Movies like El Arribista (2026)
The best movies like El Arribista (2026) are CQ (2001), ¡Que viva México! (2023) and The House of Tomorrow (2019). If El Arribista hooked you with its drama and comedy, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest rated¡Que viva México! (2023)7.4/10 from 213 votes
- NewestCastration Movie Chapter iii. Junior Ghosts—Premorphic Drift; a fragmentary passage (2026)Released 2026
- In Spanish¡Que viva México! (2023)Also in Spanish
CQ (2001)
A young filmmaker in 1960s Paris juggles directing a cheesy sci-fi debacle, directing his own personal art film, coping with his crumbling relationship with his girlfriend, and a new-found infatuation with the sci-fi film's starlet.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like this¡Que viva México! (2023)
After his grandfather's death, a man travels with his wife and kids to his hometown, where chaos ensues with his relatives over the inheritance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe House of Tomorrow (2019)
The film tells futurist, architect, and inventor R. Buckminster Fuller's incredible story through two teens hoping to get laid, become punk gods, and survive high school.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOfficial Competition (2021)
When a billionaire entrepreneur impulsively decides to create an iconic movie, he demands the best. Renowned filmmaker Lola Cuevas is recruited to mastermind this ambitious endeavour. Completing the all-star team are two actors with massive talent but even bigger egos: Hollywood heartthrob Félix Rivero and radical theatre actor Iván Torres. Both are legends, but not exactly best friends. Through a series of increasingly eccentric trials set by Lola, Félix and Iván must confront not only each other but also their own legacies. Who will be left when the cameras finally start rolling?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Tit and the Moon (1994)
A child does not stand the idea of having a new brother and dreams about drinking milk from the breasts of his mother again. The child asks the moon to bring him a tit only for him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIn the Soup (1992)
An aspiring young filmmaker gets involved with an eccentric gangster for the financing of his first film.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJuniper (2021)
When a self-destructive teenager is suspended from school and asked to look after his feisty alcoholic grandmother as a punishment, the crazy time they spend together turns his life around.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDown the Rabbit Hole (2024)
Raised in opulence and culture, a boy's life contrasts with the darkness that seeps in from his father's criminal activities in this dark comedy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFat Kid Rules The World (2012)
A dropout comes to the aid of a chubby and suicidal high-school kid by recruiting him as the drummer for his upstart punk-rock band.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSilvia Prieto (1999)
After her 27th birthday, Silvia Prieto decides to take charge of her life and make some changes. At the same time, she suddenly finds herself intertwined in the life of another woman who is also named Silvia Prieto.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisUncorked (2020)
Elijah must balance his dream of becoming a master sommelier with his father's expectations that he carry on the family's Memphis BBQ joint.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTreasure (2024)
A music journalist accompanies her father, a charmingly stubborn Holocaust survivor, on a journey to his homeland. While she's eager to make sense of her family's past, her dad has an agenda of his own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFamily Weekend (2013)
A 16-year-old girl takes her parents hostage after they miss her big jump-roping competition.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEl Diablo El Santo Y El Tonto (1985)
When rancher, Don Trinidad is on his deathbed, he confesses to his fumbling son Rogelio, that he has two other illegitimate sons and that he wishes them to be included in his will. When Rogelio tracks them down, he discovers that each of them has a completely different life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSomewhere in Queens (2023)
Leo and Angela Russo live a simple life in Queens, surrounded by their overbearing Italian-American family. When their son finds success on his high school basketball team, Leo tears the family apart trying to make it happen.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAlmost Friends (2017)
A man in his mid-20s, still living at home with his mother and stepfather, puts all his eggs in one basket: the girl who works at his local coffee shop. The problem is, she has a serious boyfriend. As they become closer, the line between friendship and intimacy is blurred, and the situation forces both to examine where they are in their lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGloria (2013)
Gloria is a 58-year-old divorcée. Her children have all left home but she has no desire to spend her days and nights alone. Determined to defy old age and loneliness, she rushes headlong into a whirl of singles’ parties on the hunt for instant gratification – which only leads to repeated disappointment and enduring emptiness. But when Gloria meets Rodolfo, an ex-naval officer seven years her senior, she begins to imagine the possibility of a permanent relationship.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisReal Women Have Curves (2002)
In East Los Angeles, an 18-year-old struggles between her ambitions of going to college and the desires of her domineering mother for her to get married, have children, and oversee the small, rundown family-owned textile factory.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCrazy Magical Mexico (2026)
A man finds the best motivation to secure and save his town: making an independent Mexican film.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBarrio (1998)
Bored 15-year-old school chums Rai Manu and Javi dream of sexual adventures and exotic resorts while the well-off population of Madrid flock to the beaches on a summer holiday. The youths hang around the concrete wasteland killing time by reading the sex classifieds and pushing their luck. They masturbate, thieve, fight with their families and get involved in a drug bust. Finally Rai, the most daring and restless of the trio - gets shot while trying to steal stereo gear from a car. Each adolescent faces a dreary home life but when they get together they enjoy each other's company to the full. The film is an engaging mixture of comedy drama and the pathos of life in a Madrid neighborhood.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCardboard Island (2026)
After a freak accident leaves a young man in a surreal limbo, he must team up with a talking puppet to map a mysterious island from fragments of memory — a journey that forces him to confront his deepest regrets, reclaim lost connections, and decide if life is worth finding his way back to.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & comedy
Empire Records (1995)
The employees of an independent music store learn about each other as they try to stop the store from being absorbed by a large chain.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCastration Movie Chapter iii. Junior Ghosts—Premorphic Drift; a fragmentary passage (2026)
Izzy does everything in her power to stop her partner from transitioning.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
In Camera (2024)
A young man spends most of his time recording self-tapes for parts he never gets. After multiple rejections for a series of nightmarish commercial auditions, he takes it upon himself to find a new part to play.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Y Adán y (1971)
From the depths of the sea is born Adam, a young man who searches the world for the place to which he belongs. Walking along the beach, he meets another child like him and they become friends. As an adult, the child becomes a man who tries to find the woman, his counterpart. Harassed by the beings of the world, he sees it through dreams and this helps him to recover from his evil.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Ripley Under Ground (2007)
Now living a quiet, luxurious life at his French estate—funded by past crimes and his marriage to an heiress—Tom Ripley finds that an art scam he supports—selling forged paintings by a supposedly living artist named Derwatt—beginning to collapse. An inquisitive American collector suspects his Derwatt painting is fake and demands answers. As the situation escalates, Ripley turns to murder and elaborate identity deception to protect his reputation.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisGehenna (2025)
In this recently found and restored banned underground classic from 1984, four girls go into a bathroom to hide in the middle of a war and, after an impulsive act by one of them, they find themselves trapped there. As panic gives way to despair, tragedy approaches.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Go to Hell!! (1997)
Based on the premise that "God" is actually an alien called G.D., who wiped out the dinosaurs and populated the Earth with apes from his own planet (who eventually evolve into us). "The Devil" is actually his son, "Little Red", who disagrees with what he is doing and pops up throughout history trying to upset G.D.'s plans.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
Sores of Emmanuel (2010)
Faced with mounting debt and the heartbreak of being unable to fund his children’s education, Emmanuel Mutema is a desperate single father pushed to the edge.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry (2008)
The lives of twelve year old buddies Dustin, Albert, and Mark, sharing a carefree existence in the summer of 1970, suddenly changes when Dustin makes an unexpected friend after cutting the lawn of 75 year old Jonathan Sperry. As the old man shares lessons in faith with the preteen trio, a spiritual transformation occurs.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like El Arribista and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like El Arribista?
The closest matches to El Arribista are CQ (2001), ¡Que viva México! (2023) and The House of Tomorrow (2019). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after El Arribista?
Start with CQ (2001), the closest match to El Arribista.
What is the highest-rated movie like El Arribista?
¡Que viva México! (2023), rated 7.4/10 by 213 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like El Arribista?
Castration Movie Chapter iii. Junior Ghosts—Premorphic Drift; a fragmentary passage (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Spanish movies like El Arribista?
Yes: ¡Que viva México! (2023), Official Competition (2021) and The Tit and the Moon (1994).
How are movies similar to El Arribista chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside El Arribista, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.