Movies like The Butcher (1998)
The best movies like The Butcher (1998) are Gioia (2026), Things We Don't Say (2026) and Hands of Stone (2016). If The Butcher hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedFinch (2021)7.8/10 from 4,283 votes
- NewestGioia (2026)Released 2026
- In ItalianGioia (2026)Also in Italian
Gioia (2026)
Gioia is a high school teacher who has never known any other love than the oppressive bond with her own parents, with whom she still lives. One of the students at her school, Alessio, is cashing in on his own body to make a couple of hundred euros to help his mother, a cashier in a supermarket. The relationship that dawns between Gioia and Alessio is forbidden fruit, fragile yet, inexplicably, one they can’t do without. Still, Alessio’s desire to improve his social standing is a silent killer that prevents him from ultimately accepting Gioia’s surprising affection for him. He goes and destroys it all, cancelling the only person who has ever loved him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThings We Don't Say (2026)
Carlo and Elisa are a successful couple. He’s a university professor and writer facing a creative block; she’s a brilliant, sharp-witted journalist, known for her internationally published editorials. They live in Rome, moving between accomplishments and routine, affection and something that might be fading. In search of new energy, they travel to Morocco with their lifelong friends, Anna and Paolo, and their thirteen-year-old daughter Vittoria—bright, curious, a little eccentric. Tensions soon rise.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHands of Stone (2016)
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBad Tales (2020)
In a small suburb on the outskirts of Rome, the cheerful heat of summer camouflages a stifling atmosphere of alienation. From a distance, the families seem normal, but it’s an illusion: in the houses, courtyards and gardens, silence shrouds the subtle sadism of the fathers, the passivity of the mothers and the guilty indifference of adults. But it’s the desperation and repressed rage of the children that will explode and cut through this grotesque façade, with devastating consequences for the entire community.
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 thisBastard Out of Carolina (1996)
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFinally Dawn (2024)
A young Roman woman during the 1950s is on the verge of becoming engaged to a man. She goes to Cinecittà to do an audition as an extra and is thrust into this almost infinite night during which she discovers herself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSalomé (2013)
After the lewd and frenetic Dance of the Seven Veils, and with the solemn pledge from the very lips of Herod himself that she could have whatever her heart desires up to half his kingdom, wanton and proud young Salomé comes before her king with an unreasonable demand. Beguiled by John the Baptist, and then scorned for the sake of his god, lascivious Salomé—encouraged by her mother, the vindictive, Herodias—commands that John be executed and his head delivered on a silver platter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFlashbacks of a Fool (2008)
An aging Hollywood star, Joe Scott, lives a life of narcissistic hedonism, observed by his laconic personal assistant, Ophelia. The death of his childhood best friend, Boots, takes our protagonist, and the movie, into an extended flashback to a sea-side town in 1970s Britain.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Safety of Objects (2002)
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHusbands and Lovers (1991)
Stefan finds that he can no longer tolerate the arrangement of his cheating wife ... he, the husband, gets her during the week and her lover gets her on the weekends. At the same time the wife finds herself increasingly drawn to the violence of her lover versus the adoration of her husband.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMisunderstood (2014)
Rome, 1984, Aria is nine-year-old girl. On the verge of divorce, Aria's infantile and selfish parents are too preoccupied with their careers and extra-marital affairs to properly tend to any of Aria's needs. While her two older sisters are pampered, Aria is treated with cold indifference. Yet she yearns to love and to be loved. At school, Aria excels academically but is considered a misfit by everyone. She is misunderstood. Aria finds comfort in her cat - Dac and in her best friend - Angelica. Thrown out of both parents' homes, abandoned by all, even her best friend, Aria finally reaches the limit of what she can bear. She makes an unexpected decision in her life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAll Day and a Night (2020)
While serving life in prison, a young man looks back at the people, the circumstances and the system that set him on the path toward his crime.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 thisA Mouthful of Air (2021)
Julie is a new mom and children's book author, who escapes into the bright Crayola-colored world of her creation in order to leave behind the darkness caused by her post-partum depression.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRogue Agent (2022)
Conman Robert Freegard poses as an undercover MI5 agent and kidnaps countless victims amidst a high-stakes manhunt, until the woman who fell for him brings him to justice.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBosco (2024)
Based on the true story of Quawntay “Bosco” Adams. Sentenced to 35 years for attempted possession of marijuana, Adams miraculously escaped from a Federal maximum-security prison while under 24-hour surveillance in solitary confinement with the help of an older woman he met through a lonely-hearts ad.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Family Friend (2006)
Geremia, an aging tailor/money lender, is a repulsive, mean, stingy man who lives alone in his shabby house with his scornful, bedridden mother. He has a morbid, obsessive relationship with money and he uses it to insinuate himself into other people's affairs, pretending to be the "family friend". One day he is asked by a man to lend him money for the wedding of Rosalba, his daughter. Geremia falls in love at first sight with the bewitching creature and and soon indulges in a "beauty and the beast" relationship...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisJungleland (2020)
Stanley manages his boxer brother Lion but when a devastating loss in the ring leaves the pair in debt, an opportunity to recoup the cash leads to a series of misadventures that threaten to break the bond between them.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Trials of Cate McCall (2013)
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Dreamers (2003)
When Isabelle and Theo invite Matthew to stay with them, what begins as a casual friendship ripens into a sensual voyage of discovery and desire in which nothing is off limits and everything is possible.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWolf (2021)
Jacob, a man who believes he is a wolf trapped in a human body, is sent to a clinic by his family where he is forced to undergo increasingly extreme forms of "curative" therapies at the hands of The Zookeeper. Jacob’s only solace is the enigmatic Wildcat, with whom he roams the hospital in the dead of night. The two form an improbable friendship that develops into infatuation.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisReptile (2023)
Following the brutal murder of a young real estate agent, a hardened detective attempts to uncover the truth in a case where nothing is as it seems, and by doing so dismantles the illusions in his own life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisReach! (2024)
A thirty-something drifter, enlists the help of a relentless personal trainer - who will stop at nothing in the pursuit of perfection. Slowly pushing his love life, sanity and health out of control.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Enter the Void (2010)
This psychedelic tour of life after death is seen entirely from the point of view of Oscar, a young American drug dealer and addict living in Tokyo with his prostitute sister, Linda. When Oscar is killed by police during a bust gone bad, his spirit journeys from the past -- where he sees his parents before their deaths -- to the present -- where he witnesses his own autopsy -- and then to the future, where he looks out for his sister from beyond the grave.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMaelström (2000)
A young woman's life spirals into chaos after she is involved in a hit-and-run accident. Then she encounters a mysterious man named Evian who offers her an opportunity for redemption. Narrated by a fish.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLiquid Truth (2017)
Rubens is a carefree, charismatic swimming instructor who finds himself accused of displaying inappropriate affection toward one of his students by the boy's mother. Other parents and colleagues are only too eager to condemn him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNight Always Comes (2025)
Facing eviction in a city her family can no longer afford, a woman plunges into a desperate and increasingly dangerous all-night search to raise $25,000.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHypnotic (2021)
A young woman seeking self-improvement enlists the help of a renowned hypnotist but, after a handful of intense sessions, discovers unexpected and deadly consequences.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFinch (2021)
On a post-apocalyptic Earth, a robot, built to protect the life of his dying creator's beloved dog, learns about life, love, friendship, and what it means to be human.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
Like The Butcher and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Butcher?
The closest matches to The Butcher are Gioia (2026), Things We Don't Say (2026) and Hands of Stone (2016). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Butcher?
Start with Gioia (2026), the closest match to The Butcher.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Butcher?
Finch (2021), rated 7.8/10 by 4,283 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Butcher?
Gioia (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Italian movies like The Butcher?
Yes: Gioia (2026), Things We Don't Say (2026) and Bad Tales (2020).
How are movies similar to The Butcher chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Butcher, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.