Movies like The Great Pretender
The best movies like The Great Pretender are The Young One (1960), The Road (2009) and Cardboard Boxer (2016). If The Great Pretender hooked you, these 20 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
The Great Pretender
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Pursuit of Happyness (2006)7.9/10 from 11,012 votes
- NewestThe AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist (2026)Released 2026
The Young One (1960)
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Road (2009)
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind and water. It is cold enough to crack stones and, when the snow falls, it is gray. Their destination is the warmer south, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCardboard Boxer (2016)
Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHardball (2001)
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDeadsight (2018)
A man with partial blindness and a young pregnant police officer must work together to escape a deadly virus that has spread across Grey County.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTake Shelter (2011)
Plagued by a series of apocalyptic visions, a young husband and father questions whether to shelter his family from a coming storm, or from himself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSurviving the Game (1994)
A homeless man is hired as a survival guide for a group of wealthy businessmen on a hunting trip in the mountains, unaware that they are killers who hunt humans for sport, and that he is their new prey.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Pursuit of Happyness (2006)
A struggling salesman takes custody of his son as he's poised to begin a life-changing professional career.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisWakefield (2017)
A man's nervous breakdown causes him to leave his wife and live in his attic for several months.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisParked (2010)
Fred Daly returns to Ireland with nowhere to live but his car. Then dope-smoking 21-year-old Cathal parks beside him, and brightens up his lonely world. Encouraged by Cathal, Fred meets attractive music teacher Jules. Growing closer, these three outsiders are set on a course that will change their lives forever.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSafe House (2025)
Trapped in a high-security safe house after a terrorist attack in downtown Los Angeles, six government agents realize they must survive not just the enemy outside, but the potential traitor among them.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFirehouse Dog (2007)
Rexxx, Hollywood's top canine star, gets lost and is adopted into a shabby firehouse. He teams up with a young kid to get the station back on its feet.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWendy and Lucy (2008)
A near-penniless drifter's journey to Alaska in search of work is interrupted when she loses her dog while attempting to shoplift food for it.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOff the Grid (2025)
After a morally-bankrupt company tries to weaponize a brilliant scientist's revolutionary technology, he goes off the grid to safeguard humanity. When the company sends a strike force to find him, they make their biggest mistake of all – they weaponize the man they are trying to catch.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBarbarosa (1982)
Karl Westover, an inexperienced farm boy, runs away after unintentionally killing a neighbor, whose family pursues him for vengeance. He meets Barbarosa, a gunman of near-mythical proportions, who is himself in danger from his father-in-law Don Braulio, a wealthy Mexican rancher. Don Braulio wants Barbarosa dead for marrying his daughter against the father's will. Barbarosa reluctantly takes the clumsy Karl on as a partner, as both of them look to survive the forces lining up against them.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisRumble Through the Dark (2023)
In the dark landscape of the Mississippi Delta, a former bare-knuckle fighter must win one last fight to pay off his debts to the local mob boss and save his childhood home—the stakes nothing less than life or death.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTrapped (2002)
Held hostage in different cities after their daughter is kidnapped by a master extortionist, a desperate couple must find a way to outsmart a seemingly foolproof plot.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBeing Flynn (2012)
Working in a Boston homeless shelter, Nick Flynn re-encounters his father, a con man and self-proclaimed poet. Sensing trouble in his own life, Nick wrestles with the notion of reaching out yet again to his dad.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist (2026)
A father-to-be tries to figure out what is happening with all this AI insanity, and explores the most powerful technology humanity has ever created... and what's at stake if we get it wrong.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBuster's Mal Heart (2017)
An eccentric mountain man on the run from the local sheriff recalls the mysterious events that brought him to his present fugitive state.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Great Pretender?
The closest matches to The Great Pretender are The Young One (1960), The Road (2009) and Cardboard Boxer (2016). Below are 17 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Great Pretender?
Start with The Young One (1960), the closest match to The Great Pretender.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Great Pretender?
The Pursuit of Happyness (2006), rated 7.9/10 by 11,012 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Great Pretender?
The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Great Pretender?
Yes: The Young One (1960), The Road (2009) and Cardboard Boxer (2016).
How are movies similar to The Great Pretender chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Great Pretender, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.