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What's Eating Gilbert Grape poster

Movies that feel likeWhat's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)

Gilbert Grape is a small-town young man with a lot of responsibility. Chief among his concerns are his mother, who is so overweight that she can't leave the house, and his mentally impaired younger brother, Arnie, who has a knack for finding trouble. Settled into a job at a grocery store and an ongoing affair with local woman Betty Carver, Gilbert finally has his life shaken up by the free-spirited Becky.

If you loved What's Eating Gilbert Grape, the closest films we have are Sense and Sensibility (1995), The Age of Innocence (1993) and The Bridges of Madison County (1995). All three share What's Eating Gilbert Grape's romantic and tender feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Veer-Zaara (2004).

🍅 90% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7.7 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Lasse Hallströmromantictendercontemplative
9 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · HBO Max · Amazon Prime Video

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If What's Eating Gilbert Grape hit the spot, these will too

Sense and Sensibility poster
Sense and Sensibility
1995 · dir. Ang Lee
🍅 97%★ 7.7drama · romance

Common ground: widow

The Dashwood sisters, sensible Elinor and passionate Marianne, learn that their prospects of marriage seem doomed by their family's sudden loss of fortune. After Henry Dashwood dies unexpectedly, his estate must pass on by law to his son. These circumstances leave Mr. Dashwood's wife and daughters without a home and with barely enough money to live on. As Elinor and Marianne struggle to find romantic fulfillment in a society obsessed with financial and social status, they must learn to mix sense with sensibility in their dealings with both money and men.

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

Both land romance and tenderness at once

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.

The Bridges of Madison County poster
The Bridges of Madison County
1995 · dir. Clint Eastwood
🍅 90%★ 7.6drama · romance

Romance built on stillness, twice over

Photographer Robert Kincaid wanders into the life of housewife Francesca Johnson for four days in the 1960s.

The Remains of the Day poster
The Remains of the Day
1993 · dir. James Ivory
🍅 96%★ 7.8drama · romancePrime VideoHulu

Romantic drama, and it commits to that

A rule-bound head butler's world of manners and decorum in the household he maintains is tested by the arrival of a housekeeper who falls in love with him in post-WWI Britain. The possibility of romance and his master's cultivation of ties with the Nazi cause challenge his carefully maintained veneer of servitude.

Happy Together poster
Happy Together
1997 · dir. Wong Kar-Wai
🍅 85%★ 7.7drama · romanceMax

Romance with a pulse of tenderness, in both cases

A couple travels from Hong Kong to Argentina to revive their relationship but experience turbulence when both men's lives drift in separate directions.

Before Sunrise poster
Before Sunrise
1995 · dir. Richard Linklater
🍅 100%★ 8.1drama · romanceRent or buy

Both lean on stillness more than on drama

An unexpected meeting on a train leads two travelers to spend an evening wandering through Vienna. As the night unfolds, they share stories and conversations about life and love, exploring new ideas while a quiet intimacy grows between them, knowing it may be their only night together.

In the Mood for Love poster
In the Mood for Love
2000 · dir. Wong Kar-Wai
🍅 92%★ 8drama · romanceMax

Romantic romance in both cases

In 1960s Hong Kong, two neighbors form an intimate bond after making a discovery about their spouses in this visually stunning tale of unrequited love.

Gia poster
Gia
1998 · dir. Michael Cristofer
🍅 88%★ 6.9romance · dramaMax

Drama built on tenderness, twice over

Gia Carangi meteorically rises to modeling fame in the late 1970s but becomes overconsumed by persistent loneliness and drug addiction.

Dil Chahta Hai poster
Dil Chahta Hai
2001 · dir. Farhan Akhtar
🍅 100%★ 8.1drama · romanceNetflix

Both work the same stillness

Three inseparable childhood friends are just out of college. Nothing comes between them - until they each fall in love, and their wildly different approaches to relationships creates tension.

Veer-Zaara poster
Veer-Zaara
2004 · dir. Yash Chopra
🍅 94%★ 7.8drama · romanceNetflix

Both are romance through and through

Squadron Leader Veer Pratap Singh, a pilot in the Indian Air Force, rescues the stranded Zaara, a woman from Pakistan, following a bus accident, and their lives are forever bound.

Head-On poster
Head-On
2004 · dir. Fatih Akin
★ 7.9drama · romance

Drama of the same temperament

With the intention to break free from the strict familial restrictions, a suicidal young woman sets up a marriage of convenience with a forty-year-old addict, an act that will lead to an outburst of envious love.

The Reader poster
The Reader
2008 · dir. Stephen Daldry
🍅 63%★ 7.6drama · romance

Both play romance straight

The difference: The critics' underdog of the pair

The story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a teenager in the late 1950s, had an affair with an older woman, Hanna, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a concentration camp guard late in the war. He alone realizes that Hanna is illiterate and may be concealing that fact at the expense of her freedom.

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The best-reviewed films that share What's Eating Gilbert Grape’s defining feeling.