Best movies like Summer and Smoke
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
In a small Mississippi town in 1916, an eccentric spinster battles her romantic yearnings for the randy boy next door. A 1961 film, adapted from a Tennessee Williams play, starring Geraldine Page, Laurence Harvey, John McIntire, Una Merkel and Rita Moreno.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: southern gothic, retro, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy, neurotic, period drama
Best tv shows and movies like Summer and Smoke (1961):
Similar in 82%
Rachel, Rachel (1968)
Plot Summary:
Rachel is a 35 year old school teacher who has no man in her life and lives with her mother. When a man from the big city returns and asks her out, she begins to have to make decisions about her life and where she wants it to go.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: retro, psychological, sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, sexual
Similar in 88%
Walk on the Wild Side (1962)
Plot Summary:
At the Doll House, a 1930’s New Orleans bordello, Hallie is the main attraction both for clients and for Jo, the madame. Her comfortable if tedious life is disrupted by the arrival in town of Dove Linkhorn, her true love of three years before who is now searching for her. When Linkhorn learns the truth of her profession he triggers a chain of events involving a number of people, including the young Kitty with whom he travelled from Texas and who is now the Doll House newest recruit.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, realistic, gloomy, sexual, sexy
Similar in 83%
Our Town (1977)
Plot Summary:
3-act play by American playwright Thornton Wilder.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 259
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
Orpheus Descending (1990)
Plot Summary:
Val Xavier is a drifter in 1940's Mississippi who brings new life to an Italian immigrant woman trapped in a loveless marriage.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 355
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: southern gothic
Similar in 75%
The Member of the Wedding (1997)
Plot Summary:
In the last days leading up to her older brother's marriage, a young girl is forced to face realities and grow up quickly. A tender adaptation of Carson McCullers' classic play.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 189
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 83%
The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961)
Plot Summary:
Critics and the public say Karen Stone is too old -- as she approaches 50 -- for her role in a play she is about to take to Broadway. Her businessman husband, 20 years her senior, has been the angel for the play and gives her a way out: They are off to a holiday in Rome for his health. He suffers a fatal heart attack on the plane. Mrs. Stone stays in Rome. She leases a magnificent apartment with a view of the seven hills from the terrace. Then the contessa comes calling to introduce a young man named Paola to her. The contessa knows many presentable young men and lonely American widows.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: UK
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: sexual, sincere, touching, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, gloomy, ambiguous ending, sexy
Similar in 83%
Christmas in Conway (2013)
Plot Summary:
Duncan Mayor decides the perfect Christmas present for his beloved wife, Suzy, is a ride on a real Ferris wheel, set up in their very own back yard. As a young man, it was the perfect place for a wedding proposal. Now, years later, in order to relive the experience with his wife, Duncan will go to any length to make their fantasy become a reality.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: touching, sweet, captivating, entertaining, disturbing, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 84%
The Christmas Card (2006)
Plot Summary:
US Army sergeant Cody Cullen's horror tour in Afghanistan ends when his mate Jonesy is blown to pieces while they deliver medical supplies in Nurestan. Cody is sent home to return private possessions to Jonesy's bride turned widow. On his way home he passes Nevada City, California, where he meets Faith Spelman, who writes the parish's Christmas cards to lonely soldiers, coincidentally including him, an orphan. He happens to save her dad Luke from a serious car run-over. The Spellmans invite Cody home for dinner, then the Christmas tide. He proves a great help in the family logging firm. Vietenam vet Luke wants Cody as son-in-law, but although charmed, Faith still seems committed to rarely present fiancé Paul, a wine broker.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: touching, sentimental, serious, feel good, realistic
Similar in 84%
Sweet Bird of Youth (1962)
Plot Summary:
Gigolo and drifter, Chance Wayne, returns to his home town as the accompaniment of a faded movie star, Alexandra Del Lago, whom he hopes to use to help him break into the movies. Chance runs into trouble when he finds his ex-girlfriend, the daughter of the local politician Tom 'Boss' Finley, who more or less forced him to leave his daughter and the town many years ago.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: emotional, southern gothic, intense, atmospheric, serious, tense, realistic, psychological, clever, talky
Similar in 89%
All the Way Home (1963)
Plot Summary:
In the early 1900's Tennessee, a loving family undergoes the shock of the father's sudden, accidental death. The widow and her young son must endure the heartache of life following the tragedy, but slowly rise up from the ashes to face the hope of renewed life.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 456
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: retro, sentimental, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 82%
Springtime in a Small Town (2002)
Plot Summary:
In a mansion decimated during World War II, a frustrated, bored housewife, Yuwen, is torn between caring for her ailing husband and her longing for a former sweetheart, a doctor who has come to treat her husband.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: China, Hong Kong, France, Netherlands
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: sentimental, thought provoking, serious, emotional, realistic, stylized, touching, contemplative, gloomy, crying
Similar in 77%
See Girl Run (2012)
Plot Summary:
What happens when a 30-something woman allows life's "what ifs" to overwhelm her appreciation for what life actually is. Disregarding her current obligations, she digs into her romantic past in hopes of invigorating her present.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, psychological, sentimental, captivating, sincere, clever, semi serious, independent film
Similar in 80%
Violets Are Blue... (1986)
Plot Summary:
After fifteen years of traveling around the world Gussie (Spacek), a famous photographer, returns to the Maryland coastal resort where she grew up.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, talky, gloomy, crying
Similar in 75%
Maria's Lovers (1984)
Plot Summary:
Ivan Bibic returns to his Pittsburgh PA suburb after surviving a Japanse POW camp, causing regular nightmares. All the time he remained faithfully devoted to his childhood love, fellow ethnic Yugoslavian virgin Maria Bosic. She dates him again, thus ruining a virtual engagement to captain Al Griselli. Against Ivan's dad's advice, they get married. But Ivan became psychologically impotent, feels unworthy of her and starts wondering, even looking for another girl. Meanwhile slick guitar-and-song-busker Clarence Butts moves in to South-Western PA, and seduces Maria.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA, Israel
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: sincere, emotional, erotic, sentimental, captivating, controversial, grindhouse, sexual, psychological, serious
Similar in 75%
Independence Day (1983)
Plot Summary:
Mary Ann Taylor loves the comforts of her hometown in Mercury, Texas. She has a steady job as a waitress in her father's diner, yet she can't help but feel unfulfilled by a life of pouring coffee and grilling hamburgers. Mary Ann's real passion is photography, but pursuing her dream of becoming a photographer means leaving Mercury behind.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 564
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, crying
Similar in 77%
This Property Is Condemned (1966)
Plot Summary:
A railroad official, Owen Legate comes to Dodson, Mississippi to shut down much of the town's railway (town's main income). Owen unexpectedly finds love with Dodson's flirt and main attraction, Alva Starr. Alva and Owen then try to escape Alva's mother's (Hazel) clutches and the town's revenge.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: southern gothic, technicolor, romantic drama, sentimental, touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 89%
Dreaming of Joseph Lees (1999)
Plot Summary:
Set in rural England in the 1950s Eva (Samantha Morton) fantasises about her handsome, worldly cousin Joseph Lees (Rupert Graves), with whom she fell in love as a girl. However, stuck in a closed community she becomes the object of someone else's fantasy, Harry (Lee Ross). When Harry learns that Eva is planning to leave the village in order to live with and look after the injured Lees, he devises a gruesome scheme in order to force her to stay and look after him.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 920
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA, UK
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: emotional, sentimental, atmospheric, touching, serious, realistic, gloomy, erotic, psychological, romantic
Similar in 86%
The Virgin and the Gypsy (1970)
Plot Summary:
Film adaptation from the novel by D.H. Lawrence, discovered after the celebrated author's death in 1930, a romantic love story tells of a prim young English girl who is sexually attracted to a seductively virile gypsy. The climatic dam burst is linked with the consummation of her desire.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 376
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: UK
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: historical romance, independent film, erotic, sentimental, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy, sexual
Similar in 78%
The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (2008)
Plot Summary:
Tells the story of Fisher Willow, the disliked 1920s Memphis débutante daughter of a plantation owner with a distaste for narrow-minded people and a penchant for shocking and insulting those around her. After returning from studies overseas, Fisher falls in love with Jimmy, the down-and-out son of an alcoholic father and an insane mother who works at a store on her family's plantation.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: realistic, sincere, touching, serious, gothic, sex comedy, gloomy, period drama
Similar in 84%
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1984)
Plot Summary:
Brick, an alcoholic ex-football player, drinks his days away and resists the affections of his wife, Maggie. His reunion with his father, Big Daddy, who is dying of cancer, jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 588
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 144 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, sincere, serious, emotional, realistic, talky, gloomy, sexual, southern gothic
Similar in 77%
The Only Thrill (1997)
Plot Summary:
A small-town store owner with a comatose wife shares a long-term relationship with his seamstress.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 780
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: independent film, sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 80%
Tangled 8 (2015)
Plot Summary:
People from diverse social backgrounds, races and ages manage grief through its different phases.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 15
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, contemplative, talky, experimental, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 81%
Picnic (2000)
Plot Summary:
The son of the richest man in town wants to marry the town's beauty queen, but she meets a more interesting stranger who just got off the train.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 242
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, realistic, tense
Similar in 88%
Pete 'n' Tillie (1972)
Plot Summary:
Unassuming and single thirty-three year old Tillie Shlain is at that phase of her life of being known as a soon to be spinster if she doesn't marry soon. She isn't looking forward to meeting the latest in a long string of blind dates, his name being Pete Seltzer. Pete and Tillie are not a match made in heaven, he using wisecracking and constant flirtations with women to mask his own insecurities about his average looks and not wanting to deal with life head on. Despite Tillie's guard being up with regard to Pete, he is able slowly to chip away at her defenses. They do embark on a relationship which ends up in a straightforward and somewhat mutual declaration that they will get married despite their fundamental differences. But can their relationship survive these fundamental differences, which don't change during the course of their marriage, and as they deal with the terminal malignant tumor diagnosis of their nine-year old son, Robbie?.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: romantic comedy, sentimental, clever, touching, humorous, emotional, realistic, contemplative, talky, semi serious
Similar in 76%
One Special Night (1999)
Plot Summary:
Builder Robert is visiting his ailing wife in a nursing home and is having problems getting a taxi home due to an intense snow storm. One of the doctors, Katherine offers him a lift home however their car gets stuck and they have to spend the night in an empty cabin nearby. They talk and bond, but afterwards seem to have difficulty beginning a relationship.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, talky
Similar in 80%
Splendor in the Grass (1961)
Plot Summary:
A fragile Kansas girl's unrequited and forbidden love for a handsome young man from the town's most powerful family drives her to heartbreak and madness.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 22000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: touching, sad, sentimental, emotional, romantic, melancholic, captivating, tense, realistic, retro
Similar in 81%
No Looking Back (1998)
Plot Summary:
Charlie returns to his old town where he meets his ex-girlfriend again and tries to get her back.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: emotional, disturbing, sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, realistic, gloomy, scary, light
Similar in 90%
To the Wonder (2012)
Plot Summary:
After falling in love in Paris, Marina and Neil come to Oklahoma, where problems arise. Their church's Spanish-born pastor struggles with his faith, while Neil encounters a woman from his childhood.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 30000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: emotional, melancholic, philosophical, non-linear, stylized, light, intense, art house, visual, surreal
Similar in 83%
Three Sisters (1970)
Plot Summary:
Laurence Olivier's film of Chekhov's play.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 486
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: UK
Duration: 165 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, rough, captivating, sincere, touching, gloomy, independent film, period drama
Similar in 84%
Heavy (1995)
Plot Summary:
Victor is a cook who works in a greasy bar/restaurant owned by his mother, Dolly. It's just the two of them, a waitress named Delores, and a heavy drinking regular, Leo. But things change when Callie, a beautiful college drop-out, shows up as a new waitress and steals Victor's heart. But Victor is too shy to do anything about it, and too self-consciously overweight to dream of winning Callie away.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: independent film, touching, realistic, slang, psychological, sincere, serious, contemplative, gloomy, crying