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The Hustler poster

Movies that feel likeThe Hustler (1961)

Fast Eddie Felson is a small-time pool hustler with a lot of talent but a self-destructive attitude. His bravado causes him to challenge the legendary Minnesota Fats to a high-stakes match.

If you loved The Hustler, the closest films we have are Doctor Zhivago (1965), The Earrings of Madame de... (1953) and Splendor in the Grass (1961). All three share The Hustler'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 Black Orpheus (1959).

🍅 94% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7.9 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Robert Rossencontemplativeromantictendermelancholy
10 of 12 streaming nowHBO Max · Criterion Channel · Eternal Family

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If The Hustler hit the spot, these will too

Doctor Zhivago poster
Doctor Zhivago
1965 · dir. David Lean
🍅 82%★ 7.9drama · romance · war

Contemplative where it counts, romantic underneath

The difference: Sits closer to war than The Hustler does

The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.

The Earrings of Madame de... poster
The Earrings of Madame de...
1953 · dir. Max Ophüls
🍅 97%★ 7.8drama · romanceMax

Both keep coming back to the same thing: black and white

The difference: Takes it somewhere less melancholy than The Hustler does

In late 19th century France, the Countess Louise, wife of a wealthy general, sells the earrings her husband gave her on their wedding day to pay off her secret debts, then claims to have lost them. Her husband quickly learns of the deceit, which is the beginning of many tragic misunderstandings, all involving the earrings, the general, the countess, and her new lover, the Italian Baron Donati.

Splendor in the Grass poster
Splendor in the Grass
1961 · dir. Elia Kazan
🍅 75%★ 7.7drama · romance

Tender drama in both cases

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.

Contempt poster
Contempt
1963 · dir. Jean-Luc Godard
🍅 92%★ 7.4drama · romance

Romance with a pulse of stillness, in both cases

Art film producer Jeremy Prokosch, unhappy with the work of his director, hires Fritz Lang (as himself) to direct an adaptation of The Odyssey, but when it seems that the legendary filmmaker is making a picture destined to bomb, he brings in a screenwriter to energise the script. The professional intersects with the personal when a rift develops between the writer and his wife.

Summer with Monika poster
Summer with Monika
1953 · dir. Ingmar Bergman
🍅 100%★ 7.5drama · romance

One thread runs through both: black and white

One summer day, two teens begin a reckless affair and abandon their families to be with one another.

The Silence poster
The Silence
1963 · dir. Ingmar Bergman
🍅 85%★ 7.7drama · romance

Both lean on romance more than on drama

Traveling through an unnamed European country on the brink of war, sickly, intellectual Ester, her sister Anna and Anna's young son, Johan, check into a near-empty hotel. A basic inability to communicate among the three seems only to worsen during their stay. Anna provokes her sister by enjoying a dalliance with a local man, while the boy, left to himself, has a series of enigmatic encounters that heighten the growing air of isolation.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg poster
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
1964 · dir. Jacques Demy
🍅 97%★ 7.8drama · romanceMax

Romance built on tenderness, twice over

This simple romantic tragedy begins in 1957. Guy Foucher, a 20-year-old French auto mechanic, has fallen in love with 17-year-old Geneviève Emery, an employee in her widowed mother's chic but financially embattled umbrella shop. On the evening before Guy is to leave for a two-year tour of combat in Algeria, he and Geneviève make love. She becomes pregnant and must choose between waiting for Guy's return or accepting an offer of marriage from a wealthy diamond merchant.

Pandora's Box poster
Pandora's Box
1929 · dir. G.W. Pabst
🍅 93%★ 7.7drama · crime · romanceMax

Melancholy drama, and it commits to that

The difference: Leans harder into crime than The Hustler does

The rise and inevitable fall of an amoral but naive young woman whose insouciant eroticism inspires lust and violence in those around her.

Black Orpheus poster
Black Orpheus
1959 · dir. Marcel Camus
🍅 88%★ 7.4drama · romanceMax

Same instincts, 2 years apart

Young lovers Orfeu and Eurydice run through the favelas of Rio during Carnaval, on the lam from a hitman dressed like Death and Orfeu's vengeful fiancée Mira and passing between moments of fantasy and stark reality. This impressionistic retelling of the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice introduced bossa nova to the world with its soundtrack by young Brazilian composers Luiz Bonfá and Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner poster
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
1967 · dir. Stanley Kramer
🍅 71%★ 7.8drama · romance

A streak of romance through both

A couple's attitudes are challenged when their daughter brings home a fiancé who is black.

Journey to Italy poster
Journey to Italy
1954 · dir. Roberto Rossellini
🍅 96%★ 7.2drama · romanceMax

The shared currency is tenderness

Married for eight years with no children, Brits Katherine and Alex Joyce are driving to Italy, their ultimate destination just outside of Naples to sell the villa they have just inherited from his uncle, the villa where they will be staying during their time there. On the drive, they come to the realization that this trip marks the first time that they have truly been alone together, and as such don't really know one another in the true sense.

A Man and a Woman poster
A Man and a Woman
1966 · dir. Claude Lelouch
🍅 75%★ 7.5drama · romance

Drama of the same temperament

A man and a woman meet by accident on a Sunday evening at their childrens' boarding school. Slowly, they reveal themselves to each other, finding that they have something deeply in common.

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The best-reviewed films that share The Hustler’s defining feeling.