Movies like The Waterdance (1992)
The best movies like The Waterdance (1992) are Passion Fish (1992), Scent of a Woman (1992) and The Doctor (1991). If The Waterdance hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.

Quick picks
- Highest ratedScent of a Woman (1992)7.8/10 from 4,185 votes
- NewestThe Sunset Limited (2011)Released 2011
Passion Fish (1992)
After an accident leaves her a paraplegic, a former soap opera star struggles to recover both emotionally and mentally, until she meets her newest nurse, who has struggles of her own.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisScent of a Woman (1992)
Charlie Simms is a student at a private preparatory school who comes from a poor family. To earn the money for his flight home to Gresham, Oregon for Christmas, Charlie takes a job over Thanksgiving looking after retired U.S. Army officer Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade, a cantankerous middle-aged man who lives with his niece and her family.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Doctor (1991)
Jack McKee is a doctor with it all: he's successful, he's rich, and he has no problems.... until he is diagnosed with throat cancer. Now that he has seen medicine, hospitals, and doctors from a patient's perspective, he realises that there is more to being a doctor than surgery and prescriptions.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMarvin's Room (1996)
A leukemia patient attempts to end a 20-year feud with her sister to get her bone marrow.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWrestling Ernest Hemingway (1993)
Frank, a retired Irish seaman, and Walter, a retired Cuban barber, are two lonely old men trapped in the emptiness of their own lives. When they meet in a park Frank is able to start a conversation after several attempts. They begin to spend time together and become friends. But because of their different characters they often quarrel with each other and finally seperate after Frank misbehaves to Walter's friend Elaine.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Cider House Rules (1999)
Homer is an orphan who was never adopted, becoming the favorite of orphanage director Dr. Larch. Dr. Larch imparts his full medical knowledge on Homer, who becomes a skilled, albeit unlicensed, physician. But Homer yearns for a self-chosen life outside the orphanage. What will Homer learn about life and love in the cider house? What of the destiny that Dr. Larch has planned for him?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Map of the World (1999)
School nurse Alice Goodwin lives with her husband and two daughters on a dairy farm in a small Wisconsin community. After an accident on her property involving a friend's child, the town turns against her and Alice finds herself fighting charges of child abuse.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCountry (1984)
Jewell and Gil are farmers. They seem to be working against the odds, producing no financial surplus. Gil has lost hope of ever becoming prosperous, but Jewell decides to fight for her family.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
A Streetcar Named Desire (1995)
A fading Southern Belle moves in with her sister in New Orleans where her ferocious brother-in-law takes stabs at her sanity.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
The Sunset Limited (2011)
A deeply religious black ex-con thwarts the suicide attempt of an asocial white college professor who tries to throw himself in front of an oncoming subway train, 'The Sunset Limited.' As the one attempts to connect on a rational, spiritual and emotional level, the other remains steadfast in his hard-earned despair. Locked in a philosophical debate, both passionately defend their personal credos and try to convert the other.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe River (1984)
Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOleanna (1994)
Carol, a college student, comes to John's office, her professor, to discuss the grade she has received for one of her papers.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHarlan County War (2000)
A Kentucky woman whose mine-worker husband is nearly killed in a cave-in, and whose father is slowly dying of black lung disease, joins the picket lines for a long, violent strike.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Normal (2003)
A Midwestern husband and father announces his plan to have a sex change operation.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUlee's Gold (1997)
Third-generation Florida beekeeper Ulee Jackson may have gotten out of Vietnam alive, but he left a part of himself behind. Now he methodically tends his bees, carefully provides for his two grandchildren and keeps his emotions at bay. But when a long-buried secret threatens Ulee's business and family, he is forced to break through his emotional walls and confront the terror of his wounded spirit.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Man Without a Face (1993)
Justin McLeod is a former teacher who lives as a recluse on the edge of town after his face is disfigured from an automobile accident ten years earlier, in which a boy was incinerated--and for which he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. Also suspected of being a paedophile, he is befriended by Chuck, causing the town's suspicions and hostility to be ignited.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNuts (1987)
A high-class call girl accused of murder fights for the right to stand trial rather than be declared mentally incompetent.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAwakenings (1990)
Dr. Malcolm Sayer, a shy research physician, uses an experimental drug to "awaken" the catatonic victims of a rare disease. Leonard is the first patient to receive the controversial treatment. His awakening, filled with awe and enthusiasm, proves a rebirth for Sayer too, as the exuberant patient reveals life's simple but unutterably sweet pleasures to the introverted doctor.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisArticle 99 (1992)
Dr. Richard Sturgess leads a team of compassionate doctors at a veteran's hospital. Along with Drs. Morgan, Handleman and Van Dorn, he fights to deliver adequate care to needy veterans in the face of funding cuts and a corrupt administration. To succeed, the staff may have to bend the rules and circumvent the villainous "Article 99," a bureaucratic loophole that prevents veterans from receiving the benefits they deserve.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this'night, Mother (1986)
A mother and daughter spend a night together after the daughter reveals that she will kill herself by the end of it.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPower (1986)
Pete St. John is a powerful and successful political consultant, with clients spread around the country. When his long-time friend and client Ohio senator Sam Hastings decides to quit politics, he is rapidly drafted to help with the campaign of the man destined to succeed him, unknown and mysterious businessman Jerome Cade...
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisGrace & Glorie (1998)
When a lonely ex-New Yorker moves into the home of a rural senior to act as a hospice worker, the two initially couldn't seem to be less alike. However, as time passes, the two find much kinship including a lost child. Slowly the two build a bond and learn about life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Places in the Heart (1984)
In 1935 rural Texas, recently widowed Edna Spaulding struggles to survive with two small children, a farm to run, and very little money in the bank - not to mention a deadly tornado and the unwelcome presence of the Ku Klux Klan. Edna is aided by her beautician sister, Margaret; a blind boarder, Mr. Will; and a would-be thief, Moze, who decides to teach Edna how to plant and harvest cotton.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSling Blade (1996)
Karl Childers, a mentally disabled man, has been in the custody of the state mental hospital since the age of 12 for killing his mother and her lover. Although thoroughly institutionalized, he is deemed fit to be released into the outside world.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisChattahoochee (1990)
In 1955 Florida, a Korean vet has a breakdown and is incarcerated in a "maximum security" mental health prison, where patients are abused.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisIronweed (1987)
An alcoholic drifter spends Halloween in his hometown of Albany, New York after returning there for the first time in decades.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Sweet Hereafter (1997)
A small mountain community in Canada is devastated when a school bus accident leaves more than a dozen of its children dead. A big-city lawyer arrives to help the survivors' and victims' families prepare a class-action suit, but his efforts only seem to push the townspeople further apart. At the same time, one teenage survivor of the accident has to reckon with the loss of innocence brought about by a different kind of damage.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhose Life Is It Anyway? (1981)
Ken Harrison is an artist that lives to make sculptures. One day he is involved in a car accident, and is paralyzed from his neck down. All he can do is talk and move his head, and he wants to die. Whilst he is in hospital he makes friends with some of the staff, and they support him when he goes to trial to be allowed to die.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMan Push Cart (2006)
Every night while the city sleeps, Ahmad, a former Pakistani rock star turned immigrant, drags his heavy cart along the streets of New York. And every morning, he sells coffee and donuts to a city he cannot call his own. One day, however, the pattern of this harsh existence is broken by a glimmer of hope for a better life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCity of Hope (1991)
This gritty inner-city film follows various people living in a troubled New Jersey setting, most notably Nick Rinaldi, a disillusioned contractor who has been helped along his whole life by his wealthy father. Other characters in this ensemble drama about urban conflict and corruption include Asteroid, an unstable homeless person, and Wynn, an idealistic young politician.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Waterdance?
The closest matches to The Waterdance are Passion Fish (1992), Scent of a Woman (1992) and The Doctor (1991). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Waterdance?
People who watched The Waterdance most often go on to Passion Fish (1992), Scent of a Woman (1992) and The Doctor (1991).
What is the highest-rated movie like The Waterdance?
Scent of a Woman (1992), rated 7.8/10 by 4,185 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Waterdance?
The Sunset Limited (2011) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Waterdance?
Yes: Passion Fish (1992), Scent of a Woman (1992) and The Doctor (1991).
How are movies similar to The Waterdance chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Waterdance, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.





























