Movies like Charles, Dead or Alive (1970)
The best movies like Charles, Dead or Alive (1970) are Spy, Stand Up (1982), Eleanor the Great (2025) and Things to Come (2016). If Charles, Dead or Alive hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedDead Poets Society (1989)8.3/10 from 13,172 votes
- NewestAt Work (2026)Released 2026
- In FrenchSpy, Stand Up (1982)Also in French
Spy, Stand Up (1982)
Sebastien Grenier, a former French spy, is working as a financial analyst in Zurich. However, his peaceful existence starts to disintegrate when he is recruited by a top French intelligence operative to discover how one of their own secret agents was found out and executed in broad daylight.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEleanor the Great (2025)
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThings to Come (2016)
Nathalie teaches philosophy at a high school in Paris. She is passionate about her job and particularly enjoys passing on the pleasure of thinking. Married with two children, she divides her time between her family, former students and her very possessive mother. One day, Nathalie’s husband announces he is leaving her for another woman. With freedom thrust upon her, Nathalie must reinvent her life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHurry Sundown (1967)
A ruthless Southern opportunist tries to buy his cousin's land, and when thwarted, brings several tragedies to the lives of his loved ones.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPromises (2022)
Clémence, the fearless mayor of a town near Paris, is completing the final term of her political career. With her faithful right-hand man Yazid, she has long fought for this town plagued by inequality, unemployment and slumlords. However, when Clémence is approached to become Minister, her ambition arises, questioning her devotion and commitment to her citizens. Will her political integrity and election promises survive her newly found ambition?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFather of My Children (2009)
Grégoire Canvel has everything a man could want. A wife he loves, three delightful children, and a stimulating job. He's a film producer. Discovering talented filmmakers and developing films that fit his conception of the cinema-free and true to life-is precisely his reason for living. Yet his prestigious production company, Moon Films, is on its last legs.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRed Soil (2021)
Freshly hired as a labor nurse in a chemical factory, Nour discovers that small arrangements exist between management and her father, Slimane, the staff representative, and the company's pivot. Lies about polluting discharges, hidden illnesses of employees, hidden accidents ... Nour, little by little, no longer accepts the compromises of his father to preserve the image of the company. She decides to launch the alert.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAt Work (2026)
A successful photographer gives up everything to devote himself to writing and discovers poverty.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Passerby (1982)
Max Baumstein is a reputable businessman who founded an international organization fighting against violations of human rights. Why would he commit an act that apparently negates the principles he has striven for so long to uphold? As he is tried for first-degree murder for killing a Paraguayan ambassador in cold blood, he reveals a secret about himself that he kept hidden from his wife Lina. His act is the conclusion of a struggle that started many decades earlier in his childhood...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBetween Two Worlds (2022)
Marianne Winckler relocates to the port city of Caen in order to pass herself off as a member of a large community of itinerant workers desperate to make ends meet. She gains employment as a cleaner on a ferry travelling between Ouistreham and Portsmouth, recording the drudgery of the work she and her colleagues are required to do.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAdults in the Room (2019)
A universal theme: a story of people trapped in an inhuman network of power. The brutal circle of the Eurogroup meetings, who impose on Greece the dictatorship of austerity, where humanity and compassion are utterly disregarded. A claustrophobic trap with no way out, exerting pressures on the protagonists which finally divide them.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChaos (2001)
A bourgeois couple, modern yet conventional. One night by accident, a young prostitute barges into their lives. Hounded down, beaten up, threatened, she will continue to struggle, with the help of a well off lady, first for her survival-her resurrection-then for her dignity and freedom. Stormy encounters for everyone involved.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Dinner with Hervé (2018)
An unlikely friendship evolves over one wild night in LA between a struggling journalist and actor Hervé Villechaize, the world's most famous gun-toting dwarf, resulting in life-changing consequences for both.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDaddy Longlegs (2010)
After months of living a solitary existence, Lenny, 34, picks up his kids from school. Every year he spends a couple of weeks with his sons Sage, 9, and Frey, 7. Lenny hosts his kids within a midtown studio apartment in New York. During these two weeks, he must figure out if he wants to act as their father or be their friend. Ultimately, their trip upstate results in complete lawlessness taking over their lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGigi & Nate (2022)
A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTigertail (2020)
A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSynecdoche, New York (2008)
A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972)
Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Young Karl Marx (2017)
26 year-old Karl Marx embarks with his wife, Jenny, on the road to exile. In 1844 in Paris, he meets Friedrich Engels, an industrialist’s son, who has been investigating the sordid birth of the British working class. Engels, the dandy, provides the last piece of the puzzle to the young Karl Marx’s new vision of the world. Together, between censorship and the police’s repression, riots and political upheavals, they will lead the labor movement during its development into a modern era.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCapital (2012)
The head of a giant European investment bank desperately clings to power when an American hedge fund company tries to buy them out.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAntonia's Line (1995)
After World War II, Antonia and her daughter, Danielle, go back to their Dutch hometown, where Antonia's late mother has bestowed a small farm upon her. There, Antonia settles down and joins a tightly-knit but unusual community. Those around her include quirky friend Crooked Finger, would-be suitor Bas and, eventually for Antonia, a granddaughter and great-granddaughter who help create a strong family of empowered women.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSecrets of a Soul (2012)
Secrets of a Soul: Margarethe, Creator of bizarre sculptures! Night club dancer? Mad woman? Victim of an occult conspiracy?! Dark menaces steal her soul and organs. Though dead they keep her alive...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Man from Earth (2007)
A departing professor gathers his closest colleagues for an intimate farewell, but the night takes an unexpected turn when he shares a stunning secret about his past. As the conversation unfolds, skepticism and curiosity collide, challenging everything they thought they knew about history, science, and belief.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRope (1948)
Two young men attempt to prove they committed the perfect murder by hosting a dinner party for the family of a classmate they just strangled to death.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisVivre Sa Vie (1962)
Twelve episodic tales in the life of a Parisian woman and her slow descent into prostitution.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDead Poets Society (1989)
At an elite, old-fashioned boarding school in New England, a passionate English teacher inspires his students to rebel against convention and seize the potential of every day, courting the disdain of the stern headmaster.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThree Colors: Red (1994)
Part-time model Valentine unexpectedly befriends a retired judge after she runs over his dog. At first, the grumpy man shows no concern about the dog, and Valentine decides to keep it. But the two form a bond when she returns to his house and catches him listening to his neighbors’ phone calls.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisSpring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003)
An isolated lake, where an old monk lives in a small floating temple. The monk has a young boy living with him, learning to become a monk. We watch as seasons and years pass by.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLes petites couleurs (2002)
Swiss drama in the form of a road movie starring Bernadette Lafont. Hairdresser Christelle is harassed daily by her chauvinistic husband until she can no longer stand it and flees. She then meets the strong landlady Mona and learns to see her life from a different perspective.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Charles, Dead or Alive?
The closest matches to Charles, Dead or Alive are Spy, Stand Up (1982), Eleanor the Great (2025) and Things to Come (2016). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Charles, Dead or Alive?
Start with Spy, Stand Up (1982), the closest match to Charles, Dead or Alive.
What is the highest-rated movie like Charles, Dead or Alive?
Dead Poets Society (1989), rated 8.3/10 by 13,172 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Charles, Dead or Alive?
At Work (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like Charles, Dead or Alive?
Yes: Spy, Stand Up (1982), Things to Come (2016) and Promises (2022).
How are movies similar to Charles, Dead or Alive chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Charles, Dead or Alive, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.