Movies Like By the Sea
If you loved By the Sea's Drama and Romance storytelling, these films deliver a similar experience — carefully selected for tone, themes, and emotional depth. Each pick includes where to watch it right now.
★ Top Picks

Fanny
Almost 19-year-old Marius feels himself in a rut in Marseille, his life planned for him by his cafe'-owning father, and he longs for the sea. The night before he is to leave on a 5-year voyage, Fanny, a girl he grew up with, reveals that she is in love with him, and he discovers that he is in love with her. He must choose between an exciting life at sea, and a boring life with the woman he loves. And Fanny must choose between keeping the man she loves, and letting him live the life he seems to want.

Maudie
Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis falls in love with a fishmonger while working for him as a live-in housekeeper.

Third Person
An acclaimed novelist struggles to write an analysis of love in one of three stories, each set in a different city, that detail the beginning, middle and end of a relationship.

Something's Gotta Give
When perpetually single, aging music industry exec Harry Sanborn, and his latest trophy girlfriend, Marin, arrive at her mother's beach house in the Hamptons, they find that her mother, playwright Erica Barry, also plans to stay for the weekend. Erica is scandalized by the relationship and Harry's sexist ways. But when Harry has a heart attack while there, and the doctor prescribes bedrest, his only option is to stay at the Barry home. Left in the care of Erica and his doctor, a love triangle starts to take shape.

Bonjour Tristesse
At the height of summer, 18-year-old Cécile is relaxing by the French seaside with her father and falling in love with her new boyfriend. The arrival of her late mother's enigmatic friend turns her world upside down.

Empire of Light
The duty manager of a seaside cinema, who is struggling with her mental health, forms a relationship with a new employee on the south coast of England in the 1980s.

Intimacy
Failed musician Jay abandoned his family and now earns a living as head bartender in a trendy London pub. Every Wednesday afternoon, a woman comes to his house for graphic, almost wordless, sex. One day, Jay follows her and learns about her. This eventually disrupts their relationship.

The Shipping News
An emotionally-beaten man with his young daughter moves to his ancestral home in Newfoundland to reclaim his life.
More Movies Like By the Sea

Not Without Hope
A group of friends' fishing boat capsizes off the coast of Mexico and they're left alone stranded at sea and struggling for survival.

The Dreamers
When Isabelle and Theo invite Matthew to stay with them, what begins as a casual friendship ripens into a sensual voyage of discovery and desire in which nothing is off limits and everything is possible.

Lost in Translation
Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.

Moulin Rouge!
A celebration of love and creative inspiration takes place in the infamous, gaudy and glamorous Parisian nightclub, at the cusp of the 20th century. A young poet, who is plunged into the heady world of Moulin Rouge, begins a passionate affair with the club's most notorious and beautiful star.

Total Eclipse
Young, wild poet Arthur Rimbaud and his mentor Paul Verlaine engage in a fierce, forbidden romance while feeling the effects of a hellish artistic lifestyle.

Bonjour Tristesse
A spoiled teenager spends the summer at the French Riviera with her rich, widower, playboy father, but when his old flame resurfaces, she resolves to keep her frivolous lifestyle at all costs.

Priscilla
When teenage Priscilla Beaulieu meets Elvis Presley at a party, the man who is already a meteoric rock-and-roll superstar becomes someone entirely unexpected in private moments: a thrilling crush, an ally in loneliness, a vulnerable best friend.

Before Sunset
Nine years later, Jesse travels across Europe giving readings from a book he wrote about the night he spent in Vienna with Celine. After his reading in Paris, Celine finds him, and they spend part of the day together before Jesse has to again leave for a flight. They are both in relationships now, and Jesse has a son, but as their strong feelings for each other start to return, both confess a longing for more.

Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool
Liverpool, 1978: What starts as a vibrant affair between a legendary femme-fatale, the eccentric Academy Award-winning actress Gloria Grahame, and her young lover, British actor Peter Turner, quickly grows into a deeper relationship, with Turner being the person Gloria turns to for comfort.

Dangerous Liaisons
In 18th century France, Marquise de Merteuil asks her ex-lover Vicomte de Valmont to seduce the future wife of another ex-lover of hers in return for one last night with her. Yet things don’t go as planned.

A Love Song for Bobby Long
A headstrong young woman returns to New Orleans after the death of her estranged mother.
Why These Movies Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with By the Sea (2015): Drama and Romance themes, similar narrative structure, and comparable emotional depth. NoBadPicks uses a combination of TMDB collaborative filtering, genre matching, and AI analysis to surface films most likely to resonate with fans of By the Sea.
See full details for By the Sea (2015)
