Movies like What a Girl Wants (2003)
The best movies like What a Girl Wants (2003) are Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008), Hearts Beat Loud (2018) and LOL (2012). If What a Girl Wants hooked you with its family and comedy, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedAbout Time (2013)7.9/10 from 9,649 votes
- NewestRunt (2024)Released 2024
Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008)
Georgia Nicolson is fourteen, lives with nosey parents who don't understand her, an annoying three year old sister and has to wear a beret to school. She would, however, rather be blonde, have a smaller nose and a boyfriend. Revolving around her hilarious journal entries, prepare to be engulfed in the world of the soaring joys and bottomless angst of being a teenager.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHearts Beat Loud (2018)
In the hip Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook, single dad and record store owner Frank is preparing to send his hard-working daughter Sam off to college while being forced to close his vintage shop. Hoping to stay connected through their shared musical passions, Frank urges Sam to turn their weekly jam sessions into a father-daughter live act. After their first song becomes an internet breakout, the two embark on a journey of love, growing up and musical discovery.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLOL (2012)
In a world connected by YouTube, iTunes, and Facebook, Lola and her friends navigate the peer pressures of high school romance and friendship while dodging their sometimes overbearing and confused parents. When Lola's mom, Anne, "accidentally" reads her teenage daughter's racy journal, she realizes just how wide their communication gap has grown.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAbout a Boy (2002)
Will Freeman is a good-looking, smooth-talking bachelor whose primary goal in life is avoiding any kind of responsibility. But when he invents an imaginary son in order to meet attractive single moms, Will gets a hilarious lesson about life from a bright, but hopelessly geeky 12-year-old named Marcus. Now, as Will struggles to teach Marcus the art of being cool, Marcus teaches Will that you're never too old to grow up.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLaggies (2014)
Overeducated and underemployed, 28 year old Megan is in the throes of a quarterlife crisis. Squarely into adulthood with no career prospects, no particular motivation to think about her future and no one to relate to, Megan is comfortable lagging a few steps behind - while her friends check off milestones and celebrate their new grown-up status. When her high-school sweetheart proposes, Megan panics and- given an unexpected opportunity to escape for a week - hides out in the home of her new friend, 16-year old Annika and Annika's world-weary single dad Craig.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDating Amber (2020)
Eddie and Amber decide to stage a relationship in order to stop everyone speculating about their sexuality. Eddie is keen to follow his dad into the military, while Amber dreams of moving to the liberal hub of London. The plan seems solid, but as their arrangement begins to fall apart, Eddie’s denial gets deeper as Amber realizes that a perilous future awaits her best friend unless she intervenes.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPeace, Love & Misunderstanding (2011)
A conservative lawyer named Diane takes her two teenage children Jake and Zoe to meet their estranged, hippie grandmother in Woodstock after her husband asks for a divorce.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisOther People's Money (1991)
When a corporate raider threatens a hostile takeover of a 'mom and pop' company, the patriarch of the company enlists the help of his wife's attractive daughter—who is a lawyer—to stop the takeover. However, the raider soon becomes infatuated with her, and enjoys the legal manoeuvring as he tries to win her heart.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSliding Doors (1998)
Helen, a London ad executive, is fired from her job and rushes out to catch a train, but, as she runs down, her life suddenly splits off. In one version she catches the train; in the second, she misses it. Her whole life changes in that one second, and the rest of the film depicts what happens in each scenario.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
After discovering his high school crush can't date until her brash older sister does, a lovesick teen enlists a bad-boy classmate to woo her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSave the Last Dance (2001)
After the death of her mother, Sara moves to the South Side of Chicago to live with her father and gets transferred to a majority-black school. Her life takes a turn for the better when befriends Chenille and her brother Derek, who helps her with her dancing skills.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDivine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002)
In a sleepy Louisiana parish, a group of lifelong friends stage a rather unorthodox intervention to help a young playwright unravel the truth about her complicated mother and let go of her painful past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLast Chance Harvey (2008)
In London for his daughter's wedding, a struggling jingle-writer, Harvey Shine, misses his plane to New York, and thus loses his job. While drowning his sorrows in the airport pub, Harvey meets Kate, a British government worker stuck in an endless cycle of work, phone calls from her mother, and blind dates. A connection forms between the unhappy pair, who soon find themselves falling in love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDefinitely, Maybe (2008)
When Will decides to tell his daughter the story of how he met her mother, he discovers that a second look at the past might also give him a second chance at the future.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEasy Virtue (2008)
A young Englishman marries a glamorous American. When he brings her home to meet the parents, she arrives like a blast from the future - blowing their entrenched British stuffiness out the window.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAbout Time (2013)
The night after another unsatisfactory New Year's party, Tim's father reveals to him that the men in their family have the ability to travel through time. They can't change history, but they can change what happens and has happened in their own lives. Thus begins the start of a lesson in learning to appreciate life itself as it is, as it comes, and most importantly, the people living alongside us.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisNothing in Common (1986)
A successful advertising executive finds his freewheeling life crashing to a halt when his parents end their longtime marriage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
SnoozefestMovies like thisEndless Love (2014)
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.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOnly the Lonely (1991)
Danny Muldoon, a Chicago policeman, still lives with his overbearing mother Rose. He meets and falls in love with Theresa Luna, whose father owns the local funeral parlour. Naturally, his mother objects to the relationship, and Danny and Theresa must either overcome her objections or give up the romance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRemember Me (2010)
Still reeling from a heartbreaking family event and his parents' subsequent divorce, Tyler Hawkins discovers a fresh lease on life when he meets Ally Craig, a gregarious beauty who witnessed her mother's death. But as the couple draws closer, the fallout from their separate tragedies jeopardizes their love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRunt (2024)
In the Australian town of Upson Downs, ten-year-old Annie and Runt, her stray dog, attempt to win the Agility Course Championship at the Krumpets Dog Show in London in order to save their family's farm from drought and misery.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both family & comedy
The Extremists' Opera (2016)
The semi-biographical The Extremists' Opera follows the everyday and inner struggles of a women-only alternative theater group delivering explosive and politically controversial explosive stage performances under the control of tough mannered director Naoko.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both romance & drama
The Beautiful Woman Without Mercy (1921)
"Taking its title from John Keats’s early 19th-century poem, this highly personal melodrama finds Dulac interrogating the archetype of the femme fatale. La belle dame sans merci follows a famous actress who was once seduced and abandoned by a rich man and subsequently resolved to become a “merciless woman,” forever scheming to hurt others (men in particular) in a ruthless yet captivating manner. Dulac challenges the Romantic archetype embodied in Keats’s poem by way of symbolist mise en scène, self-reflexive narration, and her typically associative approach to editing, locating a modern ambiguity within the stereotypical figures of 19th-century art." - Film Society of Lincoln Center
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Little Voice (1998)
After the death of her father, Little Voice or LV becomes a virtual recluse, never going out and hardly ever saying a word. She just sits in her bedroom listening to her father's collection of old records of Shirley Bassey, Marilyn Monroe and various other famous female singers. But at night time, LV sings, imitating these great singers with surprising accuracy. One night she is overheard by one of her mother's boyfriends, who happens to be a talent agent. He manages to convince her that her talent is special and arranges for her to perform at the local night club, but several problems arise.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAm I Beautiful? (1998)
Between Munich and Seville, the destinies of sixteen characters intertwine and intersect, missing each other or colliding head-on. They are all, without knowing it, at a pivotal moment in their lives...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Summertime (2015)
In 1971, a young woman moves from the French countryside to Paris and begins a passionate love affair with a feminist leader.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAnnalyn (2012)
Agnes is not satisfied with her life. She wants a change, but her relationship with her single parent father and dominant girlfriend inhibit her to do something about it. When the father introduces his new wife, Annalyn, everything changes. The same-aged Filipino stepmother helps Agnes see a new path. Soon emerges something that no one could have foreseen.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Another Word and I'll Mary You! (2007)
Katrin is a single mother of twins. When they find out that they owe their existence to a sperm donation, they persuade their mother to find their biological father.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both romance & comedy
Eagle vs Shark (2007)
Love blossoms for Lily over double Meaty Boy burgers at mid-day when uber-computer nerd Jarrod comes in and leaves with free extra large fries. After gatecrashing Jarrod's party and proving her skills on the game console, Lily goes down to Jarrod's home town with him so he can settle an old score with a past school bully.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDrillbit Taylor (2008)
Dealing with a sociopathic school bully, three high school freshmen hire a low-budget bodyguard to protect them, not realizing he is just a homeless beggar and petty thief looking for some easy cash.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like What a Girl Wants?
The closest matches to What a Girl Wants are Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008), Hearts Beat Loud (2018) and LOL (2012). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after What a Girl Wants?
Start with Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008), the closest match to What a Girl Wants.
What is the highest-rated movie like What a Girl Wants?
About Time (2013), rated 7.9/10 by 9,649 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like What a Girl Wants?
Runt (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like What a Girl Wants?
Yes: Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008), Hearts Beat Loud (2018) and LOL (2012).
How are movies similar to What a Girl Wants chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside What a Girl Wants, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.