Movies like The Mad Man (1988)
The best movies like The Mad Man (1988) are The Roses (2025), Duplex (2003) and The Kindness of Strangers (2019). If The Mad Man hooked you, these 20 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
The Mad Man
Quick picks
- Highest ratedMr. Church (2016)7.4/10 from 558 votes
- NewestThe Invite (2026)Released 2026
The Roses (2025)
Life seems easy for picture-perfect couple Ivy and Theo: successful careers, a loving marriage, great kids. But beneath the façade of their supposed ideal life, a storm is brewing – as Theo's career nosedives while Ivy's own ambitions take off, a tinderbox of fierce competition and hidden resentment ignites.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDuplex (2003)
When a young couple buys their dream home, they have no idea what the sweet little old lady upstairs is going to put them through!
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 thisThe Invite (2026)
Joe and Angela's marriage is on thin ice. When they invite their enigmatic upstairs neighbors for a dinner party, the night spirals into unexpected places. Have they reignited the spark or lit the match that burns it all down?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHungry Hearts (2015)
The relationship of a couple who meet by chance in New York City is put to the test when they encounter a life or death circumstance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPoor Cow (1967)
Joy lives a life filled with bad choices. At a young age, she marries and has a child–with an abusive thief who quickly ends up incarcerated. Left alone, she takes up with the guy's mate, another thief, who seems to give her some happiness but who also ends up locked up. She then takes up with a series of seedy types who offer nothing but momentary pleasure–if that.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSame Kind of Different as Me (2017)
International art dealer Ron Hall must befriend a dangerous homeless man in order to save his struggling marriage to his wife, a woman whose dreams will lead all three of them on the journey of their lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like this5 Flights Up (2014)
A long-time married couple who've spent their lives together in the same New York apartment become overwhelmed by personal and real estate-related issues when they plan to move away.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like this45 Years (2015)
There is just one week until Kate Mercer's 45th wedding anniversary and the planning for the party is going well. But then a letter arrives for her husband. The body of his first love has been discovered, frozen and preserved in the icy glaciers of the Swiss Alps. By the time the party is upon them, five days later, there may not be a marriage left to celebrate.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDie My Love (2025)
After inheriting a remote Montana house, Jackson moves there from New York with his partner Grace, and the couple soon welcome a child. As Jackson becomes increasingly absent and rural isolation sets in, Grace struggles with loneliness, creative frustration, and unresolved emotional wounds. What begins as an attempt at renewal gradually turns into an intense psychological descent, placing strain on their relationship and exposing the fragile balance between love, identity, and motherhood.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisClash by Night (1952)
An embittered woman seeks escape in marriage, only to fall for her husband’s best friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Pumpkin Eater (1964)
Jo, the mother of seven children, divorces her second husband in order to marry Jake, a successful but promiscuous screenwriter. Though they are physically and emotionally compatible, they are slowly torn apart.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSalomé (2013)
After the lewd and frenetic Dance of the Seven Veils, and with the solemn pledge from the very lips of Herod himself that she could have whatever her heart desires up to half his kingdom, wanton and proud young Salomé comes before her king with an unreasonable demand. Beguiled by John the Baptist, and then scorned for the sake of his god, lascivious Salomé—encouraged by her mother, the vindictive, Herodias—commands that John be executed and his head delivered on a silver platter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe People We Hate at the Wedding (2022)
A dysfunctional family that can't seem to get along and get it together reluctantly reunites for a family wedding. As their many skeletons are wrenched from the closet, it turns out to be just what this singular family needs to reconnect.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSomeone Like You... (2001)
Jane Goodale has everything going for her. She's a producer on a popular daytime talk show, and is in a hot romance with the show's dashing executive producer Ray. But when the relationship goes terribly awry, Jane begins an extensive study of the male animal, including her womanizing roommate Eddie. Jane puts her studies and romantic misadventure to use as a pseudonymous sex columnist -- and becomes a sensation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAre We Done Yet? (2007)
Newlyweds Nick and Suzanne decide to move to the suburbs to provide a better life for their two kids. But their idea of a dream home is disturbed by a contractor with a bizarre approach to business.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisJoe's Apartment (1996)
A nice guy has just moved to New York and discovers that he must share his run-down apartment with a couple thousand singing, dancing cockroaches.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisShe's Having a Baby (1988)
Jake and Kristy Briggs are newlyweds. Being young, they are perhaps a bit unprepared for the full reality of marriage and all that it (and their parents) expect from them. Do they want babies? Their parents certainly want them to. Is married life all that there is? Things certainly aren't helped by Jake's friend Davis, who always seems to turn up just in time to put a spanner in the works.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Lonely Guy (1984)
A writer for a greeting card company learns the true meaning of loneliness when he comes home to find his girlfriend in bed with another man.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMr. Church (2016)
A unique friendship develops when a little girl and her dying mother inherit a cook - Mr. Church. What begins as an arrangement that should only last six months, instead spans fifteen years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Mad Man?
The closest matches to The Mad Man are The Roses (2025), Duplex (2003) and The Kindness of Strangers (2019). Below are 17 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Mad Man?
Start with The Roses (2025), the closest match to The Mad Man.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Mad Man?
Mr. Church (2016), rated 7.4/10 by 558 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Mad Man?
The Invite (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to The Mad Man chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Mad Man, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.