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Days of Heaven poster

Movies that feel likeDays of Heaven (1978)

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.

If you loved Days of Heaven, the closest films we have are Badlands (1973), Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) and The Woman Next Door (1981). All three share Days of Heaven's contemplative and romantic feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Splendor in the Grass (1961).

🍅 93% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7.7 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Terrence Malickcontemplativeromantictender
9 of 12 streaming nowHBO Max · Amazon Prime Video · Criterion Channel

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If Days of Heaven hit the spot, these will too

Badlands poster
Badlands
1973 · dir. Terrence Malick
🍅 97%★ 7.7drama · romance · crime

Terrence Malick working the same nerve twice

The difference: Sits closer to crime than Days of Heaven does

An impressionable teenage girl from a dead-end town and her older greaser boyfriend embark on a killing spree in the South Dakota badlands.

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul poster
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
1974 · dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
🍅 100%★ 8romance · dramaMax

The same mix in both: stillness, then romance

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.

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

Both lean on tenderness more than on drama

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

Last Tango in Paris poster
Last Tango in Paris
1972 · dir. Bernardo Bertolucci
🍅 81%★ 6.8drama · romance

The same preoccupation in both: love

A recently widowed American begins an anonymous sexual relationship with a young Parisian woman.

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

Both are built on the same subject: love

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.

Contempt poster
Contempt
1963 · dir. Jean-Luc Godard
🍅 92%★ 7.4drama · romance

One thread runs through both: love triangle

Art film producer Jeremy Prokosch, unhappy with the work of his director, hires Fritz Lang (as himself) to direct an adaptation of The Odyssey, but when it seems that the legendary filmmaker is making a picture destined to bomb, he brings in a screenwriter to energise the script. The professional intersects with the personal when a rift develops between the writer and his wife.

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

Contemplative romance, and it commits to that

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

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

Drama with a pulse of romance, in both cases

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.

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

Tender 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

Drama built on stillness, twice over

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.

The Age of Innocence poster
The Age of Innocence
1993 · dir. Martin Scorsese
🍅 88%★ 7.2drama · romancePrime Video

Romance built on romance, twice over

In 19th century New York high society, a young lawyer falls in love with a woman separated from her husband, while he is engaged to the woman's cousin.

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

The shared currency is tenderness

The difference: 24 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.

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The best-reviewed films that share Days of Heaven’s defining feeling.