🏷 Discover The Best Melancholy Movies & TV Shows To Watch Today

79 titles with this tag

Unraveling the Emotions: Discovering the Best Movies and TV Shows related to Melancholy

Delve into the world of melancholy, where the lines between happiness and sorrow blur, and the complexities of human emotions unfold. From poignant dramas to introspective comedies, we've curated a list of the best movies and TV shows that will leave you reflecting on the intricacies of the human experience.

Whether you're a fan of indie darlings or mainstream blockbusters, our selection will guide you through the realms of melancholy, exploring themes of love, loss, and self-discovery. So, grab some tissues, settle in, and let the emotional rollercoaster begin.

Cast

Kikunosuke Toya

Tomori Kusunoki

Shogo Sakata

Fairouz Ai

Chainsaw Man (2022) TV Show

8.5 2.2K votes

Genre: Action, Animation, Comedy

Country: Japan

Seasons: 1

Episodes: 12

Audience: TV-MA

Story: Denji has a simple dream—to live a happy and peaceful life, spending time with a girl he likes. This is a far cry from reality, however, as Denji is forced by the yakuza into killing devils in order to pay off his crushing debts. Using his pet devil Pochita as a weapon, he is ready to do anything for a bit of cash.

Style: melancholy, philosophical, absurd, tense

Plot: secret organization, supernatural, gore, chainsaw, based on manga, cruelty, devil, demon, ...

Cast

Yui Ishikawa

Daisuke Namikawa

Takehito Koyasu

Aya Endo

Violet Evergarden (2018) TV Show

8.5 972 votes

Genre: Animation, Drama, Science Fiction

Country: Japan

Seasons: 1

Episodes: 13

Audience: TV-14

Story: The war is over, and Violet Evergarden needs a job. Scarred and emotionless, she takes a job as a letter writer to understand herself and her past.

Style: melancholy

Plot: self-discovery, letter, love, romance, slice of life, steampunk, tragedy, redemption, ...

Cast

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Ann Druyan

Cosmos (2014) TV Show

8.5 1.7K votes

Genre: Documentary

Country: United States of America

Seasons: 2

Episodes: 26

Audience: TV-G

Story: Famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson provides clarity for the vision of the cosmos as he voyages across the universe with never-before-told stories that delve into the scientific concepts of the laws of gravity and the origins of space and time.

Style: melancholy

Plot: biology, space, cosmology, astronomy, astrophysics, curious, astrobiology, spacetime, ...

Cast

Choo Young-woo

Shin Sia

Cho Yu-jung

Jin Ho-eun

Even If This Love Disappears Tonight (2025)

8.4 194 votes

Genre: Drama, Romance

Country: South Korea

Duration: 106 min.

Audience: PG-13

Story: A high school girl wakes up each day with no memory of yesterday. When she agrees to date a shy classmate, can their love grow with every new beginning?

Style: slow burn, emotional, melancholic

Plot: amnesia, based on novel or book, remake, tearjerker, reflective, high school romance, pure love, emotional growth, ...

Cast

Chieko Baisho

Takuya Kimura

Akihiro Miwa

Tatsuya Gashuin

Howl's Moving Castle (2004)

8.4 11.2K votes

Genre: Adventure, Animation, Fantasy

Country: Japan

Duration: 119 min.

Audience: PG

Story: Sophie, a young milliner, is turned into an elderly woman by a witch who enters her shop and curses her. She encounters a wizard named Howl and gets caught up in his resistance to fighting for the king.

Style: melancholy, philosophical, magical, romantic

Plot: witch, flying, rain, castle, scarecrow, body exchange, hatter, bakery, ...

Cast

Matt Smith

Emma D'Arcy

Olivia Cooke

James Norton

House of the Dragon (2022) TV Show

8.4 6.6K votes

Genre: Action, Drama, Science Fiction

Country: United States of America

Seasons: 3

Episodes: 26

Audience: TV-MA

Story: The Targaryen dynasty is at the absolute apex of its power, with more than 15 dragons under their yoke. Most empires crumble from such heights. In the case of the Targaryens, their slow fall begins when King Viserys breaks with a century of tradition by naming his daughter Rhaenyra heir to the Iron Throne. But when Viserys later fathers a son, the court is shocked when Rhaenyra retains her status as his heir, and seeds of division sow friction across the realm.

Style: melancholy, absurd

Plot: based on novel or book, kingdom, prequel, dysfunctional family, knight, dragon, king, blunt, ...

Cast

Billy West

Katey Sagal

John DiMaggio

Tress MacNeille

Futurama (1999) TV Show

8.4 3.8K votes

Genre: Animation, Comedy, Science Fiction

Country: United States of America

Seasons: 11

Episodes: 164

Audience: TV-14

Story: The adventures of a late-20th-century New York City pizza delivery boy, Philip J. Fry, who, after being unwittingly cryogenically frozen for one thousand years, finds employment at Planet Express, an interplanetary delivery company in the retro-futuristic 31st century.

Style: melancholy, philosophical

Plot: spacecraft, space travel, parody, alien, mad scientist, adult humor, distant future, social satire, ...

Time: future

Cast

Kim You-jung

Byeon Woo-seok

Park Jung-woo

Roh Yoon-seo

20th Century Girl (2022)

8.2 834 votes

Genre: Drama, Romance

Country: South Korea

Duration: 119 min.

Story: In 1999, a teen girl keeps close tabs on a boy in school on behalf of her deeply smitten best friend – then she gets swept up in a love story of her own.

Style: melancholy, intense, romantic

Plot: friendship, love triangle, coming of age, unrequited love, teenage girl, tearjerker, first love, city life, ...

Time: 1990s

Cast

Kwon Sang-woo

Choi Ji-woo

Shin Hyun-jun

Kim Tae-hee

Stairway to Heaven (2003) TV Show

8.2 1.2K votes

Genre: Drama

Country: South Korea

Seasons: 1

Episodes: 20

Audience: NR

Story: Song Ju and Jeong Seo who have lost a father and a mother respectively spend their childhood together like real siblings. Song Ju is there for Jeong Seo whenever she feels lonely and has a hard time, and Jeong Seo also relies a lot on Song Ju. However, after Jeong Seo's father gets married to Tae Mi Ra, Mi Ra and her daughter Yu Ri keep harassing Jeong Seo out of jealousy. Tae Hwa, Yu Ri's rough and wild older brother, has a crush on Jeong Seo who is pure and kind unlike him.

Style: melancholy

Plot: amnesia, romance, blindness, chaebol

Cast

Nou00e9mie Merlant

Adu00e8le Haenel

Luu00e0na Bajrami

Valeria Golino

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

8.1 3.0K votes

Genre: Drama, Romance

Country: France

Duration: 121 min.

Audience: R

Story: On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman.

Style: melancholy

Plot: island, fire, beach, arranged marriage, classical music, painting, painter, greek mythology, ...

Time: 18th century

Cast

Sofia Helin

Thure Lindhardt

Mikael Birkkju00e6r

Sarah Boberg

The Bridge (2011) TV Show

8.1 710 votes

Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery

Country: Denmark, Sweden

Seasons: 4

Episodes: 38

Audience: TV-MA

Story: When a body is found on the bridge between Denmark and Sweden, right on the border, Danish inspector Martin Rohde and Swedish Saga Norén have to share jurisdiction and work together to find the killer.

Style: melancholy, intense

Plot: detective, copenhagen, denmark, bridge, police, female protagonist, female detective, murder investigation, ...

Place: denmark, sweden, scandinavia

Fist of the North Star (1984) TV Show

8.0 129 votes

Genre: Action, Animation, Drama

Country: Japan

Seasons: 6

Episodes: 152

Audience: TV-MA

Story: It's the year 199x, and Earth burns with the fires of a nuclear holocaust. On the charred remains of the planet's surface, humans struggle desperately to survive a fearful world. The young wanderer Kenshiro rises to stand against the violent reality. Upon his chest are seven scars in the shape of the North Star!

Style: melancholy, intense

Plot: martial arts, post-apocalyptic future, dystopia, based on manga, fighting, macabre, shounen, anime, ...

Cast

Jung Hae-in

Koo Kyo-hwan

Kim Sung-kyun

Son Suk-ku

D.P. (2021) TV Show

8.0 267 votes

Genre: Action, Crime, Drama

Country: South Korea

Seasons: 2

Episodes: 12

Audience: TV-MA

Story: A young private's assignment to capture army deserters reveals the painful reality endured by each enlistee during his compulsory call of duty.

Style: melancholy, dark, gritty

Plot: desertion, investigation, based on comic, mission, escape, soldier, military life, military police, ...

Cast

Gregory Peck

Mary Badham

Phillip Alford

John Megna

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

8.0 2.9K votes

Genre: Drama

Country: United States of America

Duration: 129 min.

Audience: NR

Story: Scout Finch, 6, and her older brother Jem live in sleepy Maycomb, Alabama, spending much of their time with their friend Dill and spying on their reclusive and mysterious neighbor, Boo Radley. When Atticus, their widowed father and a respected lawyer, defends a black man named Tom Robinson against fabricated rape charges, the trial and tangent events expose the children to evils of racism and stereotyping.

Style: melancholy, suspenseful

Plot: right and justice, rape, sibling relationship, based on novel or book, court case, court, isolation, becoming an adult, ...

Time: 1930s

Cast

Douglas Booth

Robert Gulaczyk

Eleanor Tomlinson

Helen McCrory

Loving Vincent (2017)

8.0 2.6K votes

Genre: Animation, Drama, History

Country: Poland, United Kingdom

Duration: 95 min.

Audience: PG-13

Story: A young man arrives at the last hometown of painter Vincent van Gogh to deliver the troubled artist's final letter and ends up investigating his final days there.

Style: melancholy

Plot: artist, investigation, grave, letter, painter, bullying, adult animation, struggling artist, ...

Time: 19th century

Cast

Don Hertzfeldt

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Sara Cushman

It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)

7.9 371 votes

Genre: Animation, Comedy

Country: United States of America

Duration: 62 min.

Audience: 12A

Story: Bill struggles to put together his shattered psyche.

Style: melancholy, philosophical

Plot: nightmare, immortality, narration, dark comedy, surrealism, hospital, illness, mental illness, ...

Cast

Massimo Troisi

Philippe Noiret

Maria Grazia Cucinotta

Renato Scarpa

The Postman (1994)

7.9 1.2K votes

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Country: Italy, France

Duration: 114 min.

Audience: PG

Story: Simple Italian postman learns to love poetry while delivering mail to a famous poet; he uses this to woo local beauty Beatrice.

Style: melancholy

Plot: island, fisherman, letter, postman, poet, naples, italy, love, ...

Time: 1950s

Pachinko (2022) TV Show

7.9 264 votes

Genre: Drama

Country: United States of America

Seasons: 2

Episodes: 16

Audience: TV-MA

Story: This sweeping saga chronicles the hopes and dreams of a Korean immigrant family across four generations as they leave their homeland in an indomitable quest to survive and thrive.

Style: melancholy, nostalgic, intimate, intense

Plot: gambling, based on novel or book, immigrant, family history, osaka, japan, east asian lead, immigrant family, ...

Cast

Ryan Gosling

Emma Stone

John Legend

Rosemarie DeWitt

La La Land (2016)

7.9 18.2K votes

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Country: United States of America

Duration: 129 min.

Audience: PG-13

Story: Mia, an aspiring actress, serves lattes to movie stars in between auditions and Sebastian, a jazz musician, scrapes by playing cocktail party gigs in dingy bars, but as success mounts they are faced with decisions that begin to fray the fragile fabric of their love affair, and the dreams they worked so hard to maintain in each other threaten to rip them apart.

Style: melancholy

Plot: dancing, dance, jazz, musical, ambition, casting, coffee shop, jazz club, ...