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Grave of the Fireflies poster

Movies that feel likeGrave of the Fireflies (1988)

In the final months of World War II, 14-year-old Seita and his sister Setsuko are orphaned when their mother is killed during an air raid in Kobe, Japan. After a falling out with their aunt, they move into an abandoned bomb shelter. With no surviving relatives and their emergency rations depleted, Seita and Setsuko struggle to survive.

If you loved Grave of the Fireflies, the closest films we have are The Pianist (2002), Waltz with Bashir (2008) and Apocalypse Now (1979). All three share Grave of the Fireflies' contemplative and bleak feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is In Darkness (2011).

🍅 100% Rotten Tomatoes★ 8.5 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Isao Takahatacontemplativebleak
7 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · Criterion Channel · MUBI

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If Grave of the Fireflies hit the spot, these will too

The Pianist poster
The Pianist
2002 · dir. Roman Polanski
🍅 95%★ 8.5drama · war

Two things both keep coming back to: hunger and world war ii

The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city.

Waltz with Bashir poster
Waltz with Bashir
2008 · dir. Ari Folman
🍅 97%★ 8animation · documentary · drama

The same preoccupation in both: adult animation

The difference: Sits closer to documentary than Grave of the Fireflies does

A film director from Israel interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.

Apocalypse Now poster
Apocalypse Now
1979 · dir. Francis Ford Coppola
🍅 91%★ 8.4drama · warParamount+

Contemplative where it counts, bleak underneath

At the height of the Vietnam war, Captain Benjamin Willard is sent on a dangerous mission that, officially, "does not exist, nor will it ever exist." His goal is to locate - and eliminate - a mysterious Green Beret Colonel named Walter Kurtz, who has been leading his personal army on illegal guerrilla missions into enemy territory.

Jarhead poster
Jarhead
2005 · dir. Sam Mendes
🍅 60%★ 7drama · warNetflixStarz

Common ground: anti war

The difference: The scrappier of the two with critics

Jarhead is a film about a US Marine Anthony Swofford’s experience in the Gulf War. After putting up with an arduous boot camp, Swofford and his unit are sent to the Persian Gulf where they are eager to fight, but are forced to stay back from the action. Swofford struggles with the possibility of his girlfriend cheating on him, and as his mental state deteriorates, his desire to kill increases.

The Counterfeiters poster
The Counterfeiters
2007 · dir. Stefan Ruzowitzky
🍅 93%★ 7.5drama · war

Both keep coming back to the same thing: world war ii

The story of Jewish counterfeiter Salomon Sorowitsch, who was coerced into assisting the Nazi operation of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp during World War II.

The Breadwinner poster
The Breadwinner
2017 · dir. Nora Twomey
🍅 95%★ 7.7animation · war · drama

Both are built on the same subject: adult animation

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

A headstrong young girl in Afghanistan, ruled by the Taliban, disguises herself as a boy in order to provide for her family.

Shame poster
Shame
1968 · dir. Ingmar Bergman
🍅 67%★ 8war · drama

Both lean on stillness more than on drama

In the midst of a civil war, a pair of former violinists in a tempestuous marriage oversee a farm on a rural island. In spite of their best efforts to escape their homeland, the war impinges on every aspect of their lives.

Unbroken poster
Unbroken
2014 · dir. Angelina Jolie
🍅 52%★ 7.2drama · warNetflix

War with a pulse of bleakness, in both cases

A chronicle of the life of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner who was taken prisoner by Japanese forces during World War II.

In Darkness poster
In Darkness
2011 · dir. Agnieszka Holland
🍅 88%★ 7.3drama · war

Contemplative animation, and it commits to that

A dramatization of one man's rescue of Jewish refugees in the Nazi-occupied city of Lviv. In Darkness tells the true story of Leopold Soha who risks his own life to save a dozen people from certain death. Initially only interested in his own good, the thief and burglar hides Jewish refugees for 14 months in the sewers of the Nazi-occupied town of Lviv (formerly Poland).

Paths of Glory poster
Paths of Glory
1957 · dir. Stanley Kubrick
🍅 96%★ 8.4war · drama

Bleak drama in both cases

A commanding officer defends three scapegoats on trial for a failed offensive that occurred within the French Army in 1916.

Persian Lessons poster
Persian Lessons
2020 · dir. Vadim Perelman
🍅 80%★ 7.4war · drama

War of the same temperament

Occupied France, 1942. Gilles is arrested by SS soldiers alongside other Jews and sent to a camp in Germany. He narrowly avoids sudden execution by swearing to the guards that he is not Jewish, but Persian. This lie temporarily saves him, but Gilles gets assigned a life-or-death mission: to teach Farsi to Head of Camp Koch, who dreams of opening a restaurant in Iran once the war is over. Through an ingenious trick, Gilles manages to survive by inventing words of "Farsi" every day and teaching them to Koch.

Letters from Iwo Jima poster
Letters from Iwo Jima
2006 · dir. Clint Eastwood
🍅 91%★ 7.8action · drama · war

One thread runs through both: pacific theater

The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it.

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The best-reviewed films that share Grave of the Fireflies’ defining feeling.