Movies like Water for Elephants (2011)
The best movies like Water for Elephants (2011) are Me Before You (2016), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) and It Ends with Us (2024). If Water for Elephants 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 ratedPaths of Glory (1957)8.3/10 from 3,438 votes
- NewestIt Ends with Us (2024)Released 2024
Me Before You (2016)
Lou Clark, a directionless 26-year-old from the English countryside, takes a job at the local castle as a caregiver and companion to a wealthy young banker, Will Traynor. Wheelchair-bound from an accident two years prior, the once adventurous Will has all but given up — that is until Lou determines to show him that life is worth living.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Greatest Show on Earth (1952)
To ensure a full profitable season, circus manager Brad Braden engages The Great Sebastian, though this moves his girlfriend Holly from her hard-won center trapeze spot. Holly and Sebastian begin a dangerous one-upmanship duel in the ring, while he pursues her on the ground.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIt Ends with Us (2024)
When a woman's first love suddenly reenters her life, her relationship with a charming, but abusive neurosurgeon is upended, and she realizes she must learn to rely on her own strength to make an impossible choice for her future.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Best of Me (2014)
A pair of former high school sweethearts reunite after many years when they return to visit their small hometown.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Object of My Affection (1998)
A pregnant New York social worker begins to develop romantic feelings for her gay best friend, and decides she'd rather raise her child with him, much to the dismay of her overbearing boyfriend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisGreat Expectations (2012)
Orphan Pip discovers through lawyer Mr. Jaggers that a mysterious benefactor wishes to ensure that he becomes a gentleman. Reunited with his childhood patron, Miss Havisham, and his first love, the beautiful but emotionally cold Estella, he discovers that the elderly spinster has gone mad from having been left at the altar as a young woman, and has made her charge into a warped, unfeeling heartbreaker.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKaren Kingsbury's Maggie's Christmas Miracle (2017)
Maggie, a single mom has to balance between her career and her son, Jordan. Jordan finds a tutor named Casey to help him at school, and Casey becomes like a father figure. Will the three of them find happiness and love once again?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlind (2017)
A novelist is blinded in a car crash that killed his wife and several years later rediscovers his passion for life and writing when he embarks on an affair with the neglected wife of an indicted businessman.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFallen (2016)
Lucinda Price is sent to a reform academy under the assumption that she has killed a boy. There, she meets two mysterious boys, Cam and Daniel, to whom she feels drawn to both. But as the love triangle unfurls, it is Daniel that Luce cannot keep herself away from, and things begin to take a darker turn when she finds out his true identity.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisElephant Walk (1954)
Colonial tea planter John Wiley, visiting England at the end of World War II, weds lovely English rose Ruth and takes her home to Elephant Walk, Ceylon, where the local elephants have a grudge against the plantation. Ruth's delight with the tropical wealth and luxury of her new home is tempered by isolation as the only white woman in the district; her husband's occasional imperious arrogance; a mutual physical attraction with plantation manager Dick Carver; and the hovering, ominous menace of the hostile elephants.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisFar from the Madding Crowd (2015)
In Victorian England, the independent and headstrong Bathsheba Everdene attracts three very different suitors: Gabriel Oak, a hardworking young sheep farmer; Frank Troy, a handsome and reckless Sergeant; and William Boldwood, a prosperous and mature bachelor.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBlood and Sand (1941)
Bullfighter Juan Gallardo falls for socialite Dona Sol, turning from the faithful Carmen who nevertheless stands by her man as he continues to face real danger in the bullring.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNine Lives (2005)
Captives of the very relationships that define and sustain them, nine women resiliently meet the travails and disappointments of life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between (2022)
Clare and Aidan make a pact to break up before college — no regrets, no broken hearts. But will one epic goodbye date offer them a last chance at love?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLady Chatterley's Lover (2015)
An early-20th-century tale of love across class boundaries which tells the legendary and romantic story of Lady Chatterley’s affair with her gamekeeper. Jed Mercurio’s adaptation of DH Lawrence’s classic.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Way We Were (1973)
Opposites attract when, during their college days, Katie Morosky, a politically active Jew, meets Hubbell Gardiner, a feckless WASP. Years later, in the wake of World War II, they meet once again and, despite their obvious differences, attempt to make their love for each other work.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOne Day (2011)
After spending the night together on the eve of their college graduation, Dexter and Emma are shown each year on the same date to see where they are in their lives. They are sometimes together, and sometimes not.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBorrowed Hearts (1997)
Single mom Kathleen Russell (Roma Downey) and her daughter Zoey pretend to be Kathleen's boss's "family" so he can close a major business deal with the mysterious Mexican financier Javier Del Campo.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Plague Dogs (1982)
Two dogs, Rowf and Snitter, struggle to survive in the countryside after escaping from an animal research laboratory. They're pursued by search parties and then the military after rumours spread that they could be carrying the bubonic plague.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSaving Flora (2019)
Flora is a circus elephant who can no longer perform her tricks. The night before she's scheduled to be euthanized, the circus owner's 14-year old daughter, Dawn, sneaks Flora from the circus. All that stands between them and the safety of the elephant preserve is two hundred kilometers of woods, one raging river, two elephant hunters and the fear of not making it.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDoctor Zhivago (1965)
The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMilea (2020)
Years after his teen romance with Milea, a now-adult Dilan tells his version of their love story when a high school reunion brings them back together.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Notes on a Scandal (2006)
A veteran high school teacher befriends a younger art teacher, who is having an affair with one of her 15-year-old students. However, her intentions with this new "friend" also go well beyond platonic friendship.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCool Hand Luke (1967)
When petty criminal Luke Jackson is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn't play by the rules of either the sadistic warden or the yard's resident heavy, Dragline, who ends up admiring the new guy's unbreakable will. Luke's bravado, even in the face of repeated stints in the prison's dreaded solitary confinement cell, "the box," make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison officers.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
The classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. British and American intelligence officers conspire to blow up the structure, but Col. Nicholson, the commander who supervised the bridge's construction, has acquired a sense of pride in his creation and tries to foil their plans.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPaths of Glory (1957)
A commanding officer defends three scapegoats on trial for a failed offensive that occurred within the French Army in 1916.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisScarface (1932)
In 1920s Chicago, Italian immigrant and notorious thug, Antonio 'Tony' Camonte, aka Scarface, shoots his way to the top of the mobs while trying to protect his sister from the criminal life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCrash (1996)
A car crash victim inexplicably finds himself aroused by car accidents and becomes involved with an underground subculture of like-minded souls.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAll the President's Men (1976)
During the 1972 elections, two reporters' investigation sheds light on the controversial Watergate scandal that compels President Nixon to resign from his post.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAparajito (1956)
Apu and his family have moved away from the country to live in the bustling holy city of Benares. As he progresses from wide-eyed child to intellectually curious teenager, eventually studying in Kolkata, we witness his academic and moral education, as well as the growing complexity of his relationship with his mother.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
Like Water for Elephants and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Water for Elephants?
The closest matches to Water for Elephants are Me Before You (2016), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) and It Ends with Us (2024). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Water for Elephants?
Start with Me Before You (2016), the closest match to Water for Elephants.
What is the highest-rated movie like Water for Elephants?
Paths of Glory (1957), rated 8.3/10 by 3,438 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Water for Elephants?
It Ends with Us (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Water for Elephants?
Yes: Me Before You (2016), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) and It Ends with Us (2024).
How are movies similar to Water for Elephants chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Water for Elephants, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.