Movies like Why 55? (1979)
The best movies like Why 55? (1979) are Grand Prix (1966), Le Mans (1971) and Fate Is the Hunter (1964). If Why 55? hooked you, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Why 55?
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe World's Fastest Indian (2005)7.7/10 from 944 votes
- NewestA Date with Death (2026)Released 2026
Grand Prix (1966)
The most daring drivers in the world have gathered to compete for the 1966 Formula One championship. After a spectacular wreck in the first of a series of races, American wheelman Pete Aron is dropped by his sponsor. Refusing to quit, he joins a Japanese racing team. While juggling his career with a torrid love affair involving an ex-teammate's wife, Pete must also contend with Jean-Pierre Sarti, a French contestant who has previously won two world titles.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLe Mans (1971)
Filmed during the annual 24-hour endurance race at Le Mans, Michael Delaney is a Porsche driver haunted by the memory of an accident at the previous year's race in which a competing driver was killed. Delaney also finds himself increasingly infatuated with the man's widow.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFate Is the Hunter (1964)
An airline executive refuses to believe that pilot error, by his friend, caused a fatal crash and persists in looking for another reason.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOn the Basis of Sex (2018)
Young lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg teams with her husband Marty to bring a groundbreaking case before the U.S. Court of Appeals and overturn a century of sex discrimination.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIf These Walls Could Talk (1996)
A powerful, intimate portrait of three women living in the same house during different eras who all face unplanned pregnancies. The vignettes follow a recently widowed nurse struggling to take control of her life in the early 50s, a mother of four balancing raising a family and maintaining a career in the 70s, and a student making a difficult decision with the help of one woman that will change the course of both their lives in the 90s.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Sweet Hereafter (1997)
A small mountain community in Canada is devastated when a school bus accident leaves more than a dozen of its children dead. A big-city lawyer arrives to help the survivors' and victims' families prepare a class-action suit, but his efforts only seem to push the townspeople further apart. At the same time, one teenage survivor of the accident has to reckon with the loss of innocence brought about by a different kind of damage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe World's Fastest Indian (2005)
The life story of New Zealander Burt Munro, who spent years building a 1920 Indian motorcycle—a bike which helped him set the land-speed world record at Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats in 1967.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMiracle (2004)
When college coach Herb Brooks is hired to helm the 1980 U.S. men's Olympic hockey team, he brings a unique and brash style to the ice. After assembling a team of hot-headed college all-stars, who are humiliated in an early match, Brooks unites his squad against a common foe: the heavily-favored Soviet team.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSorcerer (1977)
Four men from different countries flee to an impoverished South American village, Povernir, to hide from their pasts. When an oil well explodes, chaos and barbarism roam the streets. Desperate to leave, they agree to risk their lives to transport several crates of nitroglycerin across treacherous jungle terrain.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDriving Miss Daisy (1989)
The story of an old Jewish widow named Daisy Werthan and her relationship with her black chauffeur, Hoke. From an initial mere work relationship grew in 25 years a strong friendship between the two very different characters, in a time when those types of relationships were shunned.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSpeed Racer (2008)
Speed Racer is a young and brilliant racing driver. When corruption in the racing leagues costs his brother his life, Speed must team up with the police and the mysterious Racer X to bring an end to the corruption and criminal activities.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWe Are Marshall (2006)
When a plane crash claims the lives of members of the Marshall University football team and some of its fans, the team's new coach and his surviving players try to keep the football program alive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Finest Hours (2016)
The Coast Guard makes a daring rescue attempt off the coast of Cape Cod after a pair of oil tankers are destroyed during a blizzard in 1952.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Mercy (2018)
In 1968, Donald Crowhurst, an amateur sailor, endangers the fate of his family and business, and his own life, blinded by his ambition to compete in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, attempting to become the first person in history to single-handedly circumnavigate the world without making any stopover.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Mighty Ducks (1992)
After reckless young lawyer Gordon Bombay gets arrested for drunk driving, he must coach a kids hockey team for his community service. Gordon has experience on the ice, but isn't eager to return to hockey, a point hit home by his tense dealings with his own former coach, Jack Reilly. The reluctant Gordon eventually grows to appreciate his team, which includes promising young Charlie Conway, and leads them to take on Reilly's tough players.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Majestic (2001)
Set in 1951, a blacklisted Hollywood writer gets into a car accident, loses his memory and settles down in a small town where he is mistaken for a long-lost son.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLife of Pi (2012)
The story of an Indian boy named Pi, a zookeeper's son who finds himself in the company of a hyena, zebra, orangutan, and a Bengal tiger after a shipwreck sets them adrift in the Pacific Ocean.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisChernobyl: The Lost Tapes (2022)
Thirty-six years after the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded in Soviet Ukraine, newly uncovered archival footage and recorded interviews with those who were present paint an emotional and gripping portrait of the extent and gravity of the disaster and the lengths to which the Soviet government went to cover up the incident, including the soldiers sent in to “liquidate” the damage. Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes is the full, unvarnished true story of what happened in one of the least understood tragedies of the twentieth century.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCastello Cavalcanti (2013)
In 1955 in Italy, race car driver Jed Cavalcanti suffers a mishap during the Molte Miglia rally and finds himself in a small town with a few familial surprises.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Sandlot (1993)
During a summer of friendship and adventure, one boy becomes a part of the gang, nine boys become a team and their leader becomes a legend by confronting the terrifying mystery beyond the right field wall.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNuovo Olimpo (2023)
In 1970s Rome, a casual encounter between Enea and Pietro at a movie theater turns into an unforgettable romance — until destiny pulls them apart.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Playful One (1970)
An active building contractor hires a failed private detective, Pantelis. His mission is to sabotage her competitor, Bastounas, who is planning to build a hotel complex. When Bastounas forgets the suitcase with the money for the purchase of the land on which the hotel will be built, Pantelis will do everything he can to delay his secretary, who is responsible for delivering the money to him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Where the Truth Lies (2005)
An ambitious reporter probes the reasons behind the sudden split of a 1950s comedy team.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Girl (TBA)
Revisit one of Hollywood’s most notorious scandals through the eyes of the person most misrepresented by it. In 1977 California, 13-year-old Samantha is navigating adolescence and dreams of becoming an actress when she is drawn into the orbit of celebrated filmmaker Roman Polanski. What follows alters her life forever. As the case erupts across headlines, Samantha and her mother are thrust into a relentless media storm — she’s hounded by paparazzi and stripped of privacy at the moment where she most needs protection. Together, mother and daughter must fight to reclaim Samantha’s voice and preserve what remains of her childhood.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Butchers (TBA)
Against the backdrop of the 1970s meat ban in Uruguay, José, a Galician immigrant, and his daughter Rosita establish a clandestine slaughterhouse to survive. As the operation expands into a citywide black market, their ambitions collide with corrupt authorities, rival butchers and the shifting political landscape, pushing the family toward dangerous alliances and violent consequences.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Patch Adams (1998)
The true story of Dr. Hunter "Patch" Adams, who in the 1970s found that humor is the best medicine, and was willing to do just anything to make his patients laugh—even if it meant risking his own career.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Rocker (2008)
In the 1980s, a drummer is abandoned by his band just before they become rock superstars. Twenty years later, the drummer sees his second chance at stardom arise when he is asked to perform with his teenage nephew's high school rock band.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSummer of Sam (1999)
Spike Lee's take on the "Son of Sam" murders in New York City during the summer of 1977 centering on the residents of an Italian-American Northeast Bronx neighborhood who live in fear and distrust of one another.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPalm Trees in the Snow (2015)
Spain, 2003. An accidental discovery leads Clarence to travel from the snowy mountains of Huesca to Equatorial Guinea, to visit the land where her father Jacobo and her uncle Kilian spent most of their youth, the island of Fernando Poo.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Date with Death (2026)
Mori Bund is in over her head when she is selected as a contestant on a game show with a deadly twist
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Like Why 55? and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Why 55??
The closest matches to Why 55? are Grand Prix (1966), Le Mans (1971) and Fate Is the Hunter (1964). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Why 55??
Start with Grand Prix (1966), the closest match to Why 55?.
What is the highest-rated movie like Why 55??
The World's Fastest Indian (2005), rated 7.7/10 by 944 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Why 55??
A Date with Death (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Why 55??
Yes: Grand Prix (1966), Le Mans (1971) and Fate Is the Hunter (1964).
How are movies similar to Why 55? chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Why 55?, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.