Movies like Deconstructing Harry (1997)
The best movies like Deconstructing Harry (1997) are The Friend (2025), Mother (1996) and House of D (2004). If Deconstructing Harry 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 ratedAmerican Psycho (2000)7.4/10 from 12,976 votes
- NewestPsycho Therapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer (2025)Released 2025
The Friend (2025)
New York City writer Iris finds her comfortable, solitary life thrown into disarray after her closest friend and mentor bequeaths her a Great Dane named Apollo. The huge dog immediately creates practical problems for Iris, from furniture destruction to eviction notices, as well as more existential ones. Yet as Iris finds herself unexpectedly bonding with Apollo, she begins to come to terms with her past, and her own creative inner life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMother (1996)
A neurotic, twice-divorced sci-fi writer moves back in with his mother to solve his personal problems.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHouse of D (2004)
In the present, artist Tom Warshaw recalls his traumatic coming of age. As a 13-year-old growing up in New York City in 1973, Tom hangs out with Pappass, a mentally disabled man. With Tom's mother battling depression after the death of her husband, the young boy is left to his own devices. When Tom develops a crush on schoolmate Melissa, Pappass feels abandoned and begins behaving erratically.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCan You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)
When a bestselling celebrity biographer is no longer able to get published because she has fallen out of step with current tastes, she turns her art form to deception.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSmoke (1995)
Writer Paul Benjamin is nearly hit by a bus when he leaves Auggie Wren's smoke shop. Stranger Rashid Cole saves his life, and soon middle-aged Paul tells homeless Rashid that he wouldn't mind a short-term housemate. Still grieving over his wife's murder, Paul is moved by both Rashid's quest to reconnect with his father and Auggie's discovery that a woman who might be his daughter is about to give birth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe King of Staten Island (2020)
Scott has been a case of arrested development ever since his firefighter father died when he was seven. He's now reached his mid-20s having achieved little, chasing a dream of becoming a tattoo artist that seems far out of reach. As his ambitious younger sister heads off to college, Scott is still living with his exhausted ER nurse mother and spends his days smoking weed, hanging with the guys — Oscar, Igor and Richie — and secretly hooking up with his childhood friend Kelsey. But when his mother starts dating a loudmouth firefighter named Ray, it sets off a chain of events that will force Scott to grapple with his grief and take his first tentative steps toward moving forward in life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Forty-Year-Old Version (2020)
Desperate for a breakthrough as she nears the big 4-0, struggling New York City playwright Radha finds inspiration by reinventing herself as a rapper.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Different Man (2024)
Aspiring actor Edward undergoes a radical medical procedure to drastically transform his appearance. But his new dream face quickly turns into a nightmare.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSaturday Night (2024)
At 11:30pm on October 11, 1975, a ferocious troupe of young comedians and writers changed television forever. This is the story of what happened behind the scenes in the 90 minutes leading up to the first broadcast of Saturday Night Live.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNot Okay (2022)
An ambitious young woman, desperate for followers and fame, fakes a trip to Paris to up her social media presence. When a terrifying incident takes place in the real world and becomes part of her imaginary trip, her white lie becomes a moral quandary that offers her all the attention she’s wanted.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSmall Apartments (2012)
When a clumsy deadbeat accidentally kills his landlord, he must do everything in his power to hide the body, only to find that the distractions of lust, the death of his beloved brother, and a crew of misfit characters force him on a journey where a fortune awaits him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Squid and the Whale (2005)
Based on the true childhood experiences of Noah Baumbach and his brother, The Squid and the Whale tells the touching story of two young boys dealing with their parents' divorce in Brooklyn in the 1980s.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAbout Alex (2014)
When a group of old college friends reunite over a long weekend after one of them attempts suicide, old crushes and resentments shine light on their life decisions, and ultimately push friendships and relationships to the brink.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThrow Momma from the Train (1987)
Larry Donner, an author with a cruel ex-wife, teaches a writing workshop in which one of his students, Owen, is fed up with his domineering mother. When Owen watches a Hitchcock classic that seems to mirror his own life, he decides to put the movie's plot into action and offers to kill Larry's ex-wife, if Larry promises to murder his mom. Before Larry gets a chance to react to the plan, it seems that Owen has already set things in motion.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006)
Dito Montiel, a successful author, receives a call from his long-suffering mother, asking him to return home and visit his ailing father. Dito recalls his childhood growing up in a violent neighborhood in Queens, N.Y., with friends Antonio, Giuseppe, Nerf and Mike.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNeverwas (2005)
Zach Riley is a psychiatrist, who leaves a job at a prestigious university, to take up a job at the privately run mental institution, Millwood. What he doesn't reveal at the time of his appointment is that this was the very place where his novelist father, T.L. Pierson, spent many years of his life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPsycho Therapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer (2025)
A struggling writer in the midst of a divorce befriends a retired serial killer who incidentally becomes his marriage counselor by day, and killing counselor for his next book by night.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBringing Out the Dead (1999)
Once called "Father Frank" for his efforts to rescue lives, Frank Pierce sees the ghosts of those he failed to save around every turn. He has tried everything he can to get fired, calling in sick, delaying taking calls where he might have to face one more victim he couldn't help, yet cannot quit the job on his own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAmerican Psycho (2000)
A wealthy New York investment banking executive hides his alternate psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends as he escalates deeper into his illogical, gratuitous fantasies.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this25th Hour (2002)
On the eve of a seven-year prison sentence, a New York drug dealer spends his final day of freedom confronting his past, his relationships, and the choices that led to his downfall in a city still reeling from 9/11.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAdult Beginners (2014)
A young, hipster entrepreneur crashes and burns on the eve of his company’s big launch. With his entire life in disarray, he leaves Manhattan to move in with his estranged pregnant sister, brother-in-law and three year-old nephew in the suburbs — only to become their manny. Faced with real responsibility, he may finally have to grow up — but not without some bad behavior first.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisDowntown '81 (2001)
The film is a day in the life of a young artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat, who needs to raise money to reclaim the apartment from which he has been evicted. He wanders the downtown streets carrying a painting he hopes to sell, encountering friends, whose lives (and performances) we peek into.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & comedy
Clay Pigeons (1998)
Clay is a young man in a small town who witnesses his friend, Earl, kill himself because of the ongoing affair that Clay was having with the man's wife, Amanda. Feeling guilty, Clay now resists the widow when she presses him to continue with the affair. Clay unknowingly befriends a serial killer named Lester Long who murders the widow in an attempt to "help" his "fishing buddy."
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWrong Side Up (2005)
A man who deals with parcels at an airport cargo company finds that he likes planes more than people.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Wake in Fright (1971)
A young schoolteacher descends into personal moral degradation after finding himself stranded in a brutal, menacing town in outback Australia.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWrecked (2009)
An edgy drama about a gay teen's tumultuous decent into drugs and anonymous sex, Wrecked smashes cinematic taboos while it spins its cautionary tale. Ryan is an earnest 18-year-old trying to develop a career as an actor and getting his life on the right track. This course is quickly threatened with the sudden arrival of his sort-of ex, Daniel, who arrives at Ryan's door wanting a place to stay.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Just the Ticket (1998)
Gary Starke is one of the best ticket scalpers in New York City. His girlfriend, Linda, doesn't approve of his criminal lifestyle, though, and dumps him when she gets the opportunity to study cooking in Paris. Gary realizes that he has to give up scalping if he has any chance of winning her back. But before he does, he wants to cash out on one last big score. He gets his chance when the pope announces he'll be performing Easter Mass at Yankee Stadium.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
Horns and Halos (2002)
"What if someone wrote your biography? Would there be horns and halos involved?"
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Margarita with a Straw (2015)
A rebellious young woman with cerebral palsy leaves India to study in New York. On her journey of self-discovery, she unexpectedly falls in love.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDeadline (1988)
In a small (fictional) emirate of the Persian Gulf a world-weary journalist is caught up in a coup where the Emir's son, under the influence of a political renegade, attempts to depose his father - the ruling monarch. Flashbacks of the journalist's life show us how his relationships with the Emir and a beautiful young woman develop and flourish.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Deconstructing Harry?
The closest matches to Deconstructing Harry are The Friend (2025), Mother (1996) and House of D (2004). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Deconstructing Harry?
Start with The Friend (2025), the closest match to Deconstructing Harry.
What is the highest-rated movie like Deconstructing Harry?
American Psycho (2000), rated 7.4/10 by 12,976 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Deconstructing Harry?
Psycho Therapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Deconstructing Harry?
Yes: The Friend (2025), Mother (1996) and House of D (2004).
How are movies similar to Deconstructing Harry chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Deconstructing Harry, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.