Movies like Romans (2008)
The best movies like Romans (2008) are Original Sin (2001), Edward II (1991) and Mandingo (1975). If Romans hooked you with its history, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedPaul, Apostle of Christ (2018)7.6/10 from 427 votes
- NewestQueens of Combat: Rome's Female Gladiators (2026)Released 2026
Original Sin (2001)
A young man is plunged into a life of subterfuge, deceit and mistaken identity in pursuit of a femme fatale whose heart is never quite within his grasp.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEdward II (1991)
England, 14th century. King Edward II falls in love with Piers Gaveston, a young man of humble origins, whom he honors with favors and titles of nobility. The cold and jealous Queen Isabella conspires with the evil Mortimer to get rid of Gaveston, overthrow her husband and take power…
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMandingo (1975)
Warren Maxwell, the owner of a run-down plantation, pressures his son, Hammond, to marry and produce an heir to inherit the plantation. Hammond settles on his own cousin, Blanche, but purchases a sex slave when he returns from the honeymoon. He also buys his father a new Mandingo slave named Mede to breed and train as a prize-fighter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStonewall (2015)
Kicked out by his parents, a gay teenager leaves small-town Indiana for New York's Greenwich Village, where growing discrimination against the gay community leads to riots on June 28, 1969.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Krays (1990)
Twins Ronnie and Reggie Kray are raised in east London, under the influence of their hateful but doting mother Violet. As they grow up, Ronnie's violent nature takes over, and Reggie follows his brother's lead. The two become notorious crime lords who rule over the East End club scene. But at the height of their power, the brothers veer into different lives, giving the older crime bosses a chance to reclaim what the Krays took from them.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIke: Countdown to D-Day (2004)
The story of the senior-level preparations for the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944 from the time of Dwight D. Eisenhower's appointment as the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, to the establishment of the beachhead in Normandy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)
In this story-within-a-story, Anna is an actress starring opposite Mike in a period piece about the forbidden love between their respective characters, Sarah and Charles. Both actors are involved in serious relationships, but the passionate nature of the script leads to an off-camera love affair as well. While attempting to maintain their composure and professionalism, Anna and Mike struggle to come to terms with their infidelity.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Stanford Prison Experiment (2015)
In 1971, Stanford's Professor Philip Zimbardo conducts a controversial psychology experiment in which college students pretend to be either prisoners or guards, but the proceedings soon get out of hand. Based on a true story.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Devils (1971)
In 1634 France, charismatic Father Urbain Grandier becomes the target of sexually depraved Sister Jeanne's accusations of witchcraft, which corrupt officials of church and state are all too happy to exploit.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisChimes at Midnight (1965)
Henry IV usurps the English throne, sets in motion the factious War of the Roses and now faces a rebellion led by Northumberland scion Hotspur. Henry's heir, Prince Hal, is a ne'er-do-well carouser who drinks and causes mischief with his low-class friends, especially his rotund father figure, John Falstaff. To redeem his title, Hal may have to choose between allegiance to his real father and loyalty to his friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPork Chop Hill (1959)
Korean War, April 1953. Lieutenant Clemons, leader of the King company of the United States Infantry, is ordered to recapture Pork Chop Hill, occupied by a powerful Chinese Army force, while, just seventy miles away, at nearby the village of Panmunjom, a tense cease-fire conference is celebrated.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBent (1997)
Max is a handsome young man who, after a fateful tryst with a German soldier, is forced to run for his life. Eventually Max is placed in a concentration camp where he pretends to be Jewish because in the eyes of the Nazis, gays are the lowest form of human being. But it takes a relationship with an openly gay prisoner to teach Max that without the love of another, life is not worth living.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Bohemian (2022)
The year is 1764. For over a year, Josef has been leading a precarious life in Venice. He hopes to become an opera composer. The city, full of talented and already-established composers, seems closed to him. Looking for work as a violinist, he comes into the orbit of a rich young woman. Thanks to her, he gets the opportunity to play at salons. But his real opportunity arises when he becomes the lover of a libertine marquise. She teaches him worldly manners, rids him of signs of a provincial upbringing and introduces him to a hedonistic existence free from religious intolerance. Thus transformed, Josef gets an incan incredible commission: to write an opera for the San Carlo, Europe's largest theatre.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDolemite Is My Name (2019)
The story of Rudy Ray Moore, who created the iconic big screen pimp character Dolemite in the 1970s.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCasualties of War (1989)
During the Vietnam War, a soldier finds himself the outsider of his own squad when they unnecessarily kidnap a female villager.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Grey Zone (2001)
The story of Auschwitz's twelfth Sonderkommando — one of the thirteen consecutive "Special Squads" of Jewish prisoners placed by the Nazis in the excruciating moral dilemma of assisting in the extermination of fellow Jews in exchange for a few more months of life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNotorious (2009)
"Notorious" is the story of Christopher Wallace. Through raw talent and sheer determination, Wallace transforms himself from Brooklyn street hustler (once selling crack to pregnant women) to one of the greatest rappers of all time: The Notorious B.I.G. Follow his meteoric rise to fame and his refusal to succumb to expectations - redefining our notion of "The American Dream."
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNightwatching (2007)
An extravagant, exotic and moving look at Rembrandt's romantic and professional life, and the controversy he created by the identification of a murderer in the painting The Night Watch.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMountains of the Moon (1990)
The story of Captain Richard Francis Burton's and Lt. John Hanning Speke's expedition to find the source of the Nile river in the name of Queen Victoria's British Empire.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLisztomania (1975)
In 19th-century Hungary, Romantic composer/pianist Franz Liszt struggles to end his hedonistic ways but keeps getting sucked back in by his seductive fellow composer, Richard Wagner.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTerry Jones' Barbarians (2006)
Terry Jones' Barbarians is a 4-part TV documentary series first broadcast on BBC 2 in 2006. It was written and presented by Terry Jones, and it challenges the received Roman and Roman Catholic notion of the barbarian. Professor Barry Cunliffe of the University of Oxford acted as consultant for the series.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
Titus (1999)
Titus Andronicus returns from the wars and sees his sons and daughters taken from him, one by one. Shakespeare's goriest and earliest tragedy.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisQueens of Combat: Rome's Female Gladiators (2026)
What if women were hidden among the ranks of Ancient Rome’s fearsome gladiators? A group of experts searches for evidence to prove women once fought in the arena just like men. Combining history, archaeology, and forensic investigation, journey across Europe in a quest for answers. If a female gladiator's existence can be proven definitively, what can we learn about their lives?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
The Robe (1953)
Drunk and disillusioned Roman, Marcellus Gallio, wins Jesus' robe in a dice game after the crucifixion. Marcellus has never been a man of faith like his slave, Demetrius, but when Demetrius escapes with the robe, Marcellus experiences disturbing visions and feels guilty for his actions. Convinced that destroying the robe will cure him, Marcellus sets out to find Demetrius — and discovers his Christian faith along the way.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUntitled Hannibal Film (TBA)
Hannibal the Great, one of history's greatest military commanders, leads the forces of Carthage against the Roman Republic during the Second Punic War, driven by the oath he swore as a child to his father that he would never be a friend of Rome.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
In the Shadow of the Eagles (1966)
After the death of Octavian, the rebel populations of Illyria and Pannonia pose a grave threat to the Roman Empire. Tribune Marcus Ventidius is sent to subdue the uprising and, after a bitter battle, captures Pannonian chief Magdus together with a number of women hostages. These include Magdus's own daughter Helen, betrothed to cruel Illyrian warrior Batone who has killed many Romans. Julia, daughter of the Roman governor Messala, is in love with Tribune Marcus and, jealous of his sympathy for the barbarian girl, plots an escape by Helen and her father. Pursuing the fugitives, Marcus crosses a mountain pass where Batone has laid a trap.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
The Last Days of Pompeii (1908)
Pompeii 79AD, mere days before the Vesuvian eruption. Glaucus and Jone are in love with each other. Arbaces, the Egyptian High Priest, is determined to conquer Jone. Glaucus purchases Nydia, the blind and long-suffering slave. Nydia falls in love with Glaucus and asks Arbaces for his help. He gives her a potion to make Glaucus fall in love with her-- In fact, a poison which will cause violent insanity.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
Paul, Apostle of Christ (2018)
Luke risks his life to visit Paul in a Roman prison, where the apostle awaits execution under Nero. As Paul reflects on his past and the Christian community faces persecution, Luke resolves to record the story of the early church.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBen-Hur (2016)
A falsely accused nobleman survives years of slavery to take vengeance on his best friend who betrayed him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
SnoozefestMovies like thisCaligula with Mary Beard (2013)
What is true and what is false in the hideous stories spread about the controversial figure of the Roman emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (12-41), nicknamed Caligula? Professor Mary Beard explains what is accurate and what is mythical in the historical accounts that portray him as an unbalanced despot. Was he a sadistic tyrant, as Roman historians have told, or perhaps the truth about him was manipulated because of political interests?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Romans?
The closest matches to Romans are Original Sin (2001), Edward II (1991) and Mandingo (1975). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Romans?
Start with Original Sin (2001), the closest match to Romans.
What is the highest-rated movie like Romans?
Paul, Apostle of Christ (2018), rated 7.6/10 by 427 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Romans?
Queens of Combat: Rome's Female Gladiators (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Romans chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Romans, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.