Movies like Spike Island (2012)
The best movies like Spike Island (2012) are Still Crazy (1998), Beats (2019) and California Schemin' (2026). If Spike Island 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 ratedThis Is England (2007)7.5/10 from 1,498 votes
- NewestCalifornia Schemin' (2026)Released 2026
Still Crazy (1998)
In the 1970s, Strange Fruit were it. They lived the rock lifestyle to the max, groupies, drugs, internal tension and an ex front man dead from an overdose. Even their demise was glamorous; when lightning struck the stage during an outdoor festival. Twenty years on, these former rock gods they have now sunk deep into obscurity when the idea of a reunion tour is lodged in the head of Tony, former keyboard player of the Fruits. Tony sets out to find his former bandmates with the help of former manager Karen to see if they can recapture the magic and give themselves a second chance.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBeats (2019)
Summer 1994, Scotland. Johnno and Spanner are best mates, but Johnno’s family are moving him to a new town and a better life, leaving Spanner behind to face a precarious future. In pursuit of adventure and escape they head out on one last night to an illegal rave before parting ways indefinitely.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCalifornia Schemin' (2026)
After being ridiculed for their Scottish accents, two ambitious musicians reinvent themselves as American rappers and fool the British music industry into a lucrative record deal, only for their elaborate lie to unravel under the weight of instant fame.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both music & comedy
London Town (2017)
A 14-year old boy’s life changes forever when his estranged mother introduces him to the music of The Clash in 1979 London.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & music
Fisherman's Friends: One and All (2022)
Following the unexpected success of the band’s debut album “No Hopers, Jokers and Rogues”, we re-join them almost a year later, struggling with the pressures, pitfalls and temptations of their newfound fame, second album syndrome, and performing on the pyramid stage at Glastonbury.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
24 Hour Party People (2002)
Manchester, 1976. Tony Wilson is an ambitious but frustrated local TV news reporter looking for a way to make his mark. After witnessing a life-changing concert by a band known as the Sex Pistols, he persuades his station to televise one of their performances, and soon Manchester's punk groups are clamoring for him to manage them. Riding the wave of a musical revolution, Wilson and his friends create the legendary Factory Records label and The Hacienda club.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStanding on the Shoulders of Kitties (2024)
Bubbles and his band, The Shitrockers, embark on a European rock tour and earn a spot opening for Billy Bob Thornton and the Boxmasters. However, after traveling from Nova Scotia to Prague, they're kicked off the tour and must resort to busking to survive and find a way back home. Ricky and Julian must figure out how to make their dreams come true again — if that’s still possible.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & music
The Commitments (1991)
Jimmy Rabbitte, just a thick-ya out of school, gets a brilliant idea: to put a soul band together in Barrytown, his slum home in north Dublin. First he needs musicians and singers: things slowly start to click when he finds three fine-voiced females virtually in his back yard, a lead singer (Deco) at a wedding, and, responding to his ad, an aging trumpet player, Joey "The Lips" Fagan.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisKevin & Perry Go Large (2000)
When stubborn, spotty Kevin and his equally hopeless best friend Perry go on holiday to the party island Ibiza, they see it as their big chance to become superstar club DJs and, more importantly, to lose their virginities. But they aren't prepared for the interference of top DJ Eyeball Paul, not to mention the embarrassment factor of Kevin's long-suffering parents.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both music & comedy
SnoozefestMovies like thisSunshine on Leith (2013)
Davy and Ally have to re-learn how to live life in Edinburgh after coming home from serving in Afghanistan. Both struggle to learn to live a life outside the army and to deal with the everyday struggles of family, jobs and relationships. Sunshine on Leith is based on the sensational stage hit of the same name, featuring music by pop-folk band The Proclaimers.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both music & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDublin Oldschool (2018)
Join Jason on a chemically enhanced trip through the streets of Dublin as he stumbles from one misguided adventure to another. Somewhere between the DJs, decks, drug busts and hilltop raves, he stumbles across a familiar face from the past, his brother Daniel. Daniel is an educated homeless heroin addict living on the streets of Dublin. The brothers haven’t seen or spoken to each other in years but over a lost weekend they reconnect and reminisce over tunes, trips, their history and their city. Two brothers living on the edge but perhaps they have more in common than they think.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
The Angels' Share (2012)
Robbie is a Glasgow boy locked in a family feud who just wants a way out. On community service, he meets Rhino, Albert and Mo. Little did Robbie imagine that turning to drink might change their lives, leading them to the distilleries of the Scottish Highlands and the biggest gamble of his life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMr. Nice (2010)
Biopic about 1970s Welsh marijuana trafficker Howard Marks, whose inventive smuggling schemes made him a huge success in the drug trade, as well as leading to dealings with both the IRA and British Intelligence. Based on Marks' biography with the same title.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPirates (2021)
On New Year's Eve 1999, three friends, who are attempting to break into the music scene through pirate radio, drive through London in a desperate search for tickets for the best millennium party ever.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Cemetery Junction (2010)
In 1970s England, three blue-collar friends spend their days joking, drinking, fighting and chasing girls. Freddie wants to leave their working-class world but cool, charismatic Bruce and lovable loser Snork are happy with life the way it is. When Freddie gets a new job as a door-to-door salesman and bumps into his old school sweetheart Julie, the gang are forced to make choices that will change their lives for ever.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Boat That Rocked (2009)
When a group of rebellious deejays decides to defy the ban on government-censored music, they take to the seas to broadcast music and mayhem to millions of adoring fans.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLe Donk & Scor-zay-zee (2009)
An improvised comedy, shot over five days by Shane Meadows, devised with and starring Paddy Considine. Rock roadie and failed musician, Le Donk has lived, loved and learned. Along the way he's lost a girlfriend but he has found a new sidekick in up-and-coming rap prodigy Scor-zay-zee. With Meadows' fly-on-the-wall crew in tow, Donk sets out to make Scor-zay-zee a star...
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & music
It's All Gone Pete Tong (2004)
A comedy following the tragic life of the legendary Frankie Wilde. The story takes us through Frankie's life from being one of the best DJs alive, through a subsequent battle with a hearing disorder, culminating in his mysterious disappearance from the scene.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThis Is England (2007)
A story about a troubled boy growing up in England, set in 1983. He comes across a few skinheads on his way home from school, after a fight. They become his new best friends, even like family. Based on experiences of director Shane Meadows.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRiver Road (2021)
A rock musician and a free-spirited woman start an intense relationship which soon spirals into a world of drug addiction and crime.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & music
Metal Lords (2022)
For teenage misfits Hunter and Kevin, the path to glory is clear: Devote themselves to metal. Win Battle of the Bands. And be worshipped like gods.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlinded by the Light (2019)
In 1987, during the austere days of Thatcher’s Britain, a teenager learns to live life, understand his family, and find his own voice through the music of Bruce Springsteen.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThis Is Spinal Tap (1984)
"This Is Spinal Tap" shines a light on the self-contained universe of a metal band struggling to get back on the charts, including everything from its complicated history of ups and downs, gold albums, name changes and undersold concert dates, along with the full host of requisite groupies, promoters, hangers-on and historians, sessions, release events and those special behind-the-scenes moments that keep it all real.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & music
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGood Vibrations (2012)
The story of music legend Terri Hooley, a key figure in Belfast's punk rock scene. Hooley founded the Good Vibrations store from which a record label sprung, representing bands such as The Undertones, Rudi and The Outcasts.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both music & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPurely Belter (2000)
Gerry and Sewell are broke. Gerry's still at school and Sewell is unemployed. They both wish for better things in life. Owning two season tickets to their beloved football club is their biggest dream of all. The tickets cost £1000 - they're £1000 short. But they are nothing if not resourceful, and they set themselves a mission to raise the cash. While they think up increasingly outlandish money making schemes - from selling junk to shoplifting and the odd bit of housebreaking - real life begins to interfere with the pair's final scam going hilariously awry landing them in jail, only to discover that their punishment gets them exactly where they want to be!
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
The Young Offenders (2016)
Two teenage boys from inner-city Cork steal bicycles and ride off on a 160km quest to find an unrecovered bale of cocaine worth 7,000,000 euros.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Festival (2018)
After Nick's girlfriend dumps him, his best mate Shane has the perfect antidote to his break-up blues: three days at an epic music festival.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & music
SnoozefestMovies like thisNorthern Soul (2014)
Set in 1974, an authentic and uplifting tale of two friends whose horizons are opened up by the discovery of black American soul music.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both music & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisSex Lives of the Potato Men (2004)
Two lowlifes with active fantasy sex lives deliver potatoes to various restaurants and grocers.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy
Cherrybomb (2009)
Teenagers Luke, Malachy, and Michelle embark on a wild weekend of drink, drugs, shop-lifting and stealing cars. But what starts out as a game turns deadly serious when the three discover that they can't get off the wild ride they've set in motion.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Spike Island?
The closest matches to Spike Island are Still Crazy (1998), Beats (2019) and California Schemin' (2026). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Spike Island?
People who watched Spike Island most often go on to Still Crazy (1998), Beats (2019) and California Schemin' (2026).
What is the highest-rated movie like Spike Island?
This Is England (2007), rated 7.5/10 by 1,498 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Spike Island?
California Schemin' (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Spike Island?
Yes: Still Crazy (1998), Beats (2019) and California Schemin' (2026).
How are movies similar to Spike Island chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Spike Island, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.