Movies like Brains (2025)
The best movies like Brains (2025) are What They Had (2018), Don't Make Me Go (2022) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). If Brains hooked you, these 20 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedEternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)8.1/10 from 16,967 votes
- NewestGoodbye June (2025)Released 2025
- In FrenchPetite Maman (2021)Also in French
What They Had (2018)
A woman must fly back to her hometown when her Alzheimer's-stricken mother wanders into a blizzard. The return home forces her to confront her past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDon't Make Me Go (2022)
A terminally ill man and his teenage daughter embark on a road trip from California to New Orleans for his 20th college reunion. While there, he secretly hopes she can reunite with the mother who left them long ago.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Joel Barish, heartbroken that his girlfriend underwent a procedure to erase him from her memory, decides to do the same. However, as he watches his memories of her fade away, he realises that he still loves her, and may be too late to correct his mistake.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisOtherhood (2019)
Feeling forgotten on Mother's Day, three best friends leave the suburbs and drive to New York City to surprise their adult sons.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Mom Jayne (2025)
Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Absolute CinemaMovies 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 thisWasp (2003)
Zoë is a single mother who lives with her four children in Dartford. She is poor and can't afford to buy food. One day her old flame drives by and asks her to go on a date with him. Scared that he doesn't want to go out with her, she lies and tells him that she is just babysitting the kids. This will be her first date in years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBlackbird (2019)
A terminally ill mother invites her family to their country house for one final gathering, but tensions quickly boil over between her two daughters.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAftersun (2022)
Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories fill the gaps between camcorder footages as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the troubled man she didn't.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPetite Maman (2021)
After the death of her beloved grandmother, eight-year-old Nelly meets a strangely familiar girl her own age in the woods. Instantly forming a connection with this mysterious new friend, Nelly embarks on a fantastical journey of discovery which helps her come to terms with this newfound loss.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOne Fine Morning (2022)
With a father suffering from neurodegenerative disease, a young woman lives with her eight-year-old daughter. While struggling to secure a decent nursing home, she runs into an unavailable friend with whom she embarks on an affair.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds (2016)
An intimate portrait of Hollywood royalty featuring Debbie Reynolds, Todd Fisher, and Carrie Fisher.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStill Alice (2014)
Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children, is a renowned linguistics professor who starts to forget words. When she receives a devastating diagnosis, Alice and her family find their bonds tested.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAngel Face (2018)
8-year-old Elli and her mother, Marlène, live in a small town by the French Riviera where they act out to relieve boredom and hide from social services. When Marlène caves in to yet another night of excess, she chooses to leave Elli behind for a man she just met. The young child must confront her mother's demons in order to get her back.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Road Within (2014)
A young man with Tourette's Syndrome embarks on a road trip with his recently-deceased mother's ashes.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPieces of April (2003)
Quirky and rebellious April Burns lives with her boyfriend in a low-rent New York City apartment miles away from her emotionally distant family. But when she discovers that her mother has a fatal form of breast cancer, she invites the clan to her place for Thanksgiving. While her father struggles to drive her family into the city, April -- an inexperienced cook -- runs into kitchen trouble and must ask a neighbor for help.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Photograph (2020)
When famed photographer Christina Eames dies unexpectedly, she leaves her estranged daughter, Mae, hurt, angry and full of questions. When Mae finds a photograph tucked away in a safe-deposit box, she soon finds herself delving into her mother's early life -- an investigation that leads to an unexpected romance with a rising journalist.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGoodbye June (2025)
Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPalm Trees and Power Lines (2023)
Seventeen-year-old Lea spends her summer break tanning in her backyard, and drifting between tiptoeing around her needy mother, and aimlessly trailing her best friend and boys from school. This monotony is interrupted by a chance encounter with Tom, a seductive man twice her age who promises an alternative to Lea's unsatisfying adolescent life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSleep, My Love (1948)
A woman wakes up in the middle of the night on board a train, but she can't remember how she got there. Danger and suspense ensue.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Brains?
The closest matches to Brains are What They Had (2018), Don't Make Me Go (2022) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). Below are 17 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Brains?
Start with What They Had (2018), the closest match to Brains.
What is the highest-rated movie like Brains?
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), rated 8.1/10 by 16,967 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Brains?
Goodbye June (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like Brains?
Yes: Petite Maman (2021), One Fine Morning (2022) and Angel Face (2018).
How are movies similar to Brains chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Brains, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.