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Movies Like Breaking the Waves

Looking for more content like Breaking the Waves, are likely to find resonance in stories that questions the purpose and weight of our choices while delivering targets the intellect with complex, multi-layered ideas. Carefully balances character depth with narrative flow makes this a solid addition to your watchlist.

Mood Breakdown
Runtime Cluster

Standard feature-length experiences.

Viewer Fit

Best for fans of who appreciate concise storytelling.

Top Picks

Young Adam
5.8

Young Adam

2003

A young drifter working on a river barge disrupts his employers' lives while hiding the fact that he knows more about a dead woman found in the river than he admits.

Brimstone
7.1

Brimstone

2016

In the menacing inferno of the old North-American West, Liz is a genuine survivor who is hunted by a vengeful preacher for a crime she didn’t commit.

Lucky
7.3

Lucky

2017

Follows the journey of a 90-year-old atheist and the quirky characters that inhabit his off-the-map desert town. He finds himself at the precipice of life, thrust into a journey of self-exploration.

Ae Fond Kiss...
6.5

Ae Fond Kiss...

2004

A young man upsets his Punjabi family when he falls in love with an Irish schoolteacher.

Clash by Night
6.7

Clash by Night

1952

An embittered woman seeks escape in marriage, only to fall for her husband’s best friend.

The Shipping News
6.4

The Shipping News

2001

An emotionally-beaten man with his young daughter moves to his ancestral home in Newfoundland to reclaim his life.

Jane Eyre
7.2

Jane Eyre

2011

After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meets the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Edward Rochester. Jane and her employer grow close in friendship and she soon finds herself falling in love with him. Happiness seems to have found Jane at last, but could Rochester's terrible secret be about to destroy it forever?

Come Sunday
5.8

Come Sunday

2018

Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.

More Movies Like Breaking the Waves

Breakfast on Pluto
7.2

Breakfast on Pluto

2005

In the 1970s, a young transgender woman called “Kitten” leaves her small Irish town for London in search of love, acceptance, and her long-lost mother.

Urban Cowboy
6.5

Urban Cowboy

1980

After moving to Pasadena, Texas, country boy Bud Davis starts hanging around a bar called Gilley's, where he falls in love with Sissy, a cowgirl who believes the sexes are equal. They eventually marry, but their relationship is turbulent due to Bud's traditional view of gender roles. Jealousy over his rival leads to their separation, but Bud attempts to win Sissy back by triumphing at Gilley's mechanical bull-riding competition.

The Outrun
6.8

The Outrun

2024

Fresh out of rehab, Rona returns to the Orkney Islands—a place both wild and beautiful, right off the Scottish coast. Now 29 and after more than a decade of living life on the edge in London, where she both found and lost love, Rona attempts to come to terms with her troubled past. As she reconnects with the dramatic landscape where she grew up, memories of her traumatic childhood merge with more recent challenging events that have set her on the path to recovery.

Bastard Out of Carolina
7.1

Bastard Out of Carolina

1996

A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.

Sweet Sixteen
7.0

Sweet Sixteen

2002

Determined to have a normal family life once his mother gets out of prison, a Scottish teenager from a tough background sets out to raise the money for a home.

Bitter Moon
7.1

Bitter Moon

1992

A passenger on a cruise ship develops an irresistible infatuation with an eccentric paraplegic's wife.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post
6.9

The Miseducation of Cameron Post

2018

Pennsylvania, 1993. After getting caught with another girl, teenager Cameron Post is sent to a conversion therapy center run by the strict Dr. Lydia Marsh and her brother, Reverend Rick, whose treatment consists in repenting for feeling “same sex attraction.” Cameron befriends fellow sinners Jane and Adam, thus creating a new family to deal with the surrounding intolerance.

Elena Undone
6.9

Elena Undone

2010

The wife of a pastor who preaches against homosexuality embarks on an affair with a female writer.

Grandma
6.5

Grandma

2015

Self-described misanthrope Elle Reid has her protective bubble burst when her 18-year-old granddaughter, Sage, shows up needing help. The two of them go on a day-long journey that causes Elle to come to terms with her past and Sage to confront her future.

Ratcatcher
7.1

Ratcatcher

1999

James Gillespie is 12 years old. The world he knew is changing. Haunted by a secret, he has become a stranger in his own family. He is drawn to the canal where he creates a world of his own. He finds an awkward tenderness with Margaret Anne, a vulnerable 14 year old expressing a need for love in all the wrong ways, and befriends Kenny, who possesses an unusual innocence in spite of the harsh surroundings.

Starving in Suburbia
6.5

Starving in Suburbia

2014

When seventeen-year-old Hannah stumbles upon a website about Thinspiration--an online community devoted to anorexia as a life choice--she becomes an obsessive follower of the site founder, ButterflyAna. By the time Hannah's family realizes what is happening and get Hannah the help she needs, the disease has fully taken hold and Hannah is refusing to eat. Will this family be able to exorcise the demon of anorexia from their lives?

The Good Girl
6.2

The Good Girl

2002

A discount store clerk strikes up an affair with a stock boy who considers himself the incarnation of Holden Caulfield.

Why These Movies Are Similar

These recommendations share core qualities with Breaking the Waves (1996): 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 Breaking the Waves.

See full details for Breaking the Waves (1996)

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