Movies Like To Live
If you loved To Live'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

The History of Love
The story of a long-lost book that mysteriously reappears and connects an old man searching for his son with a girl seeking a cure for her mother's loneliness.

Never Say Never
A former boxing champion takes decides to break a few rules and train orphans from China's remote countryside in order to give them a future.

The Good Earth
China, during the rule of the Qing Dynasty. The arranged marriage between Wang Lung, a humble farmer, and O-Lan, a domestic slave, will endure the many hardships of life over the years; but the temptations of a fragile prosperity will endanger their love and the survival of their entire family.

So Long, My Son
Two married couples adjust to the vast social and economic changes taking place in China from the 1980s to the present.

Red Sorghum
An old leper who owned a remote sorghum winery dies. Jiu'er, the wife bought by the leper, and her lover, identified only as "my Grandpa" by the narrator, take over the winery and set up an idealized quasi-matriarchal community headed by Jiu'er. When the Japanese invaders subject the area to their rule and cut down the sorghum to make way for a road, the community rises up and resists as the sorghum grows anew.

Youth
A group of performing art troupe members each face their own trials and tribulations in Chengdu; from escaping a family scandal to dealing with unrequited love, each experiences rejection that shapes their lives.

One Second
A movie fan escapes from a labour camp during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and strikes up a relationship with a homeless female vagabond.

The Stage
During the Republican era, wars and conflicts were frequent. On stage, the "Overlord" sings with resounding passion, while below, the absurd spectacle of life unfolds. They must both secure the opera troupe's livelihood and appease the audience in their seats. Once the curtain rises, how should this play be performed?
More Movies Like To Live

Northanger Abbey
A young woman's penchant for sensational Gothic novels leads to misunderstandings in the matters of the heart.

Christmas Cottage
Inspired by the picturesque paintings of Thomas Kinkade, The Christmas Cottage tells the semi-autobiographical tale of how a young boy is propelled to launch a career as an artist after he learns that his mother is in danger of losing the family home.

TalhotBlond
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.

Mansfield Park
Fanny Price is sent to live with her wealthy relatives, the Bertrams, where she is treated poorly by most except her cousin Edmund. Her life is complicated by the arrival of the worldly Mary and Henry Crawford

The Storm Riders
Heeding a prophecy, a warlord trains two orphans after killing their parents. But the skills he teaches could lead to his downfall.

Dirt
In search of a lifeline for his struggling off road racing team, a man takes on a young car thief looking for a second chance, but as their worlds collide, they must struggle to forge a successful alliance.

Raise the Red Lantern
In 1920s China, 19-year-old Songlian becomes a concubine of a powerful lord and is forced to compete with his three wives for the privileges gained.

Devils on the Doorstep
During the Japanese occupation of China, two prisoners are dumped in a peasant's home in a small town. The owner is bullied into keeping the prisoners until the next New Year, at which time they will be collected. The village leaders convene to interrogate the prisoners. The townspeople then struggle to accommodate the prisoners. One is a bellicose Japanese nationalist, the other a nervous translator. Will the townspeople manage to keep the prisoners until the New Year?

The Last Tycoon
Cheng, a young man who is set up by the chief of police, must leave the life he knows and Qiu, the woman he loves, to start again. After escaping prison Cheng quickly and violently moves his way up the ladder of Shanghais criminal underworld to become on the most powerful mob bosses in Shanghais history. But fame and notoriety take their toll when Cheng finds himself stuck between the looming Japanese army and the scheming local secret service. Matters are only made worse when he bumps into the love of his life QIU, along with her writer husband. Will love re-kindle in the dusk of an era?

96 Minutes
Former bomb disposal expert, Song Kang-Ren, and his fiancée, Huang Xin, board a high-speed train that contains a bomb. At the same time, Liu Kai, a well-known physics teacher who was involved in an affair scandal, also boards this same train in order to win back his wife, Ting Juan, who took the prior high-speed rail to return home in frustration… After all, can the bomb be successfully defused this time? and resolve the crisis?

Barry Lyndon
An Irish rogue uses his cunning and wit to work his way up the social classes of 18th century England, transforming himself from the humble Redmond Barry into the noble Barry Lyndon.

The Rescue
A rescue unit within the Chinese Coast Guard are forced to overcome their personal differences to resolve a crisis.
Why These Movies Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with To Live (1994): 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 To Live.
See full details for To Live (1994)