Movies like Not as a Stranger (1955)
The best movies like Not as a Stranger (1955) are Peyton Place (1957), Kings Row (1942) and Some Came Running (1958). If Not as a Stranger hooked you with its drama and romance, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedSomething the Lord Made (2004)8.0/10 from 335 votes
- NewestMaterialists (2025)Released 2025
Peyton Place (1957)
In the outwardly respectable New England community of Peyton Place, shopkeeper Constance McKenzie tries to make up for a past indiscretion -- which resulted in her illegitimate daughter Allison -- by adopting a chaste, prudish attitude towards all things sexual. In spite of herself, Constance can't help but be attracted to handsome new teacher Michael Rossi. Meanwhile, the restless Allison, who'd like to be as footloose and fancy-free as the town's "fast girl" Betty Anderson, falls sincerely in love with mixed-up mama's boy Norman Page.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKings Row (1942)
Five young adults in a small American town face the revelations of secrets that threaten to ruin their hopes and dreams.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSome Came Running (1958)
A former novelist returns to his small Midwest town after serving in the Army during WWII, to the chagrin of his social-climbing brother, and becomes close with an easy-going professional gambler and torn between two very different women.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHome from the Hill (1960)
The wealthiest man in a Texas town decides to teach his teenage son how to hunt to make a man out of him.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThere's Always Tomorrow (1956)
When a toy manufacturer feels ignored and unappreciated by his wife and children, he begins to rekindle a past love when a former employee comes back into his life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAnna and the King of Siam (1946)
In 1862, a young Englishwoman becomes royal tutor in Siam and befriends the King.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Bigamist (1953)
San Francisco businessman Harry Graham and his wife and business partner, Eve, are in the process of adopting a child. When private investigator Mr. Jordan uncovers the fact that Graham has another wife, Phyllis, and a small child in Los Angeles, he confesses everything.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBand of Angels (1957)
Living in Kentucky prior to the Civil War, Amantha Starr is a privileged young woman. Her widowed father, a wealthy plantation owner, dotes on her and sends her to the best schools. When he dies suddenly Amantha's world is turned upside down. She learns that her father had been living on borrowed money and that her mother was actually a slave and her father's mistress.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI'll Be Seeing You (1944)
Mary Marshall, serving six years for accidental manslaughter, is given a Christmas furlough to visit her closest relatives, her uncle and his family in a small Midwestern town. On the journey, she meets Zach Morgan, a troubled army sergeant on leave from a military hospital. Although his physical wounds have healed, he suffers from PTSD and is subject to panic attacks. The pair are attracted to one another and, in the warm atmosphere of the Christmas season friendship, blossoms into romance, but Mary is reluctant to tell him of her past and that she must shortly return to serve the remainder of her sentence.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStrangers When We Meet (1960)
A suburban architect loves his wife but is bored with his marriage and with his work, so he takes up with the neglected, married beauty who lives down the street.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDavid and Lisa (1962)
Teenager David Clemens develops a hysterical fear that he will die if he comes into physical contact with another person. Perturbed, David's overbearing mother places him in a home for mentally disturbed young people, but David remains withdrawn from the other patients and his psychiatrist. Over time, however, David grows interested in 15-year-old Lisa, who suffers from multiple personalities – one who can only speak in rhyme, and the other, a mute.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDying Young (1991)
After she discovers that her boyfriend has betrayed her, Hilary O'Neil is looking for a new start and a new job. She begins to work as a private nurse for a young man suffering from blood cancer. Slowly, they fall in love, but they always know their love cannot last because he is destined to die.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Proposition (1998)
Father Michael McKinnon goes from the UK to Boston circa 1935. For unknown reasons, he avoids at all costs the most prominent parishioners, Arthur and Eleanor Barret. Meanwhile Eleanor and Arthur desperately want to have a child, but Arthur is sterile, so they hire Harvard law student Roger Martin to impregnate Eleanor, but unfortunately Roger falls in love with her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNot Easily Broken (2009)
A car accident and shifting affections test the bond between a married couple.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like this45 Years (2015)
There is just one week until Kate Mercer's 45th wedding anniversary and the planning for the party is going well. But then a letter arrives for her husband. The body of his first love has been discovered, frozen and preserved in the icy glaciers of the Swiss Alps. By the time the party is upon them, five days later, there may not be a marriage left to celebrate.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her (2014)
Told from the woman's perspective, the story of a couple trying to reclaim the life and love they once knew and pick up the pieces of a past that may be too far gone.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAt First Sight (1999)
A blind man has an operation to regain his sight at the urging of his girlfriend and must deal with the changes to his life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him (2014)
Told from the man's perspective, the story of a couple trying to reclaim the life and love they once knew and pick up the pieces of a past that may be too far gone.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDoctor Zhivago (1965)
The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like this2 Hearts (2020)
When illness strikes two people who are polar opposites, life and death bring them together in surprising ways.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Man from Elysian Fields (2001)
A failed novelist's inability to pay the bills strains relations with his wife and leads him to work at an escort service, where he becomes entwined with a wealthy woman whose husband is a successful writer.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisLove Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955)
A widowed doctor of both Chinese and European descent falls in love with a married American correspondent in Hong Kong during China's Communist revolution.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLove Story (1970)
Harvard Law student Oliver Barrett IV and music student Jennifer Cavilleri share a chemistry they cannot deny - and a love they cannot ignore. Despite their opposite backgrounds, the young couple put their hearts on the line for each other. When they marry, Oliver's wealthy father threatens to disown him. Jenny tries to reconcile the Barrett men, but to no avail.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMaterialists (2025)
A young, ambitious New York City matchmaker finds herself torn between the perfect match and her imperfect ex.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNew Life (2016)
Benjamin Morton's life changed forever the day he met the little girl next door. Ava was and always would be the girl of his dreams. From the innocence of a childhood friendship, through adolescent attraction, their love strengthens and grows. When life takes a turn neither of them expected, their entire future is called into question.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJane Eyre (2011)
After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meets the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Edward Rochester. Jane and her employer grow close in friendship and she soon finds herself falling in love with him. Happiness seems to have found Jane at last, but could Rochester's terrible secret be about to destroy it forever?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (2009)
Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story is a movie based on the life story of world-renowned neurosurgeon Ben Carson from 1961 to 1987.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Memory Keeper's Daughter (2008)
During a blizzard in 1964, Dr. David Henry delivers his son Paul with the help of nurse Caroline. But when Henry realizes his wife is also carrying a girl with Down syndrome, he hands the second child over to Caroline without his wife's knowledge. Henry's fateful decision yields grave consequences for his family over the next 20 years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSomething the Lord Made (2004)
A dramatization of the relationship between heart surgery pioneers Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisJohn Q (2002)
John Quincy Archibald is a father and husband whose son is diagnosed with an enlarged heart and then finds out he cannot receive a transplant because HMO insurance will not cover it. Therefore, he decides to take a hospital full of patients hostage until the hospital puts his son's name on the donor's list.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Not as a Stranger?
The closest matches to Not as a Stranger are Peyton Place (1957), Kings Row (1942) and Some Came Running (1958). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Not as a Stranger?
People who watched Not as a Stranger most often go on to Peyton Place (1957), Kings Row (1942) and Some Came Running (1958).
What is the highest-rated movie like Not as a Stranger?
Something the Lord Made (2004), rated 8.0/10 by 335 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Not as a Stranger?
Materialists (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Not as a Stranger?
Yes: Peyton Place (1957), Kings Row (1942) and Some Came Running (1958).
How are movies similar to Not as a Stranger chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Not as a Stranger, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.