Best movies like The Messenger

Similar in 82%

An Unforgettable Summer (1994)

Plot Summary:

In 1925 Romania, young Marie-Therese Von Debretsy refuses the flirtatious advances of her husband's commanding officer. As a result, the cosmopolitan family is reassigned to a brutally bleak and dangerous outpost on the Bulgarian/Romanian frontier where both their relationship and humanity are severely tested.

Similar in 80%

Gardens of Stone (1987)

Plot Summary:

A sergeant must deal with his desires to save the lives of young soldiers being sent to Vietnam. Continuously denied the chance to teach the soldiers about his experiences, he settles for trying to help the son of an old army buddy.

Similar in 83%

Taking Chance (2009)

Plot Summary:

Lt. Col. Michael Strobl, a volunteer military escort accompanies the body of Lance Cpl. Chance Phelps to his hometown in Wyoming.

Similar in 84%

Coming Home (1978)

Plot Summary:

The wife of a Marine serving in Vietnam, Sally Hyde (Jane Fonda) decides to volunteer at a local veterans hospital to occupy her time. There she meets Luke Martin (Jon Voight), a frustrated wheelchair-bound vet who has become disillusioned with the war. Sally and Luke develop a friendship that soon turns into a romance, but when her husband, Bob (Bruce Dern), returns unexpectedly, she must decide between staying with him and pursuing her new love.

Similar in 79%

In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011)

Plot Summary:

During the Bosnian War, Danijel, a soldier fighting for the Serbs, re-encounters Ajla, a Bosnian who's now a captive in his camp he oversees. Their once promising connection has become ambiguous as their motives have changed.

Similar in 79%

Tigerland (2000)

Plot Summary:

A group of recruits go through Advanced Infantry Training at Fort Polk, Louisiana's infamous Tigerland, last stop before Vietnam for tens of thousands of young men in 1971.

Similar in 87%

Stop-Loss (2008)

Plot Summary:

A veteran soldier returns from his completed tour of duty in Iraq, only to find his life turned upside down when he is arbitrarily ordered to return to field duty by the Army.

Similar in 78%

The English Patient (1996)

Plot Summary:

In the 1930s, Count Almásy is a Hungarian map maker employed by the Royal Geographical Society to chart the vast expanses of the Sahara Desert along with several other prominent explorers. As World War II unfolds, Almásy enters into a world of love, betrayal, and politics.

Similar in 87%

Starting Out in the Evening (2007)

Plot Summary:

Leonard Schiller once counted among New York's Literary lions, but illness and ten years of writers block have lowered his profile, almost to the point of obscurity. When Heather Wolfe, an ambitious literature major, asks to interview him for her theses on his work, her interest forces hims to address the issues that have been he has avoided all these years, and stirs in him feelings he has long forgotten, much to his daughter's consternation.

Similar in 87%

Cold Mountain (2003)

Plot Summary:

In this classic story of love and devotion set against the backdrop of the American Civil War, a wounded Confederate soldier named W.P. Inman deserts his unit and travels across the South, aiming to return to his young wife, Ada, who he left behind to tend their farm. As Inman makes his perilous journey home, Ada struggles to keep their home intact with the assistance of Ruby, a mysterious drifter sent to help her by a kindly neighbor.

Similar in 78%

The Greatest (2009)

Plot Summary:

Teenagers Rose and Bennett were in love, and then a car crash claimed Bennett's life. He left behind a grieving mother, father and younger brother, and Rose was left all alone. She has no family to turn to for support, so when she finds out she's pregnant, she winds up at the Brewer's door. She needs their help, and although they can't quite admit it, they each need her so they can begin to heal.

Similar in 90%

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them (2014)

Plot Summary:

A New York couple's relationship is tested after the loss of their child. This film is the wide-released combination of the original two :him and :her volumes that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

Similar in 75%

The Aftermath (2019)

Plot Summary:

In the aftermath of World War II, a British colonel and his wife are assigned to live in Hamburg during the post-war reconstruction, but tensions arise with the German widower who lives with them.

Similar in 75%

Jarhead (2005)

Plot Summary:

Jarhead is a film about a US Marine Anthony Swofford’s experience in the Gulf War. After putting up with an arduous boot camp, Swafford and his unit are sent to the Persian Gulf where they are eager to fight, but are forced to stay back from the action. Swofford struggles with the possibility of his girlfriend cheating on him, and as his mental state deteriorates, his desire to kill increases.

Similar in 75%

Atonement (2007)

Plot Summary:

As a 13-year-old, fledgling writer Briony Tallis irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit.

Similar in 80%

The Hurt Locker (2008)

Plot Summary:

Forced to play a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse in the chaos of war, an elite Army bomb squad unit must come together in a city where everyone is a potential enemy and every object could be a deadly bomb.

Similar in 81%

Monster's Ball (2001)

Plot Summary:

Set in the southern USA, a racist white man, Hank, falls in love with a black woman named Leticia. Ironically, Hank is a prison guard working on Death Row who executed Leticia's husband. Hank and Leticia's inter-racial affair leads to confusion and new ideas for the two unlikely lovers.