Movies like 72 (2023)
The best movies like 72 (2023) are Past Lives (2023), Man in Love (2014) and My Brilliant Career (1979). If 72 hooked you with its drama and romance, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedPast Lives (2023)7.7/10 from 2,545 votes
- NewestFurioso (2026)Released 2026
- In KoreanMan in Love (2014)Also in Korean
Past Lives (2023)
After decades apart, childhood friends Nora and Hae Sung are reunited in New York for one fateful weekend as they confront notions of destiny, love, and the choices that make a life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMan in Love (2014)
Tae-il lives a fast life as low level thug. He then learns that he has a terminal illness and not much time left to live. Then, for the first time in his life, he falls in love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMy Brilliant Career (1979)
A young woman who is determined to maintain her independence finds herself at odds with her family who wants her to tame her wild side and get married.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMaundy Thursday (2006)
Yu-jeong is suicidal, yet she reluctantly goes to prison for volunteer work. There, she meets a prisoner who is waiting for death penalty. The two quickly fall in love despite their differences, yet they do not have much time.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Lost Husband (2020)
Trying to put her life back together after the death of her husband, Libby and her children move to her estranged Aunt's goat farm in central Texas.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVirgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (2000)
When filmmaker Young-soo introduces writer Soo-jung to his friend Jae-hoon, he unintentionally creates a love triangle. While Jae-hoon pursues Soo-jung, Young-soo clashes with his crew. Yet, just as the story appears to end, it starts all over again, this time with plenty of variations.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this...ing (2003)
Follows the life of a young woman who has become reserved and indifferent to the world as a result of her chronic illness deformed hand and quietly portrays the unconventional, yet endearing relationship between mother and daughter as well as the development of Min-ah as she is befriended by the high spirited and carefree photographer Young-jae who moves into their apartment complex.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRestless (2011)
Two outsiders, both shaped by the circumstances that have brought them together, forge a deep and lasting love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Secret: Dare to Dream (2020)
A widow with three children hires a handyman to fix her house during a major storm. When not doing home repairs, he shares his philosophy of believing in the power of the universe to deliver what we want.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Longest Ride (2015)
The lives of a young couple intertwine with a much older man as he reflects back on a lost love while he's trapped in an automobile crash.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPeter Ibbetson (1935)
When his mother dies, young Peter Ibbetson leaves Paris and his best friend, Mary, behind to live with a severe uncle in England. Years later, Peter is an architect with little time for women, until he begins a project with the Duke and Duchess of Towers. When Peter and the duchess become great friends, she reveals that she is Mary — but the duke soon suspects his wife of infidelity and challenges Peter to a duel, threatening the pair's second chance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Age of Adaline (2015)
After 29-year-old Adaline recovers from a nearly lethal accident, she inexplicably stops growing older. As the years stretch on and on, Adaline keeps her secret to herself until she meets a man who changes her life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOur Sunhi (2013)
Sunhi, a film major graduate, visits her school to ask her Professor Choi for a recommendation letter to study in U.S. Knowing the professor favors her, she expects a good recommendation from him. Out from her shell after a long time, Sunhi also ends up meeting two men from her past: Munsu, her ex-boy friend, and Jaehak, a director who graduated from the same film school. Through the encounters between Sunhi and the three men, they give each other an 'advice on life' with good intentions. The three men who all have strong interests in her are led to guess and define her, unable to tell how she really feels inside. Strangely, the mentioned advices and traits of her are similar and seem to pass from one person to the next. The words of 'advice on life' seem doubtable and slip away as the three men's thoughts on Sunhi become more and more irrelevant.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Millionaire's First Love (2006)
When a high school diploma becomes the key to unlocking his inheritance, a spoiled teen gets an invaluable lesson in life and love in a rural village.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisI Can't Think Straight (2008)
Tala, a London-based Palestinian, is preparing for her elaborate Middle Eastern wedding when she meets Leyla, a young British Indian woman who is dating her best friend. Spirited Christian Tala and shy Muslim Leyla could not be more different from each other, but the attraction is immediate and goes deeper than friendship. But Tala is not ready to accept the implications of the choice her heart has made for her and escapes back to Jordan, while Leyla tries to move on with her new-found life, to the shock of her tradition-loving parents. As Tala's wedding day approaches, simmering tensions come to boiling point and the pressure mounts for Tala to be true to herself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAll My Life (2020)
It was a chance meeting started by one of Sol’s friends trying to chat up Jennifer. However, in the end, it was those two who hit it off. Sol enjoyed Jen’s smile, her effort, and how silly she could be. Jen enjoyed Sol’s cooking, his athleticism, and that he would join her in fun moments. As you can imagine, love bloomed, and things got serious. Jen’s investment in Sol led to her pushing him to follow his dreams and even move in to save money. Sol’s investment in Jen well, it led to him proposing. But what started as a liver tumor grew into full-on cancer, so with a diagnosis of 6 months to live, Sol and Jennifer try to make the best of it.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Magic of Ordinary Days (2005)
Pregnant out of wedlock, an educated young woman is pressured by her father into an arranged marriage with a lonely farmer in this drama set during WWII.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThey Won't Believe Me (1947)
On trial for murdering his girlfriend, philandering stockbroker Larry Ballentine takes the stand to claim his innocence and describe the actual, but improbable sounding, sequence of events that led to her death.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSoulmate (2023)
When Mi-so and Ha-eun first meet in childhood, their lives become instantly intertwined, forming a bond surrounded by happiness and naivety. But as adulthood arrives, alone and together, they are forced to deal with sadness, anger, grief, growth, and most of all, love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThread of Lies (2014)
Cheon-ji's unexpected suicide causes her mother Hyeon-sook and older sister Man-ji to be moved into another apartment. Tracking down clues from school, Man-ji discovers that Cheon-ji's best friend Hwa-yeon is behind everything.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGangster (2006)
An alcoholic barmaid is distraught when her former lover, a notorious gangster, re-enters her life. She is forced to relive painful past experiences and choose between the gangster and a pleasant singer she has found comfort in.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Girl Left Behind (2020)
Two strangers are meeting in dreams. A young woman who was raised by her grandmother and a divorced father who sees his daughter only on weekends. They start to be attracted to each other…
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
My Dear Enemy (2008)
Hee-soo is desperate for money and finds her ex-boyfriend who owes her money. He goes around to various ex-girlfriends to get cash and she trails along to make sure he does not cheat her.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both romance & drama
Rosy Life (1994)
A comic book store in Garibong-dong is run by a beautiful woman better known as Madam. This store stays open late into the night, thus attracting varied types of people such as gangsters and hustlers.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Tasty Ending (2021)
An anthology of three short films by Kim Jeong-in, Jung So-young, and Hwang Seul-gi. It uses food and people to capture the warmth of everyday life that everyone can relate to.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Food on the Table (2024)
Now the subjects of a despotic chief, far from having any favor to expect from him, as both themselves and all they have are his property, or at least are considered by him as such, are obliged to receive as a favor what he relinquishes to them of their own property. He does them justice when he strips them. He treats them with mercy when he suffers them to live. In a beautiful house, during a beautiful day, next to a library with no books, a table is set for the last supper of its inhabitants.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The President's Barber (2004)
A well-meaning but politically naive barber gets pulled into the inner circle of the South Korean dictator Park Chung-Hee, with rather baleful consequences for his hapless family. This sharp political satire covers roughly twenty years in South Korean political history, from the viewpoint of the barber's son.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Host (2006)
A teenage girl is captured by a giant mutated squid-like creature that appears from Seoul's Han River after toxic waste was dumped in it, prompting her family into a frantic search for her.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDeep in My Heart (1967)
Overseas student Zheng Yihua and her native Korean classmate Soo-ok are bosom friends. Suspecting appendicitis, Zheng is rushed to the hospital for an emergency operation performed by Lee Sang-hyun. Soo-ok falls head over heels for the surgeon, who ironically takes a fancy to his patient. The romance turns the friends into foes. An embittered Soo-ok ruins Zheng's reputation with malicious gossips intended for Zhang Zhen, Zheng's father's personal assistant and the daughter's fiancé during his business trip to Korea. The wary mother of Lee demands the girl's parting from his son. Answering her lover's plea, Zheng stays, quietly enduring the scorn rained down on her from the mother. Having had enough of slander and accusations, the foreigner returns home, vowing never to return. Even the blessing from Lee's father fails to change her mind. Lee arrives at the airport, looking forlornly over the runway where the plane takes off.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both romance
Like 72 and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like 72?
The closest matches to 72 are Past Lives (2023), Man in Love (2014) and My Brilliant Career (1979). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after 72?
Start with Past Lives (2023), the closest match to 72.
What is the highest-rated movie like 72?
Past Lives (2023), rated 7.7/10 by 2,545 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like 72?
Furioso (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Korean movies like 72?
Yes: Man in Love (2014), Maundy Thursday (2006) and Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (2000).
How are movies similar to 72 chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside 72, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.