Movies like Pretty Vacant (2020)
The best movies like Pretty Vacant (2020) are The Super (1991), Hardball (2001) and Poor Cow (1967). If Pretty Vacant hooked you, these 20 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Pretty Vacant
Quick picks
- Highest ratedBlue Valentine (2010)7.0/10 from 3,665 votes
- NewestUrchin (2025)Released 2025
The Super (1991)
Louie Kritski is a heartless landlord who has been so negligent in keeping up his ghetto apartment that he is threatened with jail time. The judge gives him another option -- he must live in his rat-infested hell hole until he brings it up to liveable standards.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisHardball (2001)
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies 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
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYour Place or Mine (2023)
When best friends and total opposites Debbie and Peter swap homes for a week, they get a peek into each other's lives that could open the door to love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlue Valentine (2010)
Dean and Cindy live a quiet life in a modest neighborhood. They appear to have the world at their feet at the outset of the relationship. However, his lack of ambition and her retreat into self-absorption cause potentially irreversible cracks in their marriage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGreenberg (2010)
Roger Greenberg, a failed musician now making a living as a carpenter in New York, returns to Los Angeles to house-sit for his brother. He's stranded there—since he doesn't drive—until his brother's assistant, Florence, comes to his rescue. She's as much a lost soul as he is, and the pair form a significant connection—giving Roger a much-needed reason to be happy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisBreezy (1973)
A free-spirited young woman, Breezy, hitches a ride with an aging real estate salesman, Frank. Sensing that she just wants to use him he tries to have nothing to do with her. She's not that easy to shake, however, and over time a bond forms between them.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVanya on 42nd Street (1994)
An uninterrupted rehearsal of Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya' plays out by a company of actors. The setting: their run-down theater with an unusable stage and crumbling ceiling. The play is shown act by act with the briefest of breaks to move props or for refreshments. The lack of costumes, real props and scenery is soon forgotten.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUrchin (2025)
Mike, a rough sleeper in London, is trapped in a cycle of self-destruction as he attempts to turn his life around. Along the way, he encounters unexpected chances for a fresh start.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRiff-Raff (1991)
Stevie, fresh from prison in Scotland, finds a job on a London construction site. Working conditions are poor and most of the men are working under aliases, due to immigration status and to not conflict with unemployment. Some help Stevie secure housing, squatting in a council estate. Then Stevie meets Susan, from Ireland, an aspiring singer.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSuncoast (2024)
While caring for her brother along with her audacious mother, a teenager strikes up an unlikely friendship with an eccentric activist who is protesting one of the most landmark medical cases of all time.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNight Always Comes (2025)
Facing eviction in a city her family can no longer afford, a woman plunges into a desperate and increasingly dangerous all-night search to raise $25,000.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Saint of Fort Washington (1993)
Matthew, a young schizophrenic, finds himself out on the street when a slumlord tears down his apartment building. Soon, he finds himself in even more dire straits, when he is threatened by Little Leroy, a thug who is one of the tough denizens of the Fort Washington Shelter for Men. He reaches out to Jerry, a streetwise combat veteran, who takes Matthew under his wing as a son. The relationship between these two men grows as they attempt to conquer the numbing isolation of homelessness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Lady in the Van (2015)
The true story of the relationship between Alan Bennett and the singular Miss Shepherd, a woman of uncertain origins who ‘temporarily’ parked her van in Bennett’s London driveway and proceeded to live there for 15 years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLa Dolce Villa (2025)
When his daughter decides to buy a crumbling Tuscan villa, Eric rushes to Italy to talk her out of it — and instead finds beauty, romance and new purpose.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFrank and Penelope (2022)
A tale of love and violence when a man on his emotional last legs finds a savior seductively dancing in a run-down strip club. And a life most certainly headed off a cliff suddenly becomes redirected - as everything is now worth dying for.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe More the Merrier (1943)
It's World War II and there is a severe housing shortage everywhere - especially in Washington, D.C. where Connie Milligan rents an apartment. Believing it to be her patriotic duty, Connie offers to sublet half of her apartment, fully expecting a suitable female tenent. What she gets instead is mischievous, middle-aged Benjamin Dingle. Dingle talks her into subletting to him and then promptly sublets half of his half to young, irreverent Joe Carter - creating a situation tailor-made for comedy and romance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNowhere to Run (1993)
Escaped convict Sam Gillen single-handedly takes on ruthless developers who are determined to evict a widow with two young children.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Million Pound Note (1954)
An impoverished American sailor is fortunate enough to be passing the house of two rich gentlemen who have conceived the crazy idea of distributing a note worth one million pounds. The sailor finds that whenever he tries to use the note to buy something, people treat him like a king and let him have whatever he likes for free. Ultimately, the money proves to be more troublesome than it is worth when it almost costs him his dignity and the woman he loves.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAll Together Now (2020)
An optimistic, talented teen clings to a huge secret: she's homeless and living on a school bus. When tragedy strikes, can she learn to accept a helping hand?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Pretty Vacant?
The closest matches to Pretty Vacant are The Super (1991), Hardball (2001) and Poor Cow (1967). Below are 17 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Pretty Vacant?
Start with The Super (1991), the closest match to Pretty Vacant.
What is the highest-rated movie like Pretty Vacant?
Blue Valentine (2010), rated 7.0/10 by 3,665 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Pretty Vacant?
Urchin (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Pretty Vacant?
Yes: The Super (1991), Hardball (2001) and Poor Cow (1967).
How are movies similar to Pretty Vacant chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Pretty Vacant, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.