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Movies like The Chinese Botanist's Daughters

Key Features:
Forbidden love, Same-sex relationship, Botanist, Social taboo, Secrecy, Family drama, Teacher-student relationship, Romance, Intimacy, Forbidden love, Social stigma, Chinese cinema
Tone:
serious, restrained, poetic
Target Audience:
LGBTQ+ viewers, Fans of romance dramas, Viewers interested in cultural stories, Art house cinema enthusiasts
Emotional Arc:
Attraction → Secrecy → Heartbreak

The Chinese Botanist's Daughters

2006-04-26
The Chinese Botanist's Daughters Poster - Find Similar Movies

At the house of a famous Chinese botanist teacher his daughter and a female intern fall in love with each other - a forbidden love that must be kept secret.

Genres
Drama
Cast
Mylène Jampanoï, Li Xiaoran, Wang Weiguang, Như Quỳnh, Nguyen Van Quang, Linh Thj Bich Thu, Yang Jun, Lê Tung Linh, Chu Hùng, Tuo Jilin
Crew
Dai Sijie, Nadine Perront, Dai Sijie
Rating
6.331(62 votes)
The Chinese Botanist's DaughtersThe Chinese Botanist's Daughters
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Lan Yu
Lan Yu(2001)
6.9

A love story between a country boy in Beijing to study and a wealthy businessman set against the backdrop of the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident.



Under the Hawthorn Tree

The daughter of a right-winger, schoolgirl Jing Qiu is sent to the countryside for reeducation, and tasked to help write a textbook. There she meets Lao San, a young soldier with a bright future ahead. Despite the class divide and parental disapproval, romance blooms against turbulent times.



Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

During the Cultural Revolution, two young men are sent to a remote mining village where they fall in love with the local tailor's beautiful granddaughter and discover a suitcase full of forbidden Western novels.



Saving Face
7.262

A Chinese-American lesbian and her traditionalist mother are reluctant to go public with secret loves that clash against cultural expectations.



Sappho
Sappho(2008)
4.3

On honeymoon on the island of Lesbos, a woman falls for the daughter of a Russian archaeologist.



Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing

A widowed doctor of both Chinese and European descent falls in love with a married American correspondent in Hong Kong during China's Communist revolution.



A Frozen Flower
6.9

A historical drama set in the Koryo dynasty and focused on the relationship between a king and his bodyguard.



Ju Dou
Ju Dou(1990)
7.1

A woman married to the brutal and infertile owner of a dye mill in rural China conceives a boy with her husband's nephew but is forced to raise her son as her husband's heir without revealing his parentage in this circular tragedy. Filmed in glowing technicolour, this tale of romantic and familial love in the face of unbreakable tradition is more universal than its setting.



Indochine
Indochine(1992)
6.993

Set in colonial French Indochina during the 1930s to 1950s, this is the story of Éliane Devries, a French plantation owner, and of her adopted Vietnamese daughter, Camille, set against the backdrop of the rising Vietnamese nationalist movement.



Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

A story set in 19th century China and centered on the lifelong friendship between two girls who develop their own secret code as a way to contend with the rigid cultural norms imposed on women.



Fruits of Passion
5.2

A girl named O loves a rich, and much older man. She is subjected to a variety of humiliating experiences to prove her unconditional obedience to him in a Chinese brothel. A poor boy sees her and falls in love with her. To get the money needed to sleep with her, he takes part in rebellious acts.



Restart the Earth
6.732

When a drug to replicate plant cells creates a sentient form of flower, the planet is over taken by flora and humankind is depleted. A Chinese task force, a widowed father and his young daughter fight to survive in a mission to inject an antidote to the core of the plants to reverse their growth.



Endless Love
7.335

Sparks fly when a humble housekeeper crosses paths with a wealthy surgeon, but a devastating truth puts their relationship to the test.



An Impossible Love
6.6

A chronicle of the unconditional love between a mother and her daughter, from 1958 to the present day, which is endangered by an unsteady and manipulative father.



Wild Reeds
7

As the Algerian War draws to a close, a teenager with a girlfriend starts feeling homosexual urges for two of his classmates: a country boy, and a French-Algerian intellectual.



Eungyo
Eungyo(2012)
6.8

A reclusive elderly poet feels the fire of his youth when gamine schoolgirl Eun-gyo enters his life, to the chagrin of the old man's assistant.



Close Range Love
7.45

A smart high school student falls in love with her English teacher after she receives one-on-one tutoring from him.



The Young Lovers
6.528

Elegant, retired architect Shauna (70) crosses paths with Pierre, a happily married doctor in his 40s, who first made an impression on her in a brief meeting 15 years previously. Both are quite troubled to meet again and begin an affair. While Pierre’s family life is soon turned upside down, Shauna struggles with feelings she thought belonged to the past.



This Special Friendship

A tale of the tender relationship between a twelve-year-old boy and the fourteen-year-old upperclassman who is the object of his desire, all set within the rigid atmosphere of a Jesuit-run school.



Diary of a Fleeting Affair

A single mother and a married man enter into an affair with the understanding that their relationship is purely sexual. Though they agree the relationship has no future, they find themselves increasingly drawn into each other's company.



Curiosa
Curiosa(2019)
5.864

A passionate love story set against a backdrop of sexual freedom, loosely based on the relationship between 19th century authors Pierre Louÿs and Marie de Régnier.



Gerontophilia
5.954

Lake is in a straight relationship with Desiree but finds himself becoming attracted to men at the pool. When he cannot control his desires any longer, he starts working at an adult home and begins a relationship with a much, much older man.



The Forbidden City
7.081

In the suburbs of Rome two very different souls intersect. One is the son of a restaurant owner who disappeared with his lover. The other is a young mysterious woman who has arrived from China in search of her missing sister.



Summer Palace
7.288

Yu Hong leaves her home village and starts university in Beijing, where she develops a consuming and compulsive relationship with another student. The student riots from 1989 then ensue and take a toll on their lives.



Love in a Puff
7.006

When the Hong Kong government enacts a ban on smoking cigarettes indoors, hard-core smokers are driven outside and a budding romance develops between two co-workers.



Yes or No
Yes or No(2010)
6.897

Traditional girl Pie is initially uncomfortable with her tomboyish new roommate. But as time goes on, she finds herself increasingly attracted to her.



Nobody's Daughter Haewon

Haewon, a college student, wants to end her secret affair with her professor, Seongjun. Feeling depressed after bidding farewell to her mother who is set to immigrate to Canada the next day, Haewon seeks out Seongjun again after a long time. That day, they run into her classmates at a restaurant and their relationship gets revealed. Haewon gets more agitated and Seongjun makes an extreme suggestion to run away together… Haewon dreams often. Her dreams will be compared to her waking life, but none can be denied as being a part of her life.



Summertime
6.7

In 1971, a young woman moves from the French countryside to Paris and begins a passionate love affair with a feminist leader.



Endless Love
6.908

A privileged girl and a charismatic boy's instant desire sparks a love affair made only more reckless by parents trying to keep them apart.



A Room in Town
6.4

Set against the backdrop of an increasingly violent strike, a worker falls in love with the middle-class daughter of his landlady.



The Third Wife
6.447

Though only 14 years old, May is selected to be the third wife of a wealthy landowner. Her new home seems idyllic, her husband favours her, and she quickly becomes pregnant with what she is certain will be the desired male progeny. But trouble is quietly brewing: she witnesses a forbidden tryst that will spark a chain reaction of misfortunes — and stir in May urges that until now had been dormant.



The Lover
The Lover(1992)
7

A poor French teenage girl engages in an illicit affair with a wealthy Chinese heir in 1920s Saigon. For the first time in her young life she has control, and she wields it deftly over her besotted lover throughout a series of clandestine meetings and torrid encounters.



SoulMate
SoulMate(2016)
7.149

The films spans two decades as the story unfolds in a series of flashbacks that begin when Qiyue and Ansheng were just thirteen. The two became inseparable until they met a boy who ended up tearing their lives apart.



Circumstance
6.632

A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager's growing sexual rebellion and her brother's newfound conservatism.



Marguerite & Julien

Julien and Marguerite de Ravalet, son and daughter of the Lord of Tourlaville, have loved each other tenderly since childhood. But as they grow up, their affection veers toward voracious passion.



Two of Us
Two of Us(2020)
7

Nina and Madeleine have been sharing their lives and the landing between their two apartments for decades. After more than 20 years of loving in the shadows, Madeleine promises Nina she will tell her family the truth. It takes an unexpected event to show her the importance of living your truth.



Rafiki
Rafiki(2018)
7

Kena and Ziki long for something more. Despite the political rivalry between their families, the girls resist and remain close friends, supporting each other to pursue their dreams in a conservative society. When love blossoms between them, the two girls will be forced to choose between happiness and safety.



Equinox Flower
7.428

Wataru Hirayama's outwardly liberal views on marriage are severely tested when his daughter declares that she is in love with a coworker and is adamant to live life her own way, instead of agreeing to an arranged marriage. Outwitted by his female relatives, Hirayama stubbornly refuses to admit defeat.



Bihter: A Forbidden Passion

Bihter, who is desperate for love, sees Adnan, a wealthy and respected older guy, as a way out of the stereotype that society and her materialistic mother have given her. But she soon discovers that she is not satisfied with his attention and has other needs.



So Young 2: Never Gone

A wealthy young man pursues a young woman of modest means, but circumstances often separate them as the years pass.



The Lovers
6.6

A shallow, provincial wife finds her relationship with her preoccupied husband strained by romantic notions, leading her further towards Paris and the country wilderness.



Down by Love
6

A man, a woman. A prison director, his inmate. An impossible love, a true story.



Miller's Girl
6.349

A talented young writer embarks on a creative odyssey when her teacher assigns a project that entangles them both.



The Boss's Daughter

40-year-old foreman Vital is chosen by Alix (25) as a guinea pig in the anonymous study she is carrying out in her father's factory. The boss's daughter soon finds herself falling under the spell of this reserved, enigmatic worker as he begins to open up to her, revealing his dreams of another life.



Loving Annabelle
6.5

Annabelle is the wise-beyond-her-years newcomer to an exclusive Catholic girls school. Having been expelled from her first two schools she's bound to stir some trouble. Sparks fly though when sexual chemistry appears between her and the Head of her dorm and English teacher, Simone Bradley. Annabelle pursues her relentlessly and until the end the older woman manages to avoid the law.



Two English Girls
6.913

At the beginning of the 20th century, Claude Roc, a young middle-class Frenchman, befriends Ann, an Englishwoman. While spending time in England with Ann’s family, Claude falls in love with her sister Muriel, but both families lay down a year-long separation without contact before they may marry.



Our Family
7.7

A love story between a poor man and a rich girl. The rich girl's father tries to prevent their marriage and he declares a war against the poor boy's family.



The World Unseen
7.077

A drama centered on two women who engage in a dangerous relationship during South Africa's apartheid era.



Sugar Baby
7.074

Love comes without asking. Often not to those, not so and not then. Can a genuine feeling survive when everything started wrong and the whole world is against it? Give up everything or give up? Burn or survive?



Decalogue IV
7.764

A father and daughter, Michał and Anka, have a unique intimacy, which the college-aged Anka is beginning to feel conflicted about. When she finds an unopened letter from her deceased mother, it seems to justify her attraction to Michał, who may not in fact be her father.



Red
Red(2020)
4.7

A married woman with a lovely daughter lives a carefree life, until she meets her ex-lover at a friend’s wedding. They haven’t seen each other in ten years, but they begin an affair.



Simple Passion
5.582

A man and a woman are brought together by chance for several months. He is younger than she is, married, Russian, officially a diplomat stationed in Paris. She is a beautiful teacher and researcher, with her feet firmly on the ground. The film follows the evolution of their love, from the beginning to end.



Lady Chatterley
6.1

After a crippling injury leaves her husband impotent, Lady Chatterly is torn between her love for her husband and her physical desires. With her husband's consent, she seeks out other means of fulfilling her needs.



My Policeman
7.624

In the late 1990s, the arrival of elderly invalid Patrick into Marion and Tom’s home triggers the exploration of seismic events from 40 years previous: the passionate relationship between Tom and Patrick at a time when homosexuality was illegal.



The Big Heart of Girls

Carlino Vigetti is pushed by his family to court the daughters of the Osti, landowners. But the return of their third daughter, the beautiful Francesca, will shatter the plans ...



Curse of the Golden Flower

During China's Tang dynasty the emperor has taken the princess of a neighboring province as his wife. She has borne him two sons and raised his eldest. Now his control over his dominion is complete, including the royal family itself.



Desire
Desire(2017)
5.945

Lucía and Ofelia, two sisters, finally meet after 7 years of cold relationships upon Lucia 's wedding. But when Juan, Lucia's husband, and Ofelia meet, they feel like a disruptive fantasy have enchanted their minds and bodies...



Floating Clouds
7.7

A married Japanese forester during WWII is sent to Indochina to manage forests. He meets a young Japanese typist and promises to leave his wife. He doesn't and after the war, she turns up and the affair resumes.



Carmen & Lola
6.969

Carmen is a gypsy teenager, destined to live a life that is repeated every generation: getting married and raising as many children as possible. But one day she meets Lola, an uncommon gypsy who dreams about going to university, does graffiti and is very different. Carmen quickly develops a complicity with Lola and discovers a world that, inevitably, leads them to be rejected by their families.



The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister

A lesbian in the 1800s who keeps a detailed account of her life written in coded diaries attempts to live independently while juggling an affair with a married woman.



A Secret Love
7.3

Amid shifting times, two women kept their decades-long love a secret. But coming out later in life comes with its own set of challenges.



Romance
Romance(1999)
5.451

Frustrated by the lack of intimacy in her relationship, a young schoolteacher goes through a series of intimidating and often violent sexual partners.



Secret
Secret(2007)
7.567

Ye Xiang Lun, a talented piano player is a new student at the prestigious Tamkang School. On his first day, he meets Lu Xiao Yu, a pretty girl playing a mysterious piece of music.



Water and Fire
7.9

A pretty young girl falls for an enigmatic, shy man who sweeps her off her feet. She becomes pregnant but is not allowed to tell him. His advisers are adamant. Back home, they have set up a wedding with the daughter of an antagonistic family and marriage will put an end to the blood feud between them.



Up for Love
6.012

Diane is a well-known lawyer, divorced for three years. She loses her mobile telephone and receives a call from the person who finds it. That person is Alexandre, a charming man and the perfect gentleman. They make a connection over the phone and agree to meet up the following day. But when Alexandre arrives, there's a surprise in store when Diane discovers he is only 4' 6" tall. From that moment on, Diane tries to overcome the prejudices of society and her own fears to experience the best time of her life...



Hala
Hala(2019)
6.214

Seventeen-year-old Pakistani American teenager Hala struggles to balance desire with her family, cultural, and religious obligations. As she comes into her own, she grapples with a secret that threatens to unravel her family.



Hidden Kisses
7.5

Nathan, 16, lives alone with his father Stephane. A newcomer in high school, he is invited to a party and falls in love with Louis, a boy in his class. They find themselves out of sight and kiss each other, but someone takes a picture of them. Soon, the photo is published on Facebook and a storm overtakes their lives as they face bullying and rejection.



The Last Mistress
5.7

Secrets, rumors and betrayals surround the upcoming marriage between a young dissolute man and virtuous woman of the French aristocracy.



The Student
5.857

An ambitious teaching student's finals studies are interrupted by a passionate affair with a jazz musician.



Anna and the King
6.8

The story of the romance between the King of Siam (now Thailand) and the widowed British school teacher Anna Leonowens during the 1860s. Anna teaches the children and becomes romanced by the King. She convinces him that a man can be loved by just one woman.



China Girl
5.936

Teenage lovers Tony and Tyan-Hwa tip the balance of power in New York's Little Italy and Chinatown.



Everything, Everything

A teenager who's lived a sheltered life because she's allergic to everything, falls for the boy who moves in next door.



Youth
Youth(2017)
7.29

A group of performing art troupe members each face their own trials and tribulations in Chengdu; from escaping a family scandal to dealing with unrequited love, each experiences rejection that shapes their lives.



Girls in Uniform
6.114

A new student, Manuela, enters a strict girls' boarding school after her mother’s death, where she finds comfort in a kind teacher, stirring complex emotions within her.



My Out-Laws
5.666

When their daughter decides to get a divorce, Coline and Andre can’t come to terms with it as they are very fond of their son-in-law. The only way to keep seeing him is in secret. But for how long can they lead a double life?



Tell It to the Bees
7.498

Dr. Jean Markham returns to the town she left as a teenager to take over her late father's medical practice. When a school-yard scuffle lands Charlie in her surgery, she invites him to visit the hives in her garden and tell his secrets to the bees, as she once did. The new friendship between the boy and the bee keeper brings his mother Lydia into Jean's world.



Method
Method(2017)
6.9

A seasoned actor and a pop star are cast as leads in a gay romantic play. As the actor teaches the pop star method acting, the line between fiction and reality is blurred and they become drawn to each other.



Entre Nous
6.6

In 1942 in occupied France, a Jewish refugee marries a soldier to escape deportation to Germany. Meanwhile a wealthy art student loses her first husband to a stray Resistance bullet; at the Liberation she meets an actor, gets pregnant, and marries him. Lena and Madeleine meet at their children's school in Lyon in 1952 and the intensity of their relationship strains both their marriages to the breaking point.



Royalteen
Royalteen(2022)
5.827

A teenager struggles to keep her scandal-ridden past and a big secret from getting out when she strikes up an unlikely romance with the crown prince.



My Father's Guests
5.9

A human-rights activist takes in an illegal immigrant and her daughter, then shocks his family when they learn that he has married the sexy 28-year-old.



Ae Fond Kiss...
6.437

A young man upsets his Punjabi family when he falls in love with an Irish schoolteacher.



Devil in the Flesh
5.555

An Italian high school student becomes infatuated with a woman he sees outside his class window. Her fiancée is in jail for being involved in a radical movement, and she spends much time in court providing moral support. At first she resists the student's advances, but eventually begins an affair with him. Their situation is condemned by her family and his father, who is the woman's psychologist.



Perhaps Love
6.7

A love triangle develops between the male and female leads and the director during the making of a musical in Mainland China.



Daytime Shooting Star

Fifteen-year-old country girl Suzume Yosano has to move to Tokyo to live with her uncle due to her father's transfer. She bumps into a mysterious man who ends up taking her to her uncle's place after she gets lost. Turns out, Suzume will be seeing him a lot more often once she starts school because... he's her homeroom teacher?!



Diary of a Chambermaid

In the late 19th century, a chambermaid from Paris relocates to a remote household in Provence, engages in trysts and finds herself enraptured with a coach driver.



Love Sick
Love Sick(2006)
5.573

Love. It just happens. No rules. It may look sick, but it's deep and it hurts. For everyone, Alex and Kiki are just good friends. They happen to be two girls experiencing another kind of love. For their family, Kiki and Sandu are sister and brother who sometimes fight. They happen to be lovers. Love Sick is about their stories.



UFO
UFO(2022)
6.1

When aspiring musician and student Deniz falls for a rough-hewn motorbike racer, tragedy and family opposition obstruct their path to love.



Sexual Chronicles of a French Family

Three generations of a French family open up about their sexual experiences and desires after young Romain is caught masturbating in his biology class.



The Banquet
6.1

Crown Prince Wu Luan is in love with Little Wan but left heartbroken when she marries his father, the emperor. The emperor's brother, Li, kills him and Wu Luan tries to avenge his father's death.



Quantum Love
5.714

Pierre has been happily married for fifteen years and a good father. Still in love with his wife, he enjoys his wife and family and is content. One evening, he meets Elsa at a party and are immediately attracted to each other. Fifteen days later, they happen to meet again and the mutual attraction turns into infatuation. But his love for his wife and Elsa's rule about not dating married men prevents them from taking the next step. Instead, they fantasize about each other, and soon the fantasies mingle with the reality.



Sairat
Sairat(2016)
7.564

Archi, a local politician’s daughter, and Parshya, a fisherman’s son, fall in love resulting in violence between the families due to the stringent casteism in the village.



Not My Type
6.208

Clement, a young philosophy teacher, is sent to Arras for a year. He meets Jennifer, a pretty hair stylist, and the two freely share their hearts and bodies as they try to overcome the cultural and social divide between them.



Gemini
Gemini(2005)
5.5

An incestuous love affair. Meme and Jeremias are the younger children in a typical bourgeois family. Their mother Lucia is the dominant force in the household, but her fixation on upholding the niceties of upper middle class life has prevented her from seeing what is going on under her roof. When the siblings’ older brother and his fiancee arrive home for their wedding, it seems inevitable that the concealment will be impossible to sustain. But equally it becomes apparent that if Lucia were to find out about the affair, there would be catastrophic consequences.



Bimboland
Bimboland(1998)
4.3

A shy French anthropologist who happens to be secretly in love with her college superior, chooses "bimbos" as the subject of her thesis. She becomes one of them in order to do that, and the professor she loves falls for her new identity.



The Fish Child
5.656

A desperate love story between two young girls of extremely different social backgrounds who, unable to find a place for their love in the world they live in, are pushed to commit a crime.



The Nature of Love
7.093

Sophia is a philosophy professor in Montreal and has lived as a couple with Xavier for 10 years. Sylvain is a carpenter in the Laurentians and must renovate their country house. When Sophia meets Sylvain for the first time, it’s love at first sight. Opposites attract, but can it last?



Fatima
Fatima(2015)
6.2

Fatima, an Algerian-born woman who now lives in France with her two teenage daughters, with whom she is barely able to communicate.



The Slap
The Slap(1974)
6.6

A Parisian teacher loses his cool when his teenage daughter tells him she plans to drop out of school and move in with her boyfriend.



Flirting Scholar
7.454

A scholar in search of true love. Disguising himself as a houseboy, he indentures himself to a rich family in order to pursue the ravishing servant girl who has stolen his heart.

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