerous and predatory world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHounddog (2008)
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBastard Out of Carolina (1996)
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Safety of Objects (2002)
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Trials of Cate McCall (2013)
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisReturn (2011)
Back from a tour of duty, Kelli struggles to find her place in her family and the rust-belt town she no longer recognizes.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Padre (2018)
American retired Judge Randall Nemes and his hired gun, Gaspar, track down a con man posing as a priest in a small Colombian town only to be thrown off-course by a scrappy 16-year-old girl intent on reuniting with her sister in the United States.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe River (1984)
Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRogue Agent (2022)
Conman Robert Freegard poses as an undercover MI5 agent and kidnaps countless victims amidst a high-stakes manhunt, until the woman who fell for him brings him to justice.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLucky Them (2013)
More interested in partying and flirting with young musicians than work, veteran rock journalist Ellie Klug has one last chance to prove her value to her magazine’s editor: a no-stone-unturned search to discover what really happened to long lost rock god, Matt Smith, who also happens to be her ex-boyfriend. Teaming up with an eccentric amateur documentary filmmaker, Ellie hits the road in search of answers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this40 Acres (2025)
Hailey Freeman and her family are the last descendants of African American farmers who settled in rural Canada after the Civil War. In a famine-decimated near future, they now struggle to safeguard their farm, as they make one last stand against a vicious militia hell-bent on taking their 40 Acres.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIntroducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999)
An acclaimed stage performer, Dorothy still struggled with the challenge of her color, in a time that wouldn't let some stars in by the front door. Yet against the odds she beat out many more famous rivals for the role of "Carmen Jones", becoming the first black woman ever nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award. Marriages and affairs would break her heart, but her heart was strong. Seductive and easily seduced, she was born to be a star - with all the glory and all the pain of being loved, abused, cheated, glorified, undermined and undefeated. Here was a woman who wouldn't wait in the wings. Halle Berry stars as Dorothy Dandrige.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHunting Season (2025)
When a reclusive survivalist and his daughter rescue a mysterious, wounded woman from a river, they become entangled in a deadly web of violence and revenge, forcing them to confront a brutal criminal to survive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIron Jawed Angels (2004)
Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCome Sunday (2018)
Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisCall Me Crazy: A Five Film (2013)
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTrue Grit (1969)
The murder of her father sends a teenage tomboy on a mission of 'justice', which involves avenging her father's death. She recruits a tough old marshal, 'Rooster' Cogburn because he has 'true grit', and a reputation of getting the job done.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Poker House (2008)
Agnes and her two sisters struggle through a day in a home overrun by gamblers, thieves, and johns.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Dry White Season (1989)
During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSky (2016)
A woman embarks on a journey alone across the United States after fleeing from her violent husband.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOnce Were Warriors (1994)
In a violent relationship, it takes a mother’s strength to save herself and her children from the man she loved. Once Were Warriors is a violent love story set against a contemporary urban backdrop.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCold Journey (1975)
In this feature drama, a Canadian Indigenous youth attempts to find a place for himself. He faces culture shock as the educational system teaches him to be a white man and tries to find a way of life more meaningful to his Indigenous culture and ancestry.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Blood Lines (2026)
Whilst embarking on a lesbian relationship with the new girl in town, a Métis woman’s life is rocked to the core when her estranged mother returns.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Dead Man (1995)
On the run after committing murder, an accountant encounters a strange Native American man who prepares him for his journey into the spiritual world.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRobinson Crusoe (1997)
Robinson Crusoe flees Britain on a ship after killing his friend over the love of Mary. A fierce ocean storm wrecks his ship and leaves him stranded by himself on an uncharted island. Left to fend for himself, Crusoe seeks out a tentative survival on the island, until he meets Friday, a tribesman whom he saves from being sacrificed. Initially, Crusoe is thrilled to finally have a friend, but he has to defend himself against the tribe who uses the island to sacrifice tribesman to their gods. During time their relationship changes from master-slave to a mutual respected friendship despite their difference in culture and religion.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMiro (2017)
When Miro returns home at the end of World War II he finds his land taken, his people gone, his daughter stolen and his service record treated with contempt. But the battlefield has taught him how to fight and he sets out to reunite his family waging his own form of justice.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
L'été indien (2013)
A young mime and a fledgling Indian meet in the forest and spend some time together.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Wayúu: La Niña de Maracaibo (2012)
A detective, goes from Spain to the Venezuelan Guajira, hired by the king of Wuayuus, to protect her, Niña de Maracaibo (wife of King, who belongs to an aristocratic family in the city) the detective tries to discover a conspiracy greater than initially imagined. Where he is only one piece in a plot which mixes smuggling, power struggles and tribal magic. The clash of two opposite visions, the 'Western' Spanish researcher, and the 'native' the Wuayuu original owners of Caribbean, converts this format film apparently 'police' in a thesis film revealing the mystery of the still existing singular South American identity.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
When Shadows Dance at Night (2021)
Following her brother's death, Georgia, a young college student, returns home to her reservation only to find she's become the prey of a shapeshifting, faceless figure.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Positions (2018)
An unapologetic and realist exploration of sexual desire, the quest for financial stability, and the pursuit of agency over one's own body.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Red Dress?
The closest matches to The Red Dress are Light of My Life (2019), Hounddog (2008) and Bastard Out of Carolina (1996). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Red Dress?
Start with Light of My Life (2019), the closest match to The Red Dress.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Red Dress?
Hunting Season (2025), rated 7.4/10 by 490 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Red Dress?
Blood Lines (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Red Dress?
Yes: Light of My Life (2019), Hounddog (2008) and Bastard Out of Carolina (1996).
How are movies similar to The Red Dress chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Red Dress, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.