Best movies & TV Shows like Madame Butterfly

The last samurai's daughter

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Madame Butterfly Starring Aoi Miyazaki, Atsushi Ito, Ethan Laundry, Keiko Toda, and more. If you liked Madame Butterfly then you may also like: Yamato, The Way of All Flesh, Where Angels Fear to Tread, Navy Wife, Passion's Way and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

Like the opera, the story is set in Nagasaki in the early 1900s. It portrays the ups and downs of a young woman known as Butterfly, who lost her parents at a young age and has become an apprentice geisha. She later meets a naval officer and gets married, though the officer intends for the marriage to last only while he is stationed in Nagasaki.

selected filters: Sort: Default

You may filter the list of movies on this page for a more refined, personalized selection of movies.

Still not sure what to watch click the recommend buttun below to get a movie recommendation selected from all the movies on this list

Know any good movies to watch like Madame Butterfly 2011. With a similar plot or stoyline. Suggest it.

Yamato

Directed by Junya Sato and based on a book by Jun Henmi, "Yamato" has a framing story set in the present day and uses flashbacks to tell the story of the crew of the World War II Japanese battleship Yamato. The film was never released in the United States, where reviewers who have seen it have compared the military epic to "Titanic" and "Saving Private Ryan."

The Way of All Flesh

The story takes place in Milwaukee during the early 1900s with a bank clerk named August Schiller who is happy with both his job and his family. He is tasked with transporting $1,000 in securities to Chicago. On the train he meets a blond seductress who convinces him to buy her a bottle of champagne, and takes him to a saloon. The next morning he awakes alone in a dilapidated bedroom and without the securities.

Where Angels Fear to Tread

An English widow goes to Italy, falls in love with a dentist's son and marries him, against her straitlaced family's wishes.

Navy Wife

A Hawaiian naval nurse weds a widowed officer partly because he has a crippled daughter.

Passion's Way

Set in early 1900s France, a widow renews a former romantic interest until it is discovered that he has had a past fling with one of her new employees, a nanny. This sets the two women into many well-mannered accusations and conversations, but no modern brawling, and puts him in the middle or possibly on the outside.

Kipps

A young tradesman learns that money doesn't necessarily bring happiness. Drama.

The Assignment

Jack Shaw has experienced the terror first-hand. He's a top CIA agent who's tracked international killer-for-hire Carlos "The Jackal" Sanchez for over twenty years and barely survived Carlos' devastating bombing of a Parisian cafe. Now, he finally gets a break when he discovers Carlos' dead ringer: American naval officer and dedicated family man Annibal Ramirez.

Porgy and Bess

Set in the early 1900s in the fictional Catfish Row section of Charleston, South Carolina, which serves as home to a black fishing community, the story focuses on the titular characters, crippled beggar Porgy, who travels about in a goat-drawn cart, and the drug-addicted Bess, who lives with stevedore Crown, the local bully.

The Dead

After a convivial holiday dinner party, things begin to unravel when a husband and wife address some prickly issues concerning their marriage.

Madame Butterfly

Pinkerton marries Cho-Cho San in Japan, whilst on shore leave. When he leaves, she keeps his Japanese home as he left it. He returns three years later, having married again in America, and tells Cho-Cho that their affair is over. She has had a child in his absence, who is sent to her family, before she kills herself.

Midway

This war drama depicts the U.S. and Japanese forces in the naval Battle of Midway, which became a turning point for Americans during World War II.

A Geisha

In the post-war Gion district of Kyoto, the geisha Miyoharu agrees to apprentice the 16 year-old Eiko, whose mother was a former geisha who had just died. After a year of training they have to find a large sum of money before Eiko can debut. Miyoharu borrows the money from the tea-house owner, Okimi, who in turn obtains the money from the businessman Kusuda. Kusuda fancies Eiko himself and wants to give Miyoharu to Kanzaki in order to close a large business deal. However both geishas have minds of their own and, going against tradition, want to be able to say no to clients.

Miss Potter

Beatrix Potter, the author of the beloved children's book "The Tale of Peter Rabbit", struggles for love, happiness and success.

Madame Butterfly

The story of a Japanese woman and the tragedy that ensues when she loves an American naval officer.

Maiko Haaaan!!!

Kimihiko Onizuka is a salaryman infatuated with maiko (apprentice geisha) and whose greatest goal in life is to play a party game called "yakyuken" with one.

My Geisha

Famed movie director Paul Robaix breaks with tradition by not casting his actress-comedienne wife, Lucy Dell, in his latest film production, a version of Madame Butterfly. Undaunted, the resourceful Lucy wings her way to Tokyo and, masquerading as a Japanese geisha, lands the coveted role from her unsuspecting husband! But in front of the cameras (and behind the pancake makeup), Lucy faces greater challenges: her lecherous leading man - and a husband who is beginning to realize that his talented new "discovery" seems vaguely familiar...

The Toast of New Orleans

Snooty opera singer meets a rough-and-tumble fisherman in the Louisiana bayous, but this fisherman can sing! Her agent lures him away to New Orleans to teach him to sing opera but comes to regret this rash decision when the singers fall in love.

The Toll of the Sea

While visiting China, an American man falls in love with a young Chinese woman, but he then has second thoughts about the relationship. The plot is a variation of the Madame Butterfly story, set in China instead of Japan. The Toll of the Sea was one of the first and most successful Technicolor feature films.

The Right to Love: An American Family

Chronicling one story of courage born out of the highly mediatized and controversial Prop 8 2008 election results in California. A Californian married gay couple and their two adopted children fight back against discrimination, ignorance and hate through home videos posted on their YouTube channel, Gay Family Values. As they pursue their American Dream, the opposing political, social and religious opinions that pervade society attempt to strip it from them.

The Dancing Years

The episodic story of a composer of operettas, Rudi Kleiber, in in old Viennese days, and the two women in his life; Maria Zeitler, his sweetheart, later mistress, lost love, an operetta star, and his first patron, and the mother of a son he did not know he had; and of Greta, his first love and companion in later years

Shine on Harvest Moon

Biographical movie about the early 20th century broadway stars Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth.

Matsuchiyo - Life of a Geisha

Matsuchiyo - Life of a Geisha’ is a documentary about one of the last surviving true geisha in Japan. The story begins with Matsuchiyo’s wartime childhood. She and her mother were the only two surviving members of the family. Matsuchiyo joins an “Okiya” (a traditional geisha agency), to pay the family debts and support her ageing mother. In her adulthood, Matsuchiyo becomes one of the top geisha in the city of Atami and experiences romance, tearful farewells, being a mistress of married men, motherhood and tragic deaths. Today, in her 80’s, Matsuchiyo the geisha, is as motivated and inspiring as ever. She still delivers a mesmerising performance on stage. ‘Matsuchiyo - Life of a Geisha’ is narrated by her own son and film director, Ken Nishikawa, and it is adorned by hundreds of beautiful pictures from Japan’s bygone era. This film illustrates the trials and tribulations of the ultimate Japanese cultural enigma that is - The Life of a Geisha.

Nagasaki Butterfly

Oman travel from Shanghai to Japan in search of her mother, only to be betrayed by her companion and sold to a brothel, where she becomes a geisha and gambler.

Puccini: Madama Butterfly

Cio-Cio-San, the young Japanese bride of dashing American officer Lieutenant Pinkerton, finds her romantic idyll shattered when he deserts her shortly after their marriage. She lives in hope that one day he will return. Three years later, Cio-Cio-San and her little son see Pinkerton’s ship in the harbour. She excitedly expects his visit – but Pinkerton and his American wife Kate have come only to take the boy away, to raise him in America. Cio-Cio-San bids her son farewell and then takes her own life.

The Romance of Yushima

Hayase, a schoolteacher, assists Sakai in editing a German-Japanese dictionary. Hayase owes much to Sakai, as Sakai raised him for 13 years after Hayase lost his parents in a war. Hayase has been secretly married to Otsuta, a former geisha, and has been unable to tell Sakai of the marriage, aware as he is that Sakai wants him to marry his daughter, Taeko. Otsuta wants Hayase to tell Sakai about her, but understands the difficulty of his position. At a festival, Otsuta is mistaken for a pickpocket and taken to the police. Because of her background as a geisha, newspaper reporters eagerly delve into her past and report that she has been married to Hayase. Unaware of what has been printed in the papers, Hayase decides to tell Sakai about his marriage. Sakai shows the newspaper to him and orders Hayase to part with Otsuta. Given no chance to explain, Hayase accepts Sakai's order.

Reilly: Ace of Spies

Reilly, Ace of Spies is a 1983 television miniseries dramatizing the life of Sidney Reilly, a Russian Jew who became one of the greatest spies ever to work for the British. Among his exploits, in the early 20th century, were the infiltration of the German General Staff in 1917 and a near-overthrow of the Bolsheviks in 1918. His reputation with women was as legendary as his genius for espionage.

America: Facts vs. Fiction

History as we generally know it is full of holes or half-truths, and a mother lode of juicy details have been lost, distorted, covered up or simply ignored along the way. Former Naval officer and actor Jamie Kaler is on a mission to set the record straight on the most familiar and beloved stories from our nation's and military's past, filling in the blanks, debunking the occasional myth, and exploring why we sometimes get our own history, well, slightly wrong

Dandan

The twin girls Tajima Megumi and Ichijo Nozomi was separated at birth after their parents had divorced. Years later they meet each other. Both of them have a career within the entertainment industry. Megumi who lives in Matsue, Shimane sings in the band Shijimijiru, and Nozomi is a maiko, an apprentice geisha in Kyoto.

Chanpon Tabetaka

In early 1965, a child violinist who was expected to be a prodigy, came up to Tokyo from Nagasaki and lived in lodgings. In the 1970s, the violinist (Suda Masaki) faced a setback during the uproar over the US-Japan security treaty. Even so, he did not cut off music. By the time he realised it, he had started singing as Grape. This is a story centred around his high school and university days surrounded by different people including friends, teachers as well as older men at his part-time job.

Descending Stories: A Life In Rakugo

Set during the early Showa period, Yakumo enters the world of rakugo. He forms a friendship with talented storyteller Yurakutei. Yakumo admires Yurakutei’s talent and struggles to achieve his level of performance. With the help of geisha Miyokichi, Yakumo grows up as a rakugo storyteller. Yurakutei and Miyokichi get married, but they die in a mysterious accident. Yakumo takes Konatsu, who is the child of Yurakutei and Miyokichi, and raises her. Konatsu grows up blaming Yakumo as her parents’ enemy. Konatsu and Yakumo’s disciple Yotaro chases after the truth of her parents’ death, which Yakumo hides.

The Diary of the 38-year-old Divorcee who has tried a Dating App

Matsumoto Chiaki is a 38-year-old woman who got married at 24 and divorced at 35. As she's almost 40, she decides to try a dating app and meet various types of men to recover the youth she lost from her early marriage.

Shiro, the Giant, and the Castle of Ice

The story is set in Nagasaki prefecture in Minami Shimabara city, the fabled origin of the Shimabara Rebellion that sent shockwaves through all of Japan in the early Edo period. It is also where a third-year junior high school student named Shirou spends his days with his school friends. One summer day, Shirou's older childhood friend Akane returns to Minami Shimabara from Tokyo. Shirou and Akane take a stroll around Minami Shimabara with another longtime friend, Tokiya. While these friends are dealing with nostalgia and more complex feelings, a mysterious creature named Goron suddenly appears before them. This encounter with a mere little creature causes great events to unfold once more in this city...

Let's Get Divorced

A mediatised married couple who no longer love each other is highly optimistic about getting a divorce. However, external circumstances will get in their way and they will have no other choice but to work hand in hand to reach their ultimate goal: getting a divorce.

More custom members lists

Sort results by:

X close
Default
Clear filters
...