Movies like They Were Five (1952)
The best movies like They Were Five (1952) are Adieu Philippine (1962), La Belle Équipe (1936) and Charm City Kings (2020). If They Were Five hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedCharm City Kings (2020)7.8/10 from 508 votes
- NewestBeast (2026)Released 2026
- In FrenchAdieu Philippine (1962)Also in French
Adieu Philippine (1962)
Michel is a young technician in the fledgling TV industry and is due for military service in two months at the time of the Algerian War. Juliette and Liliane are inseparable best friends, and aspiring actresses, who hang around outside the TV studio. Michel invites them in to watch, flirts with them both, and dates them separately and together. When Michel goes on a holiday to Corsica, just before he is drafted, the girls follow.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLa Belle Équipe (1936)
Five unemployed workers win 100,000 Francs in the national lottery. Instead of sharing the money, they buy a ruin and build an open-air cafe. But difficulties come to split their friendly group apart.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCharm City Kings (2020)
Mouse desperately wants to join The Midnight Clique, the infamous Baltimore dirt bike riders who rule the summertime streets. When Midnight’s leader, Blax, takes 14-year-old Mouse under his wing, Mouse soon finds himself torn between the straight-and-narrow and a road filled with fast money and violence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisColonel Chabert (1994)
When Colonel Chabert returns from the war, he discovers that he has lost everything.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCardboard Boxer (2016)
Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSergio (2020)
A sweeping drama set in the chaotic aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq, where the life of top UN diplomat Brazilian Sérgio Vieira de Mello hangs in the balance during the most treacherous mission of his career.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 Visit (1964)
Carla Zachanassian had a child by Serge Miller as a teenager. When Serge refused to marry her, she was driven out of town. By her own wit and cunning, she has returned as a multi-millionaire for a visit. The town lays out the red carpet expecting big things from Carla, only to learn that her sole purpose is to see Serge Miller killed...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Long Absence (1961)
Therese, a café owner, mourns the mysterious disappearance of her husband sixteen years earlier. A tramp arrives in the town and she believes him to be her husband. But he is suffering from amnesia and she tries to bring back his memory of earlier times.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJungleland (2020)
Stanley manages his boxer brother Lion but when a devastating loss in the ring leaves the pair in debt, an opportunity to recoup the cash leads to a series of misadventures that threaten to break the bond between them.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOut of Love (2025)
When Jeanne, a meticulous insurance assessor, is suddenly left to care for her estranged sister’s two children after their mother vanishes, her carefully ordered life begins to unravel. Confronted with unexpected responsibilities, she must balance the fragile task of earning the children’s trust while also tending to her own relationship with her girlfriend, who struggles to adjust to Jeanne’s new role. As grief, uncertainty, and shifting loyalties mount, Jeanne finds herself redefining what family and love truly mean.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLe Rouge et le Noir (1954)
It's no holds barred for Julian in pursuit of upward mobility. Although expected to channel career aspirations into the Church of the post-Napoleonic era, his intensely romantic liaisons propel him forward at a pace he cannot control.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Dazzled (2019)
Camille, is the eldest of a large family. One day, her parents enter a religious community which gradually, regimentation becomes sectarian and Camille will have to fight to assert her freedom and save her brothers and sisters.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Cut (2025)
A retired boxer intends to return to the ring for one last shot at the title, but first he must make the weight. Holed up in a room in Las Vegas with an unscrupulous trainer, he embarks on an intensive and illegal weight-cutting program.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisBeast (2026)
MMA legend Patton James, now a commercial fisherman, is pulled back into the cage when his brother is in danger. Reuniting with his old coach Sammy, he commits to one final fight in one championship against the brutal champion Xavier Grau.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Minister (2011)
Transport Minister Bertrand Saint-Jean is awoken in the middle of the night by his head of staff. A bus has gone off the road into a gully. He has no choice but to go to the scene of the accident. Thus begins the odyssey of a politician in a world that is increasingly more complex and hostile.
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 thisStreet Flow 3 (2026)
Grieving and facing the consequences of their crimes, the Traoré brothers get one last chance to forge a new path.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLove Me No More (2008)
Antoine Méliot is around 40 years old and has everything he needs to be happy: a beautiful wife, two adorable children, friends he can count on, a pretty house in the Yvelines and money. But one day he decides to ruin everything in one weekend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHands of Stone (2016)
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFirst Blood (1982)
When former Green Beret John Rambo is harassed by local law enforcement and arrested for vagrancy, he is forced to flee into the mountains and wage an escalating one-man war against his pursuers.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Sonnenbrucks (1951)
Professor Sonnenbruck is a scientist who is not particularly interested in politics. Even the meeting in 1943 with his former assistant Peters does not change him. He does not betray Peters, who has escaped from a concentration camp, but that is already enough for him. But after the war Sonnenrbruck gets into a conflict of conscience. He thought that science was finally free of politics again only to find the opposite happening at his university in Göttingen. A medical congress in the GDR brings him together with Peters, who is working on a major research contract there. Sonnenbruck decides to visit Peters.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Teen Batti Char Raasta (1953)
Ramesh, the youngest son of a well-to-do family, falls in love with a woman he hears singing on the radio -- even though he's never seen her. When he finds out his mystery woman is Ksama, a servant in his parents' house, everything is thrown into turmoil. Will Ramesh accept Ksama? Will they get married? Love may just conquer all in this classic Bollywood melodrama.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Little Mother (1935)
A girl from a boarding school finds a baby and has to keep it because she seems to be the real mother to everyone.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Nights in Andalusia (1938)
When the dancer Carmen visits the bullfighter Antonio, who has stabbed a gypsy, in prison, she meets the dragoon brigadier José. The two immediately take a liking to each other, and from that day on, José often visits the café where Carmen dances. When Carmen injures another dancer in a jealous quarrel, José is ordered to arrest her...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Dead End (1937)
The lives of a young man and woman, an infamous gangster and a group of street kids converge one day in a volatile New York City slum.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisI Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)
A World War I veteran’s dreams of becoming a master architect evaporate in the cold light of economic realities. Things get even worse when he’s falsely convicted of a crime and sent to work on a chain gang.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
Longfellow Deeds lives in a small town, leading a small town kind of life. When a relative dies and leaves Deeds a fortune, Longfellow moves to the big city where he becomes an instant target for everyone. Deeds outwits them all until Babe Bennett comes along. When small-town boy meets big-city girl anything can, and does, happen.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRobert Mayer, der Arzt aus Heilbronn (1955)
Biographical movie about Julius Robert Mayer (1814-1878), a surgeon and town doctor in Heilbronn, who studied heat for many years and was the first to correctly formulate the basic principles of the theory of mechanical heat and the principle of conservation of energy. Competing Prussian scientists laugh at him, and his life is full of misunderstandings and persecution. The film tells of his fate and his long and futile struggle for recognition of the results of his scientific work.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Meet John Doe (1941)
As a parting shot, fired reporter Ann Mitchell prints a fake letter from unemployed "John Doe," who threatens suicide in protest of social ills. The paper is forced to rehire Ann and hires John Willoughby to impersonate "Doe." Ann and her bosses cynically milk the story for all it's worth, until the made-up "John Doe" philosophy starts a whole political movement.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like They Were Five?
The closest matches to They Were Five are Adieu Philippine (1962), La Belle Équipe (1936) and Charm City Kings (2020). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after They Were Five?
Start with Adieu Philippine (1962), the closest match to They Were Five.
What is the highest-rated movie like They Were Five?
Charm City Kings (2020), rated 7.8/10 by 508 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like They Were Five?
Beast (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like They Were Five?
Yes: Adieu Philippine (1962), La Belle Équipe (1936) and Colonel Chabert (1994).
How are movies similar to They Were Five chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside They Were Five, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.