Movies like Symphony of a City (1947)
The best movies like Symphony of a City (1947) are The Show Must Go On: The Queen + Adam Lambert Story (2019), Avatar: The Deep Dive - A Special Edition of 20/20 (2022) and Come See Me in the Good Light (2025). If Symphony of a City hooked you with its documentary, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedMan with a Movie Camera (1929)7.9/10 from 842 votes
- NewestA Toxic Love Story (2026)Released 2026
The Show Must Go On: The Queen + Adam Lambert Story (2019)
A documentary chronicling Queen and Lambert's incredible journey since they first shared the stage together on "American Idol" in 2009.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAvatar: The Deep Dive - A Special Edition of 20/20 (2022)
An inside look at one of the most anticipated movie sequels ever with James Cameron and cast.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCome See Me in the Good Light (2025)
In an intimate and joyful story of love in the face of loss, celebrated poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley find strength—and unexpected hilarity—in what might be their final year together.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Toxic Love Story (2026)
A string of threatening emails escalates into a revenge plot involving a newly married US marshal and his ex-girlfriend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBeing James Bond (2021)
Daniel Craig candidly reflects on his 15 year adventure as James Bond. Including never-before-seen archival footage from Casino Royale to the upcoming 25th film No Time To Die, Craig shares his personal memories in conversation with 007 producers, Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff (2010)
In 2001 Jack Cardiff (1914-2009) became the first director of photography in the history of the Academy Awards to win an Honorary Oscar. But the first time he clasped the famous statuette in his hand was a half-century earlier when his Technicolor camerawork was awarded for Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus. Beyond John Huston's The African Queen and King Vidor's War and Peace, the films of the British-Hungarian creative duo (The Red Shoes and A Matter of Life and Death too) guaranteed immortality for the renowned cameraman whose career spanned seventy years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAs I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2000)
A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOne Soldier's Story: The Journey of American Sniper (2015)
Join director Clint Eastwood and his creative team, along with Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller, as they overcome enormous creative and logistic obstacles to make a film that brings the truth of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle's story to the screen.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
SnoozefestMovies like thisAquaman: Heroines of Atlantis (2019)
Amber Heard and Nicole Kidman discuss their characters Mera and Atlanna.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJoker: Put on a Happy Face (2020)
Featuring interviews with filmmakers and industry legends, discover the origins and evolution of The Joker, and learn why The Clown Prince of Crime is universally hailed as the greatest comic-book supervillain of all time.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisSeduced and Abandoned (2013)
SEDUCED AND ABANDONED combines acting legend Alec Baldwin with director James Toback as they lead us on a troublesome and often hilarious journey of raising financing for their next feature film. Moving from director to financier to star actor, the two players provide us with a unique look behind the curtain at the world's biggest and most glamourous film festival, shining a light on the bitter-sweet relationship filmmakers have with Cannes and the film business. Featuring insights from directors Martin Scorsese, 'Bernando Bertolucci' and Roman Polanski; actors Ryan Gosling and Jessica Chastain and a host of film distribution luminaries.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe September Issue (2009)
A documentary chronicling Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour's preparations for the 2007 fall-fashion issue.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRoger Waters: Us + Them (2019)
Filmed in Amsterdam on the European leg of his 2017 – 2018 Us + Them tour which saw Waters perform to over two million people worldwide, the film features songs from his legendary Pink Floyd albums (The Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall, Animals, Wish You Were Here) and from his last album, Is This The Life We Really Want?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDirected by John Ford (1971)
A documentary about the life and films of director John Ford.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisExtremis (2016)
A purely observational non-fiction film that takes viewers into the ethically murky world of end-of-life decision making in a public hospital.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNaqoyqatsi (2002)
A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJohn & Yoko: Above Us Only Sky (2018)
Film telling the untold story of John Lennon's 1971 album Imagine, exploring the creative collaboration between Lennon and Yoko Ono and featuring interviews and never-seen-before footage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisVery Nice, Very Nice (1961)
Arthur Lipsett's first film is an avant-garde blend of photography and sound. It looks behind the business-as-usual face we put on life and shows anxieties we want to forget. It is made of dozens of pictures that seem familiar, with fragments of speech heard in passing and, between times, a voice saying, "Very nice, very nice." The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBurma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country (2008)
Going beyond the occasional news clip from Burma, the acclaimed filmmaker, Anders Østergaard, brings us close to the video journalists who deliver the footage. Though risking torture and life in jail, courageous young citizens of Burma live the essence of journalism as they insist on keeping up the flow of news from their closed country.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMarina Abramović: The Artist Is Present (2012)
Performance artist Marina Abramovic prepares for a major retrospective of her work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLast of a London Summer (2017)
The last days of summer captured on 16mm.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Sound Spring (2025)
Unfolding in a series of eight vignettes, Sound Spring explores the history ofYellow Springs, Ohio over hundreds of years, as narrated by its residents incomical scenes: one interviewee rollerblades and reads the village's water meters, another stands on his head in a breakdancing freeze. The villagers describe American history-their ancestors' settlements after slavery, a friendship with Coretta Scott King, and Ohio's Trail of Tears- among other more personal details of village life. The wording of their recollections is imperfect, unsure-in fact they are all re-stagings of their previous audio interviews. Through performing their own previously recorded media, villagers uncover layers of time and storytelling.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927)
A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMan with a Movie Camera (1929)
A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisOne Crow Sorrow (2024)
A personal city symphony where an eco-anxious soul explores the intersections of natural and artificial. The filmmaker’s internal conflicts are reflected through the contradictions of early spring. This experimental short documentary invites the viewer to take the time and truly pay attention to one’s surroundings.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
1,2,3... Barcelona! (2025)
Tourists eating and taking photos. Tourists strolling and taking photos. Tourists bathing on the beach and taking more photos. Barcelona has become an overexploited photocall to the point of paroxysm, and this is what this film shows by turning the camera and pointing towards the visitors. A small gesture that, added to a powerful sound contrast and a caustic sense of humour, exposes without subterfuge a grotesque normality.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Passersby (2023)
Six lives intersect in a city symphony of chance encounters.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
London Symphony (2017)
LONDON SYMPHONY is a brand new silent film - a city symphony - which offers a poetic journey through the city of London. It is an artistic snapshot of the city as it stands today, and a celebration of its culture and diversity.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
New York Portrait (1990)
Peter Hutton's New York trilogy. An act of urban archaeology, a chronicle of indelible impressions of the city.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Hidden Cities (2010)
"The theme of the film HIDDEN CITIES is personal urban perceptions, which we call 'the city'. The city, as a living organism, reflecting social processes and interactions, economic relations, political conditions and private matters. In the city, human memories, desires and tragedies find expression in the form of designations and marks engraved in house walls and paving slabs. But what the city really is under this thick layer of signs, what it contains or conceals, is what we are researching in the HIDDEN CITIES project. The source material for the film are 9 sequential photo works created by Gusztáv Hámos between 1975 and 2010. Each of these 'city perceptions' depicts essential situations of urban experiences containing human and inhuman acts in a compact form. The cities in which the photo sequences have been made are Berlin, Budapest and New York – places with a traumatised past: Wars, dictatorships, terrorist catastrophes."
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Like Symphony of a City and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Symphony of a City?
The closest matches to Symphony of a City are The Show Must Go On: The Queen + Adam Lambert Story (2019), Avatar: The Deep Dive - A Special Edition of 20/20 (2022) and Come See Me in the Good Light (2025). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Symphony of a City?
Start with The Show Must Go On: The Queen + Adam Lambert Story (2019), the closest match to Symphony of a City.
What is the highest-rated movie like Symphony of a City?
Man with a Movie Camera (1929), rated 7.9/10 by 842 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Symphony of a City?
A Toxic Love Story (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Symphony of a City chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Symphony of a City, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.