Movies like The Dark Side of Love (1984)
The best movies like The Dark Side of Love (1984) are Close My Eyes (1991), Brideshead Revisited (2008) and Cruel Intentions (1999). If The Dark Side of Love 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 ratedCall Me by Your Name (2017)8.1/10 from 13,049 votes
- NewestThe Brutalist (2024)Released 2024
- In ItalianIdentification of a Woman (1982)Also in Italian
Close My Eyes (1991)
After some years of tension, Richard begins a sexual relationship with his sister Natalie. Now married, the relationship proves dangerously obsessional.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisBrideshead Revisited (2008)
Befriended by aristocrat Sebastian Flyte, Oxford student Charles Ryder finds that the power and privilege experienced by the family is seductive. On a visit to the ancestral home, Brideshead, he falls in love with his friend's sister, Julia. However, as his ties to the Flytes deepen, Ryder finds himself at odds with their strong Roman Catholicism.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCruel Intentions (1999)
Slaking a thirst for dangerous games, Kathryn challenges her stepbrother, Sebastian, to deflower their headmaster's daughter before the summer ends. If he succeeds, the prize is the chance to bed Kathryn. But if he loses, Kathryn will claim his most prized possession.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIdentification of a Woman (1982)
Movie director Niccolò has just been left by his wife. Subsequently he embarks on an obsessive relationship with a young woman who eventually leaves him and disappears while searching for her, he meets a variety of other willing girls. This gives him the idea of making a movie about women's relationships. He starts to search for a woman who can play the leading part in the movie.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisDon't Move (2004)
While waiting for the brain surgery of his daughter Angela, victim of a motorcycle accident, the surgeon Timoteo recalls his torrid affair with and passion for Italia, a simple woman from slums in the periphery of the big city where he lives. The ghost of the beloved and sexual object of desire Italia chases him in his memories.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFire with Fire (1986)
A tough, street-smart kid serving a sentence in a state youth reformatory meets a beautiful, innocent girl studying at a nearby convent. When forbidden love blossoms between them, they must fight the prison authorities, their parents and the law.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRocco and His Brothers (1960)
When a impoverished widow’s family moves to the big city, two of her five sons become romantic rivals with deadly results.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Wings of the Dove (1997)
Kate is secretly betrothed to a struggling journalist, Merton Densher. But she knows her Aunt Maude will never approve of the match, since Kate's deceased mother has lost all her money in a marriage to a degenerate opium addict. When Kate meets a terminally ill American heiress named Millie traveling through Europe, she comes up with a conniving plan to have both love and wealth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNewness (2017)
In contemporary Los Angeles, two millennials navigating a social media–driven hookup culture begin a relationship that pushes both emotional and physical boundaries.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisInventing the Abbotts (1997)
In the 1950s, brothers Jacey and Doug Holt, who come from the poorer side of their sleepy Midwestern town, vie for the affections of the wealthy, lovely Abbott sisters. Lady-killer Jacey alternates between Eleanor and Alice, wanting simply to break the hearts of rich young women. But sensitive Doug has a real romance with Pamela, which Jacey and the Abbott patriarch, Lloyd, both frown upon.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCall Me by Your Name (2017)
In the summer of 1983, a 17-year-old Elio spends his days in his family's villa in Italy. One day Oliver, a graduate student, arrives to assist Elio's father, a professor of Greco-Roman culture. Soon, Elio and Oliver discover a summer that will alter their lives forever.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Souvenir (2019)
A shy but ambitious film student falls into an intense, emotionally fraught relationship with a charismatic but untrustworthy older man.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Key (1983)
In 1940s Venice, after twenty years' marriage, retired art critic Nino Rolfe and his younger wife Teresa feel their passion waning. To help her shed her inhibitions and rekindle their relationship, the professor records his sexual fantasies in a diary.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Duke of Burgundy (2015)
Day in and day out, lovers Cynthia and Evelyn enact an elaborate sadomasochistic fantasy as mistress and maid. But as their ritual of domination and submission begins to turn stale, Cynthia yearns for something more conventional, while Evelyn tries to push their taboos even further.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFifty Shades of Grey (2015)
When college senior Anastasia Steele steps in for her sick roommate to interview prominent businessman Christian Grey for their campus paper, little does she realize the path her life will take. Christian, as enigmatic as he is rich and powerful, finds himself strangely drawn to Ana, and she to him. Though sexually inexperienced, Ana plunges headlong into an affair -- and learns that Christian's true sexual proclivities push the boundaries of pain and pleasure.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisShame (2011)
Brandon, a thirty-something man living in New York, eludes intimacy with women but feeds his deepest desires with a compulsive addiction to sex. When his younger sister temporarily moves into his apartment, stirring up bitter memories of their shared painful past, Brandon's life, like his fragile mind, gets out of control.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCaligula (1979)
After the death of the paranoid emperor Tiberius, Caligula, his heir, seizes power and plunges the empire into a bloody spiral of madness and depravity.
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 thisThe Brutalist (2024)
When an innovative modern architect flees post-war Europe, he is given the opportunity to rebuild his legacy. Set during the dawn of the modern United States (in Pennsylvania), his wife joins him, and their lives are forever changed by a demanding, wealthy patron.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Consequences of Love (2004)
Lugano, Switzerland. Titta Di Girolamo is a discreet and sullen man who has been living for almost a decade in a modest hotel room, a prisoner of an atrocious routine, apparently without purpose. His past is a mystery, nobody knows what he does for a living, he answers indiscreet questions evasively. What secrets does this enigmatic man hide?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAngels and Insects (1995)
In Victorian England, wealthy patriarch Sir Harald Alabaster invites an impoverished biologist, William Adamson, into his home. There, William tries to continue his work, but is distracted by Alabaster's seductive daughter, Eugenia. William and Eugenia begin a torrid romance, but as the couple become closer, the young scientist begins to realize that dark, disturbing things are happening behind the closed doors of the Alabaster manor.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFar North (2008)
In the arctic, as Saiva is being born, a shaman declares that she is evil and will bring harm to all who become involved with her. Saiva is cast out of her tribe of herders and grows up to live a nomadic existence with Anja, a young woman she adopts as an infant. Then Loki, an injured and starving soldier, stumbles into their isolated lives. The women nurse him back to health, but treachery, violence and doom await them all.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Sister's Friend 2 (2017)
Sang-woo's daily life changes 180 degrees ever since his sister's friend Jeong-hee comes to live in their house. Everytime he sees her walking around the house with wet hair and wearing just a big T-shirt, he gets erotic thoughts. He dreams of having sex with her just once until one day, he does. However, since then, Jeong-hee can't forget the night with Sang-woo and how much better he was than her fiance and starts coming back to his room...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Cloud 9 (2008)
A romantic drama about a woman who enters into an affair after 30 years of marriage.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Married Woman Boutique: Women Indulging in Scandalous Love Affair (2002)
Kimie steps into a boutique each day to support her household in place of her husband, who is unable to work due to heart disease—while her own spirit aches with longing. She surrenders willingly to the irresistible pull of Tsukuda, the dashing apparel‐maker’s salesman whose whispered promises slip between her legs like silk. Kenji, burning to reclaim his former glory, watches his world unravel when he discovers the affair that simmered beneath Kimie’s restraint. And as the truth of Kimie’s glowing secret—her pregnancy—dawns on him, his reproaches choke in his throat, meeting instead a startling, fervent embrace from the woman he thought he knew…
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
The Guru (2002)
Bored with Bollywood movies but fascinated with their Hollywood counterparts from his youth, Ram dreams to become a singer and actor in America, the country where dreams are made. He is encouraged when his American-based close friend, Vijay Rao, comes for visit, and brags about driving a Mercedes and living in a penthouse.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both romance & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisLower City (2005)
Best friends Deco and Naldinho co-own a cargo boat in Brazil's Salvador da Bahia. They give a ride to a sultry prostitute named Karinna, and soon both men fall prey to her considerable sexual charms, pushing the bounds of their friendship to the limit.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisProm Night (2008)
Donna's senior prom is supposed to be the best night of her life, though a sadistic killer from her past has different plans for her and her friends.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisAlbino Alligator (1997)
While escaping from a foiled robbery attempt, three thieves find themselves surrounded by police at a New Orleans bar--only they're not the people the police are searching for.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Last Day (2004)
At Christmas time, 19-year-old Simon returns home to visit his dysfunctional family with Louise, a fearless girl he met during his train ride. While Simon struggles to cope with the growing distance between him and his parents, he starts to examine his feelings when Louise develop a liaison of her own with his childhood friend Mathieu.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like The Dark Side of Love and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Dark Side of Love?
The closest matches to The Dark Side of Love are Close My Eyes (1991), Brideshead Revisited (2008) and Cruel Intentions (1999). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Dark Side of Love?
Start with Close My Eyes (1991), the closest match to The Dark Side of Love.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Dark Side of Love?
Call Me by Your Name (2017), rated 8.1/10 by 13,049 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Dark Side of Love?
The Brutalist (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Italian movies like The Dark Side of Love?
Yes: Identification of a Woman (1982), Don't Move (2004) and Rocco and His Brothers (1960).
How are movies similar to The Dark Side of Love chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Dark Side of Love, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.