Movies like The Mistress of Spices (2005)
The best movies like The Mistress of Spices (2005) are Paheli (2005), Eat Pray Love (2010) and Like Water for Chocolate (1992). If The Mistress of Spices 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 ratedSlumdog Millionaire (2008)7.7/10 from 11,741 votes
- NewestThree Thousand Years of Longing (2022)Released 2022
Paheli (2005)
Kishanlal marries the beautiful Lachchi, but the day after the wedding, he leaves on business for five years. When Kishanlal reappears only a few days later, Lachchi is delighted, but this new Kishanlal is in fact a spirit who has taken the form of Lachchi's husband, after having seen her by chance and fallen in love with her. Four years later, the real Kishanlal returns and the townsfolk must determine who is who.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEat Pray Love (2010)
A married woman realizes how unhappy her marriage really is, and that her life needs to go in a different direction. After a painful divorce, she takes off on a round-the-world journey to "find herself".
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLike Water for Chocolate (1992)
Tita is passionately in love with Pedro, but her controlling mother forbids her from marrying him. When Pedro marries her sister, Tita throws herself into her cooking and discovers she can transfer her emotions through the food she prepares, infecting all who eat it with her intense heartbreak.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMonsoon Wedding (2001)
A stressed father, a bride-to-be with a secret, a smitten event planner, and relatives from around the world create much ado about the preparations for an arranged marriage in India.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWater (2005)
In 1938, Mahatma Gandhi's groundbreaking philosophies sweep across India, but 8-year-old Chuyia, newly widowed, must go reside with other outcast widows on an ashram. Her presence transforms the ashram as she befriends two of her compatriots.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Lunchbox (2013)
A mistaken delivery in Mumbai's famously efficient lunchbox delivery system (Mumbai's Dabbawallahs) connects a young housewife to a stranger in the dusk of his life. They build a fantasy world together through notes in the lunchbox. Gradually, this fantasy threatens to overwhelm their reality.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Painted Veil (2006)
A British medical doctor fights a cholera outbreak in a small Chinese village, while also being trapped at home in a loveless marriage to an unfaithful wife.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNo Reservations (2007)
Master chef Kate Armstrong runs her life and her kitchen with intimidating intensity. However, a recipe for disaster may be in the works when she becomes the guardian of her young niece while crossing forks with the brash sous-chef who just joined her staff. Though romance blooms in the face of rivalry, Kate needs to look outside the kitchen to find true happiness.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Joy Luck Club (1993)
Through a series of flashbacks, four Chinese women born in America and their respective mothers born in feudal China explore their pasts.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Hundred-Foot Journey (2014)
A story centered around an Indian family who moves to France and opens a restaurant across the street from a Michelin-starred French restaurant.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMississippi Masala (1991)
Years after her Indian family was forced to flee their Uganda home, twentysomething Mina finds herself co-operating a motel in the faraway land of Mississippi. Her passionate romance with charming Black carpet cleaner Demetrius challenges the prejudices of their conservative families and exposes the rifts between the region's Indian and African-American communities.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJulie & Julia (2009)
Julia Child and Julie Powell – both of whom wrote memoirs – find their lives intertwined. Though separated by time and space, both women are at loose ends... until they discover that with the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBride & Prejudice (2004)
Mrs. Bakshi is eager to find suitors for her four unmarried daughters when a family friend introduces them to handsome American Will Darcy. A Bollywood-style modern adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBefore the Rains (2007)
Set in southern India in the late 1930s, this provocative tale traces the story of three people caught in an inexorable web of forbidden romance and dangerous secrets. After a British spice planter falls in love with his alluring servant, an idealistic young man finds himself torn between his ambitions and his family, his village and his past.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
15 Park Avenue (2006)
An exploration of the impact of schizophrenia on a young woman and her family in today's Calcutta.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Chocolat (2000)
In the winter of 1959, a single mother and her young daughter arrive in a rural French town, where they open an unusual chocolate shop that disrupts the moral fiber of the strictly Catholic townsfolk and mayor.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Namesake (2007)
The American-born son of Indian immigrants strives to fit in among his fellow New Yorkers despite his family's unwillingness to let go of their traditional ways.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPractical Magic (1998)
Sally and Gillian Owens, born into a magical family, have mostly avoided witchcraft themselves. But when Gillian's vicious boyfriend, Jimmy Angelov, dies unexpectedly, the Owens sisters give themselves a crash course in hard magic. With policeman Gary Hallet growing suspicious, the girls struggle to resurrect Angelov -- and unwittingly inject his corpse with an evil spirit that threatens to end their family line.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & fantasy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMemoirs of a Geisha (2005)
In the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSlumdog Millionaire (2008)
A teenager reflects on his life after being accused of cheating on the Indian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?".
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Age of Adaline (2015)
After 29-year-old Adaline recovers from a nearly lethal accident, she inexplicably stops growing older. As the years stretch on and on, Adaline keeps her secret to herself until she meets a man who changes her life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & fantasy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThree Thousand Years of Longing (2022)
A solitary scholar discovers an ancient bottle while on a trip to Istanbul and unleashes a djinn who offers her three wishes. Filled with reluctance, she is unable to come up with one, so the djinn tries to inspire her with his stories.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & fantasy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWoman on Top (2000)
Set to the intoxicating rhythms of Brazil, "Woman on Top" is a spicy, sexy comedy about the magic of food, love and music. Meet Isabella, a sultry enchantress born with the special gift of melting the palates and hearts of men everywhere. When she decides to break free from her rocky marriage and the stifling kitchen of her husband's restaurant in Brazil, she spirits off to San Francisco in pursuit of her dreams of a real culinary career.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUmrao Jaan (2006)
Bollywood film about the famous courtesan of the title. Aishwarya Rai stars in the lead role. The film is directed by J.P. Dutta and also stars Shabana Azmi, Sunil Shetty, Abhishek Bachchan, Divya Dutta, Himani Shivpuri and Kulbhushan Kharbanda. A remake of the original directed by Muzaffar Ali and released in 1981.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)
A young Greek woman falls in love with a non-Greek and struggles to get her family to accept him while she comes to terms with her heritage and cultural identity.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEndless (2020)
When madly in love high school graduates Riley and Chris are separated by a tragic car accident, Riley blames herself for her boyfriend's death while Chris is stranded in limbo. Miraculously, the two find a way to connect. In a love story that transcends life and death, both Riley and Chris are forced to learn the hardest lesson of all: letting go.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWicked (2021)
Ivy Morgan, a college student in New Orleans, falls for Ren Owens, the last person she expected to enter her rigidly controlled life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both fantasy & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWinter's Tale (2014)
A burglar falls for an heiress as she dies in his arms. When he learns that he has the gift of reincarnation, he sets out to save her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & fantasy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Future (2011)
When a couple decides to adopt a stray cat their perspective on life changes radically, literally altering the course of time and space and testing their faith in each other and themselves.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & fantasy
SnoozefestMovies like thisBeautiful Creatures (2013)
Ethan Wate just wants to get to know Lena Duchannes better, but unbeknownst to him, Lena has strange powers. As Lena's 16th birthday approaches she might decide her fate, to be good or evil. A choice which will impact her relationship forever.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both fantasy & drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Mistress of Spices?
The closest matches to The Mistress of Spices are Paheli (2005), Eat Pray Love (2010) and Like Water for Chocolate (1992). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Mistress of Spices?
People who watched The Mistress of Spices most often go on to Paheli (2005), Eat Pray Love (2010) and Like Water for Chocolate (1992).
What is the highest-rated movie like The Mistress of Spices?
Slumdog Millionaire (2008), rated 7.7/10 by 11,741 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Mistress of Spices?
Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Mistress of Spices?
Yes: Eat Pray Love (2010), Water (2005) and The Painted Veil (2006).
How are movies similar to The Mistress of Spices chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Mistress of Spices, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.