Movies like National Theatre Live: The Fifth Step (2025)
The best movies like National Theatre Live: The Fifth Step (2025) are Driving Lessons (2006), Postcards from the Edge (1990) and T2 Trainspotting (2017). If National Theatre Live: The Fifth Step hooked you with its drama and comedy, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedTrainspotting (1996)8.0/10 from 10,834 votes
- Newest[BLANK] (2025)Released 2025
Driving Lessons (2006)
A shy teenage boy trying to escape the influence of his domineering mother, has his world changed when he begins to work for a retired actress.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPostcards from the Edge (1990)
A substance-addicted actress tries to look on the bright side even as she's forced to move back in with her mother to avoid unemployment.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisT2 Trainspotting (2017)
After 20 years abroad, Mark Renton returns to Scotland and reunites with his old friends Sick Boy, Spud and Begbie.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Ruling Class (1972)
When the Earl of Gurney dies in a cross-dressing accident, his schizophrenic son, Jack, inherits the Gurney estate. Jack is not the average nobleman; he sings and dances across the estate and thinks he is Jesus reincarnated. Believing that Jack is mentally unfit to own the estate, the Gurney family plots to steal Jack's inheritance. As their outrageous schemes fail, the family strives to cure Jack of his bizarre behavior, with disastrous results.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Used to Be Funny (2024)
Sam, an aspiring stand-up comedian and au pair struggling with PTSD, weighs whether to join the search for Brooke, a missing teenage girl she used to nanny. As she fights to recover from her trauma and return to the stage, memories of her deep bond with Brooke rush back—making it impossible to ignore her disappearance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMatch (2014)
A Seattle couple travel to New York to interview colorful former dancer Tobi for research on a dissertation about dance. But soon, common niceties and social graces erode when the questions turn personal and the true nature of the interview is called into question.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisJuniper (2021)
When a self-destructive teenager is suspended from school and asked to look after his feisty alcoholic grandmother as a punishment, the crazy time they spend together turns his life around.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNational Theatre Live: Fleabag (2019)
Fleabag may seem oversexed, emotionally unfiltered and self-obsessed, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. With family and friendships under strain and a guinea pig café struggling to keep afloat, Fleabag suddenly finds herself with nothing to lose.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOur Ladies (2019)
In 1996 Scotland, a group of Catholic schoolgirls get an opportunity to go into Edinburgh for a choir competition, but they're more interested in drinking, partying and hooking up than winning the competition.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStuart: A Life Backwards (2007)
Story about the remarkable friendship between a reclusive writer and illustrator and a chaotic homeless man, whom he gets to know during a campaign to release two charity workers from prison.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTrainspotting (1996)
Heroin addict Mark Renton stumbles through bad ideas and sobriety attempts with his unreliable friends --Sick Boy, Begbie, Spud and Tommy. He also has an underage girlfriend, Diane, along for the ride. After cleaning up and moving from Edinburgh to London, Mark finds he can't escape the life he left behind as Begbie and Sick Boy come knocking.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisMay December (2023)
Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, a married couple buckles under the pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about their past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Outrun (2024)
Fresh out of rehab, Rona returns to the Orkney Islands—a place both wild and beautiful, right off the Scottish coast. Now 29 and after more than a decade of living life on the edge in London, where she both found and lost love, Rona attempts to come to terms with her troubled past. As she reconnects with the dramatic landscape where she grew up, memories of her traumatic childhood merge with more recent challenging events that have set her on the path to recovery.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHoney Boy (2019)
The story of a child star attempting to mend his relationship with his law-breaking, alcohol-abusing father over the course of a decade, loosely based on Shia LaBeouf’s life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisJohn Mulaney: Baby J (2023)
A chaotic intervention. An action-packed stay in rehab. After a weird couple of years, John Mulaney comes out swinging in his return to the stage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Country Girl (1954)
An actor on the skids is given one more chance to regain his stardom, as well as his self-respect, yet his alcoholism may prevent that from happening.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Dresser (1983)
In a touring Shakespearean theater group, a backstage hand - the dresser - is devoted to the brilliant but tyrannical head of the company. He struggles to support the deteriorating star as the company struggles to carry on during the London Blitz. The pathos of his backstage efforts rival the pathos in the story of Lear and the Fool that is being presented on-stage, as the situation comes to a crisis.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRequiem for a Dream (2000)
The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisMaps to the Stars (2014)
Driven by an intense need for fame and validation, members of a dysfunctional Hollywood family chase celebrity, one another, and the relentless ghosts of their pasts. Their fragile ecosystem is disrupted by the arrival of Agatha, the scarred and estranged pyromaniac daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEverAfter (1998)
Danielle, a vibrant young woman, was forced into servitude after the death of her father when she was a young girl. Danielle's stepmother, Rodmilla, is a heartless woman who forces Danielle to do the cooking and cleaning, while she tries to marry off the eldest of her two daughters to the prince. But Danielle's life takes a wonderful turn when, under the guise of a visiting royal, she meets the charming Prince Henry.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFreeway (1996)
Following the arrest of her mother, Ramona, young Vanessa Lutz decides to go in search of her estranged grandmother. On the way, she is given a ride by school counselor Bob Wolverton. During the journey, Lutz begins to realize that Bob is the notorious I-5 Killer and manages to escape by shooting him several times. Wounded but still very much alive, Bob pursues Lutz across the state in this modern retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCats (1998)
"Jellicle" cats join for a Jellicle ball where they rejoice with their leader, Old Deuteronomy. One cat will be chosen to go to the "Heavyside Layer" and be reborn.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisShakes the Clown (1991)
Shakes plods about his duties as party clown, and uses all of his free time getting seriously drunk. Binky, another clown, wins the spot on a local kiddie show, which depresses Shakes even more, and his boss threatens him with unemployment if he can't get his act under control.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like this[BLANK] (2025)
AYT Senior present a complete performance of Alice Birch's [BLANK]
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & comedy
Awake and Sing! (1972)
The Bergers, a blue-collar Jewish family living in an overstuffed tenement and undone by the Depression, struggle through hard times and dream of a better future in this 1972 production of Clifford Odets' pungent play. Personalities and politics clash as Odets' mélange of characters try to survive on pennies a day. Walter Matthau plays cynical World War I amputee Moe Axelrod, and Leo Fuchs portrays the family's iron-willed leftist grandfather.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Strange Circus (2005)
The erotic novelist Taeko is writing a morbid story of a family destroyed by incest, murder and abuse. Her assistant, Yuji, sets on a mission to uncover the reality of this story, but the reality might be too much to bear.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBounce (2000)
Buddy Amaral, a successful and self-absorbed Los Angeles advertising executive, switches airline tickets with a stranger just before boarding a long-delayed flight so that he might enjoy an overnight fling with a pretty Dallas businesswoman. When the plane goes down, killing all aboard, Buddy's guilt soon turns into an alcohol problem. As part of his 12-step program, Buddy seeks atonement and decides to seek out the woman he thinks he's left a widow.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisMysterious Skin (2005)
A teenage hustler and a young man obsessed with alien abductions cross paths, together discovering a horrible, liberating truth.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDevdas (1935)
Devdas, the son of a zamindar, and Parvati, his neighbour's daughter, are childhood sweethearts. However, class and caste differences prevent their marriage. Devdas is sent off to Calcutta, while Paro is married off to an aged rich widower. In Calcutta, as remorse drives him to alcohol, Devdas meets Chandramukhi, a prostitute. All Indian prints of this Bengali version were destroyed in a fire that ravaged New Theatre’s studios. Today, only one copy of the film survives which belongs to the Bangladesh Film Archives. Of that copy almost forty percent is destroyed.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
![[BLANK] (2025) poster](https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w342/gE8L6mV9BlBYffjM4I87uoiQneK.jpg)
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like National Theatre Live: The Fifth Step?
The closest matches to National Theatre Live: The Fifth Step are Driving Lessons (2006), Postcards from the Edge (1990) and T2 Trainspotting (2017). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after National Theatre Live: The Fifth Step?
Start with Driving Lessons (2006), the closest match to National Theatre Live: The Fifth Step.
What is the highest-rated movie like National Theatre Live: The Fifth Step?
Trainspotting (1996), rated 8.0/10 by 10,834 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like National Theatre Live: The Fifth Step?
[BLANK] (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like National Theatre Live: The Fifth Step?
Yes: Driving Lessons (2006), Postcards from the Edge (1990) and T2 Trainspotting (2017).
How are movies similar to National Theatre Live: The Fifth Step chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside National Theatre Live: The Fifth Step, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.