Movies like The Chef of South Polar (2009)
The best movies like The Chef of South Polar (2009) are Kamome Diner (2006), The Way to the Heart (2024) and Chloe and Theo (2015). If The Chef of South Polar hooked you with its drama and comedy, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedSweet Bean (2015)7.5/10 from 625 votes
- NewestA Dog's Perfect Christmas (2026)Released 2026
- In JapaneseKamome Diner (2006)Also in Japanese
Kamome Diner (2006)
On a quiet street in Helsinki, Sachie has opened a diner featuring rice balls. For a month she has no customers. Then, in short order, she has her first customer, meets Midori, a gangly Japanese tourist, and invites her to stay with her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Way to the Heart (2024)
Ava, an award-winning chef at a big-city restaurant, has lost her spark. Her boss sends her out to find herself to save her menu and her job. She returns home and finds little to inspire her, but when she reunites with her childhood friend Logan, Ava has to get her head out of the clouds and her foot out of her mouth to rediscover her passion for food.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisChloe and Theo (2015)
A young woman, Chloe, living by her wits on the streets of New York City, has a chance meeting with a wise Inuit Eskimo, Theo, who was sent to New York by his elders to provide a message to the people of the world – We either change our destructive was or be destroyed by them. Chloe, who has been searching for something to believe in, becomes inspired by Theo and , with the help of a kind lawyer, Monica, the three of them present Theo’s story to the United Nations in hopes of creating a better future for all of us.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisA Dog's Perfect Christmas (2026)
When a medical emergency pulls the Goss family apart, determined dog Winstead will do all he can to bring his humans back together before Christmas Eve.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHousekeeping (1987)
In the Pacific Northwest during the 1950s, two young sisters whose mother has abandoned them wind up living with their Aunt Sylvie, whose views of the world and its conventions don't quite live up to most people's expectations.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBread of Happiness (2012)
A couple decide to relocate from Tokyo to the northern island of Hokkaido where they settle and establish a bakery and café called Mani. One cooks. The other bakes. Everyone walks out happy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDon't Think Twice (2016)
An improv group deals with several crises, including the loss of their lease and one member hitting the big time.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Hundred-Foot Journey (2014)
A story centered around an Indian family who moves to France and opens a restaurant across the street from a Michelin-starred French restaurant.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSweet Bean (2015)
The master of a dorayaki pastry store hires a 76-year-old woman whose talents attract customers from all over. But she's hiding a troubling secret. Life's joys are found in the little details, and no matter what may be weighing you down, everyone loves a good pastry.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPoor Cow (1967)
Joy lives a life filled with bad choices. At a young age, she marries and has a child–with an abusive thief who quickly ends up incarcerated. Left alone, she takes up with the guy's mate, another thief, who seems to give her some happiness but who also ends up locked up. She then takes up with a series of seedy types who offer nothing but momentary pleasure–if that.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLittle Forest: Winter/Spring (2015)
Ichiko bakes a cake for an end-of-year party with her friends. In the depths of winter, making mochi and curry keeps the people of Komori warm. Later, spring brings thoughts of her absent mother as well as rice planting and sakura, and she begins to think of leaving Komori behind again.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisRepast (1951)
In post-WWII Osaka, a middle-aged woman is forced to examine her dreary life and marriage when her husband's young and flirtatious cousin arrives for a brief stay to escape an arranged marriage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWhere'd You Go, Bernadette (2019)
When architect-turned-recluse Bernadette Fox goes missing prior to a family trip to Antarctica, her 15-year-old daughter, Bee, goes on a quest with Bernadette's husband to find her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLittle Forest: Summer/Autumn (2014)
Fleeing heartbreak in the big city, Ichiko returns to Komori, her rural hometown. She battles summer's rain and humidity, bakes her own bread, grows hothouse tomatoes and tills the fields. During autumn, the time for pickling and preserving fish and sweet potatoes, Ichiko begins reaping rice and recalls her departure five years before.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFoe (2023)
Henrietta and Junior farm a secluded piece of land that has been in Junior's family for generations, but their quiet life is thrown into turmoil when an uninvited stranger shows up at their door with a startling proposal. Will they risk their relationship & personal identity for a chance to survive in a new world?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisA Wrinkle in Time (2003)
Meg and Charles Wallace are aided by Calvin and three interesting women in the search for their father who disappeared during a government experiment. Their travels take them around the universe to a place unlike any other.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWinged Creatures (2009)
A psychotic man opens fire in a diner, murdering numerous people before killing himself. The survivors struggle in different ways following this horrendous event: a doctor doubts his own instincts and elects to use an experimental medical procedure on his wife, while a gambler believes he's on a lucky streak. A waitress begins engaging in promiscuous sex, and a young girl whose father is among the dead gains unexpected fame.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Parts You Lose (2019)
An unlikely friendship unfolds between a young deaf boy, Wesley, and a fugitive criminal who takes refuge in an abandoned barn on the family’s rural North Dakota farm.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Survivalist (2015)
In a time of starvation, a survivalist lives off a small plot of land hidden deep in forest. When two women seeking food and shelter discover his farm, he finds his existence threatened.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Kindness of Strangers (2019)
Clara and her two sons escape from her abusive husband with little more than their car and plan to start over in New York. After the car towed away, the family meets Alice, who gets them into an emergency shelter. While stealing food at a Russian restaurant called ‘Winter Palace’, Clara meets Marc, who has been given the chance to help the old eatery regain its former glory. The ‘Winter Palace’ soon becomes a place of unexpected encounters between people who are all undergoing some sort of crisis and whom fate has now brought together.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWelcome to the Quiet Room (2007)
28 year old freelance writer Sakura Asuka wakes up tied in a white room. The white room is a protected room located in an isolated ward of a psychiatric hospital. Sakura first became unconscious because of heavy alcohol use and a druge overdose. She’s confined in the single room because of her high risk of committing suicide. Sakura tried to talk to the nurses and doctors but they didn’t listen to her. Under the circumstances another patient Miki, who suffers from an eating disorder, leads her to understand the unknown world. But, Sakura is looking for the way to get back to the real world as soon as possible.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
The Roses (2025)
Life seems easy for picture-perfect couple Ivy and Theo: successful careers, a loving marriage, great kids. But beneath the façade of their supposed ideal life, a storm is brewing – as Theo's career nosedives while Ivy's own ambitions take off, a tinderbox of fierce competition and hidden resentment ignites.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Year of the Hare (1977)
Young advertising executive Vatanen suddenly quits his job and his whole life in Helsinki, and decides to spend a while in the Finnish wilderness. A wounded hare hit by a car becomes his travel companion. Together they find reclusion in the Finnish Lapland, soon to be disturbed by a noisy group of foreign tourists and their pretentious Finnish hosts. When the hare gets ill and needs to see a vet, Vatanen must return to the city and finally face the choice between his new and former life
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Preludes to Ecstasy (1961)
Sten Lehtoja, a married, middle-aged businessman, picks up a young hitchhiker, Elsie, while driving to his summer home. Elsie spends the night and becomes his mistress. Later during the summer, Elsie also begins an affair with Reino, the teenage son of a local storekeeper. Sten offers to divorce his wife, and Elsie, attracted by the prospect of a secure social position, agrees to marry him when the divorce becomes final. One night when the couple are in bed, Reino climbs a ladder and attempts to force his way into their room; he falls and breaks his neck, and to avoid scandal Sten hides the body. But the strain of guilt ruins the romance, and Elsie contacts the police, who arrest her lover.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Blonde (2022)
From her volatile childhood as Norma Jeane, through her rise to stardom and romantic entanglements, this reimagined fictional portrait of Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe blurs the lines of fact and fiction to explore the widening split between her public and private selves.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisLocomotive Teacher (2004)
Seigo Yoshioka (Kenji Sakaguchi) is a teacher that became mute after a kendo accident. He feels lost after the accident and eventually decides to teach again on a small island where his mother was born. The children there on the island quickly name him "Kikansha Sensei" (Teacher Locomotive) after learning he is mute. The parents on the island are mostly hostile to Seigo Yoshioka, believing he is incapable of teaching their children. But with Seigo Yoshioka's determination and kindness, a strong bond develops between the students and the mute teacher, which then changes the parents' opinions of Seigo Yoshioka. Suddenly, tragedy then strikes ...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Bihter: A Forbidden Passion (2023)
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.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisRaazi (2018)
An Indian spy is married to a Pakistani military officer during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Other Me (2000)
When Will Browning is threatened with military summer school if he doesn't get better grades, he decides to do a science project that will definitely get an A. So he buys some Ocean Pups, unhatched sea creatures that will look spectacular, but he hasn't bargained for the cloning agent that the unscrupulous manufacturers have put in the kit. Next thing he knows there's another him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Tarnished Angels (1957)
In the 1930s, once-great World War I pilot Roger Shumann performs as a daredevil barnstorming pilot at aerial stunt shows while his wife, LaVerne, works as a parachutist. When newspaper reporter Burke Devlin arrives to do a story on the Shumanns’ act, he quickly falls in love with the beautiful--and neglected--LaVerne.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Chef of South Polar?
The closest matches to The Chef of South Polar are Kamome Diner (2006), The Way to the Heart (2024) and Chloe and Theo (2015). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Chef of South Polar?
Start with Kamome Diner (2006), the closest match to The Chef of South Polar.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Chef of South Polar?
Sweet Bean (2015), rated 7.5/10 by 625 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Chef of South Polar?
A Dog's Perfect Christmas (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Japanese movies like The Chef of South Polar?
Yes: Kamome Diner (2006), Bread of Happiness (2012) and Sweet Bean (2015).
How are movies similar to The Chef of South Polar chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Chef of South Polar, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.