Movies like The Only Way (1970)
The best movies like The Only Way (1970) are The Boy in the Woods (2023), Voyage of the Damned (1976) and Uprising (2001). If The Only Way hooked you with its drama and war, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)7.8/10 from 7,933 votes
- NewestLucky Strike (2026)Released 2026
The Boy in the Woods (2023)
The remarkable true-life survival story of a Jewish boy hiding and being hunted in the forests of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, based on Maxwell Smart's memoir.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisVoyage of the Damned (1976)
A luxury liner carries Jewish refugees from Hitler's Germany in a desperate fight for survival.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUprising (2001)
In the Warsaw ghetto in 1943, Jews rise against the Nazis.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Six Triple Eight (2024)
During World War II, the US Army's only all-Black, all-women battalion takes on an impossible mission: sorting through a three-year backlog of 17 million pieces of mail that hadn't been delivered to American soldiers and finish within six months.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDunkirk (1958)
A British Corporal in France finds himself responsible for the lives of his men when their officer is killed. He has to get them back to Britain somehow. Meanwhile, British civilians are being dragged into the war with Operation Dynamo, the scheme to get the French and British forces back from the Dunkirk beaches. Some come forward to help, others were less willing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Longest Day (1962)
The retelling of June 6, 1944, from the perspectives of the Germans, US, British, Canadians, and the Free French. Marshall Erwin Rommel, touring the defenses being established as part of the Reich's Atlantic Wall, notes to his officers that when the Allied invasion comes they must be stopped on the beach. "For the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest day"
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Monuments Men (2014)
Based on the true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history, The Monuments Men is an action drama focusing on seven over-the-hill, out-of-shape museum directors, artists, architects, curators, and art historians who went to the front lines of WWII to rescue the world’s artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their rightful owners. With the art hidden behind enemy lines, how could these guys hope to succeed?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWaiting for Anya (2020)
During the harrows of WWII, Jo, a young shepherd along with the help of the widow Horcada, helps to smuggle Jewish children across the border from southern France into Spain.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Zone of Interest (2023)
The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Windermere Children (2020)
The story of the pioneering project to rehabilitate child survivors of the Holocaust on the shores of Lake Windermere.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin (2024)
As the world teeters on the brink of annihilation, Dietrich Bonhoeffer joins a deadly plot to assassinate Hitler, risking his faith and fate to save millions of Jews from genocide.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSink the Bismarck! (1960)
The story of the breakout of the German battleship Bismarck—accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen—during the early days of World War II. The Bismarck and her sister ship, Tirpitz, were the most powerful battleships in the European theater of World War II. The British Navy must find and destroy Bismarck before it can escape into the convoy lanes to inflict severe damage on the cargo shipping which was the lifeblood of the British Isles. With eight 15 inch guns, it was capable of destroying every ship in a convoy while remaining beyond the range of all Royal Navy warships.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe War Below (2021)
During World War I, a group of British miners are recruited to tunnel underneath no man's land and set bombs from below the German front in hopes of breaking the deadly stalemate of the Battle of Messines.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)
When his family moves from their home in Berlin to a strange new house in Poland, young Bruno befriends Shmuel, a boy who lives on the other side of the fence where everyone seems to be wearing striped pajamas. Unaware of Shmuel's fate as a Jewish prisoner or the role his own Nazi father plays in his imprisonment, Bruno embarks on a dangerous journey inside the camp's walls.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Last Rifleman (2023)
A WWII veteran escapes his care home in Northern Ireland and embarks on an arduous but inspirational journey to France to attend the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, finding the courage to face the ghosts of his past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDunkirk (2017)
The story of the miraculous evacuation of Allied soldiers from Belgium, Britain, Canada and France, who were cut off and surrounded by the German army from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk between May 26th and June 4th 1940 during World War II.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAgainst the Ice (2022)
In 1909, two explorers fight to survive after they're left behind while on a Danish expedition in ice-covered Greenland.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Diary of Anne Frank (1959)
The true, harrowing story of a young Jewish girl who, with her family and their friends, is forced into hiding in an attic in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLucky Strike (2026)
A wounded American soldier fights to survive behind enemy lines during WWII's Battle of the Bulge against the Germans, relying on his instinct, spy craft and a hand-radio to evade capture and find his way back to his unit.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOne Life (2023)
British stockbroker Nicholas Winton visits Czechoslovakia in the 1930s and forms plans to assist in the rescue of Jewish children before the onset of World War II, in an operation that came to be known as the Kindertransport.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFatherland (1994)
Fictional account of what might have happened if Hitler had won the war. It is now the 1960s and Germany's war crimes have so far been kept a secret. Hitler wants to talk peace with the US president. An American journalist and a German homicide cop stumble into a plot to destroy all evidence of the genocide.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Devil's General (1955)
The adaptation of the eponymous play by Carl Zuckmayer tells the story of renegade general Harras of the German Luftwaffe, who during WWII openly criticizes the Nazi regime. As a consequence, he is put under surveillance, and even imprisoned for a brief period of time. Still remaining outspoken, Harras realizes the horrific dimensions of this hopeless and injust war waged by Germany.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUnderground (1995)
Black marketeers Marko and Blacky manufacture and sell weapons to the Communist resistance in WWII Belgrade, living the good life along the way. Marko's surreal duplicity propels him up the ranks of the Communist Party, and he eventually abandons Blacky and steals his girlfriend. After a lengthy stay in a below-ground shelter, the couple reemerges during the Yugoslav Civil War of the 1990s as Marko sees the opportunity to exploit the situation.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNeporažení (1956)
As Nazi troops prepare to occupy the already truncated Czechoslovak Republic, a small military garrison made up of communists defies orders to abandon their post.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Tenkrát o vánocích (1958)
A Czechoslovak battalion, led by Captain Hloušek, conquers a Slovak mountain village two days before Christmas Eve 1944. Christmas and classical music is heard from nearby German positions. The soldiers get permission from their commanders to celebrate Christmas. The only one against is the austere second lieutenant Jílek, about whose past there are various rumours and whom the soldiers distrust. Captain Hloušek decides to reconnoitre the enemy positions, which, despite a minor incident, goes off without a hitch. The holiday of peace and tranquility can begin both with ours and the enemy...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Vera (2022)
Vera has young woman as the main heroine, who is in the jaws of the war spy network in WW2 and also of the patriarchal society in the Balkans with full of powerful, arrogant men with whom she deals bravely and arrogantly.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Operation Belgrade (1968)
In Autumn of 1943 American plane carrying Soviet colonel is shot down near Nazi-occupied Belgrade. Germans capture the colonel and begin interrogations, because he knows everything about forecoming Allied summit in Tehran. Group of Yugoslav Partizans is sent to Belgrade in order to rescue the colonel before he starts talking.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both war
1941 (1979)
In the days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, panic grips California, where a military officer leads a mob chasing a Japanese sub.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both war
SnoozefestMovies like thisKelly's Heroes (1970)
A misfit group of World War II American soldiers goes AWOL to rob a bank behind German lines.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both war
Worth the HypeMovies like this
Like The Only Way and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Only Way?
The closest matches to The Only Way are The Boy in the Woods (2023), Voyage of the Damned (1976) and Uprising (2001). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Only Way?
Start with The Boy in the Woods (2023), the closest match to The Only Way.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Only Way?
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008), rated 7.8/10 by 7,933 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Only Way?
Lucky Strike (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Only Way?
Yes: The Boy in the Woods (2023), Voyage of the Damned (1976) and Uprising (2001).
How are movies similar to The Only Way chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Only Way, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.