5 Movies To Watch If You Like Love Of Your Life

Rachel Morrison made history in 2018 by becoming the first-ever woman to earn an Academy Award nomination for cinematography ... and even though the film that earned her the nomination, Dee Rees' "Mudbound," didn't win, it certainly put Morrison on the map. Now, her romantic drama "Love of Your Life," which premiered on Amazon Prime Video on October 7 and stars Margaret Qualley, is making waves. So what's it about?

When we first meet Qualley's protagonist Maya, she's 26-years-old and a nurse living in Boston who's all on her own, as she and her mother are estranged — but things quickly take a turn when she meets a guy named Charlie (Gabriel Basso). The relationship progresses quickly, and after meeting Charlie's mother Ruth (Catherine Keener), Maya thinks she's finally part of a family structure, and she and Charlie even have a quiet wedding at Ruth's home in Cape Cod. This is all happening before the advent of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, though, so everything changes ... and when tragedy strikes, Maya ends up living in Europe. Though she pursues relationships with men like a British divorcé and single dad named Felix (Aaron Pierre) and even reunites with her college best friend Jason (Patrick Schwarzenegger, a standout from Season 3 of "The White Lotus"), Maya realizes that to be truly happy, she has to love the life she's living.

"Love of Your Life" is a deeply emotional and thoughtful treatise on overcoming horrible things and finding joy, and once you've cried your way through Morrison's movie, you might want to watch something similar. We've got you covered. From an Oscar-nominated story about the "what if?" to a mind-bending movie about finding and losing love, here are five movies you should watch if you fell in love with "Love of Your Life."

Celine Song's 2023 directorial debut "Past Lives" is simply stunning ... and a perfect follow-up to something like "Love of Your Life." When we first meet childhood best friends Moon Na Young and Jung Hae Sung, they're played by Seung Ah Moon and Seung Min Yim and are cruelly separated by an ocean when Na Young's parents decide to move to America. Years later, we catch up with her going by the name Nora (an astounding Greta Lee) and living and working as a successful playwright in New York alongside her husband Arthur Zaturansky (Michael Angarano). When Nora and Arthur initially meet at a writing retreat, she introduces him to the Buddhist idea of inyeon, which essentially means that people who meet in one life may have met in many lives before. That's when Hae Sung (Teo Yoo_ re-enters the conversation. After on-and-off communication with Nora over the years, Hae Sung decides to visit her in New York, and the connection between the two is apparent almost immediately.

Song is exceedingly careful to not diminish Arthur and Nora's legitimately lovely relationship to favor the one between her and Hae Sung, and thanks to this touch, "Past Lives" is a truly lovely and even transcendent meditation on what "could have been," even when what is is a geninely meaningful relationship and marriage. Not only is "Past Lives" striking and excellent from beginning to end, but that ending will absolutely shatter your heart. Once you're done crying over "Love of Your Life," prepare to cry even more over "Past Lives."

Renate Reinsve has enjoyed many fruitful collaborations with Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier, including the 2026 best picture nominee "Sentimental Value" — but if you're a fan of their work, you won't want to miss "The Worst Person in the World." This romantic comedy-drama hybrid, which came out in 2021 and casts Reinsve as Julie, a recent medical school dropout trying to figure out her next move. Adrift and unsure of what her life might look like, Julie begins a relationship with a comic artist named Aksel Willman (Anders Danielsen Lie), but is put off by his attempts to make the relationship more serious; one night, while attending an event, Julie meets a barista named Eivind (Herbert Nordrum) and goes home with him, putting her relationship with Aksel at risk and further complicating her life.

Another complication? Julie's unexpected pregnancy, which is preceded by a stunning revelation from Aksel that puts their entire relationship at risk. "The Worst Person in the World" is anchored by Reinsve's steadying, excellent, and thoughtful performance as Julie, but it's also a genuinely beautiful film about how enormous your life can feel when things feel completely undetermined and undecided. "Love of Your Life" has a lot in common with "The Worst Person in the World," so if you love the former, check out the latter.

"Love of Your Life" might be a generally straightforward story of finding and losing love, but "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" — released in 2004, directed by Michel Gondry, and written by Charlie Kaufman — is a twisted, strange, fulfilling, and incredibly fraught look at the lengths we'll go to in order to find love, lose it on purpose, and then potentially get it back. When we first meet our protagonist Joel Barrish (Jim Carrey in a rare dramatic role), he's struggling after a breakup with Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet), only to learn that she went to a shadowy clinic called Lacuna and received a procedure to erase all memories of Joel forever. Joel then decides to visit Lacuna for himself and get the same procedure so that he forgets Clementine, and while he's there, Lacuna receptionist Mary Svevo (Kirsten Dunst), its founder Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (the late Tom Wilkinson), and technician Patrick Wertz (Elijah Wood) keep him unconscious and work their "magic" while undergoing personal issues of their own.

"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" is a beautifully bizarre and even sometimes baffling film stocked with incredible performances — Carrey and Winslet are amazing, but Dunst, Wood, and Wilkinson's storyline manages to be equally as gripping somehow — and if "Love of Your Life" made you think about the enduring power of love, this movie will absolutely blow your mind. Settle in, queue up "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," and prepare for a winding, weird, wonderful journey.

Drake Doremus's 2011 romantic drama "Like Crazy" features one of the best non-Star Trek performances from its late star Anton Yelchin ... and even beyond Yelchin's wonderful work in this story about long-distance love, "Like Crazy" is well worth watching (especially if you fell in love with "Love of Your Life"). When American student Jacob Helm (Yelchin) meets British exchange student Anna Gardner (Felicity Jones) in Los Angeles, the two fall in love immediately, but the realities of their lives become apparent when Anna overstays her American visa to spend time with Jacob, tries to return, and is detained and deported back to England. As the two try to maintain a functional long distance relationship where one party is legally barred from visiting the other — as Anna receives a ban from even visiting the United States due to her immigration offenses — things grow more difficult, and the two end up seeing other people.

Despite Jacob's relationship with Samantha (Jennifer Lawrence) and Anna's dalliance with Simon (Charlie Bewley), Anna and Jacob keep returning to each other time and time again, overcoming numerous obstacles in the name of love. Just like Maya's journey in "Love of Your Life," Anna and Jacob's road to love and happiness isn't easy, but if you want a fulfilling story and you've already finished "Love of Your Life," check out "Like Crazy."

Back in 2015, director John Crowley gave the world a stunning, sensitive, and emotionally resonant portrait of a young Irish immigrant making her way in New York in the form of his film "Brooklyn," which stars Saoirse Ronan; nearly a decade later, he found new inspiration in leads Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh, who make 2024's "We Live in Time" incredibly special. Told using a non-linear storyline, "We Live in Time," an original story written by Crowley, centers around Weetabix employee Tobias Durand (Garfield) who, while on his way to sign divorce papers, ends up getting lightly hit by a car. The driver of that car, chef and former figure skater Almut Brühl (Pugh), offers him a free meal at the restaurant she's opening, and when Tobias shows up without a partner, Almut realizes he's single ... and a romance brews between them.

One obstacle between Tobias and Almut is that Almut says she never wants to have children and is, in fact, a bit cagey about the entire thing — but when she experiences a health crisis, Almut reconsiders the issue of having children and actually risks her own health so that the two can have a daughter. Throughout the remainder of "We Live in Time," Almut and Tobias navigate some of the most difficult and heartbreaking crises any family can experience, and Pugh and Garfield are absolutely astounding. (Pugh is great, but attention must be paid to Garfield here, whose face is like an open book and who's able to perform the smallest and most emotional moments of the film without saying a word.) If "Love of Your Life" is up your alley, so is "We Live in Time."