Movies like Candide or The Optimism in the 20th Century (1960)
The best movies like Candide or The Optimism in the 20th Century (1960) are Family Resemblances (1996), The Nannies (2022) and A Difficult Year (2023). If Candide or The Optimism in the 20th Century hooked you with its comedy, these 20 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedFamily Resemblances (1996)7.4/10 from 333 votes
- NewestSecond Tour (2023)Released 2023
- In FrenchFamily Resemblances (1996)Also in French
Family Resemblances (1996)
An upper middle-class French family celebrates a birthday in a restaurant. In one evening and during one meal, family history, tensions, collective and separate grudges, delights, and memories both clash and coalesce.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Nannies (2022)
Angèle, a thirty-something from Ivory Coast, always cope thanks to the gift of gab and audacity. To escape from a bunch of dangerous criminals, she becomes a nanny in the uptown Paris, hired by Hélène, the single mom of eight years old Arthur. Discovering the work conditions of her colleagues, she decides to stand up for their rights, thanks to a young lawyer who will quickly fall for her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Difficult Year (2023)
Compulsive spenders Albert and Bruno are in debt up to their necks. While seeking help from community workers to get their lives back on track, they run into a group of young green activists. Lured by the free beer and snacks rather than by the ideals of eco-activists, Albert and Bruno find themselves joining the movement without much conviction.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
SnoozefestMovies like thisLe Clan (2023)
Fred, Achille, Max and Belette form a good-for-nothing gang of crooks. Dismally failing their last raid, they decide to get back in the game, kidnapping Sophie Marceau.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhat's in a Name (2012)
Vincent, a wealthy real estate agent, is invited to dinner by his sister Elizabeth and her husband Peter, both professors in Paris. Claude, a childhood friend and trombonist in a symphony orchestra, is also present. Vincent brings news from the prenatal examination of his and his wife Anna's unborn son. The name chosen by the soon-to-be parents strongly offends the others for many reasons. The dispute between the guests quickly escalates and before long the resurgence of old grudges and hidden secrets is unavoidable...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Brats (2013)
Newly engaged, Thomas meets his future father-in-law Gilbert, who has been married for 30 years to Suzanne. Disillusioned Gilbert is convinced that his marriage has meant he's missed out on life. He persuades Thomas not to marry his daughter Lola and encourages him to drop everything else in his life as well. The two men then throw themselves into a new brats' life full of adventure, convinced that freedom is elsewhere. But at what cost do we rediscover our adolescent dreams?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUmbrella Coup (1980)
Grégoire Lecomte, the unlucky actor anxious to find a "real job", goes to take a screen test for a role of a killer, but gets to mafiosi by mistake. He takes their don for a producer, and they mistake him for a hitman with whom they had an appointment. Deluded Lecomte signs contract with them. He is supposed to kill gun dealer Otto Krampe at his birthday party in Saint-Tropez by piercing him with a cap of the umbrella with a built-in syringe with potassium cyanide. Lecomte is not aware that it has to be a real murder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSecond Tour (2023)
A disgraced political journalist placed in the soccer section, Miss Pove is asked to follow the presidential campaign in progress. The front-runner is a fifty-year-old heir to a powerful French family and a political novice. Troubled by this candidate, whom she has known to be less smooth in the past, Miss Pove embarks on an investigation that is as surprising as it is jubilant.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisParis Follies (2014)
Long married 50-somethings Brigitte and Xavier are prize cattle breeders in regional France. Life is good, but the departure of their children from home has thrown Brigitte’s world into flux, as she finds herself locked into routine. She keeps hoping for something else, something more. A party held by students on the adjoining property accelerates this latent crisis and Brigitte impulsively sets off for Paris under the guise of a doctor’s appointment. The city immediately invigorates her, and when she meets a charming Danish gentleman, she impulsively allows herself to be flattered by his attentions…
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
SnoozefestMovies like thisMarche à l'ombre (1984)
Two friends, one a musician the other constantly depressed wander around Greece and France till they get to Paris without a penny to their name. Here they spend nights in the underground, and squat in houses with the African immigrants. One day they both fall in love with Mathilde a blond dancer and follow her to New York.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAfter the Ball (2015)
After the Ball, a retail fairy tale set in the world of fashion. Kate's dream is to design for couturier houses. Although she is a bright new talent, Kate can't get a job. No one trusts the daughter of Lee Kassell, a retail guru who markets clothes "inspired" by the very designers Kate wants to work for. Who wants a spy among the sequins and stilettos? Reluctantly, Kate joins the family business where she must navigate around her duplicitous stepmother and two wicked stepsisters. But with the help of a prince of a guy in the shoe department her godmother's vintage clothes and a shocking switch of identities, Kate exposes the evil trio, saves her father's company -- and proves that everyone can wear a fabulous dress.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHold-up (1985)
Dressed as a clown, the clever rascal Grimm holds up the most secure bank of Montreal and takes 30 hostages. While confusing and ridiculing the police with his strange behavior, he calmly manages to rid the bank of a fortune. But then an unsatisfied companion arouses trouble...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Troubles of Alfred (1972)
Unlucky in love, Alfred tries to commit suicide, only to be thwarted by police efforts to prevent a simultaneous attempt by a nearby young woman. Recovering, the young lady puts him up at her house, as he has run out of places to live. He joins a Parisian sporting team and seems to have transferred his bad luck to a corrupt television boss who is attempting to manipulate the game so that Alfred's Paris team loses.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
SnoozefestMovies like thisBuffet Froid (1979)
Alphonse Tram is unwittingly involved in several murders despite having no memory of committing the crimes. His confusion lead him to confess to his neighbour, Inspector Morvandieu. Alphonse and Morvandieu become the axis around which murders occur.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe French Minister (2013)
Alexandre Taillard de Vorms is a force to be reckoned with. With his silver mane and tanned, athletic body, he stalks the world stage as Minister of Foreign Affairs for France, waging his own war backed up by the holy trinity of diplomatic concepts: legitimacy, lucidity, and efficacy. Enter Arthur Vlaminck. Hired to write the minister's speeches, Arthur must contend with the sensibilities of his boss and the dirty dealings within the Quai d'Orsay, the ministry's home.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Women on the 6th Floor (2011)
Paris, in the early 1960s. Jean-Louis Joubert is a serious but uptight stockbroker, married to Suzanne, a starchy class-conscious woman and father of two arrogant teenage boys, currently in a boarding school. The affluent man lives a steady yet boring life. At least until, due to fortuitous circumstances, Maria, the charming new maid at the service of Jean-Louis' family, makes him discover the servants' quarter on the sixth floor of the luxury building he owns and lives in. There live a crowd of lively Spanish maids who will help Jean-Louis to open to a new civilization and a new approach of life. In their company - and more precisely in the company of beautiful Maria - Jean-Louis will gradually become another man, a better man.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOne Hundred and One Nights (1995)
Monsieur Cinema, a hundred years old, lives alone in a large villa. His memories fade away, so he engages a young woman to tell him stories about all the movies ever made.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIncorrigible (1975)
Victor Vautier is incorrigible: he's in constant motion, working several cons at once, using different names and changing disguises. He's charming and outrageous, incapable of uttering a sentence that isn't embellished or an outright lie. His life goal is to make enough money to build a sea wall to protect Mont-Saint-Michel. Charlotte, a parole officer, shows up: she's young and seems taken in by Victor. He discovers she lives above the Senlus Museum, where her parents are the curators. With two pals he decides to steal a priceless El Greco triptych and then ransom it back to the cultural ministry. What will Charlotte do when she realizes he's used her to make a fortune?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAll That Glitters (2010)
Best friends Ely and Lila share everything together, including their dream of a life beyond the Paris suburb they've lived in since childhood. One night they venture into the capital and meet a pair of wealthy young friends at a night club. Ashamed of their working-class background, and seeing an opportunity to escape, Ely and Lila begin to lie their way into this glamorous new world. Falling deeper into their web of lies, the young women begin to lose sight of themselves as their friendship is pushed to the limit.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDead Tired (1994)
Stressed and overworked, famous French movie star Michel Blanc is beginning to wear down, physically and mentally, from the pressure and demands of fame. Already in a fragile state of mind, strange events start to transpire all around him, and he gradually loses his grip. Taking the advice of a psychiatrist, Blanc retreats to the countryside with his friend Carole Bouquet, but Blanc still has not managed to escape all of his problems.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Candide or The Optimism in the 20th Century?
The closest matches to Candide or The Optimism in the 20th Century are Family Resemblances (1996), The Nannies (2022) and A Difficult Year (2023). Below are 17 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Candide or The Optimism in the 20th Century?
Start with Family Resemblances (1996), the closest match to Candide or The Optimism in the 20th Century.
What is the highest-rated movie like Candide or The Optimism in the 20th Century?
Family Resemblances (1996), rated 7.4/10 by 333 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Candide or The Optimism in the 20th Century?
Second Tour (2023) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like Candide or The Optimism in the 20th Century?
Yes: Family Resemblances (1996), The Nannies (2022) and A Difficult Year (2023).
How are movies similar to Candide or The Optimism in the 20th Century chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Candide or The Optimism in the 20th Century, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.