
Movies that feel likeThe Shape of Water (2017)
If you loved The Shape of Water, the closest films we have are The Age of Adaline (2015), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) and About Time (2013). All three share The Shape of Water's contemplative and dreamlike feel, which is what we rank on before quality.
Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Before Midnight (2013).
Can't choose? Answer three questions and get one movie for tonight.
If The Shape of Water hit the spot, these will too

A love shaped by a secret that can't be spoken aloud
The difference: Polished and safe — glossy romance, nothing strange or feral

A tender impossible romance framed as a hushed modern fable
The difference: Sprawling and elegiac — decades of drift, not a tight rescue

Magic used gently, in service of ordinary devotion
The difference: Cozy British comfort — no danger, no darkness at the edges

Devotion that persists despite an impossible condition
The difference: A conventional weepie — glossy, no strangeness in its veins

A love story told with patience and deep tenderness
The difference: Pure realism — two people talking, not a drop of magic

Contemplative where it counts, dreamlike underneath
The difference: The scrappier of the two with critics

A love story tangled up in secret, uncanny forces
The difference: Teen franchise fare — a middle chapter with modest craft

Both land romance and tenderness at once

Love across a line the world insists shouldn't be crossed
The difference: Teen-melodrama register — none of the craft or the eroticism

Contemplative drama, and it commits to that

A strange visitor learning human feeling, slowly and quietly
The difference: Long, plush and talky — drawing-room drama, not a fairy tale

Both keep coming back to the same thing: fairy tale
In the mood for more contemplative?
all contemplative movies →The best-reviewed films that share The Shape of Water’s defining feeling.









