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Memoirs of a Geisha poster

Movies that feel likeMemoirs of a Geisha (2005)

In the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.

If you loved Memoirs of a Geisha, the closest films we have are Jodhaa Akbar (2008), A Royal Affair (2012) and Bajirao Mastani (2015). All three share Memoirs of a Geisha's contemplative and romantic feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Never Look Away (2018).

🍅 35% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7.3 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Rob Marshallcontemplativeromantictenderepic
6 of 12 streaming nowHBO Max · Paramount Plus Premium

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See it on the Mood Map

If Memoirs of a Geisha hit the spot, these will too

Jodhaa Akbar poster
Jodhaa Akbar
2008 · dir. Ashutosh Gowariker
🍅 81%★ 7.5romance · history · drama

Both keep coming back to the same thing: period drama

The difference: Critics rated this one higher still

A sixteenth century love story about a marriage of alliance that gave birth to true love between a Mughal emperor and a Rajput princess.

A Royal Affair poster
A Royal Affair
2012 · dir. Nikolaj Arcel
🍅 90%★ 7.5drama · history · romance

Common ground: secret love

A young queen falls in love with her physician, and they start a revolution that changes their nation forever.

Bajirao Mastani poster
Bajirao Mastani
2015 · dir. Sanjay Leela Bhansali
🍅 68%★ 7.3history · romance · drama

One thread runs through both: period drama

Peshwa Bajirao married to Kashibai, falls in love with Mastani, a warrior princess in distress. They struggle to make their love triumph amid opposition from his conservative family.

Cinderella Man poster
Cinderella Man
2005 · dir. Ron Howard
🍅 80%★ 8romance · drama · history

The same mix in both: stillness, then romance

The true story of boxer Jim Braddock who, following his retirement in the 1930s, makes a surprise comeback in order to lift his family out of poverty.

Never Look Away poster
Never Look Away
2018 · dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
🍅 77%★ 7.7drama · romance · history

Both are built on the same subject: world war ii

German artist Kurt Barnert has escaped East Germany and now lives in West Germany, but is tormented by his childhood under the Nazis and the GDR regime.

Brooklyn poster
Brooklyn
2015 · dir. John Crowley
🍅 97%★ 7.5drama · history · romance

Both land tenderness and scale at once

In 1950s Ireland and New York, young Eilis Lacey has to choose between two men and two countries.

Anna Karenina poster
Anna Karenina
2012 · dir. Joe Wright
🍅 63%★ 6.6drama · romance · historyParamount+

Contemplative drama in both cases

In Imperial Russia, Anna, wife of the officer Karenin, goes to Moscow to visit her brother. On the way, she meets charming cavalry officer Vronsky, to whom she's immediately attracted. But in St. Petersburg’s high society, a relationship like this could destroy a woman’s reputation.

Australia poster
Australia
2008 · dir. Baz Luhrmann
🍅 53%★ 6.6adventure · romance · drama

The same preoccupation in both: world war ii

The difference: Leans harder into adventure than Memoirs of a Geisha does

Set in northern Australia before World War II, an English aristocrat who inherits a sprawling ranch reluctantly pacts with a stock-man in order to protect her new property from a takeover plot. As the pair drive 2,000 head of cattle over unforgiving landscape, they experience the bombing of Darwin by Japanese forces firsthand.

Sense and Sensibility poster
Sense and Sensibility
1995 · dir. Ang Lee
🍅 97%★ 7.7drama · romance

One thread runs through both: secret love

The difference: Trades the scale of Memoirs of a Geisha for an angle of its own

The Dashwood sisters, sensible Elinor and passionate Marianne, learn that their prospects of marriage seem doomed by their family's sudden loss of fortune. After Henry Dashwood dies unexpectedly, his estate must pass on by law to his son. These circumstances leave Mr. Dashwood's wife and daughters without a home and with barely enough money to live on. As Elinor and Marianne struggle to find romantic fulfillment in a society obsessed with financial and social status, they must learn to mix sense with sensibility in their dealings with both money and men.

The Reader poster
The Reader
2008 · dir. Stephen Daldry
🍅 63%★ 7.6drama · romance

Romantic romance, and it commits to that

The story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a teenager in the late 1950s, had an affair with an older woman, Hanna, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a concentration camp guard late in the war. He alone realizes that Hanna is illiterate and may be concealing that fact at the expense of her freedom.

The Mountain Between Us poster
The Mountain Between Us
2017 · dir. Hany Abu-Assad
🍅 39%★ 6.4drama · adventure · romance

History built on tenderness, twice over

Stranded on a mountain after a tragic plane crash, two strangers must work together to endure the extreme elements of the remote, snow-covered terrain. When they realize help is not coming, they embark on a perilous journey across hundreds of miles of wilderness, pushing each other to survive and discovering their inner strength.

In the Mood for Love poster
In the Mood for Love
2000 · dir. Wong Kar-Wai
🍅 92%★ 8drama · romanceMax

Both lean on stillness more than on drama

In 1960s Hong Kong, two neighbors form an intimate bond after making a discovery about their spouses in this visually stunning tale of unrequited love.

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The best-reviewed films that share Memoirs of a Geisha’s defining feeling.