Movies like Purple Light (2013)
The best movies like Purple Light (2013) are My Brother the Devil (2012), One Second (2020) and A Month in the Country (1987). If Purple Light 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
- NewestHere (2024)Released 2024
- In ChineseOne Second (2020)Also in Chinese
My Brother the Devil (2012)
Fourteen-year-old Mo is a lonely, sensitive boy whose hunger for the rant and banter of buddies makes him prone to tread dangerous territories. He idolizes his handsome older brother, Rashid, a charismatic, well-respected member of a local gang, whose drug dealing enables “Rash” to provide for his family. Aching to be seen as a tough guy himself, Mo takes a job that unlocks a fateful turn of events and forces the brothers to confront their inner demons. It turns out that hate is easy. It is love and understanding that take real courage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOne Second (2020)
A movie fan escapes from a labour camp during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and strikes up a relationship with a homeless female vagabond.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Month in the Country (1987)
A destitute WWI veteran is hired to help carry out restoration work on a medieval mural in a rural Yorkshire church. While living in the quiet village, he forms a close friendship with an archaeologist and begins to come to terms with his trauma.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLighting Up the Stars (2022)
Having been released after serving his sentence, a funeral director accidentally crosses paths with a girl which brings about an unexpected change in his attitude towards life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPimp (2018)
An urban love story set on the hard streets of the Bronx. A struggling female pimp, named Wednesday, grows up learning the game from her dad. Once he's gone she's left to look out for her prostitute mother and girlfriend Nikki.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Lords of Discipline (1983)
Will arrives for his last year at Military Academy, in the Deep South USA, in the 1960's. A black student, Pearce, has been accepted, for the first time and Will is asked to keep an eye out for the inevitable racism. The racists come in the form of The Ten, a secret group of the elite students. They want Pearce to leave on his own free will, but are prepared to torture him to make it 'his free will'. Will is forced to help Pearce and he is prepared to risk his own career to do so.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Giver (2014)
In a seemingly perfect community, without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, a young boy is chosen to learn from an elderly man about the true pain and pleasure of the "real" world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHounddog (2008)
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
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 thisVive L'Amour (1994)
Three lonely young denizens of Taipei unknowingly share an apartment: May, a real estate agent who uses it for her sexual affairs; Ah-jung, her current lover; and Hsiao-kang, who's stolen the key and uses the apartment as a retreat.
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 thisRomper Stomper (1992)
Nazi skinheads in Melbourne take out their anger on local Vietnamese, who are seen as threatening racial purity. Finally the Vietnamese have had enough and confront the skinheads in an all-out confrontation, sending the skinheads running. A woman who is prone to epileptic seizures joins the skins' merry band, and helps them on their run from justice, but is her affliction also a sign of impurity?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDwelling in the Fuchun Mountains (2020)
In the Chinese town of Fuyang, four brothers go about their day-to-day lives, their destinies shaped by love and challenges.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Enforcer (2022)
A noir thriller set in Miami, the film follows an enforcer who discovers his femme fatale boss has branched out into cyber sex trafficking, putting a young runaway he’s befriended at risk. He sacrifices everything to save the young girl from the deadly organization he’s spent his life building.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWhat Maisie Knew (2013)
In New York City, six-year-old Maisie is caught in the middle of a bitter custody battle between her self-absorbed parents—an aging rock singer mother and a distracted art dealer father. As both quickly marry new partners to strengthen their legal standing, Maisie is shuttled back and forth in an endless game of emotional point-scoring. Yet amid the chaos and upheaval, Maisie begins to find true comfort and affection in her new step-parents.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHere (2024)
An odyssey through time and memory, centered on a place in New Jersey where—from wilderness, and then, later, from a home—love, loss, struggle, hope and legacy play out between couples and families over generations.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBack to Back, Face to Face (1994)
Wang Shuangli is Deputy Director of the local Cultural Centre, and hopes to be appointed Director. However Old Ma is brought in from the country and installed as Director. This starts a long train of events with Wang's cronies using the bureaucracy to try to oust the new director.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies 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 Young One (1960)
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBride of the Incredible Hulk (1980)
In one of the saga's most emotional stories, David Banner travels to Hawaii to find Dr. Caroline Fields, a psychiatrist who has developed a hypnotherapy technique that could cure him. Discovering they share the burden of an incurable condition—Caroline suffers from a terminal illness—the two fall in love and marry, offering Banner a glimpse of happiness. However, tragedy looms when Jack McGee's relentless pursuit and a devastating hurricane threaten their brief moment of peace.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Unsure Masseur (2021)
Trapped in our gig jobs economy, an aspiring masseur learns the sacrifices required from an experienced massage therapist.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Eden (2021)
Eden is the queer re-tale of Adam and Eve’s story in modern times. A visually striking story about first love situated in Berlin.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Barely in Love (2013)
When a new troupe leader joins the 'Bnai Akiva' boy scouts movement, Yotam's world trembles. He is forced to cope with his sexual orientation and the difficulties he faces with family and religion, and is torn between his love of religion that forbids homosexuality and his mother who tries to 'cure' him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)
A young Pakistani Briton manages a rundown laundrette with his lover while dealing with tension in his family, the local Pakistani community, and a persistent mob of skinheads.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Angry Toy (1984)
Silvio, a young poet and inventor, struggles to find employment and to give meaning to his life. Silvio has a homosexual relationship, which leaves him traumatized.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
G O'Clock (2016)
Alex is a paramedic who saves lives on London's gay chemsex scene, but can he save himself from it?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)
The story of two radically different men thrown together in a Latin American prison cell. One is Valentin, a journalist being tortured for his political beliefs. The other is Molina, a gay window-dresser who fills their lonely nights by spinning romantic fantasies drawn from memories of old movies.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisI Carry You with Me (2021)
An epic love story spanning decades is sparked by a chance encounter between two men in provincial Mexico. Based on a true story, ambition and societal pressure propel an aspiring chef to leave his soulmate and make the treacherous journey to New York, where life will never be the same.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNobody Loves Me (1994)
On the brink of her 30th birthday, Fanny feels the door to marital happiness closing on her. She is obsessed with death and even visits evening classes on dying, so it seems fitting that she encounters a skeleton in the malfunctioning elevator of her apartment building. The skeleton is her neighbour Orfeo, a Black, gay, self-declared psychic, who convinces her that she is about to meet "him". But is it really Lothar, the new yuppie apartment manager ...?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Salt (2016)
In a big city, a solitary computer technician meets an intriguing man on a website, where people share their fantasies.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Purple Light?
The closest matches to Purple Light are My Brother the Devil (2012), One Second (2020) and A Month in the Country (1987). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Purple Light?
Start with My Brother the Devil (2012), the closest match to Purple Light.
What is the highest-rated movie like Purple Light?
Charm City Kings (2020), rated 7.8/10 by 508 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Purple Light?
Here (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Chinese movies like Purple Light?
Yes: One Second (2020), Lighting Up the Stars (2022) and Vive L'Amour (1994).
How are movies similar to Purple Light chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Purple Light, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.