Movies like Dangerous Waters (1936)
The best movies like Dangerous Waters (1936) are Anne of the Indies (1951), The Sea Wolf (1941) and Wake of the Red Witch (1948). If Dangerous Waters hooked you with its adventure and drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.

Quick picks
- Highest ratedTrue Grit (1969)7.3/10 from 903 votes
- NewestTrue Spirit (2023)Released 2023
Anne of the Indies (1951)
After buccaneer captain Anne Providence spares Pierre LaRochelle and recruits him into her pirate crew, their growing attraction is tested when Captain Blackbeard reveals LaRochelle's true identity as a former French navy officer.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Sea Wolf (1941)
Shipwrecked fugitives try to escape a brutal sea captain who's losing his mind.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWake of the Red Witch (1948)
Captain Ralls fights Dutch shipping magnate Mayrant Sidneye for the woman he loves, Angelique Desaix, and for a fortune in gold aboard the Red Witch.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisTrue Spirit (2023)
When the tenacious young sailor Jessica Watson sets out to be the youngest person to sail solo, nonstop and unassisted around the world, many expect her to fail. With the support of her sailing coach and mentor Ben Bryant and her parents, Jessica is determined to accomplish what was thought to be impossible, navigating some of the world’s most challenging stretches of ocean over the course of 210 days.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHell and High Water (1954)
A privately-financed scientist and his colleagues hire an ex-Navy officer to conduct an Alaskan submarine expedition in order to prevent a Red Chinese anti-American plot that may lead to World War III. Mixes deviously plotted schoolboy fiction with submarine spectacle and cold war heroics.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Poseidon Adventure (1972)
When their ocean liner capsizes, a group of passengers struggle to survive and escape.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe High and the Mighty (1954)
Dan Roman is a veteran pilot haunted by a tragic past. Now relegated to second-in-command cockpit assignments he finds himself on a routine Honolulu-to-San Francisco flight that takes a terrifying turn when disaster strikes high above the Pacific Ocean after the point of no return.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Journey of Natty Gann (1985)
America is in the depths of the Great Depression. Families drift apart when faraway jobs beckon. A courageous young girl confronts overwhelming odds when she embarks on a cross-country search for her father. During her odyssey, she forms a close bond with two diverse traveling companions: a magnificent, protective wolf, and a hardened drifter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlueback (2022)
Based on the best-selling novel by Tim Winton, Blueback is a timely tale about the ocean, a beautiful marine creature, and a young girl’s power to change the world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTrue Grit (1969)
The murder of her father sends a teenage tomboy on a mission of 'justice', which involves avenging her father's death. She recruits a tough old marshal, 'Rooster' Cogburn because he has 'true grit', and a reputation of getting the job done.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & adventure
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMoby Dick (1956)
In 1841, young Ishmael signs up for service aboard the Pequod, a whaler sailing out of New Bedford. The ship is under the command of Captain Ahab, a strict disciplinarian who exhorts his men to find Moby Dick, the great white whale. Ahab lost his leg to that creature and is desperate for revenge. As the crew soon learns, he will stop at nothing to gain satisfaction.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBabylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers - To Live and Die in Starlight (2002)
After being punished for retreat from combat, Ranger David Martel is given command of the Liandra, a haunted 20-year old Minbari fighting ship. He's escorting ambassadors to a secret archaeological site, the oldest city on record and a clue to a dangerous ancient race.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisH.M.S. Defiant (1962)
Defiant's crew is part of a fleet-wide movement to present a petition of grievances to the Admiralty. Violence must be no part of it. The continual sadism of Defiant's first officer makes this difficult, and when the captain is disabled, the chance for violence increases.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTreasure Island (1972)
Young Jim Hawkins finds himself serving with pirate captain Long John Silver in search of a buccaneer's treasure, in this short adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure
SnoozefestMovies like thisAnastasia: Once Upon a Time (2020)
Anastasia Romanov escapes through a portal when her family is threatened by Vladimir Lenin, and she finds herself in the year 1988, befriended by a young American girl.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure
SnoozefestMovies like thisFlicka (2006)
Katy McLaughlin desires to work on her family's mountainside horse ranch, although her father insists she finish boarding school. Katy finds a mustang in the hills near her ranch. The headstrong 16 year old then sets her mind to tame a mustang and prove to her father she can run the ranch. But when tragedy happens, it will take all the love and strength the family can muster to restore hope.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTreasure Island (1990)
Young Jim Hawkins, while running the Benbow Inn with his mother, meets Captain Billy Bones, who dies at the inn while it is beseiged by buccaneers led by Blind Pew. Jim and his mother fight off the attackers and discover Billy Bones' treasure map for which the buccaneers had come. Jim agrees to sail on the S.S. Hispaniola with Squire Trelawney and Dr. Livesey to find the treasure on a mysterious island. Upon arriving at the island, ship's cook and scallywag Long John Silver leads a mutiny of crew members who want the treasure for themselves. Jim helps the Squire and Hispaniola officers to survive the mutiny and fight back against Silver's men, who have taken over the ship.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhere the Red Fern Grows (1974)
Billy Coleman works hard and saves his earnings for two years to achieve his dream of buying two red-bone coonhound pups. He develops a new trust in life as he faces overwhelming challenges in adventure and tragedy roaming the river bottoms of Cherokee country with his dogs, Old Dan and Little Ann.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Sea Chase (1955)
As the Second World War breaks out, German freighter captain Karl Ehrlich is about to leave Sydney, Australia with his vessel, the Ergenstrasse. Ehrlich, an anti-Nazi but proud German, hopes to outrun or out-maneuver the British warship pursuing him. Aboard his vessel is Elsa Keller, a woman Ehrlich has been ordered to return to Germany safely along with whatever secrets she carries. When Ehrlich's fiercely Nazi chief officer Kirchner commits an atrocity, the British pursuit becomes deadly.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Black Hole (1979)
The explorer craft USS Palomino is returning to Earth after a fruitless 18-month search for extra-terrestrial life when the crew comes upon a supposedly lost ship, the USS Cygnus, hovering near a black hole. The ship is controlled by Dr. Hans Reinhardt and his monstrous robot companion, but the initial wonderment and awe the Palomino crew feel for the ship and its resistance to the power of the black hole turn to horror as they uncover Reinhardt's plans.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure
SnoozefestMovies like thisMaster and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
After an abrupt and violent encounter with a French warship inflicts severe damage upon his ship, a captain of the British Royal Navy begins a chase over two oceans to capture or destroy the enemy, though he must weigh his commitment to duty and ferocious pursuit of glory against the safety of his devoted crew, including the ship's thoughtful surgeon, his best friend.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both adventure & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCaptain Pirate (1952)
In 1690, years have passed since Captain Blood was pardoned by the Crown for his daring deeds against the Spanish on the Spanish Main, and he is living quietly on his plantation in the West Indies, practicing medicine and planning his marriage to Isabella. But his peaceful existence is shattered when Hilary Evans arrives and arrests him on a piracy charge. Somebody has been raiding the islands, and making it appear it was Captain Blood. In order to prove his innocence, Captain Blood has to sail again under the "Jolly Roger."
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both adventure
Captain Newman, M.D. (1963)
In 1944, Capt. Josiah J. Newman is the doctor in charge of Ward 7, the neuropsychiatric ward, at an Army Air Corps hospital in Arizona. The hospital is under-resourced and Newman scrounges what he needs with the help of his inventive staff, especially Cpl. Jake Leibowitz. The military in general is only just coming to accept psychiatric disorders as legitimate and Newman generally has 6 weeks to cure them or send them on to another facility. There are many patients in the ward and his latest include Colonel Norville Bliss who has dissociated from his past; Capt. Paul Winston who is nearly catatonic after spending 13 months hiding in a cellar behind enemy lines; and 20 year-old Cpl. Jim Tompkins who is severely traumatized after his aircraft was shot down. Others come and go, including Italian prisoners of war, but Newman and team all realize that their success means the men will return to their units.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
La isla del Infierno (1998)
A young slave whishes returning to his homeland, the Canary Islands, after twenty years of captivity in Spain. For that reason he will travel as stowaway on a ship but instead he will arrive at the mysterious Island of Hell.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both adventure
Morning Departure (1950)
The crew of a submarine is trapped on the sea floor when it sinks. How can they be rescued before they run out of air?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Run Silent, Run Deep (1958)
The captain of a submarine sunk by the Japanese during WWII is finally given a chance to skipper another sub after a year of working a desk job. His singleminded determination for revenge against the destroyer that sunk his previous vessel puts his new crew in unneccessary danger.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Boat That Rocked (2009)
When a group of rebellious deejays decides to defy the ban on government-censored music, they take to the seas to broadcast music and mayhem to millions of adoring fans.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGolden Door (2006)
The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century in Sicily. Salvatore, a very poor farmer, and a widower, decides to emigrate to the US with all his family, including his old mother. Before they embark, they meet Lucy. She is supposed to be a British lady and wants to come back to the States. Lucy, or Luce as Salvatore calls her, for unknown reasons wants to marry someone before to arrive to Ellis Island in New York. Salvatore accepts the proposal. Once they arrive in Ellis Island they spend the quarantine period trying to pass the examinations to be admitted to the States. Tests are not so simple for poor farmers coming from Sicily. Their destiny is in the hands of the custom officers.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Longest Tunnel (1982)
After a passenger ship sinks in 1954, Go Akutsu devises a life-saving project in the form of a tunnel under the Tsugaru Strait. While working on this project Akutsu becomes involved with Tae Makimura leading to his estrangement from his wife.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Mysterious Island (1941)
Based on Verne's book The Mysterious Island, five POWs escape from a camp in a balloon during the Civil War and crash-land on an uninhabited island in the Pacific. Trying to settle with their lives they find someone is helping them.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both adventure
Like Dangerous Waters and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Dangerous Waters?
The closest matches to Dangerous Waters are Anne of the Indies (1951), The Sea Wolf (1941) and Wake of the Red Witch (1948). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Dangerous Waters?
Start with Anne of the Indies (1951), the closest match to Dangerous Waters.
What is the highest-rated movie like Dangerous Waters?
True Grit (1969), rated 7.3/10 by 903 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Dangerous Waters?
True Spirit (2023) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Dangerous Waters?
Yes: Anne of the Indies (1951), The Sea Wolf (1941) and Wake of the Red Witch (1948).
How are movies similar to Dangerous Waters chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Dangerous Waters, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.





























