Movies Like Mona Lisa Smile (2003)

Mona Lisa Smile is a 2003 drama, history, romance film from Mike Newell with a MovieMagicScore of 6.9/10. Here are 20 similar films, ranked by real viewer ratings — starting with Writing with Fire and Early Summer.

Drama History Romance

Writing with Fire

2021

In a cluttered news landscape dominated by men, emerges India’s only newspaper run by Dalit women. Armed with smartphones, Chief Reporter Meera and her journalists break traditions on the frontlines of India’s biggest issues and within the confines of their own homes, redefining what it means to be powerful.

7.3

MagicScore

Early Summer

1951

A 28-year-old single woman is pressured to marry.

7.9

MagicScore

Ashes and Diamonds

1958

A young academy soldier, Maciek Chelmicki, is ordered to shoot the secretary of the KW PPR. A coincidence causes him to kill someone else. Meeting face to face with his victim, he gets a shock. He faces the necessity of repeating the assassination. He meets Krystyna, a girl working as a barmaid in the restaurant of the "Monopol" hotel. His affection for her makes him even more aware of the senselessness of killing at the end of the war. Loyalty to the oath he took, and thus the obligation to obey the order, tips the scales.

7.4

MagicScore

A Foreign Affair

1948

In occupied Berlin, a US Army Captain is torn between an ex-Nazi cafe singer and the US Congresswoman investigating her.

7.1

MagicScore

The Murderers Are Among Us

1946

After returning from a concentration camp, Susanne finds a traumatized ex-soldier living in her apartment in bombed out Berlin. Together the two try to move past their experiences during WWII.

6.9

MagicScore

Mudbound

2017

In the post–World War II South, two families are pitted against a barbaric social hierarchy and an unrelenting landscape as they simultaneously fight the battle at home and the battle abroad.

7.4

MagicScore

Shelter

2007

Forced to give up his dreams of art school, Zach works dead-end jobs to support his sister and her son. Questioning his life, he paints, surfs and hangs out with his best friend, Gabe. When Gabe's older brother returns home for the summer, Zach suddenly finds himself drawn into a relationship he didn't expect.

7.7

MagicScore

Wish You Were Here

1987

In a staid English seaside town after the Second World War, young Lynda grows up with her widowed father and younger sister. Rebellious Lynda has been swearing constantly from an early age. At sixteen, she becomes more exhibitionist and seeks out sexual encounters challenging the prevailing lower-middle class attitudes to sex. She eventually becomes pregnant by an acquaintance of her father.

6.5

MagicScore

Tommy

1975

After a series of traumatic childhood events, a psychosomatically deaf, dumb and blind boy becomes a master pinball player and the object of a religious cult.

6.5

MagicScore

#10

Black Rain

1989

Shigematsu Shizuma, who lives with his family in a village near Fukuyama, was in Hiroshima with his wife and niece just after the devastating atomic bombing, a tragedy that cruelly took the lives of thousands of people and forever marked the harsh existence of the survivors.

7.5

MagicScore

#11

Dicks: The Musical

2023

Two self-obsessed businessmen discover they're long-lost identical twins and come together to plot the reunion of their eccentric divorced parents.

4.3

MagicScore

#12

Poster Boy

2004

The gay son of a conservative senator who is also the poster boy for his father's re-election unknowingly befriends a gay activist bent on destroying the hypocritical campaign.

5.3

MagicScore

#13

Five Evenings

1978

Based on the play of the same name by Aleksandr Volodin "Five Evenings". The end of the 1950s. Aleksandr Petrovich Ilyin travels to the city where he lived before the war. Visiting the telephone operator Zoya, he sees a familiar house through the window and decides to go there for only fifteen minutes. So Aleksandr gets into a communal apartment, where the love of his youth Tamara Vasilyevna lives. They met twenty years ago and fell in love, but the war separated them. Now Ilyin and Tamara Vasilyevna met again, and love broke out with renewed vigor...

6.0

MagicScore

#14

The Deep Blue Sea

2011

The wife of a British Judge is caught in a self-destructive love affair with a Royal Air Force pilot.

5.9

MagicScore

#15

School Ties

1992

When David Greene receives a football scholarship to a prestigious prep school in the 1950s, he feels pressure to hide the fact that he is Jewish from his classmates and teachers, fearing that they may be anti-Semitic. He quickly becomes the big man on campus thanks to his football skills, but when his Jewish background is discovered, his worst fears are realized and his friends turn on him with violent threats and public ridicule.

6.5

MagicScore

#16

Living

2022

London, 1953. Mr. Williams, a veteran civil servant, is an important cog within the city's bureaucracy as it struggles to rebuild in the aftermath of World War II. Buried under paperwork at the office and lonely at home, his life has long felt empty and meaningless. Then a devastating medical diagnosis forces him to take stock, and to try and grasp some fulfilment before it passes permanently beyond reach.

7.0

MagicScore

#17

Le Bal

1983

In a French nightclub, choreographed song and dance routines are performed, rather than a streamlined narrative. They tell the story of Parisian culture and politics from the 1920s—1980s. A disparate, anachronistic series of characters, including an ordinary waiter, a Nazi collaborator, resistance fighters, and 1960s student protestors gather to celebrate and satirize 20th century France's icons, demons, and social changes.

7.0

MagicScore

#18

The Brutalist

2024

When an innovative modern architect flees post-war Europe, he is given the opportunity to rebuild his legacy. Set during the dawn of the modern United States (in Pennsylvania), his wife joins him, and their lives are forever changed by a demanding, wealthy patron.

6.9

MagicScore

#19

If These Walls Could Talk 2

2000

The stories of three lesbian couples -- who live in the same house at different periods of time -- who are at a crossroads in their lives. In 1961, Edith loses her lover, Abby, to a stroke. Linda and Amy struggle with feminist issues in 1972. And, in 2000, Kal and Fran try to have a baby with the help of sperm donor.

6.5

MagicScore

#20

The Birdcage

1996

A gay cabaret owner and his drag queen partner agree to put up a false heterosexual front so that their son can introduce them to his fiancée's conservative parents.

7.0

MagicScore

Frequently asked

What are the best movies like Mona Lisa Smile?

The top films similar to Mona Lisa Smile by MovieMagicScore are Writing with Fire (7.3), Early Summer (7.9), Ashes and Diamonds (7.4). Each shares drama/history/romance themes and is ranked by real viewer ratings, not critics or studios.

Is Mona Lisa Smile worth watching?

Mona Lisa Smile holds a MovieMagicScore of 6.9/10 from 1,833 viewer ratings.

What kind of movie is Mona Lisa Smile?

Mona Lisa Smile (2003) is a drama, history, romance film directed by Mike Newell, starring Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles.

Where can I find more recommendations like Mona Lisa Smile?

Browse the full ranked list above, or explore more drama recommendations on MovieMagicScore, where every list is ordered by genuine viewer ratings.

Keep exploring

Movies like Writing with Fire Movies like Early Summer Movies like Ashes and Diamonds Movies like A Foreign Affair Movies like The Murderers Are Among Us Movies like Mudbound

About movies like Mona Lisa Smile

This ranked list pairs Mona Lisa Smile (2003), a drama and history and romance film from Mike Newell, with similar titles by genre, theme and cast overlap (fans of Julia Roberts take note). Unlike critic-driven sites, every position here is ordered by MovieMagicScore — a rating built only from real viewers, with no studio marketing or paid placement. Scores update as more people rate, so the list stays current.

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