Movies like Big City Fantasy (1934)
The best movies like Big City Fantasy (1934) are Music of the Heart (1999), On the Town (1949) and August Rush (2007). If Big City Fantasy hooked you, these 20 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Big City Fantasy
Quick picks
- Highest ratedAftersun (2022)7.7/10 from 2,049 votes
- NewestPast Lives (2023)Released 2023
Music of the Heart (1999)
After Roberta Guaspari separates from her husband, she receives encouragement from her mother to take up a job of a music teacher at the Central Park East School in East Harlem.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOn the Town (1949)
Three sailors wreak havoc as they search for love during a whirlwind 24-hour leave in New York City.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAugust Rush (2007)
Evan, a musically gifted orphan, runs away from his orphanage and searches New York City for his birth parents. On his journey, he's taken under the wing of the Wizard, a homeless man who lives in an abandoned theater. After discovering his talent, the Wizard gives Evan the name "August Rush" and devises a plan to profit from his talent. Little does Evan know that his parents, Lyla and Louis, are searching for him too.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBeyond the Sea (2004)
Based on the life and career of legendary entertainer, Bobby Darin, the biopic moves back and forth between his childhood and adulthood, to tell the tale of his life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAftersun (2022)
Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories fill the gaps between camcorder footages as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the troubled man she didn't.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIn the Heights (2021)
The story of Usnavi, a bodega owner who has mixed feelings about closing his store and retiring to the Dominican Republic or staying in Washington Heights.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Glenn Miller Story (1954)
A vibrant tribute to one of America's legendary bandleaders, charting Glenn Miller's rise from obscurity and poverty to fame and wealth in the early 1940s.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEntergalactic (2022)
Ambitious artist Jabari attempts to balance success and love when he moves into his dream Manhattan apartment and falls for his next-door neighbor.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLadies in Lavender (2004)
Andrea, a gifted young Polish violinist from Krakow, is bound for America when he is swept overboard by a storm. When the Widdington sisters discover the handsome stranger on the beach below their house, they nurse him back to health. However, the presence of the musically talented young man disrupts the peaceful lives of Ursula and Janet and the community in which they live.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNimic (2020)
A professional cellist has an encounter with a stranger on the subway which has unexpected and far-reaching ramifications on his life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMo' Better Blues (1990)
Talented but self-centered trumpeter Bleek Gilliam is obsessed with his music and indecisiveness about his girlfriends Indigo and Clarke. But when he is forced to come to the aid of his manager and childhood friend, Bleek finds his world more fragile than he ever imagined.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMichael Jackson: Searching for Neverland (2017)
Based on the best-selling book, Remember the Time: Protecting Michael Jackson in His Final Days, and told through the eyes of Jackson's trusted bodyguards, Bill Whitfield and Javon Beard. The movie will reveal firsthand the devotion Michael Jackson had to his children, and the hidden drama that took place during the last two years of his life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPast 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
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPermanent Vacation (1981)
In downtown Manhattan, twentysomething Allie, whose father is not around and whose mother is institutionalized, is a big Charlie Parker fan. He almost subconsciously searches for meaning in his life and meets some idiosyncratic characters along the way.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisIndustrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted (1990)
After her boyfriend ends their relationship, the dreamself of a heartbroken woman floats through the air over an industrial wasteland singing ballads of love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisG (2002)
A young Hip Hop star named Summer G falls for a middle to upper class sister while in college. After she rejects him for a fellow social climber, Summer G spends ten years building a Hip Hop empire, then moves to the Hamptons where he finds the object of his affections.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlue Valentine (2010)
Dean and Cindy live a quiet life in a modest neighborhood. They appear to have the world at their feet at the outset of the relationship. However, his lack of ambition and her retreat into self-absorption cause potentially irreversible cracks in their marriage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisInside Llewyn Davis (2013)
In Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, gifted but volatile folk musician Llewyn Davis struggles with money, relationships, and his uncertain future.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCrooklyn (1994)
From Spike Lee comes this vibrant semi-autobiographical portrait of a school-teacher, her stubborn jazz-musician husband and their five kids living in '70s Brooklyn.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRiff-Raff (1991)
Stevie, fresh from prison in Scotland, finds a job on a London construction site. Working conditions are poor and most of the men are working under aliases, due to immigration status and to not conflict with unemployment. Some help Stevie secure housing, squatting in a council estate. Then Stevie meets Susan, from Ireland, an aspiring singer.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Big City Fantasy?
The closest matches to Big City Fantasy are Music of the Heart (1999), On the Town (1949) and August Rush (2007). Below are 17 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Big City Fantasy?
Start with Music of the Heart (1999), the closest match to Big City Fantasy.
What is the highest-rated movie like Big City Fantasy?
Aftersun (2022), rated 7.7/10 by 2,049 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Big City Fantasy?
Past Lives (2023) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Big City Fantasy?
Yes: Music of the Heart (1999), On the Town (1949) and August Rush (2007).
How are movies similar to Big City Fantasy chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Big City Fantasy, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.



















