Movies like The Connection (1959)
The best movies like The Connection (1959) are Vanya on 42nd Street (1994), National Theatre Live: Hamlet (2015) and Hounddog (2008). If The Connection hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedWhat Maisie Knew (2013)7.1/10 from 466 votes
- NewestN/A (2026)Released 2026
Vanya 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 · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNational Theatre Live: Hamlet (2015)
As a country arms itself for war, a family tears itself apart. Forced to avenge his father's death but paralyzed by the task ahead, Hamlet rages against the impossibility of his predicament, threatening both his sanity and the security of the state.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHounddog (2008)
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Human Voice (2020)
A woman watches time pass beside the suitcases of her ex-lover (who is supposed to come pick them up but never arrives) and a restless dog who doesn't understand that his master has abandoned him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTalhotBlond (2012)
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972)
Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Girl in the Book (2015)
The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisHomeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story (2003)
Based on a true story. Liz Murray is a young girl who is taken care of by her loving, but drug-addicted parents. Liz becomes homeless at 15 and after a tragedy comes upon her, she begins her work to finish high school.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHungry Hearts (2015)
The relationship of a couple who meet by chance in New York City is put to the test when they encounter a life or death circumstance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBobby Jones: Stroke of Genius (2004)
The story of golf icon and legend, Bobby Jones, who retired from competition at the tender age of 28.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisBlue Chips (1994)
Pete Bell, a college basketball coach is under a lot of pressure. His team isn't winning and he cannot attract new players. The stars of the future are secretly being paid by boosters. This practice is forbidden in the college game, but Pete is desperate and has pressures from all around.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGirl in the Box (2016)
The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhat Maisie Knew (2013)
In New York City, six-year-old Maisie is caught in the middle of a bitter custody battle between her self-absorbed parents—an aging rock singer mother and a distracted art dealer father. As both quickly marry new partners to strengthen their legal standing, Maisie is shuttled back and forth in an endless game of emotional point-scoring. Yet amid the chaos and upheaval, Maisie begins to find true comfort and affection in her new step-parents.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHome Run (2013)
A pro ball player with a substance abuse problem is forced into rehab in his hometown, finding new hope when he gets honest about his checkered past, and takes on coaching duties for a misfit Little League team
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMadeline's Madeline (2018)
Madeline has become an integral part of a prestigious physical theater troupe. When the workshop's ambitious director pushes the teenager to weave her rich interior world and troubled history with her mother into their collective art, the lines between performance and reality begin to blur. The resulting battle between imagination and appropriation rips out of the rehearsal space and through all three women's lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
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 · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisResurrecting the Champ (2007)
Up-and-coming sports reporter rescues a homeless man ("Champ") only to discover that he is, in fact, a boxing legend believed to have passed away. What begins as an opportunity to resurrect Champ's story and escape the shadow of his father's success becomes a personal journey as the ambitious reporter reexamines his own life and his relationship with his family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Young One (1960)
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMammal (2016)
After Margaret, a divorcée living in Dublin, loses her teenage son, she develops an unorthodox relationship with Joe, a homeless youth. Their tentative trust is threatened by his involvement with a violent gang and the escalation of her ex-husband's grieving rage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996)
A dramatization of the life of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (Don Cheadle), with a lot of factual based occurrences. A reformed junkie returns from prison to clean up his act and devote the rest of his life to the young kids of Harlem. 1996 was the 25th anniversary of the first tournament named after him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHow to Save Asiye (1987)
After receiving a letter from a woman named Asiye asking for help to save her, the President of the Associations Against Prostitution visits the brothel to save Asiye. However, she finds herself in a strange musical show.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
National Theatre Live: Inter Alia (2025)
Jessica Parks is a smart Crown Court Judge at the top of her career. Behind the robe, she is a karaoke fiend, loving wife and a supportive parent. When an event threatens to throw her life completely off balance, can she hold her family upright?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Chuck & Buck (2000)
Chuck and Buck are childhood best friends whose lives have taken very different paths. While Chuck moved away and now has a real life, Buck stayed behind and developed a dangerous fixation—on Chuck's life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLovesong (2026)
The play revolves around a couple, William and Margaret/Billy and Maggie, who are depicted at two key stages in their lives. After forty years of marriage, Maggie is ill and riddled with pain. As they enter the final week of her life, the house becomes full with memories of their marriage and their desperation to conceive a child. Past and present literally intertwine as the older and younger couples move around each other across the stage. Originally a 75 page play, this rendition was cut down to 50 pages to be a part of a greater festival. There were only 10 allotted rehearsals for this piece.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Connection (1962)
Eight drug addicts are waiting for their connection in a New York apartment while a two-man documentary team films the proceedings. Things go out of control as the men grow increasingly nervous and the cameraman keeps recording.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
What Do We Need to Talk About? (2020)
In the midst of our unsettled world, the Apple Family, last seen in 2014, return, though not over the dinner table, but via Zoom. This hour-long play picks up with them during their now suspended and quarantined lives. They talk about grocery shopping, friends lost, new ventures on a hoped-for horizon—all at a time when human conversation (and theater) may be more needed than ever before.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
And So We Come Forth (2020)
The Apple Family reunites to discuss recent events during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Incidental Moments of the Day (2020)
The final installment of "The Apple Family: Life on Zoom" trilogy, featuring Lucy Michael of "The Michaels."
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Yannick (2023)
In the middle of a performance of the play "Le Cocu", a bad boulevard comedy at a Parisian theatre, Yannick gets up and interrupts the show to take the evening back in hand.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisN/A (2026)
Emmy winner Holland Taylor and Broadway's Ana Villafañe star as two U.S. Representatives, generations apart, who couldn't be more different. Inspired by real people and events, the play N/A is a battle of wills and wits between N, the first woman Speaker of the House, and A, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. Filmed from Lincoln Center's Off-Broadway theater in August 2024, N/A is part of Theater Close-Up, a collaboration between THIRTEEN and New York City-area Off-Broadway and regional theaters, shining a primetime spotlight on a diverse mix of innovative theater productions. Go behind closed doors as these two formidable women debate power, ambition, and change. N/A is written by Congressional aide turned playwright Mario Correa and directed by Tony Award-winning director Diane Paulus (“Jagged Little Pill”).
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Connection?
The closest matches to The Connection are Vanya on 42nd Street (1994), National Theatre Live: Hamlet (2015) and Hounddog (2008). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Connection?
Start with Vanya on 42nd Street (1994), the closest match to The Connection.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Connection?
What Maisie Knew (2013), rated 7.1/10 by 466 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Connection?
N/A (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Connection?
Yes: Vanya on 42nd Street (1994), National Theatre Live: Hamlet (2015) and Hounddog (2008).
How are movies similar to The Connection chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Connection, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.