Movies like Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
The best movies like Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) are The Piano (1993), Ammonite (2020) and The World to Come (2021). If Portrait of a Lady on Fire hooked you with its drama and romance, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedCitizen Kane (1941)8.0/10 from 6,345 votes
- NewestThe Five Devils (2022)Released 2022
- In FrenchMy King (2015)Also in French
The Piano (1993)
When an arranged marriage brings Ada and her spirited pre-teen daughter Flora to the wilderness of 19th-century New Zealand, she finds herself locked in a battle of wills with both her controlling husband and a rugged frontiersman to whom she develops a forbidden attraction.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAmmonite (2020)
In 1840s England, palaeontologist Mary Anning and a young woman sent by her husband to convalesce by the sea develop an intense relationship. Despite the chasm between their social spheres and personalities, Mary and Charlotte discover they can each offer what the other has been searching for: the realisation that they are not alone. It is the beginning of a passionate and all-consuming love affair that will defy all social bounds and alter the course of both lives irrevocably.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe World to Come (2021)
In 1856, two women forge a close connection despite their isolation on the American frontier.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMy King (2015)
Tony is admitted to a rehabilitation center after a serious ski accident. Dependent on the medical staff and pain relievers, she takes time to look back on a turbulent relationship that she experienced with Georgio.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMississippi Mermaid (1969)
A tobacco planter on Réunion island in the Indian Ocean becomes engaged through correspondence to a French woman he does not know. The woman that arrives does not look like the picture he received, but he marries her anyway.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThose People (2015)
On Manhattan's gilded Upper East Side, a young gay painter is torn between an obsession with his infamous best friend and a promising new romance with an older foreign pianist.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Nos Amours (1983)
Fifteen-year-old Suzanne seeks refuge from a disintegrating family in a series of impulsive, promiscuous affairs. Her fulsome sexuality further ratchets up the suppressed passions of her narcissistic brother, insecure mother and brooding, authoritarian father.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Five Devils (2022)
8-year-old Vicky has a mysterious gift: she can recreate any scent she comes across, even that of her beloved mother Joanne. When her estranged aunt Julia suddenly returns to town, the invocation of her fragrance plunges the young girl back in time to unravel a past replete with family secrets.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Blue Lagoon (1980)
Two small children and a ship's cook survive a shipwreck and find safety on an idyllic tropical island. Soon, however, the cook dies and the young boy and girl are left on their own. Days become years and Emmeline and Richard make a home for themselves surrounded by exotic creatures and nature's beauty. But will they ever see civilization again?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMr. Jones (1993)
The story about the relationship between a manic depressive man, Mr. Jones, and the female doctor who takes more than a professional interest in his treatment.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisTulip Fever (2017)
An artist falls for a married young woman while he's commissioned to paint her portrait. The two invest in the risky tulip market in hopes to build a future together.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDouble Lover (2017)
Chloé, a fragile young woman, falls in love with her psychoanalyst, Paul. A few months later she moves in with him, but soon discovers that her lover is concealing a part of his identity.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCaravaggio (1986)
A retelling of the life of the celebrated 17th-century Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio through his brilliant, nearly blasphemous paintings and his flirtations with the underworld.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTotal Eclipse (1995)
Young, wild poet Arthur Rimbaud and his mentor Paul Verlaine engage in a fierce, forbidden romance while feeling the effects of a hellish artistic lifestyle.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDot the I (2003)
A fiery Spanish woman is about to marry a kind British man when she meets a Brazilian actor who ignites in her a flame of lust she can't ignore.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBelow Her Mouth (2017)
An unexpected affair quickly escalates into a heart-stopping reality for two women whose passionate connection changes their lives forever.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAge of Consent (1969)
An elderly artist thinks he has become too stale and is past his prime. His friend (and agent) persuades him to go to an offshore island to try once more. On the island he re-discovers his muse in the form of a young girl.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLove Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (1998)
In the 1960s, British painter Francis Bacon surprises a burglar and invites him to share his bed. The burglar, a working class man named George Dyer, accepts. After the unique beginning to their love affair, the well-connected and volatile artist assimilates Dyer into his circle of eccentric friends, as Dyer's struggle with addiction strains their bond.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLa Belle Noiseuse (1991)
The former famous painter Frenhofer lives quietly with his wife on a countryside residence in the French Provence. When the young artist Nicolas visits him with his girlfriend Marianne, Frenhofer decides to start again the work on a painting he long ago stopped: La Belle Noiseuse. And he wants Marianne as model.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Story of Adèle H. (1975)
In the 19th century a mysterious woman named Adele H. crosses the ocean, from Europe to North America, to relentlessly pursue a handsome officer that denies her satisfaction.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Belt (1989)
Vittorio, an American novelist teaching in Rome, meets the beautiful but damaged Bianca and they rapidly fall into an urgent, tempestuous affair. He's hesitant over their relationship since she seems to thrive on conflict and is constantly baiting him into physical altercation. Bianca gives Vittorio an exquisite leather belt as a gift; he knows immediately that she wants him to whip her with it. Driven by his craving for her, Vittorio complies to Bianca's desire. Their relationship escalates into a dark realm of S&M which becomes more and more self-destructive.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Bird People (2014)
An overstressed American businessman and a French chambermaid make a connection at an airport hotel in Paris.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisAmour Fou (2014)
Heinrich wishes to conquer death through love, and when he meets Henriette, the wife of a business acquaintance, she expresses interest in a suicide pact when she learns she has a terminal illness.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFriends (1971)
Paul, a rich English boy, and Michelle, an orphaned French girl, run away from home to a remote beach. Living on their own, their friendship grows into love.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Citizen Kane (1941)
Newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane is taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. As a result, every well-meaning, tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisDancer in the Dark (2000)
Selma, a Czech immigrant on the verge of blindness, struggles to make ends meet for herself and her young son, who has inherited the same genetic disorder and will suffer the same fate without an expensive operation. When life becomes increasingly difficult, Selma learns to cope through her love of musicals, dreaming up little numbers to the rhythmic beats of her surroundings.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Girl at My Door (2014)
Sent from Seoul to serve in a remote coastal village, a policewoman gets involved in the life of a mysterious teenage girl who is abused by both her father and her grandmother.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGirlhood (2014)
Oppressed by her family setting, dead-end school prospects and the boys law in the neighborhood, Marieme starts a new life after meeting a group of three free-spirited girls. She changes her name, her dress code, and quits school to be accepted in the gang, hoping that this will be a way to freedom.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisParty Girl (2014)
Angélique is a 60-year-old bar hostess. She still likes to party, she still likes men. At night, she makes them drink, in a cabaret by the French-German border. As time goes by, clients become rare. But Michel, her regular client, is still in love with her. One day, he asks Angélique to marry him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMisunderstood (2014)
Rome, 1984, Aria is nine-year-old girl. On the verge of divorce, Aria's infantile and selfish parents are too preoccupied with their careers and extra-marital affairs to properly tend to any of Aria's needs. While her two older sisters are pampered, Aria is treated with cold indifference. Yet she yearns to love and to be loved. At school, Aria excels academically but is considered a misfit by everyone. She is misunderstood. Aria finds comfort in her cat - Dac and in her best friend - Angelica. Thrown out of both parents' homes, abandoned by all, even her best friend, Aria finally reaches the limit of what she can bear. She makes an unexpected decision in her life.
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 Portrait of a Lady on Fire?
The closest matches to Portrait of a Lady on Fire are The Piano (1993), Ammonite (2020) and The World to Come (2021). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Portrait of a Lady on Fire?
Start with The Piano (1993), the closest match to Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
What is the highest-rated movie like Portrait of a Lady on Fire?
Citizen Kane (1941), rated 8.0/10 by 6,345 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Portrait of a Lady on Fire?
The Five Devils (2022) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like Portrait of a Lady on Fire?
Yes: My King (2015), Mississippi Mermaid (1969) and A Nos Amours (1983).
How are movies similar to Portrait of a Lady on Fire chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Portrait of a Lady on Fire, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.