For fans of quiet longing, windswept romance, and repressed desire
I still remember watching Ammonite for the first time — the crashing waves, the heavy silences, the love that felt too fragile to name. It wasn’t just a story about two women. It was about loneliness, restraint, and how love often blooms in the most unlikely, unspoken spaces.
If you felt that same ache, I made this list for you. These 8 lesbian films echo Ammonite in tone and texture. They’re slow-burns. They’re quiet. And they stay with you long after the screen fades to black — much like Ammonite did for me.
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Movies Like Ammonite List
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
🎬 Director: Céline Sciamma
🎭 Main Cast: Noémie Merlant, Adèle Haenel
🌍 Country: France
🎞️ Genre: Historical Romance, Period Drama
🔑 Keywords: slow burn, female gaze, forbidden desire
📖 Plot Summary
In 18th century Brittany, a painter is secretly commissioned to create a wedding portrait of a young woman. As the two spend time together in isolation, a quiet yet powerful romance emerges.
❤️ Why it’s like Ammonite:
Both films feature female artists, suppressed desire, and breathtaking use of natural landscapes as emotional mirrors. They’re visual poems about forbidden love.
💬 A must-watch for those who believe eye contact can set the world on fire.
👉 [Read more >]
The World to Come (2020)
🎬 Director: Mona Fastvold
🎭 Main Cast: Katherine Waterston, Vanessa Kirby
🌍 Country: USA
🎞️ Genre: Period Romance, Frontier Drama
🔑 Keywords: emotional isolation, women’s journals, rural longing
📖 Plot Summary
Set in 1856 rural America, two farmers’ wives build a quiet friendship that gradually deepens into love, told through diary entries and stolen moments.
❤️ Why it’s like Ammonite:
The same sense of loneliness, the isolation of women, and love that blooms quietly in unwelcoming terrain.
💬 A film of hushed intensity and haunting tenderness.
👉 [Read more >]
Tell It to the Bees (2018)
🎬 Director: Annabel Jankel
🎭 Main Cast: Anna Paquin, Holliday Grainger
🌍 Country: UK
🎞️ Genre: Historical Drama, Queer Romance
🔑 Keywords: single mother, small town, 1950s queer love
📖 Plot Summary
A doctor returns to her hometown and develops a bond with a struggling single mother, causing scandal in the conservative 1950s.
❤️ Why it’s like Ammonite:
Love blossoming under moral scrutiny, with themes of caretaking and the need to hide one’s truth from the world.
💬 Soft, sorrowful, and quietly hopeful.
👉 [Read more >]
Summerland (2020)
🎬 Director: Jessica Swale
🎭 Main Cast: Gemma Arterton, Gugu Mbatha-Raw
🌍 Country: UK
🎞️ Genre: Wartime Drama, Queer Romance
🔑 Keywords: reclusive woman, childhood trauma, WWII love
📖 Plot Summary
During WWII, a solitary writer takes in a young boy evacuated from London and confronts the memory of her lost love — a woman named Vera.
❤️ Why it’s like Ammonite:
Quiet retrospection, female solitude, and the beauty of memory make this a gentle companion piece.
💬 For those who believe the past never truly lets go.
👉 [Read more >]
Colette (2018)
🎬 Director: Wash Westmoreland
🎭 Main Cast: Keira Knightley, Denise Gough
🌍 Country: UK / USA
🎞️ Genre: Biographical Drama
🔑 Keywords: female writer, gender roles, queer Paris
📖 Plot Summary
The true story of Colette, a French novelist who challenges gender norms and embarks on a passionate affair with a woman in turn-of-the-century Paris.
❤️ Why it’s like Ammonite:
Themes of female genius, repression, and the cost of expressing desire in a patriarchal society.
💬 Bold, literary, and quietly radical.
👉 [Read more >]
Vita & Virginia (2018)
🎬 Director: Chanya Button
🎭 Main Cast: Gemma Arterton, Elizabeth Debicki
🌍 Country: UK
🎞️ Genre: Biographical Romance
🔑 Keywords: writers, forbidden letters, historical queer love
📖 Plot Summary
A dramatization of the real-life love affair between author Virginia Woolf and socialite Vita Sackville-West, told through their letters.
❤️ Why it’s like Ammonite:
Like Ammonite, this is a restrained romance between complex women navigating intellectual and emotional intimacy.
💬 For lovers of words, silence, and unresolved yearning.
👉 [Read more >]
Carol (2015)
🎬 Director: Todd Haynes
🎭 Main Cast: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara
🌍 Country: USA
🎞️ Genre: Period Drama, Queer Romance
🔑 Keywords: forbidden romance, 1950s, class divide
📖 Plot Summary
In 1950s New York, a young photographer falls for an elegant older woman going through a divorce. Their love must fight societal judgment.
❤️ Why it’s like Ammonite:
Both are deeply visual, emotionally restrained stories about women loving outside the lines.
💬 Elegant, intimate, and achingly beautiful.
👉 [Read more >]
Reaching for the Moon (2013)
🎬 Director: Bruno Barreto
🎭 Main Cast: Miranda Otto, Glória Pires
🌍 Country: Brazil
🎞️ Genre: Biographical Romance
🔑 Keywords: poets, expats, cultural tension
📖 Plot Summary
Based on the romance between American poet Elizabeth Bishop and Brazilian architect Lota de Macedo Soares — a complex, passionate relationship.
❤️ Why it’s like Ammonite:
Emotionally loaded, restrained and intellectual, portraying love as both inspiration and sacrifice.
💬 When love is both muse and mirror.
👉 [Read more >]
Why We Keep Returning to Films Like Ammonite
These films don’t shout — they whisper. Through glances, pauses, and wordless touches, they tell stories that feel deeply personal. They remind us of the parts of ourselves that long to be seen, held, and understood — even when the world tells us to stay quiet.
Personally, I keep coming back to these kinds of films not for the plot, but for the feeling — the feeling that love, even when hidden, is still real and worth holding onto.
If you’re drawn to quiet intimacy, poetic visuals, and the ache of untold stories — you’re in the right place.
What Makes a Movie Like Ammonite?
Not all lesbian films feel like Ammonite. What sets it apart — and what we used as our criteria for this list — is the emotional texture more than just the romantic label.
Here’s what we looked for when selecting each film:
🎞️ Period Drama
Set against historical backdrops (18th to early 20th century), these films often explore how social norms limit women’s roles and freedoms.🔥 Repressed Desire
These stories don’t rely on overt passion. Instead, they build tension through what’s not said — the glances, the restraint, the unspoken longing.🎭 Subtle Queer Romance
Love is present but nuanced. The romances feel real and quiet, far from the over-dramatized tropes of many modern love stories.🎨 Visual Poetry / Atmosphere
Think fog, waves, candlelight, and period costume. These films use landscape and lighting as emotional storytelling tools.🧠 Internal Conflict & Solitude
The characters are often lonely, introspective, or emotionally guarded — grappling with more than just love.
If you’re drawn to that quiet ache Ammonite left behind, the films below might just fill that same space in your heart.
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