Movies like Three Stripes in the Sun (1955)
The best movies like Three Stripes in the Sun (1955) are The History of Love (2016), Where Hands Touch (2018) and The Ottoman Lieutenant (2017). If Three Stripes in the Sun 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 ratedWhere Hands Touch (2018)7.9/10 from 543 votes
- NewestFirebird (2021)Released 2021
The History of Love (2016)
The story of a long-lost book that mysteriously reappears and connects an old man searching for his son with a girl seeking a cure for her mother's loneliness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhere Hands Touch (2018)
Germany, 1944. Leyna, the fifteen-year-old daughter of a white German mother and a black African father, meets Lutz, a compassionate member of the Hitler Youth whose father is a prominent Nazi soldier, and they form an unlikely connection in this quickly changing world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Ottoman Lieutenant (2017)
Lillie, a determined American woman, ventures overseas to join Dr. Jude at a remote medical mission in the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey). However, Lillie soon finds herself at odds with Jude and the mission’s founder, Woodruff, when she falls for the titular military man, Ismail, just as the war is about to erupt.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPrivate Peaceful (2012)
Set in the fields of Devon and the WW1 battlefields of Flanders, two brothers fall for the same girl while contending with the pressures of their feudal family life, the war, and the price of courage and cowardice.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933)
Shanghai, China, the 1920s. In the midst of a bloody civil war, General Yen, a ruthless warlord, rescues Megan Davis —who was about to marry a missionary— from certain death amid the chaos.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSuite Française (2015)
France, 1940. In the first days of occupation, beautiful Lucile Angellier is trapped in a stifled existence with her controlling mother-in-law as they both await news of her husband: a prisoner of war. Parisian refugees start to pour into their small town, soon followed by a regiment of German soldiers who take up residence in the villagers' own homes. Lucile initially tries to ignore Bruno von Falk, the handsome and refined German officer staying with them. But soon, a powerful love draws them together and leads them into the tragedy of war.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFirebird (2021)
At the height of the Cold War, a troubled soldier forms a forbidden love triangle with a daring fighter pilot and his female comrade amid the dangerous surroundings of a Soviet Air Force Base.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958)
A German soldier home on leave falls in love with a girl, then returns to World War II.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDear John (2010)
While Sergeant John Tyree is home on two weeks leave from Germany, he meets Savannah after he dives into the ocean to retrieve Savannah's purse that had fallen off a pier. John eventually falls in love with Savannah, who promises to write to him until he returns from overseas.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
It's the hope that sustains the spirit of every GI: the dream of the day when he will finally return home. For three WWII veterans, the day has arrived. But for each man, the dream is about to become a nightmare.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Sound Barrier (1952)
A young RAF pilot tests his father-in-law’s prototype supersonic aircraft to the limit, at a time of intense development in the field of aviation, just as commercial jet airliners are about to enter service.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBattleground (1949)
Members of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division are fighting for their country amidst the rugged terrain of Bastogne, Belgium, in December 1944. Holley and his American compatriots have already seen one of their own, Roderigues, perish under enemy fire. The men try to rebuff another series of Nazi attacks, but what they really need is a change in the weather. Without clear skies, they'll never get the air support they need.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChina Girl (1987)
Teenage lovers Tony and Tyan-Hwa tip the balance of power in New York's Little Italy and Chinatown.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMaria's Lovers (1984)
A World War II prisoner returns home to his childhood sweetheart. However, back home, he discovers that he has to compete to win her love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWalking with the Enemy (2014)
Regent Horthy is the leader of Hungary and a German ally, but his favorable standing with Hitler changes as the war comes to an end. Forced to cede Hungary’s power or else witness the execution of his son, Regent Horthy gives up control of his country to the Nazis, who quickly move Hungarians to ghettos and death camps, with no hope in sight. But the despair changes when a young man named Elek emerges. Separated from his family during the relocations and aided by the woman he loves , Elek defies the enemy by becoming one of them. In a race against time, disguised as a Nazi Officer he embarks on a mission to save his family and thousands of his countrymen.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSayonara (1957)
Air Force Major Lloyd Gruver is reassigned to a Japanese air base and is confronted with US racial prejudice against the Japanese people. The issue is compounded because a number of the soldiers become romantically involved with Japanese women, in defiance of US military policy. Ordinarily, a by-the-book officer, Gruver must take a position when a buddy of his, an enlisted man, Joe Kelly, falls in love with a Japanese woman, Katsumi, and marries her. Gruver risks his position by serving as best man at the wedding ceremony.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlood on the Sun (1945)
Nick Condon, an American journalist in 20s Tokyo, publishes the Japanese master plan for world domination. Reaction from the understandably upset Japanese provides the action, but this is overshadowed by the propaganda of the time.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
SnoozefestMovies 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 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 thisAn Ordinary Man (2017)
A war criminal in hiding forms a relationship with his only connection to the outside world - his maid.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHeartbeats (2017)
When a bubbly American hip hop dancer goes to India with her family for a wedding, she is impressed by a new dance style and falls in love with the man who introduced her to it.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAkitsu Hot Springs (1962)
Just after WW2, a romance between an innkeeper and a man with tuberculosis unravels near a thermal spring.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both romance & drama
Zimtstern und Halbmond (2010)
German ship captain Gottfried Hinrichs reluctantly retires to his Bavarian home, hoping to find comfort when his daughter Barbara moves back home, convenient now she has become a commercial pilot. So he dishes out the usual objections when she tells to have found her mate, while ma Lisbeth tries to shush. When the lovers turn up for Christmas Eve, a culture shock follows, for her dream prince is Palestinian unemployed would be-pilot Kamal Abu Khalil, and neither 'liberal' parent extends effective tolerance to Islamic in-potential laws. Ultimately Gottfried is worn down, but then the incompatible religious marriage norms seem to break up the couple itself. It gets even worse when his parents found out and fly in, while she feels neglected as Kemal starts an electronic muezzin Internet firm with a friend.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
The Idiot (1951)
A gentle, war-shattered ex-soldier, Kinji Kameda, arrives in wintry Hokkaidō and is pulled into a volatile tangle of love and pity between the disgraced Taeko Nasu, the proud Ayako, and his possessive friend Akama. Kameda’s saintly compassion exposes everyone’s wounds, steering the quartet toward jealousy, violence, and inexorable tragedy. Adapted from Dostoevsky’s novel.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOne Wonderful Sunday (1947)
Two broke sweethearts wander war-scarred Tokyo on a single Sunday, stretching 35 yen as they chase housing, small pleasures, and a little hope.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPure-Hearted Unit (1957)
A story of young people in the immediate aftermath of World War II, their post-war careers, sorrows, and triumphs.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both war
I Live in Fear (1955)
An aging foundry patriarch, gripped by terror of nuclear annihilation, tries to uproot his family to Brazil. When they petition to have him declared incompetent, a family-court counselor witnesses his obsession slide into ruin—and asks whether ignoring the atomic threat is any saner.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisKabei: Our Mother (2008)
Set in Tokyo in 1940, the peaceful life of the Nogami Family suddenly changes when the father, Shigeru, is arrested and accused of being a Communist. His wife Kayo works frantically from morning to night to maintain the household and bring up her two daughters with the support of Shigeru's sister Hisako and Shigeru's ex-student Yamazaki, but her husband does not return. WWII breaks out and casts dark shadows on the entire country, but Kayo still tries to keep her cheerful determination, and sustain the family with her love. This is an emotional drama of a mother and an eternal message for peace.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStray Dog (1949)
A bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo’s sweltering streets for the stray dog whose desperation has led him to a life of crime. With each step, cop and criminal’s lives become more intertwined and the investigation becomes an examination of Murakami’s own dark side.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBattles Without Honor and Humanity (1973)
In the teeming black markets of postwar Japan, Shozo Hirono and his buddies find themselves in a new war between factious and ambitious yakuza.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Three Stripes in the Sun?
The closest matches to Three Stripes in the Sun are The History of Love (2016), Where Hands Touch (2018) and The Ottoman Lieutenant (2017). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Three Stripes in the Sun?
Start with The History of Love (2016), the closest match to Three Stripes in the Sun.
What is the highest-rated movie like Three Stripes in the Sun?
Where Hands Touch (2018), rated 7.9/10 by 543 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Three Stripes in the Sun?
Firebird (2021) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Three Stripes in the Sun?
Yes: The History of Love (2016), Where Hands Touch (2018) and The Ottoman Lieutenant (2017).
How are movies similar to Three Stripes in the Sun chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Three Stripes in the Sun, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.