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Movies like The Secret Scripture

Key Features:
Mental illness, Historical drama, Religious conflict, Political intrigue, Memory, Unreliable narrator, Forbidden love, Tragedy, Mystery, Ireland, 20th century, Secrets, Betrayal
Tone:
serious, dramatic, restrained
Target Audience:
Drama enthusiasts, History buffs, Literary adaptations, Mature audiences
Emotional Arc:
Intrigue → Despair → Acceptance

The Secret Scripture

2017-03-23
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The hidden memoir of an elderly woman confined to a mental hospital reveals the history of her passionate yet tortured life, and of the religious and political upheavals in Ireland during the 1920s and 30s.

Genres
Drama, Romance
Cast
Rooney Mara, Theo James, Vanessa Redgrave, Eric Bana, Jack Reynor, Aidan Turner, Susan Lynch, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Charlie Kelly, Nika McGuigan
Crew
Jim Sheridan, Jim Sheridan, Johnny Ferguson
Rating
7.3(297 votes)
The Secret ScriptureThe Secret Scripture
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The Invisible Woman
5.918

In 1857, at the height of his fame and fortune, novelist and social critic Charles Dickens meets and falls in love with teenage stage actress Nelly Ternan. As she becomes the focus of his heart and mind, as well as his muse, painful secrecy is the price both must pay.



The Secret Life of Words

A solitary nurse bonds with a badly burned patient who survived an accident on an oil rig.



In Secret
In Secret(2014)
6.1

In 1860s Paris, a young woman, Therese, is trapped in a loveless marriage to the sickly Camille by her domineering aunt, Madame Raquin. She spends her days behind the counter of a small shop and her evenings watching Madame play dominos with an eclectic group. After she meets her husband’s alluring friend, Laurent, she embarks on an illicit affair that leads to tragic consequences. Based on Emile Zola’s novel, Thérèse Raquin.



The Notebook
7.9

An epic love story centered around an older man who reads aloud to a woman with Alzheimer's. From a faded notebook, the old man's words bring to life the story about a couple who is separated by World War II, and is then passionately reunited, seven years later, after they have taken different paths.



Philomena
Philomena(2013)
7.3

A woman searches for her adult son, who was taken away from her decades ago when she was forced to live in a convent.



The Delinquent Season

In Dublin, two couples (Jim and Danielle; Yvonne and Chris) are seemingly living in marital bliss. However, when Chris's behaviour begins to change, Yvonne seeks solace in the arms of Jim, and before long they are in the midst of an affair. When a life-changing secret is later revealed, all four are forced to re-evaluate their lives, their marriages, and their friendships - but can anything be salvaged from the wreckage?



Una
Una(2017)
6.058

When a young woman unexpectedly arrives at an older man's workplace, looking for answers, the secrets of the past threaten to unravel his new life.



The Quiet Girl
7.501

A quiet, neglected girl is sent away from her dysfunctional family to live with relatives for the summer. She blossoms in their care, but in this house where there are meant to be no secrets, she discovers one.



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.



Hideaways
Hideaways(2011)
6.2

The elder one of each generation in the Furlong family is equipped with an extraordinary capacity. James discovers the nature of his at the time of an accident which causes the death of his father and his grandmother. Haunted by this mysterious evil he hides in a forest not to harm anybody. A few years later, Mae also takes refuge it in the forest and meets James.



The Wonder
6.605

Haunted by her past, a nurse travels from England to a remote Irish village in 1862 to investigate a young girl's supposedly miraculous fast.



Thelma
Thelma(2017)
6.794

A college student starts to experience extreme seizures. She soon learns that the violent episodes are a symptom of inexplicable abilities.



The Crying Game
6.8

Irish Republican Army member Fergus forms an unexpected bond with Jody, a kidnapped British soldier in his custody, despite the warnings of fellow IRA members Jude and Maguire. Jody makes Fergus promise he'll visit his girlfriend, Dil, in London, and when Fergus flees to the city, he seeks her out. Hounded by his former IRA colleagues, he finds himself increasingly drawn to the enigmatic, and surprising, Dil.



The Secret Garden
7.4

A young British girl born and reared in India loses her neglectful parents in an earthquake. She is returned to England to live at her uncle's castle. Her uncle is very distant due to the loss of his wife ten years before. Neglected once again, she begins exploring the estate and discovers a garden that has been locked and forgotten. Aided by one of the servants' boys, she begins restoring the garden, and eventually discovers some other secrets of the manor.



Apostasy
Apostasy(2017)
6.8

A faithful Jehovah's Witness is forced to shun her own sister because of a religious transgression. As the separation draws out, she starts to question the meaning of God's love.



Secret Ceremony
6

A penniless woman meets a strange girl who insists she is her long-lost mother and becomes enmeshed in a web of deception, and perhaps madness.



The Mother
5.96

A grandmother has a passionate affair with a man half her age, who is also sleeping with her daughter.



Tristan & Isolde
6.7

An affair between the second in line to Britain's throne and the princess of the feuding Irish spells doom for the young lovers.



The History of Love

The story of a long-lost book that mysteriously reappears and connects an old man searching for his son with a girl seeking a cure for her mother's loneliness.



A Quiet Passion
6.037

The story of American poet Emily Dickinson from her early days as a young schoolgirl to her later years as a reclusive, unrecognized artist.



Sita Ramam
7.8

Afreen, a rebellious Pakistani student sets ablaze the car of an Indian in London. Angered Afreen returns to Pakistan to ask for money from her grandfather that she has to pay in a month's time as damages. However, she gets to know that he is no more and the only thing he has left for her is a letter-delivering task, written by Ram to Sita. As Afreen sets out to find Ram, there begins her journey of discovering the secret behind the 20-year-old letter.



Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre(1996)
6.891

After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meet the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Mr. Rochester. Jane and her employer grow close in friendship and she soon finds herself falling in love with him. Happiness seems to have found Jane at last, but could Mr. Rochester's terrible secret be about to destroy it forever?



The Magdalene Sisters

Three young Irish women struggle to maintain their spirits while they endure dehumanizing abuse as inmates of a Magdalene Sisters Asylum.



The Souvenir
6.1

A shy but ambitious film student falls into an intense, emotionally fraught relationship with a charismatic but untrustworthy older man.



Angela's Ashes
7.3

An Irish Catholic family returns to 1930s Limerick after a child's death in America. The unemployed I.R.A. veteran father struggles with poverty, prejudice, and alcoholism as the family endures harsh slum conditions.



Michael Collins
6.9

Michael Collins plays a crucial role in the establishment of the Irish Free State in the 1920s, but becomes vilified by those hoping to create a completely independent Irish republic.



The Passion of Darkly Noon

Desire torments a former cultist taking refuge at the home of a scantily clad woman whose husband is away.



The Tree of Blood
6.4

Marc and Rebeca, a young couple, travel to an old country house that used to belong to their family. Once there, they write the shared history of their roots, creating a huge family tree that harbours relationships of love, heartbreak, sex, madness, jealousy and infidelity, and under which also lies a history laden with secrets.



Priest
Priest(1995)
6.3

The deeply held religious convictions of an idealistic young priest are challenged when he must face extraordinary events within his own congregation.



Lady Macbeth
6.563

Rural England, 1865. Katherine, suffocated by her loveless marriage to a bitter man and restrained by his father's tyranny, unleashes an irresistible force within her, so powerful that she will stop at nothing to get what she wants.



Testament of Youth
7.268

Testament of Youth is a powerful story of love, war and remembrance, based on the First World War memoir by Vera Brittain, which has become the classic testimony of that war from a woman’s point of view. A searing journey from youthful hopes and dreams to the edge of despair and back again, it’s a film about young love, the futility of war and how to make sense of the darkest times.



Hedda
Hedda(2025)
5.1

Hedda Gabler finds herself torn between the lingering ache of a past love and the quiet suffocation of her present life. Over the course of one charged night, long-repressed desires and hidden tensions erupt—pulling her and everyone around her into a spiral of manipulation, passion, and betrayal.



The Secret
7.105

Marie, who works as a successful door-to-door encyclopedia salesperson, has been married to her husband Francois for 12 years and has a two-year-old son. Though she is relatively content with her life, she feels something is wanting. Enter 50-year old African-American Bill. Initially she is annoyed by his insouciance, but she finds that she is irresistibly attracted to him. Soon the two are in the midst of sordid illicit affair. She knows little about her new lover, and he seems uninterested in learning about her, but the long sessions of lovemaking are something else entirely. Feeling out of control, Marie is increasingly repelled by her own actions. Psychologically, she struggles to reconcile her torrid encounters with Bill and mundane domestic chores such as bathing her son. Moreover, she finds herself incapable of hiding her adulterous behavior, rather she comes home with scratches and hickeys all over her body, to the devastation Francois.



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.



Mary Magdalene
6.287

In the first century, free-spirited Mary Magdalene flees the marriage her family has arranged for her, finding refuge and a sense of purpose in a radical new movement led by the charismatic, rabble-rousing preacher named Jesus.



Third Person
5.885

An acclaimed novelist struggles to write an analysis of love in one of three stories, each set in a different city, that detail the beginning, middle and end of a relationship.



Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre(2011)
7.2

After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meets the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Mr. Rochester. Jane and her employer grow close in friendship and she soon finds herself falling in love with him. Happiness seems to have found Jane at last, but could Mr. Rochester's terrible secret be about to destroy it forever?



The Canal
The Canal(2014)
5.75

A man who suspects his wife is cheating on him begins having nightmarish visions of an evil presence that he believes inhabits his house.



The Last Letter from Your Lover

A young journalist in London becomes obsessed with a series of letters she discovers that recounts an intense star-crossed love affair from the 1960s.



The Saragossa Manuscript

During the Napoleonic wars, a Spanish officer and an opposing officer find a book written by the former's grandfather.



Vita & Virginia
6.769

Socialite Vita Sackville-West and literary icon Virginia Woolf run in different circles in 1920s London. Despite the odds, the two forge an unconventional affair, set against the backdrop of their own strikingly contemporary marriages.



A Promise
A Promise(2013)
5.7

A romantic drama set in Germany just before WWI and centered on a married woman who falls in love with her husband's teacher. Separated by the war, they pledge their devotion to one another.



Women Talking
6.86

A group of women in an isolated religious colony struggle to reconcile their faith with a series of sexual assaults committed by the colony's men.



The Lodgers
5.028

1920, rural Ireland. Anglo-Irish twins Rachel and Edward share a strange existence in their crumbling family estate. Each night, the property becomes the domain of a sinister presence (The Lodgers) which enforces three rules upon the twins: they must be in bed by midnight; they may not permit an outsider past the threshold; and if one attempts to escape, the life of the other is placed in jeopardy. When troubled war veteran Sean returns to the nearby village, he is immediately drawn to the mysterious Rachel, who in turn begins to break the rules set out by The Lodgers. The consequences pull Rachel into a deadly confrontation with her brother - and with the curse that haunts them.



The Flower of My Secret

Leo is a middle-aged writer of popular romantic novels who writes under a pseudonym, since she despises her own work. At home, her husband, who works overseas, is distant both physically and emotionally. As she reevaluates her life and writing, Leo is led to an unexpected relationship with Ángel, a sensitive newspaper editor.



Lady Chatterley's Lover

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.



Unfaithful
6.7

Connie is a wife and mother whose 11-year marriage to Edward has lost its sexual spark. When Connie literally runs into handsome book collector Paul, he sweeps her into an all-consuming affair. But Edward soon becomes suspicious and decides to confront the other man.



Ryan's Daughter
7.1

In the wake of the 1916 Easter Rising, a married schoolteacher in a small Irish village has an affair with a troubled British officer.



Young Adam
5.811

A young drifter working on a river barge disrupts his employers' lives while hiding the fact that he knows more about a dead woman found in the river than he admits.



Ordinary Love
6.794

An extraordinary look at the lives of a middle-aged couple in the midst of the wife's breast cancer diagnosis.



Small Things Like These

In 1985, while working as a coal merchant to support his family, Bill Furlong discovers disturbing secrets kept by the local convent and uncovers truths of his own; forcing him to confront his past and the complicit silence of a small Irish town controlled by the Catholic Church.



The Age of Adaline
7.5

After 29-year-old Adaline recovers from a nearly lethal accident, she inexplicably stops growing older. As the years stretch on and on, Adaline keeps her secret to herself until she meets a man who changes her life.



Albert Nobbs
6.354

Albert Nobbs struggles to survive in late 19th century Ireland, where women aren't encouraged to be independent. Posing as a man, so she can work as a butler in Dublin's most posh hotel, Albert meets a handsome painter and looks to escape the lie she has been living.



The Secret of Kells
7.406

Adventure awaits 12 year old Brendan who must fight Vikings and a serpent god to find a crystal and complete the legendary Book of Kells. In order to finish Brother Aiden's book, Brendan must overcome his deepest fears on a secret quest that will take him beyond the abbey walls and into the enchanted forest where dangerous mythical creatures hide. Will Brendan succeed in his quest?



The Nightingale
7.1

In 1825, Clare, a 21-year-old Irish convict, chases a British soldier through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge for a terrible act of violence he committed against her family. She enlists the services of an Aboriginal tracker who is also marked by trauma from his own violence-filled past.



Jude
Jude(1996)
6.3

In late 19th-century England, Jude aspires to be an academic, but is hobbled by his blue-collar background. Instead, he works as a stonemason and is trapped in an unloving marriage to a farmer's daughter named Arabella. But when his wife leaves him, Jude sees an opportunity to improve himself. He moves to the city and begins an affair with his married cousin, Sue, courting tragedy every step of the way.



Ophelia
Ophelia(2019)
7.095

Ophelia comes of age as lady-in-waiting for Queen Gertrude, and her singular spirit captures Hamlet's affections. As lust and betrayal threaten the kingdom, Ophelia finds herself trapped between true love and controlling her own destiny.



Apostle
Apostle(2018)
6.125

In 1905, a man travels to a remote island in search of his missing sister who has been kidnapped by a mysterious religious cult.



The Painted Veil
7.251

A British medical doctor fights a cholera outbreak in a small Chinese village, while also being trapped at home in a loveless marriage to an unfaithful wife.



Agora
Agora(2009)
7

A historical drama set in Roman Egypt, concerning philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria and her relationship with her slave Davus, who is torn between his love for her and the possibility of gaining his freedom by joining the rising tide of Christianity.



Julieta
Julieta(2016)
6.982

The film spans 30 years in Julieta’s life from a nostalgic 1985 where everything seems hopeful, to 2015 where her life appears to be beyond repair and she is on the verge of madness.



Separate Lies
5.76

Following a traffic accident, things take a turn when the victim's identity is revealed.



Diana
Diana(2013)
5.6

During the last two years of her life, Princess Diana campaigns against the use of land mines and has a secret love affair with a Pakistani heart surgeon.



Lady Chatterley's Lover

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.



The Secret of Moonacre

When 13 year old Maria Merryweather's father dies, leaving her orphaned and homeless, she is forced to leave her luxurious London life to go and live with Sir Benjamin, an eccentric uncle she didn't know she had, at the mysterious Moonacre Manor.



The Humbling
5.1

Following a breakdown and suicide attempt, an aging actor becomes involved with a much younger woman but soon finds that it's difficult to keep pace with her.



Cracks
Cracks(2009)
6.6

Jealousy flares after the headmistress of an elite boarding school for girls becomes obsessed with a new student.



Circle of Friends
6.2

Three girlhood friends now at college share first loves, first kisses and first betrayals. At the center of it all is the best-looking boy on campus. Can a self-conscious dreamer hook the biggest fish in the pond?



The Return
6.8

A former alcoholic returns home after ten years in prison for the murder of her husband. As her recollection of the murder returns, things take a different turn.



An Irish Goodbye
6.672

In rural Northern Ireland, following the untimely death of their mother, a young man with Down syndrome and his estranged brother discover her unfulfilled bucket list.



Glorious 39
6

A mysterious tale set around a traditional British family on the eve of World War Two. Oblivious to the looming shadow of World War II, the wealthy Keyes maintain a confident façade in the British countryside until daughter Anne becomes an unexpected pawn. Her accidental discovery of secret recordings creates a rift in the family.



The Banshees of Inisherin

Two lifelong friends find themselves at an impasse when one abruptly ends their relationship, with alarming consequences for both of them.



The English Patient
7.157

In the 1930s, Count Almásy is a Hungarian map maker employed by the Royal Geographical Society to chart the vast expanses of the Sahara Desert along with several other prominent explorers. As World War II unfolds, Almásy enters into a world of love, betrayal, and politics.



Sylvia
Sylvia(2003)
5.727

Story of the relationship between the poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath.



The Nun's Story
7.196

After leaving a wealthy Belgian family to become a nun, Sister Luke struggles with her devotion to her vows during crisis, disappointment, and World War II.



The Secrets We Keep

In post-World War II America, a woman, rebuilding her life in the suburbs with her husband, kidnaps her neighbor and seeks vengeance for the heinous war crimes she believes he committed against her.



Maurice
Maurice(1987)
7.604

After his lover rejects him, Maurice attempts to come to terms with his sexuality within the restrictiveness of Edwardian society.



The Secret Garden
6.336

Mary Lennox is born in India to wealthy British parents who never wanted her. When her parents suddenly die, she is sent back to England to live with her uncle. She meets her sickly cousin, and the two children find a wondrous secret garden lost in the grounds of Misselthwaite Manor.



The Red Thread
6.703

Seven years after their first infatuated encounter, Abril and Manuel meet again. Despite the fact that they are both married, it is soon apparent that their attraction has only grown.



The Notebook
6.493

In a village on the Hungarian border, two young brothers grow up during war time with their cruel grandmother and must learn every trick of evil to survive in the absurd world of adults.



Love in the Time of Cholera

In Colombia just after the Great War, an old man falls from a ladder; dying, he professes great love for his wife. After the funeral, a man calls on the widow - she dismisses him angrily. Flash back more than 50 years to the day Florentino Ariza, a telegraph boy, falls in love with Fermina Daza, the daughter of a mule trader.



The Reader
7.471

The story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a teenager in the late 1950s, had an affair with an older woman, Hanna, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a concentration camp guard late in the war. He alone realizes that Hanna is illiterate and may be concealing that fact at the expense of her freedom.



Secret Window
6.566

Mort Rainey, a writer just emerging from a painful divorce with his ex-wife, is stalked at his remote lake house by a psychotic stranger and would-be scribe who claims Rainey swiped his best story idea. But as Rainey endeavors to prove his innocence, he begins to question his own sanity.



Gabriel's Rapture: Part I

In the fourth instalment of the Gabriel's Inferno series, Professor Gabriel Emerson has embarked on a passionate, yet clandestine affair with his former student Julia Mitchell, but when they return from their romantic holiday in Italy, their happiness is threatened. Will Gabriel succumb to Dante's fate?



Estranged
Estranged(2015)
5.3

Due to a near-fatal accident that has left her incapacitated and depleted of her long-term memory, a temporarily wheelchair-bound woman returns home after being abroad for six years accompanied by her bohemian boyfriend, the apparent cause of the accident. Unable to remember her family or her own childhood, she sets out, with the help of her boyfriend, to find the reason for her leaving all those years ago and quickly discovers her relatives may not be as loving as she’d thought



The Beguiled
5.9

During the Civil War, at a Southern girls’ boarding school, young women take in an injured enemy soldier. As they provide refuge and tend to his wounds, the house is taken over with sexual tension and dangerous rivalries, and taboos are broken in an unexpected turn of events.



Stonehearst Asylum
6.9

An Oxford Medical School graduate takes a position at a mental institution and soon becomes obsessed with a female mental patient, but he has no idea of a recent and horrifying staffing change.



Doctor Zhivago
7.5

The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.



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.



The Eclipse
5.956

Michael is a widower who is struggling to adjust to his new role as the sole caretaker of his two children. Still reeling from the death of his wife, he has been plagued by terrifying apparitions. When he volunteers at a local literary festival, he finds himself drawn to Lena, an empathetic author of supernatural fiction. While Lena tries to help Michael with the mystery of his nightmarish visions, she must contend with problems of her own, as she’s being jealously pursued by self-obsessed novelist Nicholas, her one-time lover. As the festival progresses, the three adults’ lives converge and collide.



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.



Emily
Emily(2022)
6.88

The imagined life of one of the world’s most famous authors, Emily Brontë, as she finds her voice and writes the literary classic Wuthering Heights. Explore the relationships that inspired her – her raw, passionate sisterhood with Charlotte and Anne; her first aching, forbidden love for Weightman and her care for her maverick brother whom she idolises.



The World Unseen
7.077

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



A Dark Song
6.3

A determined young woman and a damaged occultist risk their lives and souls to perform a dangerous ritual that will grant them what they want.



Mulligans
Mulligans(2008)
6.188

When Tyler Davidson brings his college buddy Chase home for the summer holidays a secret is revealed that threatens to tear his perfect family apart.



Notes on a Scandal
7.088

A veteran high school teacher befriends a younger art teacher, who is having an affair with one of her 15-year-old students. However, her intentions with this new "friend" also go well beyond platonic friendship.



Ashes
Ashes(2024)
5.661

From an intoxicating fantasy to a dangerous affair, a wealthy married woman finds her life irreversibly shattered after picking up an unpublished novel.



Love Story
6.8

Harvard Law student Oliver Barrett IV and music student Jennifer Cavilleri share a chemistry they cannot deny - and a love they cannot ignore. Despite their opposite backgrounds, the young couple put their hearts on the line for each other. When they marry, Oliver's wealthy father threatens to disown him. Jenny tries to reconcile the Barrett men, but to no avail.

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