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The Book Thief poster

Movies that feel likeThe Book Thief (2013)

While subjected to the horrors of WWII Germany, young Liesel finds solace by stealing books and sharing them with others. Under the stairs in her home, a Jewish refugee is being sheltered by her adoptive parents.

If you loved The Book Thief, the closest films we have are Beautiful Boy (2018), Ida (2013) and Blue Jasmine (2013). All three share The Book Thief's contemplative feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Aquarius (2016).

🍅 50% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7.5 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Brian Percivalcontemplative
5 of 12 streaming nowAmazon Prime Video · MUBI · OVID

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See it on the Mood Map

If The Book Thief hit the spot, these will too

Beautiful Boy poster
Beautiful Boy
2018 · dir. Felix van Groeningen
🍅 67%★ 7.4dramaPrime Video

Contemplative drama in both cases

After he and his first wife separate, journalist David Sheff struggles to help their teenage son, who goes from experimenting with drugs to becoming devastatingly addicted to methamphetamine.

Ida poster
Ida
2013 · dir. Paweł Pawlikowski
🍅 95%★ 7.4dramaPrime Video

Drama with a pulse of stillness, in both cases

The difference: Critics rated this one higher still

In 1960s Poland, young novitiate Anna is on the verge of taking her vows when she discovers a family secret dating back to the years of the German occupation.

Blue Jasmine poster
Blue Jasmine
2013 · dir. Woody Allen
🍅 90%★ 7.3drama

Contemplative drama, and it commits to that

After experiencing a traumatic misfortune, Jasmine French, a wealthy woman from New York, moves to San Francisco to live with her foster sister Ginger and the firm purpose of getting a new life, but she will be haunted by anxiety and memories of the past.

The Butler poster
The Butler
2013 · dir. Lee Daniels
🍅 72%★ 7.2drama

Both play drama straight

Cecil Gaines was a sharecropper's son who grew up in the 1920s as a domestic servant for the white family who casually destroyed his. Eventually striking out on his own, Cecil becomes a hotel valet of such efficiency and discreteness in the 1950s that he becomes a butler in the White House itself. There, Cecil would serve numerous US Presidents over the decades as a passive witness of history with the American Civil Rights Movement gaining momentum even as his family has troubles of its own. As his wife, Gloria, struggles with alcoholism and his defiant eldest son, Louis, strives for a just world, Cecil must decide whether he should take action in his own way.

Like Father, Like Son poster
Like Father, Like Son
2013 · dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda
🍅 86%★ 7.8drama

Both working the same drama territory

Ryota Nonomiya is a successful businessman driven by money. He learns that his biological son was switched with another child after birth. He must make a life-changing decision and choose his true son or the boy he raised as his own.

The Last King of Scotland poster
The Last King of Scotland
2006 · dir. Kevin Macdonald
🍅 87%★ 7.6drama

Drama in the same key

Young Scottish doctor, Nicholas Garrigan decides it's time for an adventure after he finishes his formal education, so he decides to try his luck in Uganda, and arrives during the downfall of President Obote. General Idi Amin comes to power and asks Garrigan to become his personal doctor.

If I Stay poster
If I Stay
2014 · dir. R.J. Cutler
🍅 36%★ 6.7drama

Both know what they want from drama

Mia Hall, a talented young cellist, thought the most difficult decision she would ever have to make would be whether to pursue her musical dreams at prestigious Juilliard or follow her heart to be with the love of her life, Adam, a rock singer/guitarist. However, a car wreck changes everything in an instant, and now Mia's life hangs in the balance. Suspended between life and death, Mia faces a choice that will decide her future.

Our Little Sister poster
Our Little Sister
2015 · dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda
🍅 93%★ 7.6drama

Drama approached the same way

After the death of their estranged father, 3 adult sisters invite their teenaged half-sister to live with them.

Wild poster
Wild
2014 · dir. Jean-Marc Vallée
🍅 88%★ 7.1drama

The drama is handled with the same confidence

A woman with a tragic past decides to start her new life by hiking for one thousand miles on the Pacific Crest Trail.

Aquarius poster
Aquarius
2016 · dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho
🍅 97%★ 7.4drama

Drama of the same temperament

Clara, a vibrant former music critic and widow with flowing tresses is the only remaining apartment owner in a beautiful older building targeted for demolition by ruthless luxury high-rise developers. Clara proves to be a force to be reckoned with as she thwarts the builders plans to kick her out of the apartment.

Shame poster
Shame
2011 · dir. Steve McQueen
🍅 79%★ 7.2drama

The same drama instincts

Brandon, a thirty-something man living in New York, eludes intimacy with women but feeds his deepest desires with a compulsive addiction to sex. When his younger sister temporarily moves into his apartment, stirring up bitter memories of their shared painful past, Brandon's life, like his fragile mind, gets out of control.

The Second Mother poster
The Second Mother
2015 · dir. Anna Muylaert
🍅 98%★ 7.8drama

Cut from the same drama cloth

After leaving her daughter Jessica in a small town in Pernambuco to be raised by relatives, Val spends the next 13 years working as a nanny to Fabinho in São Paulo. She has financial stability but has to live with the guilt of having not raised Jessica herself. As Fabinho’s university entrance exams approach, Jessica reappears in her life and seems to want to give her mother a second chance. However, Jessica has not been raised to be a servant and her very existence will turn Val’s routine on its head. With precision and humour, the subtle and powerful forces that keep rigid class structures in place and how the youth may just be the ones to shake it all up.

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The best-reviewed films that share The Book Thief’s defining feeling.