Movies like The Shape of Absence (2025)
The best movies like The Shape of Absence (2025) are A Love Song (2022), Love of Your Life (2026) and Collateral Beauty (2016). If The Shape of Absence hooked you, these 20 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedBefore Sunrise (1995)8.0/10 from 4,970 votes
- NewestLove of Your Life (2026)Released 2026
A Love Song (2022)
Two childhood sweethearts, now both widowed, share a night by a lake in the mountains.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLove of Your Life (2026)
After a chance encounter sparks a sweeping romance, Maya's future is suddenly upended, sending her on an unexpected journey to love and live again.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCollateral Beauty (2016)
Retreating from life after a tragedy, a man questions the universe by writing to Love, Time and Death. Receiving unexpected answers, he begins to see how these things interlock and how even loss can reveal moments of meaning and beauty.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBefore Sunrise (1995)
An unexpected meeting on a train leads two travelers to spend an evening wandering through Vienna. As the night unfolds, they share stories and conversations about life and love, exploring new ideas while a quiet intimacy grows between them, knowing it may be their only night together.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisMy Girl (1991)
Vada Sultenfuss is obsessed with death. Her mother is dead, and her father runs a funeral parlor. She is also in love with her English teacher, and joins a poetry class over the summer just to impress him. Thomas J., her best friend, is "allergic to everything", and sticks with Vada despite her hangups. When Vada's father hires Shelly, and begins to fall for her, things take a turn to the worse...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Bucket List (2007)
Corporate billionaire Edward Cole and working class mechanic Carter Chambers are worlds apart. At a crossroads in their lives, they share a hospital room and discover they have two things in common: a desire to spend the time they have left doing everything they ever wanted to do and an unrealized need to come to terms with who they are. Together they embark on the road trip of a lifetime, becoming friends along the way and learning to live life to the fullest, with insight and humor.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMarilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School (2006)
Frank Keane, a baker by trade, has been consumed by grief over his wife's untimely death. But everything changes when he pulls his bread truck over on a rural highway to help a dying stranger entangled in a car wreck, who was on his way to a fateful reunion.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisFlashbacks of a Fool (2008)
An aging Hollywood star, Joe Scott, lives a life of narcissistic hedonism, observed by his laconic personal assistant, Ophelia. The death of his childhood best friend, Boots, takes our protagonist, and the movie, into an extended flashback to a sea-side town in 1970s Britain.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCaptain Fantastic (2016)
Deep in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, a father devoted to raising his six kids with a rigorous physical and intellectual education is forced to leave his paradise and enter the world, beginning a journey that challenges his idea of what it means to be a parent.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisLegends of the Hidden Temple (2016)
Three siblings who break away from a lackluster temple tour in a jungle finds themselves immersed in a real-life mission comprised of obstacles that they must complete in order to escape alive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisClaudine (1974)
Claudine is a single mother in New York City who endures an exhausting commute to the suburbs where she works as a maid for wealthy families. In one carefully tended white community, she meets Roop, a charismatic but irresponsible garbage collector. Romance quickly ensues, but Claudine doubts that their relationship is good for her six children, and Rupert, despite his good nature, is reluctant to take on fatherhood.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSometimes I Think About Dying (2024)
Fran likes to think about dying. It brings sensation to her quiet life. When she makes the new guy at work laugh, it leads to more: a date, a slice of pie, a conversation, a spark. The only thing standing in their way is Fran herself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAll of You (2025)
Laura and Simon have been best friends since college. Over the years, they've realized their bond is more than platonic. Can they—and should they—risk everything to explore a love that has existed all along?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMidsommar (2019)
Several friends travel to Sweden to study as anthropologists a summer festival that is held every ninety years in the remote hometown of one of them. What begins as a dream vacation in a place where the sun never sets, gradually turns into a dark nightmare as the mysterious inhabitants invite them to participate in their disturbing festive activities.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMeet the Browns (2008)
A single mother living in inner city Chicago, Brenda has been struggling for years to make ends meet and keep her three kids off the street. When she's laid off with no warning, she starts losing hope for the first time - until a letter arrives announcing the death of a father she's never met. Desperate for any kind of help, Brenda takes her family to Georgia for the funeral, but nothing could have prepared her for the Browns, her father's fun-loving, crass Southern clan. In a small-town world full of long afternoons and country fairs, Brenda struggles to get to know the family she never knew existed... and finds a brand new romance that just might change her life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPoetic Justice (1993)
Still grieving after the murder of her boyfriend, hairdresser Justice writes poetry to deal with the pain of her loss. Unable to get to Oakland to attend a convention because of her broken-down car, Justice gets a lift with her friend, Iesha, and Iesha's postal worker boyfriend, Chicago. Along for the ride is Chicago's co-worker, Lucky, to whom Justice grows close after some initial problems. But is she ready to open her heart again?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSee You on Venus (2023)
Mia and Kyle, two misfit American teens, travel to Spain in search of Mia's birth mother. As the pair road trip through the picturesque cities of Andalusia and fall in love, they discover that the most important question isn't who gave you life, but what you decide to do with it.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRabbit Hole (2010)
Life for a happy couple is turned upside down after their young son dies in an accident.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWristcutters: A Love Story (2007)
Zia, distraught over breaking up with his girlfriend, decides to end it all. Unfortunately, he discovers that there is no real ending, only a run-down afterlife that is strikingly similar to his old one, just a bit worse. Discovering that his ex-girlfriend has also "offed" herself, he sets out on a road trip to find her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGhostlight (2024)
When melancholic construction worker Dan finds himself drifting from his wife and daughter, he discovers community and purpose in a local theater's production of Romeo and Juliet. As the drama onstage starts to mirror his own life, he and his family are forced to confront a personal loss.
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 Shape of Absence?
The closest matches to The Shape of Absence are A Love Song (2022), Love of Your Life (2026) and Collateral Beauty (2016). Below are 17 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Shape of Absence?
Start with A Love Song (2022), the closest match to The Shape of Absence.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Shape of Absence?
Before Sunrise (1995), rated 8.0/10 by 4,970 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Shape of Absence?
Love of Your Life (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Shape of Absence?
Yes: A Love Song (2022), Love of Your Life (2026) and Collateral Beauty (2016).
How are movies similar to The Shape of Absence chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Shape of Absence, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.