Movies like Nos Embalos de Ipanema (1978)
The best movies like Nos Embalos de Ipanema (1978) are Somewhere in Queens (2023), The House of Tomorrow (2019) and CQ (2001). If Nos Embalos de Ipanema 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 ratedCity of God (2002)8.4/10 from 8,625 votes
- NewestBeast (2026)Released 2026
Somewhere in Queens (2023)
Leo and Angela Russo live a simple life in Queens, surrounded by their overbearing Italian-American family. When their son finds success on his high school basketball team, Leo tears the family apart trying to make it happen.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe House of Tomorrow (2019)
The film tells futurist, architect, and inventor R. Buckminster Fuller's incredible story through two teens hoping to get laid, become punk gods, and survive high school.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCQ (2001)
A young filmmaker in 1960s Paris juggles directing a cheesy sci-fi debacle, directing his own personal art film, coping with his crumbling relationship with his girlfriend, and a new-found infatuation with the sci-fi film's starlet.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisKilling Bono (2011)
The true story of Neil and Ivan McCormick, two Irish brothers who attempt to become rock stars but can only look on as their high school friends U2 become the biggest band in the world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIgby Goes Down (2002)
Igby Slocumb, a rebellious and sarcastic 17-year-old boy, is at war with the stifling world of old money privilege he was born into. With a schizophrenic father, a self-absorbed, distant mother, and a shark-like young Republican big brother, Igby figures there must be a better life out there -- and sets about finding it.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLandline (2017)
A teenager living with her sister and parents in Manhattan during the 1990s discovers that her father is having an affair.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAlmost Friends (2017)
A man in his mid-20s, still living at home with his mother and stepfather, puts all his eggs in one basket: the girl who works at his local coffee shop. The problem is, she has a serious boyfriend. As they become closer, the line between friendship and intimacy is blurred, and the situation forces both to examine where they are in their lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFat Kid Rules The World (2012)
A dropout comes to the aid of a chubby and suicidal high-school kid by recruiting him as the drummer for his upstart punk-rock band.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTerri (2011)
Terri, a pajama-clad, disaffected high school student learns how to engage the world with the help of Mr. Fitzgerald, his assistant principal.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIn the Soup (1992)
An aspiring young filmmaker gets involved with an eccentric gangster for the financing of his first film.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Beanie Bubble (2023)
Ty was a frustrated toy salesman until his collaboration with three women turned his stuffed animals into a defining '90s trend. This behind-the-scenes look at history's biggest toy craze is a wild story about what—and who—is valued in this world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBreath (2017)
A pair of teenagers in Western Australia looking to escape the monotony of life in a small town take up surfing lessons from a guy named Sando.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Movie of My Life (2017)
The sierras of southern Brazil, 1963. The son of an French man and a Brazilian woman, Tony is a young man with a profound love of cinema and poetry. After graduating from college he returns to his small town in rural Brazil, to find out that his father had left for good, back to France. Tony then looks for the company of his fathers friends in search of information and references of a lost male role-model. He becomes a school teacher and a male figure to kids, in an attempt to provide them with something he lacks himself. A series of developments lead him to a surprising final lead on his fathers' whereabouts and reasons for leaving.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMy Name Ain't Johnny (2008)
The true story of João Guilherme Estrella ("Johnny"), a young middle-class bon vivant who became a big-time cocaine dealer in Rio de Janeiro in the early 1990s.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOnly the Strong (1993)
Former Green Beret Louis Stevens returns to his hometown of Miami after completing military service in Brazil, only to learn that his old high school has become a haven for gangs and drug dealers. After Stevens uses his capoeira skills to kick several drug dealers off of the school property, Kerrigan, one of Stevens' old teachers, sees the impact that Stevens has on the students. Kerrigan gives him the task of teaching Capoeira to a handful of the worst at-risk students at the school.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVitória (2025)
Nina is an elderly woman who lives alone and feels distressed by the increasing violence in her neighborhood. Amidst conflicts with her neighbors, she decides to film the movement of drug traffickers from her window, hoping to assist the police. After months of recording suspicious activities, her initiative attracts the attention of a journalist, who approaches Nina and offers to support her in her mission.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEmbattled (2020)
The eldest son of a ruthlessly tough MMA champion must fight his way out of the abusive cycle his father has continued.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDrift (2013)
In the 70s two brothers battle killer waves, conservative society and ruthless bikers to kick-start the modern surf industry.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisCity of God (2002)
In the poverty-stricken favelas of Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s, two young men choose different paths. Rocket is a budding photographer who documents the increasing drug-related violence of his neighborhood, while José “Zé” Pequeno is an ambitious drug dealer diving into a dangerous life of crime.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisBeast (2026)
MMA legend Patton James, now a commercial fisherman, is pulled back into the cage when his brother is in danger. Reuniting with his old coach Sammy, he commits to one final fight in one championship against the brutal champion Xavier Grau.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBilly Elliot (2000)
County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSwinging Safari (2018)
1975: A 200-ton blue whale gets washed up on a local beach and the kids think it’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened in Australia. Behind closed doors, the Mums and Dads of a quiet suburban street are going to celebrate in their own special way, by joining the sexual revolution and throwing a wife-swapping key party. And like the rotting whale, it’s all about to go spectacularly wrong.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisSummer Things (2002)
Two couple of friends, one very rich, the other almost homeless, decide to go on Holiday. Julie, a single mother, joins them too. Once at seaside, it starts a complicate love cross among them that will involve also a transsexual, a jealous brother, a Latin Lover and another nervous stressed couple. Not to mention about the daughter of one of them that is secretly in Chicago with one of her father's employees... At the end of the summer, all of them will join the same party...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisBig Daddy (1999)
A lazy law school grad adopts a kid to impress his girlfriend, but everything doesn't go as planned. Now he's forced to grow up while navigating the challenges of fatherhood.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRevolutionen i vandkanten (1971)
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
36 Fillette (1988)
A 14-year-old pursues romance with a man while vacationing with her family in Switzerland.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisNotorious (1946)
In order to help bring Nazis to justice, U.S. government agent T.R. Devlin recruits Alicia Huberman, the American daughter of a convicted German war criminal, as a spy. As they begin to fall for one another, Alicia is instructed to win the affections of Alexander Sebastian, a Nazi hiding out in Brazil. When Sebastian becomes serious about his relationship with Alicia, the stakes get higher, and Devlin must watch her slip further undercover.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLiebesgruß an einen Engel (2008)
When a love letter falls into Sara's hands that is not meant for her, but whose addressee remains unclear, her curiosity is aroused. The words on the paper have caused something in her to resound, which she wants to trace. The surprising path of feelings makes its way through the jungle of life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
Central Station (1998)
An emotional journey of a former school teacher, who writes letters for illiterate people, and a young boy, whose mother has just died, as they search for the father he never knew.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Piano (1993)
When an arranged marriage brings Ada and her spirited pre-teen daughter Flora to the wilderness of 19th-century New Zealand, she finds herself locked in a battle of wills with both her controlling husband and a rugged frontiersman to whom she develops a forbidden attraction.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Nos Embalos de Ipanema?
The closest matches to Nos Embalos de Ipanema are Somewhere in Queens (2023), The House of Tomorrow (2019) and CQ (2001). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Nos Embalos de Ipanema?
Start with Somewhere in Queens (2023), the closest match to Nos Embalos de Ipanema.
What is the highest-rated movie like Nos Embalos de Ipanema?
City of God (2002), rated 8.4/10 by 8,625 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Nos Embalos de Ipanema?
Beast (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Nos Embalos de Ipanema chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Nos Embalos de Ipanema, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.