Movies like The Bench (2000)
The best movies like The Bench (2000) are Luckiest Girl Alive (2022), I Smile Back (2015) and Don't Make Me Go (2022). If The Bench hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedFight Club (1999)8.4/10 from 33,292 votes
- NewestMexicali (2026)Released 2026
Luckiest Girl Alive (2022)
A successful woman in New York City finds her life upended when she is forced to confront a dark truth that threatens to unravel her meticulously crafted life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Smile Back (2015)
Laney is an attractive, intelligent suburban wife and devoted mother of two adorable children. She has the perfect husband who plays basketball with the kids in the driveway, a pristine house, and a shiny SUV for carting the children to their next activity. However, just beneath the façade lie depression and disillusionment that send her careening into a secret world of reckless compulsion. Only very real danger will force her to face the painful root of her destructiveness and its crumbling effect on those she loves.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDon't Make Me Go (2022)
A terminally ill man and his teenage daughter embark on a road trip from California to New Orleans for his 20th college reunion. While there, he secretly hopes she can reunite with the mother who left them long ago.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 thisBlonde (2022)
From her volatile childhood as Norma Jeane, through her rise to stardom and romantic entanglements, this reimagined fictional portrait of Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe blurs the lines of fact and fiction to explore the widening split between her public and private selves.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisJoe the King (1999)
A destitute 14-year-old struggles to keep his life together despite harsh abuse at his mother's hands, harsher abuse at his father's, and a growing separation from his slightly older brother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisKen Park (2003)
Teen skater Ken Park (nicknamed Krap Nek; his name spelled and pronounced backward) kills himself at a Visalia skate park; his death bookends the lives of four other young people who knew him: Shawn, the most conventional; Tate brims with psychotic rage; Claude is habitually harassed by his brutish father and coddled, rather uncomfortably, by his enormously pregnant mother; and Peaches looks after her devoutly religious father, but yearns for freedom. They're all rather tight, or so they claim.
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 thisMexicali (2026)
A former special forces contractor is forced out of retirement as an avocado farmer in Mexico when local gangsters try to force him and his family off their farm.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Chronology of Water (2025)
Plagued by an abusive childhood, a woman finds escape in competitive swimming, sexual experimentation, toxic relationships, and addiction before ultimately finding her voice through writing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both 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 thisSmall Engine Repair (2021)
The seemingly casual reunion of three old friends at an out-of-the-way repair shop masks a hidden agenda fuelled by the arrival of a privileged young yuppie.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 thisTo Write Love on Her Arms (2015)
The story follows 19-year-old Renee who has always loved fairy tales: the idea of a princess, a hero and a happily ever after. But Renee’s life is that of a darker tale: she’s a young woman battling addiction, depression and self-injury. In a creative blend of artistic fantasy balanced with harsh reality, the movie follows Renee on her courageous journey towards recovery.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBleeder (1999)
Two stories for the price of one: a video store clerk tries to get acquainted with a waitress; a man beats his pregnant wife, unaware that her brother is a violent racist.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFight Club (1999)
A ticking-time-bomb insomniac and a slippery soap salesman channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy. Their concept catches on, with underground "fight clubs" forming in every town, until an eccentric gets in the way and ignites an out-of-control spiral toward oblivion.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisGummo (1997)
Teenagers Solomon and Tummler kill time in Xenia, Ohio, a small town that has never recovered from the tornado that ravaged the community in the 1970s.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Brave One (2007)
A woman struggles to recover from a brutal attack by setting out on a mission for revenge.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCleveland Abduction (2015)
A single mother becomes Ariel Castro's first kidnapping victim, and finds herself trapped in his home with two other women for 11 years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDolores Claiborne (1995)
Dolores Claiborne was accused of killing her abusive husband twenty years ago, but the court's findings were inconclusive and she was allowed to walk free. Now she has been accused of killing her employer, Vera Donovan, and this time there is a witness who can place her at the scene of the crime. Things look bad for Dolores when her daughter Selena, a successful Manhattan magazine writer, returns to cover the story.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Kings of the World (2022)
Rá, Culebro, Sere, Winny and Nano. Five boys who live on the streets of Medellín. Five kings with no kingdom, no law, no family, set out on a journey in search of the promised land. A subversive tale told through a wild and endearing clan, somewhere between reality and delirium. A journey to nowhere, where everything happens.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNarda or The Summer (1970)
Two friends on a summer getaway find and fall for a mysterious woman who will change their lives forever.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Lilya 4-ever (2002)
In a struggling post-Soviet community, Lilya a teenage girl is abandoned when her mother moves to the United States with her boyfriend. Facing neglect and poverty, she meets Andrei, who offers her a job in Sweden, giving her hope for a better life — and a journey that will change everything.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSenhoritas (2024)
Livia and her friend Luci rediscover the joys of life through dance.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
White Fang (1991)
Jack London's classic adventure story about the friendship developed between a Yukon gold hunter and the mixed dog-wolf he rescues from the hands of a man who mistreats him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIn the Jam Jar (2021)
n the Jam Jar is an invitation to the intimacy of 81-year-old Joan’s final days, whose musings silently echo with Dan’s, her 50-year-old son. This fiction short-movie is a dive into death and grief, a tribute to maternal love comprised of nail clippings, aquarelle, strawberry jam and a ghost radar.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Slope (2020)
Living in a village full of slopes can drive you mad. Those who have climbed them in the old-fashioned way are fully aware of that. What they don’t know is that their souls might have stuck around.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Osterman Weekend (1983)
The host of an investigative news show is convinced by the CIA that the friends he has invited to a weekend in the country are engaged in a conspiracy that threatens national security.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe First Day of the Rest of Your Life (2008)
A sprawling drama centered on five key days in a family's life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisReprise (2006)
Fueled by literary aspirations and youthful exuberance, two competitive friends endure the pangs of love, depression, and burgeoning careers.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Bench?
The closest matches to The Bench are Luckiest Girl Alive (2022), I Smile Back (2015) and Don't Make Me Go (2022). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Bench?
Start with Luckiest Girl Alive (2022), the closest match to The Bench.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Bench?
Fight Club (1999), rated 8.4/10 by 33,292 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Bench?
Mexicali (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to The Bench chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Bench, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.