Movies like Building Happiness (2025)
The best movies like Building Happiness (2025) are The Client List (2010), 12 Feet Deep (2018) and The Joy Luck Club (1993). If Building Happiness hooked you, these 20 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedEverything Everywhere All at Once (2022)7.7/10 from 8,648 votes
- NewestThe Life of Chuck (2025)Released 2025
The Client List (2010)
After she and her husband lose their jobs, a former Texas homecoming queen inadvertently finds herself in the middle of a prostitution ring after she unknowingly accepts a position at a massage parlor.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like this12 Feet Deep (2018)
Two sisters are trapped under the fiberglass cover of an Olympic sized public pool and must brave the cold and each other to survive the harrowing night.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Joy Luck Club (1993)
Through a series of flashbacks, four Chinese women born in America and their respective mothers born in feudal China explore their pasts.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSaving Zoë (2019)
A year after the murder of her sister Zoë, Echo is determined to uncover the truth. With Zoë's diary as her guide, Echo finds herself pulled into the darkness of her sister's secret life and she uncovers how one small decision can lead to tragic consequences.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDìdi (弟弟) (2024)
In 2008, during the last month of summer before high school begins, an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy learns what his family can't teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to love your mom.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEverything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
An aging Chinese immigrant is swept up in an insane adventure, where she alone can save what's important to her by connecting with the lives she could have led in other universes.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLovely & Amazing (2002)
An intimate family portrait of four hapless but resilient women and the bittersweet lessons they learn in keeping up with the hectic demands of their individual neuroses. Each of the women seeks redemption in her own haphazard way, but whatever salvation they find is illusory and short-lived.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisShades of Desire (2023)
After her twin sister Aubrey goes missing, Jennifer uncovers the scandalous, secret double-life that Aubrey leads - and that has put both of them in danger.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Cement Garden (1993)
After the death of her husband, the mother of Julie, Jack, Sue and Tom begins to suffer from a mysterious illness. Aware that she is going to have to go into hospital she opens a bank account for the children, so that they can be financially self-sufficient and will be able to avoid being taken into care by the authorities. Unfortunately she also dies and Julie and Jack (the older, teenage children) decide to hide her body in the basement so that they can have free reign of their household. Soon Tom has taken to dressing as a girl whilst Sue has become increasingly reticent, confiding only to her diary, meanwhile Jack and Julie sense an attraction developing for each other. However Julie's new beau, Derek, threatens to unearth the many dark secrets within this family as he becomes increasingly suspicious of Jack.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
A disturbed, aging Southern belle moves in with her sister for solace — but being face-to-face with her brutish brother-in-law accelerates her downward spiral.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Life of Chuck (2025)
In this extraordinary story of an ordinary man, Charles 'Chuck' Krantz experiences the wonder of love, the heartbreak of loss, and the multitudes contained in all of us.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Kindness of Strangers (2019)
Clara and her two sons escape from her abusive husband with little more than their car and plan to start over in New York. After the car towed away, the family meets Alice, who gets them into an emergency shelter. While stealing food at a Russian restaurant called ‘Winter Palace’, Clara meets Marc, who has been given the chance to help the old eatery regain its former glory. The ‘Winter Palace’ soon becomes a place of unexpected encounters between people who are all undergoing some sort of crisis and whom fate has now brought together.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965)
Five train passengers are joined by a mysterious fortuneteller who offers to read Tarot. A quintet of stories unfold: an architect returns to his ancestral home to find a vengeful werewolf; a doctor suspects his new wife is a vampire; an intelligent vine takes over a house; a jazz musician plagiarises music from a voodoo ceremony; and a pompous art critic is pursued by a disembodied hand.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCry of the City (1948)
Petty crook and cop-killer Martin Rome, in bad shape from wounds in the hospital prison ward, still refuses to help slimy lawyer Niles clear his client by confessing to another crime. Police Lt. Candella must check Niles' allegation; a friend of the Rome family, he walks a tightrope between sentiment and cynicism. When Martin fears Candella will implicate his girlfriend Teena, he'll do anything to protect her. How many others will he drag down to disaster with him?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHis Three Daughters (2024)
Emotions run high when three estranged sisters reunite in a cramped New York City apartment to watch over their ailing father during his final days.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Man in the Moon (1991)
Maureen Trant and her younger sibling Dani share a strong connection, but local boy Court Foster threatens to throw their bond off balance. Dani and Court meet first and have a flirtatious rapport -- but when he meets Maureen, he falls hard and they begin a passionate affair. The new couple try to keep their love hidden from Dani, but she soon learns the truth, disavowing her sister. But a heartbreaking accident later reunites the girls.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSunshine Cleaning (2009)
A single mother and her slacker sister find an unexpected way to turn their lives around in this off-beat dramatic comedy. In order to raise the tuition to send her young son to private school the mom starts an unusual business – a biohazard removal/crime scene clean-up service.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisInteriors (1978)
When Eve, an interior designer, is deserted by her husband of many years, Arthur, the emotionally glacial relationships of the three grown-up daughters are laid bare. Twisted by jealousy, insecurity and resentment, Renata, a successful writer; Joey, a woman crippled by indecision; and Flyn, a budding actress; struggle to communicate for the sake of their shattered mother. But when their father unexpectedly falls for another woman, his decision to remarry sets in motion a terrible twist of fate…
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Kiss Before Dying (1956)
A college student tries to get rich quick by wooing two wealthy sisters.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThis Is Where I Leave You (2014)
When their father passes away, four grown, world-weary siblings return to their childhood home and are requested -- with an admonition -- to stay there together for a week, along with their free-speaking mother and a collection of spouses, exes and might-have-beens. As the brothers and sisters re-examine their shared history and the status of each tattered relationship among those who know and love them best, they reconnect in hysterically funny and emotionally significant ways.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
Like Building Happiness and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Building Happiness?
The closest matches to Building Happiness are The Client List (2010), 12 Feet Deep (2018) and The Joy Luck Club (1993). Below are 17 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Building Happiness?
Start with The Client List (2010), the closest match to Building Happiness.
What is the highest-rated movie like Building Happiness?
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), rated 7.7/10 by 8,648 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Building Happiness?
The Life of Chuck (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Building Happiness?
Yes: The Client List (2010), 12 Feet Deep (2018) and The Joy Luck Club (1993).
How are movies similar to Building Happiness chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Building Happiness, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.