Movies like Once in a Lifetime (2000)
The best movies like Once in a Lifetime (2000) are Benny & Joon (1993), My Own Love Song (2010) and Carrie Pilby (2017). If Once in a Lifetime hooked you with its comedy and drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedDancer in the Dark (2000)7.8/10 from 2,110 votes
- NewestProblemista (2024)Released 2024
Benny & Joon (1993)
A mentally ill young woman finds love with an eccentric man who models himself after Buster Keaton.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMy Own Love Song (2010)
A wheelchair-bound singer and her best friend embark on a roadtrip to Memphis.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCarrie Pilby (2017)
Awkward, isolated and disapproving of most of the people around her, a precocious 19-year-old genius is challenged to put her convictions to the test by venturing out on to the NYC dating scene.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTo Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995)
Veteran drag queens Vida Boheme and Noxeema Jackson take novice Chi-Chi Rodriguez under their wing on a madcap road trip across the country to compete in the Drag Queen of America pageant in Los Angeles.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Upside (2019)
Phillip is a wealthy quadriplegic who needs a caretaker to help him with his day-to-day routine in his New York penthouse. He decides to hire Dell, a struggling parolee who's trying to reconnect with his ex and his young son. Despite coming from two different worlds, an unlikely friendship starts to blossom.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSweetie (1989)
The buttoned-down, superstitious Kay is attempting to lead a normal existence with her new boyfriend Louis. That’s until Sweetie, her rampaging, devil-may-care sister, returns home after an absence, exposing the rotten roots of their family and placing a strain on Kay and Louis’ relationship.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTully (2018)
Marlo, a mother of three, including a newborn, is gifted a night nanny by her brother. Hesitant at first, she quickly forms a bond with the thoughtful, surprising, and sometimes challenging nanny named Tully.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJack of the Red Hearts (2016)
A teenage con artist tricks a desperate mother into hiring her as a live-in companion for her autistic daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMore Beautiful for Having Been Broken (2020)
Three women’s lives intersect at a lakeside resort and are forever changed by the love of a special needs boy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTeen Spirit (2019)
A shy teenager living on the Isle of Wight dreams of pop stardom. With the help of an unlikely mentor, she enters a singing competition that will test her integrity, talent, and ambition.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Miracle Worker (2000)
Devoted teacher Anne Sullivan leads deaf, blind and mute Helen Keller out of solitude and helps integrate her into the world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisProblemista (2024)
Alejandro is an aspiring toy designer from El Salvador, struggling to bring his unusual ideas to life in New York City. As time on his work visa runs out, a job assisting an erratic art-world outcast becomes his only hope to stay in the country and realize his dream.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWish Upon a Star (1996)
A younger sister wishes to switch places with her popular older sister and the two bickering siblings awaken to find the wish has come true.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDancer in the Dark (2000)
Selma, a Czech immigrant on the verge of blindness, struggles to make ends meet for herself and her young son, who has inherited the same genetic disorder and will suffer the same fate without an expensive operation. When life becomes increasingly difficult, Selma learns to cope through her love of musicals, dreaming up little numbers to the rhythmic beats of her surroundings.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMy Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown (1989)
No one expects much from Christy Brown, a boy with cerebral palsy born into a working-class Irish family. Though Christy is a spastic quadriplegic and essentially paralyzed, a miraculous event occurs when, at the age of 5, he demonstrates control of his left foot by using chalk to scrawl a word on the floor. With the help of his steely mother — and no shortage of grit and determination — Christy overcomes his infirmity to become a painter, poet and author.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSpymate (2006)
Amelia, a young genius and daughter of a top secret agent, unknowingly invents a contraption that makes her the target of an evil scientist.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Dinner with Hervé (2018)
An unlikely friendship evolves over one wild night in LA between a struggling journalist and actor Hervé Villechaize, the world's most famous gun-toting dwarf, resulting in life-changing consequences for both.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOut of My Mind (2024)
Melody Brooks, a sixth grader with cerebral palsy, has a quick wit and a sharp mind, but because she is non-verbal and uses a wheelchair, she is not given the same opportunities as her classmates. When a young educator notices her student's untapped potential and Melody starts to participate in mainstream education, Melody shows that what she has to say is more important than how she says it.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGigi & Nate (2022)
A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Gnome-Mobile (1967)
An eccentric millionaire and his grandchildren are embroiled in the plights of some forest gnomes who are searching for the rest of their tribe. While helping them, the millionaire is suspected of being crazy because he's seeing gnomes! He's committed, and the niece and nephew and the gnomes have to find him and free him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAmerican Splendor (2003)
An original mix of fiction and reality illuminates the life of comic book hero everyman Harvey Pekar.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLetter to America (1999)
Two friends from Odesa try to compose a video message to their pals, emigrants to the United States. One of them rents his apartment to a tricky girl who invents various excuses not to pay the rent. An exceptional story about people on the verge of despair who nonetheless manage to enjoy life, even if these joys are beyond good and evil.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
2071 - Horoscopes and Psychotropics (2021)
It is a feature film in development and research. It tells the story of a pharmacopornographic treatment imposed on a woman after an attempted suicide. But it is the year 2071 that an alternative comes to her.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Addams Family Values (1993)
Siblings Wednesday and Pugsley Addams will stop at nothing to get rid of Pubert, the new baby boy adored by parents Gomez and Morticia. Things go from bad to worse when the new "black widow" nanny, Debbie Jellinsky, launches her plan to add Fester to her collection of dead husbands.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisYOYO (2017)
Caroline can't stand that she is a virgin...and then the world ends. In post-apocalyptic LA, after a dust storm has wiped out the planet, she is convinced that Francis was sent as the man to pop her cherry. YOYO is a heartfelt, dark comedy about finding meaning in life, even when life ceases to exist.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
Isolde (1989)
After librarian Isolde attempts suicide, she leaves her politician husband for a younger student with a dark past. Isolde's former husband, however, has something else in mind for the young man.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
That Lovely Girl (2014)
Moshe and Tami are a couple, Moshe is in his fifties and Tami is in her early twenties. They live together in a cruel and violent relationship, from which Tami seems unable to set herself free. Tami and Moshe are father and daughter...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Across My Land (2017)
Father and son 'minutemen' patrol the American/Mexican border near their home in Nogales, Arizona.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Mary Queen of Scots (2018)
In 1561, Mary Stuart, widow of the King of France, returns to Scotland, reclaims her rightful throne and menaces the future of Queen Elizabeth I as ruler of England, because she has a legitimate claim to the English throne. Betrayals, rebellions, conspiracies and their own life choices imperil both Queens. They experience the bitter cost of power, until their tragic fate is finally fulfilled.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDamn Poverty! (2009)
Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace prize winner, is known in the whole world as the banker of the poor, because he pioneered and tested a funding system in Bangladesh: by lending little sums of money to the less well-off with no interest, and returning it by installments gained with their work, people are able to get free from extreme misery. Thus, what can happen if three boys, just graduated, who live in Naples, try to import this funding system that subverts every economic rule?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Once in a Lifetime?
The closest matches to Once in a Lifetime are Benny & Joon (1993), My Own Love Song (2010) and Carrie Pilby (2017). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Once in a Lifetime?
Start with Benny & Joon (1993), the closest match to Once in a Lifetime.
What is the highest-rated movie like Once in a Lifetime?
Dancer in the Dark (2000), rated 7.8/10 by 2,110 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Once in a Lifetime?
Problemista (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Once in a Lifetime chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Once in a Lifetime, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.