Movies like The Lovers of Montparnasse (1958)
The best movies like The Lovers of Montparnasse (1958) are Lost Illusions (2021), Loving Memories (2023) and Désirée (1954). If The Lovers of Montparnasse hooked you with its romance and drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedLoving Vincent (2017)8.0/10 from 2,677 votes
- NewestUntitled (Without Sound) (2025)Released 2025
- In FrenchLost Illusions (2021)Also in French
Lost Illusions (2021)
Lucien de Rubempré, a young, lower-class poet, leaves his family's printing house for Paris. Soon, he learns the dark side of the arts business as he tries to stay true to his dreams.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLoving Memories (2023)
1916. Julien Delaunay is reported missing in action during the Great War. His wife, Julie, refuses to believe he is dead. 1919. When a photo of an amnesic drifter appears in the press, Julie immediately recognizes him as her beloved husband. They are reunited and, little by little, she helps him to fall in love with her again. Until another woman claims to be the man’s real wife…
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisDésirée (1954)
In Marseilles, France in 1794, Desiree Clary, a young millinery clerk, becomes infatuated with Napoleon Bonaparte, but winds up wedding General Jean-Baptiste Berandotte, an aid to Napoleon who later joins the forces that bring about the Emperor's downfall. Josephine Beauharnais, a worldly courtesan marries Napoleon and becomes Empress of France, but is then cast aside by her spouse when she proves unable to produce an heir to the throne.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCaravaggio (1986)
A retelling of the life of the celebrated 17th-century Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio through his brilliant, nearly blasphemous paintings and his flirtations with the underworld.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAt Eternity's Gate (2018)
Famed but tormented artist Vincent van Gogh spends his final years in Arles, France, painting masterworks of the natural world that surrounds him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFour Nights of a Dreamer (1972)
Jacques, a young man with artistic aspirations, spends four nights wandering Paris with a young woman, whom he rescued from suicide.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLust for Life (1956)
An intense and imaginative artist, revered Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh possesses undeniable talent, but he is plagued by mental problems and frustrations with failure. Supported by his brother, Theo, the tormented Van Gogh eventually leaves Holland for France, where he meets volatile fellow painter Paul Gauguin and struggles to find greater inspiration.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPollock (2000)
In August of 1949, Life Magazine ran a banner headline that begged the question: "Jackson Pollock: Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?" The film is a look back into the life of an extraordinary man, a man who has fittingly been called "an artist dedicated to concealment, a celebrity who nobody knew." As he struggled with self-doubt, engaging in a lonely tug-of-war between needing to express himself and wanting to shut the world out, Pollock began a downward spiral.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVan Gogh (1991)
After leaving the asylum, Vincent van Gogh settles in the home of Doctor Gachet, where he keeps painting amidst the torments of his failing mental health. He begins an affair with his host’s daughter, however, she soon realizes that he doesn’t love her and that his heart beats only for art.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNiki (2024)
French-American artist Niki de Saint-Phalle, from the age of 23, is a model and an aspiring actor who is married and has a two year old daughter. Together, they flee the U.S. during the oppressive McCarthy era and come to France, where they experience a short-lived euphoria. Soon, distant and frightening memories begin to emerge in Niki’s mind. Her vocation as an artist will be her salvation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFinal Portrait (2017)
Paris, 1964. The Swiss sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti, one of the most accomplished and respected artists of his generation, asks his friend, the American writer James Lord, to sit for a portrait, assuring him that it will take no longer than two or three hours, an afternoon at the most.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBasquiat (1996)
The brief life of Jean Michel Basquiat, a world renowned New York street artist struggling with fame, drugs and his identity.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe House of Mirth (2000)
In early 20th century New York City, an impoverished socialite desperately seeks a suitable husband as she gradually finds herself betrayed by her friends and exiled from high society.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBonnard, Pierre and Marthe (2024)
When French painter Pierre Bonnard met Marthe de Méligny, he didn’t know this self-proclaimed aristocrat would become the cornerstone of his life and work. From this moment, she became more than just a muse for the “painter of happiness”, appearing in more than a third of his work. Together, they reached their artistic fulfillment thanks to a colourful love, different from the standards of their time, nurturing the great mystery around their relationship. Based on a true story.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe World of Suzie Wong (1960)
A Hong Kong prostitute tries modeling and falls for the artist who's painting her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLa Vie de Bohème (1992)
Three penniless artists become friends in modern-day Paris: Rodolfo, an Albanian painter with no visa, Marcel, a playwright and magazine editor with no publisher, and Schaunard, a post-modernist composer of execrable noise.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStavisky... (1974)
Biarritz, 1933. Charm and talent assist small-time swindler Serge Alexandre, alias Stavisky, to bribe his way into the centre of French politics. But when his great scam involving millions is exposed, he brings the government to the verge of collapse and the country to the brink of civil war.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
SnoozefestMovies 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 drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKing of the Hill (1993)
Based on the Depression-era bildungsroman memoir of writer A. E. Hotchner, the film follows the story of a boy struggling to survive on his own in a hotel in St. Louis after his mother is committed to a sanatorium with tuberculosis. His father, a German immigrant and traveling salesman working for the Hamilton Watch Company, is off on long trips from which the boy cannot be certain he will return.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLoving Vincent (2017)
A young man arrives at the last hometown of painter Vincent van Gogh to deliver the troubled artist's final letter and ends up investigating his final days there.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisA Walk to Remember (2002)
When the popular, restless Landon Carter is forced to participate in the school drama production, he falls in love with Jamie Sullivan, the daughter of the town's minister. Jamie has a "to-do" list for her life, as well as a very big secret she must keep from Landon.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Prince of Tides (1991)
A troubled Southern man talks to his suicidal sister's psychiatrist about their family history and falls in love with her (and New York City) in the process.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004)
The turbulent personal and professional life of actor Peter Sellers (1925-1980), from his beginnings as a comic performer on BBC Radio to his huge success as one of the greatest film comedians of all time; an obsessive artist so dedicated to his work that neglected his loved ones and sacrificed part of his own personality to convincingly create that of his many memorable characters.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUntitled (Without Sound) (2025)
A highfalutin art movie crumbles into a meta-fictional disaster that betrays its director’s incompetence in real time, and it’s all on film.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Sweet Hereafter (1997)
A small mountain community in Canada is devastated when a school bus accident leaves more than a dozen of its children dead. A big-city lawyer arrives to help the survivors' and victims' families prepare a class-action suit, but his efforts only seem to push the townspeople further apart. At the same time, one teenage survivor of the accident has to reckon with the loss of innocence brought about by a different kind of damage.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Simple Plan (1998)
Captivated by the lure of sudden wealth, the quiet rural lives of two brothers erupt into conflicts of greed, paranoia and distrust when over $4 million in cash is discovered at the remote site of a downed small airplane. Their simple plan to retain the money while avoiding detection opens a Pandora's box when the fear of getting caught triggers panicked behavior and leads to virulent consequences.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMy Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown (1989)
No one expects much from Christy Brown, a boy with cerebral palsy born into a working-class Irish family. Though Christy is a spastic quadriplegic and essentially paralyzed, a miraculous event occurs when, at the age of 5, he demonstrates control of his left foot by using chalk to scrawl a word on the floor. With the help of his steely mother — and no shortage of grit and determination — Christy overcomes his infirmity to become a painter, poet and author.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisUntitled Madhubala Biopic (TBA)
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
My Friend Shokat (2018)
A young Persian-American boy takes matters into his own hands to save his pet goat from being eaten.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like The Lovers of Montparnasse and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Lovers of Montparnasse?
The closest matches to The Lovers of Montparnasse are Lost Illusions (2021), Loving Memories (2023) and Désirée (1954). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Lovers of Montparnasse?
Start with Lost Illusions (2021), the closest match to The Lovers of Montparnasse.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Lovers of Montparnasse?
Loving Vincent (2017), rated 8.0/10 by 2,677 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Lovers of Montparnasse?
Untitled (Without Sound) (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like The Lovers of Montparnasse?
Yes: Lost Illusions (2021), Loving Memories (2023) and Four Nights of a Dreamer (1972).
How are movies similar to The Lovers of Montparnasse chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Lovers of Montparnasse, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.