Movies like Oranges Amères (1997)
The best movies like Oranges Amères (1997) are The Stranger (2025), The Passengers of the Night (2022) and The Cage (1975). If Oranges Amères hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Insult (2017)7.5/10 from 496 votes
- NewestAnother Day (2026)Released 2026
- In FrenchThe Stranger (2025)Also in French
The Stranger (2025)
Algiers, 1938. Meursault, a quiet and unassuming employee in his early thirties, attends his mother's funeral without shedding a tear. The next day, he begins a casual affair with Marie, a work colleague. He quickly slips back into his usual routine.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Passengers of the Night (2022)
On election night in 1981, celebrations spill out onto the street and there is an air of hope and change throughout Paris. But for Elisabeth, her marriage is coming to an end and she will now have to support herself and her two teenage children. She finds work at a late-night radio show and encounters a troubled teenager named Talulah whom she invites into her home.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Cage (1975)
The story of a woman who is suddenly visited by her estranged ex-husband. The ex-hubby wants to buy her country house, which she received in the divorce settlement. Instead he finds himself locked in a cage in the cellar.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDNA (2020)
A woman has a close bond with her beloved Algerian grandfather, who protected her from a toxic home life as a child; his death triggers a deep identity crisis as tensions between her extended family members escalate, revealing new depths of resentment and bitterness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies 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 thisAnother Day (2026)
Over an eight-year journey in Paris, a struggling young actress turns to alcohol to cope with her anxieties, spiraling into self-destruction before finding a path toward recovery through a new romance and her ailing sister.
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 thisL'Argent (1928)
Adapted from the novel L'Argent by Émile Zola, the film portrays the world of banking and the stock market in Paris in the 1920s.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSecret Name (2021)
Nelie escaped a miserable existence by becoming a frontline nurse in 1914. One day, she takes the identity of Rose, a young woman from a good family, who dies in front of her. She presents herself in her place at Madame de Lengwil's house, to become the reader of this wealthy woman.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisIn His Shadow (2023)
After the death of their father, two half-brothers find themselves on opposite sides of an escalating conflict with tragic consequences.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMichou d'Auber (2007)
Set in France during the struggle for Algerian independence, Messaoud's mother is terminally ill and his father, needing to work long hours in the factory, can't look after him, so decides to put him and his older brother Abdel in foster care. Sent to the countryside, Abdel has to work on a farm, but Messaoud is taken in by a childless woman, who conceals his Arab origins from her fiercely Gaullist ex-army husband. Re-named Michel/Michou, and with his hair comically dyed blond, the young boy quickly steals the hearts of both foster-parents, and eventually is instrumental in saving their troubled marriage.
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 thisFast Girls (2012)
A street smart runner develops an intense rivalry with an equally ambitious wealthy young athlete.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Cat (1971)
Julien Bouin, a former typographist, and his wife Clemence, who used to perform in a circus, hardly talk to each other in their small house, soon to be demolished. His cat Greffier being the only one he still gives affection to, he becomes the object of Clemence's anger.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Kick of Sirocco (1979)
A shady Parisian tries to take advantage of a family of French-descended Algerians forced to move to France.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Insult (2017)
After an emotional exchange between a Lebanese Christian and a Palestinian refugee escalates, the men end up in a court case that gets national attention.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972)
Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 thisChaos (2001)
A bourgeois couple, modern yet conventional. One night by accident, a young prostitute barges into their lives. Hounded down, beaten up, threatened, she will continue to struggle, with the help of a well off lady, first for her survival-her resurrection-then for her dignity and freedom. Stormy encounters for everyone involved.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHoly Lands (2019)
When lapsed Jew and former cardiologist Harry suddenly decides to spend his retirement as a pig farmer in Nazareth, Israel, the move deeply shocks his family and his new neighbours. Back in New York, Harry’s ex-wife Monica is trying to manage the lives of their adult children, Annabelle and David, as well as her own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Desert Divers (1952)
Les Plongeurs Du Désert, directed by Tahar Hannache in 1952, is considered the first entirely Algerian fiction film. It tells the story of the inhabitants of an oasis whose well has dried up. The village elder, Sheikh Messaoud, calls upon the renowned desert divers, artisans specializing in clearing sand- and silt-filled wells, to restore access to the vital water for the community. After their intervention, the water begins to flow again, bringing relief to the oasis and its inhabitants. The film depicts the contrast between the traditional techniques of the divers, embodied by Sheikh Ali and his son Mansour, and the arrival of modernity, represented by the machine that ultimately replaces their craft. This story symbolizes the marginalization of local knowledge in the face of technological progress and the social injustice of the colonial era.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Refusal (1982)
In 1971, the Algerian government nationalized hydrocarbons. The consequences of this decision on the community of Algerians in France are numerous. The Galti family is prey to these economic problems. The father, Khaled, former member of the F.L.N. in France, does not escape the sentence. Sharazade, his wife and comrade in combat, finds herself torn between her role as wife, mother and nostalgia for a country and a bygone past. As for his son Karim, a victim of socio-cultural division, all he has left is refusal.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Hiziya (1977)
It was from the popular song-poem by Mohamed Ben Guittoun that director Mohamed Hazourli (of the Constantine regional station of RTA) wrote the screenplay. Hiziya Bent Ahmeb Bey, 23 years old, lived in southeastern Algeria, in a village called Sidi Khaled. The daughter of a powerful notable of the Dhouaouda tribe, who regularly migrated through the desert, Hiziya was exceptionally beautiful, to the point that other girls were jealous and envious of her, and men succumbed to her charm. But the young woman's heart belonged to Saïd, an orphan taken in as a child by his uncle. They met in secret and married despite family hostility. A month after their wedding, Hiziya died during the transhumance in the desert. The death of his beloved plunged Saïd into deep grief, to the point that he abandoned his possessions and family to wander the desert.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Tale of an Encounter (1985)
Two deaf and dumb children. She is the daughter of an American Oil engineer. He is the son of an Algerian farmer. They meet and manage to communicate, transcending all the cultural barriers that separate them.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Elli Fat Mat (1989)
27 years after 1962, Antoine returns to Algiers...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Yasmina (1961)
"Yasmina" filmed in 1961 in the middle of the Algerian war tells the story of a little Algerian girl with her hen and her family whose father was killed in a bombing by the French colonial army of occupation. The family, after a long journey, heads towards the refugee camps on the Tunisian border. Produced by the Cinema Service of the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA) in the midst of the war of independence, these films were intended to re-inform the population and international public opinion on the abuses committed by the French colonial army: torture, arrests and arbitrary executions, napalm bombings, fires in douars, entire villages wiped off the map, etc. which the French media described as a "pacification" campaign. The latter censoring or reorienting any images that could harm the colonial narrative.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
July Dust (1967)
“Poussières de Juillet”, produced in 1967 by Hachemi El-Chérif, is taken from a poem by Kateb Yacine. "We made a film on the return of the ashes of Emir Abdelkader, to Algeria. It was the opportunity to make a film on the ancestors with M'hamed Issiakhem. He designed glass plates on the basis of my texts. Then we had actors collaborate. It was a film which cost us a total of 300 dinars, proof that we could do work for television without too much money. We won two first international prizes at the Belgrade festival. We left the original of the film with the Egyptians in Alexandria and they lost it. We kept a copy but over time I wonder what happened to it, because there is no not even had a screening, they say it still exists, but I don't know in what state." Kateb Yacine, July 28, 1986, interview with Arlette Casas.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Desert Ark (1998)
The Desert Ark (L'Arche du Desert), a variation on Romeo and Juliet set in the Algerian desert. A young couple must face inevitable conflict when their rival families discover their secret love. Taking refuge in a cave, they listen to the sounds of a senseless campaign of violence and murder, which is the culmination of the extremism that has long divided their two communities. Nominated for the Golden Leopard at the 1997 Locarno Film Festival.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Gerboise Bleue (2009)
"Gerboise bleue", the first French atomic test carried out on February 13, 1960 in the Algerian Sahara, is the starting point of France's nuclear power. These are powerful radioactive aerial shots carried out in areas belonging to the French army. Underground tests will follow, even after the independence of Algeria. From 1960 to 1978, 30,000 people were exposed in the Sahara. The French army was recognized recognized nine irradiations. No complaint against the army or the Atomic Energy Commission has resulted. Three requests for a commission of inquiry were rejected by the National Defense Commission. For the first time, the last survivors bear witness to their fight for the recognition of their illnesses, and revealed to themselves in what conditions the shootings took place. The director goes to the zero point of "Gerboise Bleue", forbidden access for 47 years by the Algerian authorities
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Jamila, the Algerian (1958)
Djamila, a young Algerian woman living with her brother Hadi and her uncle Mustafa in the Casbah district of Algiers under the French occupation of Algeria, sees the full extent of injustice, tyranny and cruelty on his compatriots by French soldiers. Jamila's nationalist spirit will be strengthened when French forces invade her university to arrest her classmate Amina who commits suicide by ingesting poison. Shortly after the prominent Algerian guerrilla leader Youssef takes refuge with her, she realizes that her uncle Mustafa is part of this network of anti-colonial rebel fighters. Her uncle linked her to the National Liberation Front (FLN). A series of events illustrate Jamila's participation in resistance operations against the occupier before she was finally captured and tortured. Finally, despite the efforts of her French lawyer, Jamila is sentenced to death...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Oranges Amères?
The closest matches to Oranges Amères are The Stranger (2025), The Passengers of the Night (2022) and The Cage (1975). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Oranges Amères?
Start with The Stranger (2025), the closest match to Oranges Amères.
What is the highest-rated movie like Oranges Amères?
The Insult (2017), rated 7.5/10 by 496 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Oranges Amères?
Another Day (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like Oranges Amères?
Yes: The Stranger (2025), The Passengers of the Night (2022) and The Cage (1975).
How are movies similar to Oranges Amères chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Oranges Amères, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.