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Movies that feel like Ashes and Diamonds (1958)

If you loved Ashes and Diamonds, the closest films we have are The Cranes Are Flying (1957), Mrs. Miniver (1942) and From Here to Eternity (1953). All three share Ashes and Diamonds' contemplative and bleak feel, which is what we rank on before quality. 11 of the 12 picks below are included with a subscription right now on HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video and Criterion Channel and others, checked against today's data.

A young academy soldier, Maciek Chelmicki, is ordered to shoot the secretary of the KW PPR. A coincidence causes him to kill someone else. Meeting face to face with his victim, he gets a shock. He faces the necessity of repeating the assassination. He meets Krystyna, a girl working as a barmaid in the restaurant of the "Monopol" hotel. His affection for her makes him even more aware of the senselessness of killing at the end of the war. Loyalty to the oath he took, and thus the obligation to obey the order, tips the scales.

🍅 96% Rotten Tomatoes7.7 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Andrzej Wajdacontemplativebleakromantictender
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If Ashes and Diamonds hit the spot, these will too

The Cranes Are Flying poster
The Cranes Are Flying
1957 · dir. Mikhail Kalatozov
🍅 96%8.3drama · romance · war

The same two preoccupations: world war ii, and black and white

Veronika and Boris come together in Moscow shortly before World War II. Walking along the river, they watch cranes fly overhead, and promise to rendezvous before Boris leaves to fight. Boris misses the meeting and is off to the front lines, while Veronika waits patiently, sending letters faithfully. After her house is bombed, Veronika moves in with Boris' family, into the company of a cousin with his own intentions.

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Mrs. Miniver poster
Mrs. Miniver
1942 · dir. William Wyler
🍅 93%7.6drama · romance · war

Both are built on the same subject: world war ii

Middle-class housewife Kay Miniver deals with petty problems. She and her husband Clem watch her Oxford-educated son Vin court Carol Beldon, the charming granddaughter of the local nobility as represented by Lady Beldon. Then the war comes and Vin joins the RAF.

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From Here to Eternity poster
From Here to Eternity
1953 · dir. Fred Zinnemann
🍅 88%7.6war · romance · drama

The same preoccupation in both: black and white

In 1941 Hawaii, a private is cruelly punished for not boxing on his unit's team, while his captain's wife and second in command are falling in love.

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The Best Years of Our Lives poster
The Best Years of Our Lives
1946 · dir. William Wyler
🍅 97%8.1drama · romance · war

Contemplative where it counts, bleak underneath

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.

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Battle for Sevastopol poster
Battle for Sevastopol
2015 · dir. Sergey Mokritsky
7war · drama · romance

Romantic and tender in the same breath

The difference: Made in the 2010s, in a different era of the craft

The story of Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the most successful female sniper in history.

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The Earrings of Madame de... poster
The Earrings of Madame de...
1953 · dir. Max Ophüls
🍅 97%7.9drama · romance

Drama built on stillness, twice over

The difference: None of the bleakness Ashes and Diamonds is built on

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.

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To Be or Not to Be poster
To Be or Not to Be
1942 · dir. Ernst Lubitsch
🍅 96%8.1comedy · war · romance

Common ground: polish resistance

The difference: Missing the stillness of Ashes and Diamonds

During the Nazi occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.

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

Romantic romance, and it commits to that

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

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Wings poster
Wings
1927 · dir. William A. Wellman
🍅 94%7.5drama · action · war

Both lean on bleakness more than on war

The difference: Leans harder into action than Ashes and Diamonds does

Two young men, one rich, one middle class, both in love with the same woman, become US Air Corps fighter pilots and, eventually, heroic flying aces during World War I. Devoted best friends, their mutual love of the girl eventually threatens their bond. Meanwhile, a hometown girl who's the lovestruck lifelong next door neighbor of one of them pines away.

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La Jetée poster
La Jetée
1962 · dir. Chris Marker
🍅 90%8.2drama · romance · science fiction

Tender drama in both cases

The difference: Sits closer to science fiction than Ashes and Diamonds does

A man confronts his past during an experiment that attempts to find a solution to the problems of a post-apocalyptic world caused by a world war.

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

Romance with a pulse of stillness, 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.

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

Romantic war in both cases

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.

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The best-reviewed films that share Ashes and Diamonds’ defining feeling.