Movies like Forrest Gump (1994)
The best movies like Forrest Gump (1994) are As Good as It Gets (1997), About a Boy (2002) and Great Expectations (1998). If Forrest Gump 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 ratedLove, Rosie (2014)7.8/10 from 6,622 votes
- NewestTurtles All the Way Down (2024)Released 2024
As Good as It Gets (1997)
A misanthropic author, a single mother and waitress, and a gay artist form an unlikely friendship after the artist is assaulted in a robbery.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies 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 thisGreat Expectations (1998)
Loosely based on the Charles Dickens' classic novel, "Great Expectations" is a sensual tale of a young man's unforgettable passage into manhood, and the three individuals who will undeniably change his life forever. Through the surprising interactions of these vivid characters, "Great Expectations" takes a unique and contemporary look at life's great coincidences.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisClaudine (1974)
Claudine is a single mother in New York City who endures an exhausting commute to the suburbs where she works as a maid for wealthy families. In one carefully tended white community, she meets Roop, a charismatic but irresponsible garbage collector. Romance quickly ensues, but Claudine doubts that their relationship is good for her six children, and Rupert, despite his good nature, is reluctant to take on fatherhood.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Bachelors (2017)
After the early death of his wife, a mourning father moves with his teenage son across the country for a private school teaching job. Their lives begin to transform due to two unique women, who help them embrace life and love again
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this200 Cigarettes (1999)
In 1981 New York City, a collection of twentysomethings try to cope with relationships, loneliness, desire and their individual neuroses on New Years Eve.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisJersey Girl (2004)
Ollie Trinke is a young, suave music publicist who seems to have it all, with a new wife and a baby on the way. But life deals him a bum hand when he's suddenly faced with single fatherhood, a defunct career and having to move in with his father. To bounce back, it takes a new love and the courage instilled in him by his daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 thisThe Spectacular Now (2013)
Sutter, a popular party animal, unexpectedly meets the introverted Aimee after waking up on a stranger's lawn. As Sutter deals with the problems in his life and Aimee plans for her future beyond school, an unexpected romance blossoms between them.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJerry Maguire (1996)
Jerry Maguire used to be a typical sports agent: willing to do just about anything he could to get the biggest possible contracts for his clients, plus a nice commission for himself. Then, one day, he suddenly has second thoughts about what he's really doing. When he voices these doubts, he ends up losing his job and all of his clients, save Rod Tidwell, an egomaniacal football player.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAnywhere but Here (1999)
Single mother Adele August is bad with money, and even worse when it comes to making decisions. Her straight-laced daughter, Ann, is a successful high school student with Ivy League aspirations. When Adele decides to pack up and move the two of them from the Midwest to Beverly Hills, Calif., to pursue her dreams of Hollywood success, Ann grows frustrated with her mother's irresponsible and impulsive ways.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChéri (2009)
The son of a courtesan retreats into a fantasy world after being forced to end his relationship with the older woman who educated him in the ways of love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLove, Rosie (2014)
Since the moment they met at age 5, Rosie and Alex have been best friends, facing the highs and lows of growing up side by side. A fleeting shared moment, one missed opportunity, and the decisions that follow send their lives in completely different directions. As each navigates the complexities of life, love, and everything in between, they always find their way back to each other - but is it just friendship, or something more?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Holdovers (2023)
A curmudgeonly instructor at a New England prep school is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually, he forms an unlikely bond with one of them — a damaged, brainy troublemaker — and with the school’s head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Way We Were (1973)
Opposites attract when, during their college days, Katie Morosky, a politically active Jew, meets Hubbell Gardiner, a feckless WASP. Years later, in the wake of World War II, they meet once again and, despite their obvious differences, attempt to make their love for each other work.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Jane Austen Book Club (2007)
Six Californians start a club to discuss the works of Jane Austen. As they delve into Austen's literature, the club members find themselves dealing with life experiences that parallel the themes of the books they are reading.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
Born under unusual circumstances, Benjamin Button springs into being as an elderly man in a New Orleans nursing home and ages in reverse. Twelve years after his birth, he meets Daisy, a child who flits in and out of his life as she grows up to be a dancer. Though he has all sorts of unusual adventures over the course of his life, it is his relationship with Daisy, and the hope that they will come together at the right time, that drives Benjamin forward.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe History of Love (2016)
The story of a long-lost book that mysteriously reappears and connects an old man searching for his son with a girl seeking a cure for her mother's loneliness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTurtles All the Way Down (2024)
17-year-old Aza Holmes tries be a good daughter, a good friend, and a good student, all while navigating an endless barrage of invasive, obsessive thoughts that she cannot control. When she reconnects with Davis, her childhood crush, Aza is confronted with fundamental questions about her potential for love, happiness, friendship, and hope.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAcross the Universe (2007)
When young dockworker Jude leaves Liverpool to find his estranged father in the United States, he is swept up by the waves of change that are re-shaping the nation. Jude falls in love with Lucy, who joins the growing anti-war movement. As the body count in Vietnam rises, political tensions at home spiral out of control and the star-crossed lovers find themselves in a psychedelic world gone mad.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMuriel's Wedding (1994)
Socially awkward Muriel Heslop wants nothing more than to get married. Unfortunately, due to her oppressive politician father, Muriel has never even been on a date. Ostracized by her more socially adept friends, Muriel runs into fellow outcast Rhonda Epinstalk, and the two move from their small Australian town to the big city of Sydney, where Muriel changes her name and begins the arduous task of redesigning her life to match her fantasies.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAntoine and Colette (1962)
Now aged 17, Antoine Doinel works in a factory which makes records. At a music concert, he meets a girl his own age, Colette, and falls in love with her. Later, Antoine goes to extraordinary lengths to please his new girlfriend and her parents, but Colette still only regards him as a casual friend. First segment of “Love at Twenty” (1962).
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both romance & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBed and Board (1970)
Parisian everyman Antoine Doinel has married his sweetheart Christine Darbon, and the newlyweds have set up a cozy domestic life of selling flowers and giving violin lessons while Antoine fitfully works on his long-gestating novel. As Christine becomes pregnant with the couple's first child, Antoine finds himself enraptured with a young Japanese beauty. The complications change the course of their relationship forever.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLove on the Run (1979)
Now in his thirties, Antoine Doinel is a divorced proofreader in love with a record seller. Colette Tazzi, now a lawyer, buys his first published autobiography, leading them to a chance meeting.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both romance & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTo Be or Not to Be (1942)
During the Nazi occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Elementary Particles (2006)
Based on Michel Houellebecq's controversial novel, Atomised (aka The Elementary Particles) focuses on Michael and Bruno, two very different half-brothers and their disturbed sexuality. After a chaotic childhood with a hippie mother only caring for her affairs, Michael, a molecular biologist, is more interested in genes than women, while Bruno is obsessed with his sexual desires, but mostly finds his satisfaction with prostitutes. But Bruno's life changes when he gets to know the experienced Christiane. In the meantime, Michael meets Annabelle, the love of his youth, again.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUnder Your Bed (2019)
Naoto was ignored by other people. During his school days, Chihiro was the first person who called his name. Naoto dreams of seeing her again and tries to find her. Finally, after 11 years, he locates her, but she is a totally different person now. Naoto becomes obsessed with her. Naoto sneaks into her house and stays under her bed.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Jackie Brown (1997)
Jackie Brown is a flight attendant who gets caught in the middle of smuggling cash into the country for her gunrunner boss. When the cops try to use Jackie to get to her boss, she hatches a plan — with help from a bail bondsman — to keep the money for herself.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe State I Am In (2001)
Clara and Hans are left-wing terrorists who have been sought by police for almost fifteen years. Their increasingly rebellious daughter Jeanne begins to pose a threat to their security when she falls in love with a boy she meets on the beach.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Name of the Rose (1986)
14th-century Franciscan monk William of Baskerville and his young novice arrive at a conference to find that several monks have been murdered under mysterious circumstances. To solve the crimes, William must rise up against the Church's authority and fight the shadowy conspiracy of monastery monks using only his intelligence; which is considerable.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Forrest Gump?
The closest matches to Forrest Gump are As Good as It Gets (1997), About a Boy (2002) and Great Expectations (1998). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Forrest Gump?
Start with As Good as It Gets (1997), the closest match to Forrest Gump.
What is the highest-rated movie like Forrest Gump?
Love, Rosie (2014), rated 7.8/10 by 6,622 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Forrest Gump?
Turtles All the Way Down (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Forrest Gump?
Yes: As Good as It Gets (1997), About a Boy (2002) and Great Expectations (1998).
How are movies similar to Forrest Gump chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Forrest Gump, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.