Movies like The Friend (2025)
The best movies like The Friend (2025) are A Dog Year (2009), Paper Man (2009) and A Man Called Otto (2022). If The Friend 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 ratedUmberto D. (1952)7.9/10 from 777 votes
- NewestBob Trevino Likes It (2025)Released 2025
A Dog Year (2009)
Jon Katz is close to burnout. He's a writer with writer's block; his wife has left for her sister's because he's emotionally distant; he rarely answers his phone. A kennel sends him a border collie that's undisciplined because of abuse. Despite a series of mishaps, Jon decides to keep trying with the dog, and he rents a dilapidated farm house to give the dog room to run. A local handyman refers Jon to a woman who might be able to help him train the dog. Reluctantly, Jon gives her a try. Is the dog the problem, or the owner?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPaper Man (2009)
A coming-of-middle-age comedy that chronicles the unlikely friendship between failed author Richard Dunne and a Long Island teen who teaches him a thing or two about growing up, all under the disapproving eye of his long-suffering wife and his imaginary Superhero friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Man Called Otto (2022)
When a lively young family moves in next door, grumpy widower Otto Anderson meets his match in a quick-witted, pregnant woman named Marisol, leading to an unlikely friendship that turns his world upside down.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 thisThe Last Word (2017)
A retired businesswoman – who tries to control everything around her – decides to write her own obituary. A young journalist takes up the task of finding out the truth, and the result is a life-altering friendship.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Station Agent (2003)
When his only friend dies, a man born with dwarfism moves to rural New Jersey to live a life of solitude, only to meet a chatty hot dog vendor and a woman dealing with her own personal loss.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFrances Ha (2013)
An aspiring dancer moves to New York City and becomes caught up in a whirlwind of flighty fair-weather friends, diminishing fortunes and career setbacks.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Long Way Down (2014)
Four lost souls—a disgraced TV presenter, a foul-mouthed teen, an isolated single mother, and a failed musician—decide to end their lives on the same night, New Year's Eve. When this disillusioned quartet of strangers meet unintentionally at the same suicide hotspot, a London high-rise with the well-earned nickname Topper's Tower, they mutually agree to call off their plans for six weeks, forming an unconventional, dysfunctional family. They become media sensations as the Topper House Four and search together for reasons to keep on living.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBob Trevino Likes It (2025)
Lily Trevino unexpectedly befriends an online stranger who shares her self-centered father’s name. This new Bob Trevino’s support could transform her life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPlease Give (2010)
In New York City, a husband and wife butt heads with the granddaughters of the elderly woman who lives in the apartment the couple owns.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSubUrbia (1997)
A group of suburban teenagers try to support each other through the difficult task of becoming adults.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTerms of Endearment (1983)
Aurora, a finicky woman, is in search of true love while her daughter faces marital issues. Together, they help each other deal with problems and find reasons to live a joyful life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisYoung Adult (2011)
A divorced writer from the Midwest returns to her hometown to reconnect with an old flame, who's now married with a family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisExtremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011)
A year after his father's death, Oskar, a troubled young boy, discovers a mysterious key he believes was left for him by his father and embarks on a scavenger hunt to find the matching lock.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Hours (2002)
The story of three women searching for more potent, meaningful lives. Each is alive at a different time and place, all are linked by their yearnings and their fears. Their stories intertwine, and finally come together in a surprising, transcendent moment of shared recognition.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMy Salinger Year (2020)
A college grad takes a clerical job working for the literary agent of the renowned, reclusive writer J.D. Salinger.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWrong (2012)
Dolph Springer wakes up one morning to realize he has lost the love of his life, his dog, Paul. During his quest to get Paul (and his life) back, Dolph radically changes the lives of others -- risking his sanity all the while.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
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 thisFluke (1995)
Workaholic Thomas Johnson dies in an auto accident and reincarnates as a dog. Remembering some of his previous being, he returns to his wife and son to protect them from the man who caused his accident. But, as time goes by, his memories return, and Thomas realizes he wasn't such a good husband and father.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLittle Murders (1971)
A young nihilistic New Yorker copes with pervasive urban violence, obscene phone calls, rusty water pipes, electrical blackouts, paranoia, and ethnic-racial conflict during a typical summer of the 1970s.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
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 & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlack Mountain Side (2016)
A group of archaeologists working in Northern Canada uncover a strange structure dating over ten thousand years before the present. The team soon finds themselves isolated when their communication systems fail and they begin to feel the effects of solitude.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisA Catastrophe in Hester Street (1904)
Two workers leave boxes of explosives with a push cart street vendor while they visit a bar. They return drunk and accidentally drop a box of nitro powder, causing an explosion that wrecks the block and blows off the vendor’s arm. A policeman shows up to the carnage and tries to replace the vendor’s arm with a severed leg.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
The Cohens and Kellys (1926)
Jacob Cohen, who owns a dry goods store, and Patrick Kelly, an Irish cop, are constantly at loggerheads, feuding over anything and everything. Kelly's son, Tim, and Cohen's daughter, Nannie, fall in love despite the bickering of their parents; when they cannot get parental consent for their marriage, they secretly wed.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
Cool Hand Luke (1967)
When petty criminal Luke Jackson is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn't play by the rules of either the sadistic warden or the yard's resident heavy, Dragline, who ends up admiring the new guy's unbreakable will. Luke's bravado, even in the face of repeated stints in the prison's dreaded solitary confinement cell, "the box," make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison officers.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDoctor Zhivago (1965)
The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDo the Right Thing (1989)
Sal is the Italian owner of a pizzeria in Brooklyn. A neighborhood local, Buggin' Out, becomes upset when he sees that the pizzeria's Wall of Fame exhibits only Italian actors. Buggin' Out believes a pizzeria in a black neighborhood should showcase black actors, but Sal disagrees. The wall becomes a symbol of racism and hate to Buggin' Out and to other people in the neighborhood, and tensions rise.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
The classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. British and American intelligence officers conspire to blow up the structure, but Col. Nicholson, the commander who supervised the bridge's construction, has acquired a sense of pride in his creation and tries to foil their plans.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisUmberto D. (1952)
When elderly pensioner Umberto Domenico Ferrari returns to his boarding house from a protest calling for a hike in old-age pensions, his landlady demands her 15,000-lire rent by the end of the month or he and his small dog will be turned out onto the street. Unable to get the money in time, Umberto fakes illness to get sent to a hospital, giving his beloved dog to the landlady's pregnant and abandoned maid for temporary safekeeping.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisDog Day Afternoon (1975)
Based on the true story of would-be Brooklyn bank robbers John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturile. Sonny and Sal attempt a bank heist which quickly turns sour and escalates into a hostage situation and stand-off with the police. As Sonny's motives for the robbery are slowly revealed and things become more complicated, the heist turns into a media circus.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Friend?
The closest matches to The Friend are A Dog Year (2009), Paper Man (2009) and A Man Called Otto (2022). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Friend?
Start with A Dog Year (2009), the closest match to The Friend.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Friend?
Umberto D. (1952), rated 7.9/10 by 777 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Friend?
Bob Trevino Likes It (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Friend?
Yes: A Dog Year (2009), Paper Man (2009) and A Man Called Otto (2022).
How are movies similar to The Friend chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Friend, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.