Movies like Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)
The best movies like Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) are Animals (2019), Career Girls (1997) and Crush (2002). If Happy-Go-Lucky hooked you with its comedy and drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedSecrets & Lies (1996)7.6/10 from 758 votes
- NewestMother's Pride (2026)Released 2026
Animals (2019)
Longtime friends and party lovers Laura and Tyler navigate life and love in Dublin, Ireland but find themselves drifting apart when Laura becomes engaged.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisCareer Girls (1997)
A young college student in London moves into a flat and becomes best friends with a flatmate; the former moves into her own flat 4 years later but 6 years after their parting, the former returns to London to pay the latter a visit.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCrush (2002)
Three 40-something women in a small English town meet weekly for a ritual of gin, cigarettes, and sweets -- and swapped stories arguing which of them has the most pathetic love life. Kate is headmistress at the local school; her best friends are the town's police chief and a cynical, thrice-divorced doctor.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisLife Is Sweet (1991)
Just north of London live Wendy, Andy, and their twenty-something twins, Natalie and Nicola. Wendy clerks in a shop, Andy is a cook who forever puts off home remodeling projects, Natalie is a plumber and Nicola is jobless. This film is about how they interact and play out family, conflict and love.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGhost World (2001)
Two quirky, cynical, teenaged girls try to figure out what to do with their lives following high school graduation. After they play a prank on an eccentric, middle-aged record collector, one of them befriends him, which causes a rift in the girls’ friendship.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAnother Year (2010)
During a year, a very content couple approaching retirement are visited by friends and family less happy with their lives.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEnchanted April (1991)
When married British women Rose Arbuthnot and Lottie Wilkins decide to take a break from their respective spouses, they stay at a castle in Italy for a quiet holiday. Joining the ladies is Caroline Dester, a young socialite, and Mrs. Fisher, an older aristocrat. Liberated from their daily routines, the four women ease into life in rural Italy, and each finds herself transformed by the experience.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMoonlight and Valentino (1995)
A young widow still grieving over the death of her husband finds herself being comforted by a local housepainter.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Martins (2001)
Out of work, scrounger Robert Martin lives with his dysfunctional family - long suffering wife accident prone son and pregnant teenage daughter in a shabby house next door to a giant shopping center in the London suburbs. The Martins are the family from hell! Robert dreams if winning a dream holiday for his family, and when he fails to win yet another competition he flips, out tracks down the elderly winners, ties them up in the cellar and steals their tickets!
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
All or Nothing (2002)
Penny works at a supermarket and Phil is a gentle taxi-driver. Penny’s love for Phil has run dry and they lead joyless lives with their two children, Rachel, a cleaner, and Rory, who is unemployed and aggressive.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLocal Hero (1983)
An American oil company sends a man to Scotland to buy up an entire village where they want to build a refinery. But things don't go as expected.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGarage (2007)
Due to a learning disability, Josie's life in a tiny town revolves around a menial job taking care of a garage that could close at any day. Things start to change, however, when David, the son of his boss' girlfriend, comes to work with him. Josie hangs out with David and his teenage friends, bringing them beer, and despite being a grown man himself, finds that the new company lifts his spirits. But his simple-mindedness blinds him to some potential legal dangers.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCalendar Girls (2003)
Members of a Yorkshire branch of the Women's Institute cause controversy when they pose nude for a charity calendar.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOur Ladies (2019)
In 1996 Scotland, a group of Catholic schoolgirls get an opportunity to go into Edinburgh for a choir competition, but they're more interested in drinking, partying and hooking up than winning the competition.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Snapper (1993)
Sharon Curley is a 20-year-old living with her parents and many brothers and sisters in Dublin. When she gets pregnant and refuses to name the father, she becomes the talk of the town.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRita, Sue and Bob Too (1987)
On a run-down Bradford council estate, teenagers Rita and Sue both share a job babysitting for Bob and Michelle's children. On the way home one night, Bob takes Rita and Sue up to a deserted, countryside landscape. Knowing what he has in mind, the girls are only too happy to oblige and both have a sexual encounter with him that becomes a regular occurrence.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Van (1996)
In a working-class quarter of Dublin, 'Bimbo' Reeves gets laid off from his job and, with his redundancy payout, buys a van and sells fish and chips with his buddy, Larry. Due to Ireland's surprising success at the 1990 FIFA World Cup, their business starts off well, but the relationship between the two friends soon becomes strained as Bimbo behaves more like a typical boss.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKeep the Aspidistra Flying (1997)
Gordon Comstock is a copywriter at an ad agency, and his girlfriend Rosemary is a designer. Gordon believes he is a genius, a marvelous poet and quits the ad agency, trying to live on his poems, but poverty soon comes to him.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Educating Rita (1983)
Rita, a witty 26-year-old hairdresser, wants to 'discover' herself, so she joins the Open University where she meets the disillusioned professor of literature, Dr. Frank Bryant. His marriage has failed, his new girlfriend is having an affair with his best friend and he can't get through the day without downing a bottle or two of whisky. What Frank needs is a challenge... and along comes Rita.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMother's Pride (2026)
A comedy about a failing pub, a divided community and a grieving family whose lives are changed by brewing real ale and entering the Great British Beer Awards.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Withnail & I (1987)
Two out-of-work actors -- the anxious, luckless Marwood and his acerbic, alcoholic friend, Withnail -- spend their days drifting between their squalid flat, the unemployment office and the pub. When they take a holiday "by mistake" at the country house of Withnail's flamboyantly gay uncle, Monty, they encounter the unpleasant side of the English countryside: tedium, terrifying locals and torrential rain.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Room for Romeo Brass (2000)
Two twelve-year-old boys, Romeo and Gavin, undergo an extraordinary test of character and friendship when Morell, a naive but eccentric and dangerous stranger, comes between them. Morell befriends with the two boys and later asks them to help him pursue Romeo's beautiful elder sister. He gradually becomes more violent after she rejects him.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMade in Dagenham (2010)
A dramatization of the 1968 strike at the Ford Dagenham car plant, where female workers walked out in protest against sexual discrimination.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNaked (1993)
An unemployed Brit vents his rage on unsuspecting strangers as he embarks on a nocturnal London odyssey.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSecrets & Lies (1996)
After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense, a successful black optometrist, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to Cynthia, a working class white woman.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAny Way the Wind Blows (2003)
Antwerp, early June. On a sweltering Friday, eight people dream of a different life. There is wind and music, police and paranoia, gossip and arguing. There's an ancient virus, a lost Frisbee, a dead horse, and, wandering the city, an enigmatic phenomenon called Windman who feels everyone's pain but can't seem to help himself. In the evening a party awaits them...
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Once Upon a Time in the Midlands (2002)
Though Dek leads a simple and happy life with his girlfriend Shirley and her 12-year-old daughter Marlene, his grand, televised marriage proposal puts his devotion to the test—especially as Marlene's long-absent biological father, Jimmy, looms in the background.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Sense of History (1992)
Jim Broadbent wrote and starred in this short film directed by none other than Mike Leigh. As a member of the landed gentry, the 23rd Earl of Leete has a duty to maintain and expand his lands. Shot in the style and manner of a BBC documentary, Broadbent tells his family history to the crew, who slowly come to realise - as do we - that things are not what they seem.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
The Man with Rain in His Shoes (1998)
Victor Bukowski is an out-of-work actor with problems. He's got a lousy agent, he has a habit of falling out with directors and he's still in love with his ex-girlfriend. However, Victor is about to embark on an unexpected emotional journey which will make him confront his future and his past mistakes.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisMrs. Henderson Presents (2005)
Recently widowed well-to-do Laura Henderson purchases the Windmill Theatre in London as a post-widowhood hobby. After starting an innovative continuous variety review, which is copied by other theaters, they begin to lose money. Mrs Henderson suggests they add risqué burlesque acts similar to the Moulin Rouge in Paris.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Happy-Go-Lucky?
The closest matches to Happy-Go-Lucky are Animals (2019), Career Girls (1997) and Crush (2002). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Happy-Go-Lucky?
People who watched Happy-Go-Lucky most often go on to Animals (2019), Career Girls (1997) and Crush (2002).
What is the highest-rated movie like Happy-Go-Lucky?
Secrets & Lies (1996), rated 7.6/10 by 758 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Happy-Go-Lucky?
Mother's Pride (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Happy-Go-Lucky?
Yes: Animals (2019), Career Girls (1997) and Crush (2002).
How are movies similar to Happy-Go-Lucky chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Happy-Go-Lucky, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.