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Dances with Wolves poster

Movies that feel likeDances with Wolves (1990)

Wounded Civil War soldier John Dunbar tries to commit suicide—and becomes a hero instead. As a reward, he's assigned to his dream post, a remote junction on the Western frontier, and soon makes unlikely friends with the local Sioux tribe.

If you loved Dances with Wolves, the closest films we have are Thelma & Louise (1991), The Magnificent Seven (2016) and Where Is The Friend's House? (1987). All three share Dances with Wolves' warm feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Dersu Uzala (1975).

🍅 87% Rotten Tomatoes★ 8 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Kevin Costnerepiccontemplativegrittywarm
9 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · Amazon Prime Video · Hulu

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If Dances with Wolves hit the spot, these will too

Thelma & Louise poster
Thelma & Louise
1991 · dir. Ridley Scott
🍅 87%★ 7.6drama · crimePrime VideoHulu

Contemplative and gritty in the same breath

The difference: Takes it somewhere less epic than Dances with Wolves does

Taking a break from their dreary lives, close friends Thelma and Louise embark on a short weekend trip that ends in unforeseen incriminating circumstances. As fugitives, both women rediscover the strength of their bond and their newfound resilience.

The Magnificent Seven poster
The Magnificent Seven
2016 · dir. Antoine Fuqua
🍅 64%★ 6.9adventure · action · western

Common ground: friendship

The difference: Trades the stillness of Dances with Wolves for an angle of its own

Looking to mine for gold, greedy industrialist Bartholomew Bogue seizes control of the Old West town of Rose Creek. With their lives in jeopardy, Emma Cullen and other desperate residents turn to bounty hunter Sam Chisolm for help. Chisolm recruits an eclectic group of gunslingers to take on Bogue and his ruthless henchmen. With a deadly showdown on the horizon, the seven mercenaries soon find themselves fighting for more than just money once the bullets start to fly.

Where Is The Friend's House? poster
Where Is The Friend's House?
1987 · dir. Abbas Kiarostami
🍅 100%★ 8.1drama · adventure

The same mix in both: scale, then warmth

An 8-year-old boy must return his friend's notebook he took by mistake, lest his friend be punished by expulsion from school.

The Last Duel poster
The Last Duel
2021 · dir. Ridley Scott
🍅 85%★ 7.3drama · historyRent or buy

Epic drama, and it commits to that

The difference: Leans harder into history than Dances with Wolves does

King Charles VI declares that Knight Jean de Carrouges settle his dispute with his squire, Jacques Le Gris, by challenging him to a duel.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid poster
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
1969 · dir. George Roy Hill
🍅 89%★ 8western · crime · drama

Western with a pulse of stillness, in both cases

The difference: Made in the 1960s, in a different era of the craft

As the west rapidly becomes civilized, a pair of outlaws in 1890s Wyoming find themselves pursued by a posse and decide to flee to South America in hopes of evading the law.

Midnight Cowboy poster
Midnight Cowboy
1969 · dir. John Schlesinger
🍅 89%★ 7.8drama

One thread runs through both: friendship

Joe Buck is a wide-eyed hustler from Texas hoping to score big with wealthy New York City women; he finds a companion in Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo, an ailing swindler with a bum leg and a quixotic fantasy of escaping to Florida.

The Irishman poster
The Irishman
2019 · dir. Martin Scorsese
🍅 95%★ 7.8crime · drama · historyNetflix

Both lean on grit more than on adventure

Pennsylvania, 1956. Frank Sheeran, a war veteran of Irish origin who works as a truck driver, accidentally meets mobster Russell Bufalino. Once Frank becomes his trusted man, Bufalino sends him to Chicago with the task of helping Jimmy Hoffa, a powerful union leader related to organized crime, with whom Frank will maintain a close friendship for nearly twenty years.

Bad Education poster
Bad Education
2004 · dir. Pedro Almodóvar
🍅 88%★ 7.4drama · crime

Warm drama in both cases

When an old friend brings filmmaker Enrique Goded a semi-autobiographical script chronicling their adolescence, Enrique is forced to relive his youth spent at a Catholic boarding school. Weaving through past and present, the script follows a transvestite performer who reconnects with a grade school sweetheart. Spurred on by this chance encounter, the character reflects on her childhood sexual victimization and the trauma of closeting her sexual orientation.

Trainspotting poster
Trainspotting
1996 · dir. Danny Boyle
🍅 93%★ 8.1drama · crime

Adventure built on stillness, twice over

Heroin addict Mark Renton stumbles through bad ideas and sobriety attempts with his unreliable friends --Sick Boy, Begbie, Spud and Tommy. He also has an underage girlfriend, Diane, along for the ride. After cleaning up and moving from Edinburgh to London, Mark finds he can't escape the life he left behind as Begbie and Sick Boy come knocking.

Dersu Uzala poster
Dersu Uzala
1975 · dir. Akira Kurosawa
🍅 73%★ 8.2adventure · drama

Epic western in both cases

A military explorer meets and befriends a Goldi man in Russia’s unmapped forests. A deep and abiding bond evolves between the two men, one civilized in the usual sense, the other at home in the glacial Siberian woods.

Shane poster
Shane
1953 · dir. George Stevens
🍅 97%★ 7.6drama · westernParamount+

Gritty drama in both cases

A weary gunfighter attempts to settle down with a homestead family, but a smouldering settler and rancher conflict forces him to act.

The Elephant Man poster
The Elephant Man
1980 · dir. David Lynch
🍅 91%★ 8.2drama · history

Adventure with a pulse of warmth, in both cases

A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man being mistreated by his "owner" as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of great intelligence and sensitivity.

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The best-reviewed films that share Dances with Wolves’ defining feeling.