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Ali: Fear Eats the Soul poster

Movies that feel likeAli: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)

Emmi Kurowski, a cleaning lady, is lonely in her old age. Her husband died years ago, and her grown children offer little companionship. One night she goes to a bar frequented by Arab immigrants and strikes up a friendship with middle-aged mechanic Ali. Their relationship soon develops into something more, and Emmi's family and neighbors criticize their spontaneous marriage. Soon Emmi and Ali are forced to confront their own insecurities about their future.

If you loved Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, the closest films we have are A Man and a Woman (1966), The Woman Next Door (1981) and The Silence (1963). All three share Ali: Fear Eats the Soul's romantic and tender feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Black Orpheus (1959).

🍅 100% Rotten Tomatoes★ 8 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinderromantictendercontemplative
11 of 12 streaming nowHBO Max · Criterion Channel · MGM Plus

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If Ali: Fear Eats the Soul hit the spot, these will too

A Man and a Woman poster
A Man and a Woman
1966 · dir. Claude Lelouch
🍅 75%★ 7.5drama · romance

Romantic where it counts, tender underneath

The difference: The scrappier of the two with critics

A man and a woman meet by accident on a Sunday evening at their childrens' boarding school. Slowly, they reveal themselves to each other, finding that they have something deeply in common.

The Woman Next Door poster
The Woman Next Door
1981 · dir. François Truffaut
🍅 85%★ 7.2drama · romance

Contemplative romance in both cases

Two ex-lovers wind up living next door to each other with their respective spouses. Forbidden passions ensue.

The Silence poster
The Silence
1963 · dir. Ingmar Bergman
🍅 85%★ 7.7drama · romance

Drama with a pulse of romance, in both cases

Traveling through an unnamed European country on the brink of war, sickly, intellectual Ester, her sister Anna and Anna's young son, Johan, check into a near-empty hotel. A basic inability to communicate among the three seems only to worsen during their stay. Anna provokes her sister by enjoying a dalliance with a local man, while the boy, left to himself, has a series of enigmatic encounters that heighten the growing air of isolation.

Splendor in the Grass poster
Splendor in the Grass
1961 · dir. Elia Kazan
🍅 75%★ 7.7drama · romance

Tender romance, and it commits to that

A fragile Kansas girl's unrequited and forbidden love for a handsome young man from the town's most powerful family drives her to heartbreak and madness.

Days of Heaven poster
Days of Heaven
1978 · dir. Terrence Malick
🍅 93%★ 7.7drama · romance

Drama built on stillness, twice over

In 1916, a Chicago steel worker accidentally kills his supervisor and flees to the Texas panhandle with his girlfriend and little sister to work harvesting wheat in the fields of a stoic farmer.

Journey to Italy poster
Journey to Italy
1954 · dir. Roberto Rossellini
🍅 96%★ 7.2drama · romanceMax

Both lean on romance more than on romance

The difference: 20 years apart, and the 1950s show

Married for eight years with no children, Brits Katherine and Alex Joyce are driving to Italy, their ultimate destination just outside of Naples to sell the villa they have just inherited from his uncle, the villa where they will be staying during their time there. On the drive, they come to the realization that this trip marks the first time that they have truly been alone together, and as such don't really know one another in the true sense.

Black Orpheus poster
Black Orpheus
1959 · dir. Marcel Camus
🍅 88%★ 7.4drama · romanceMax

Tender drama in both cases

Young lovers Orfeu and Eurydice run through the favelas of Rio during Carnaval, on the lam from a hitman dressed like Death and Orfeu's vengeful fiancée Mira and passing between moments of fantasy and stark reality. This impressionistic retelling of the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice introduced bossa nova to the world with its soundtrack by young Brazilian composers Luiz Bonfá and Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner poster
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
1967 · dir. Stanley Kramer
🍅 71%★ 7.8drama · romance

Both sit in the same contemplative register

A couple's attitudes are challenged when their daughter brings home a fiancé who is black.

The Earrings of Madame de... poster
The Earrings of Madame de...
1953 · dir. Max Ophüls
🍅 97%★ 7.8drama · romanceMax

Both are romance through and through

In late 19th century France, the Countess Louise, wife of a wealthy general, sells the earrings her husband gave her on their wedding day to pay off her secret debts, then claims to have lost them. Her husband quickly learns of the deceit, which is the beginning of many tragic misunderstandings, all involving the earrings, the general, the countess, and her new lover, the Italian Baron Donati.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg poster
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
1964 · dir. Jacques Demy
🍅 97%★ 7.8drama · romanceMax

Both know what they want from drama

This simple romantic tragedy begins in 1957. Guy Foucher, a 20-year-old French auto mechanic, has fallen in love with 17-year-old Geneviève Emery, an employee in her widowed mother's chic but financially embattled umbrella shop. On the evening before Guy is to leave for a two-year tour of combat in Algeria, he and Geneviève make love. She becomes pregnant and must choose between waiting for Guy's return or accepting an offer of marriage from a wealthy diamond merchant.

Summer with Monika poster
Summer with Monika
1953 · dir. Ingmar Bergman
🍅 100%★ 7.5drama · romance

The romance is handled with the same confidence

One summer day, two teens begin a reckless affair and abandon their families to be with one another.

Letter from an Unknown Woman poster
Letter from an Unknown Woman
1948 · dir. Max Ophüls
🍅 100%★ 7.8drama · romance

Drama approached the same way

A pianist about to flee from a duel receives a letter from a woman he cannot remember. As she tells the story of her lifelong love for him, he is forced to reinterpret his own past.

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The best-reviewed films that share Ali: Fear Eats the Soul’s defining feeling.