Movies like 1981 (2009)
The best movies like 1981 (2009) are Moonstruck (1987), The Other Sister (1999) and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010). If 1981 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 ratedMarty (1955)7.5/10 from 484 votes
- NewestYou, Me & Tuscany (2026)Released 2026
- In FrenchMy Summer in Provence (2014)Also in French
Moonstruck (1987)
37-year-old Italian-American widow Loretta Castorini believes she is unlucky in love, and so accepts a marriage proposal from her boyfriend Johnny, even though she doesn't love him. When she meets his estranged younger brother Ronny, an emotional and passionate man, she finds herself drawn to him. She tries to resist, but Ronny, who blames his brother for the loss of his hand, has no scruples about aggressively pursuing her while Johnny is out of the country. As Loretta falls for Ronny, she learns that she's not the only one in her family with a secret romance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Other Sister (1999)
A mentally challenged girl proves herself to be every bit as capable as her "perfect" sister when she moves into an apartment and begins going to college.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYou Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)
Two married couples find only trouble and heartache as their complicated lives unfold. After 40 years of marriage, Alfie leaves his wife to pursue what he thinks is happiness with a call girl. His wife, Helena, reeling from abandonment, decides to follow the advice of a psychic. Sally, the daughter of Alfie and Helena, is unhappy in her marriage and develops a crush on her boss, while her husband, Roy, falls for a woman engaged to be married.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Nanny Diaries (2007)
A college graduate goes to work as a nanny for a rich New York family. Ensconced in their home, she has to juggle their dysfunction, a new romance, and the spoiled brat in her charge.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisL.A. Without a Map (1999)
An aspiring Hollywood actress, on a visit to a charming North England town, has a brief fling with the town undertaker, who also writes obituaries for the local paper. Returning home, where she works as a waitress at a Japanese restaurant, she tells everyone about the handsome "writer" she met on her trip. Unfortunately, he decides to follow her back to Hollywood, setting up the expected light romantic comedy with asides as the newcomer gains experience about the goings on in Hollywood.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Courtship of Eddie's Father (1963)
Although he's only seven, Eddie's got it all figured out. He wants his father, a widower, to get remarried — to the girl next door. Unfortunately, she's not one of the women that his dad's been dating.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
SnoozefestMovies like thisGreen Card (1990)
Urban horticulturalist Brontë Mitchell has her eye on a gorgeous apartment, but the building's board will rent it only to a married couple. Georges Fauré, a waiter from France whose visa is expiring, needs to marry an American woman to stay in the country. Their marriage of convenience turns into a burden when they must live together to allay the suspicions of the immigration service, as the polar opposites grate on each other's nerves.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLa Dolce Villa (2025)
When his daughter decides to buy a crumbling Tuscan villa, Eric rushes to Italy to talk her out of it — and instead finds beauty, romance and new purpose.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAn Autumn Romance (2021)
When librarian Taylor Harris suddenly loses her job, she decides to visit her brother in a small town in Montana. There, she gets involved in the fight to help save her brother's hotel from tycoon Joel Sheenan, who wants to renovate it.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIt Runs in the Family (2003)
This is the story of a dysfunctional New York family, and their attempts to reconcile
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYours, Mine & Ours (2005)
Admiral Frank Beardsley returns to New London to run the Coast Guard Academy, his last stop before a probable promotion to head the Guard. A widower with eight children, he runs a loving but tight ship, with charts and salutes. The kids long for a permanent home. Helen North is a free spirit, a designer whose ten children live in loving chaos, with occasional group hugs. Helen and Frank, high school sweethearts, reconnect at a reunion, and it's love at first re-sighting. They marry on the spot. Then the problems start as two sets of kids, the free spirits and the disciplined preppies, must live together. The warring factions agree to work together to end the marriage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRoll Bounce (2005)
In the summer of 1978, a teenager and his group of friends face new challenges when their neighborhood roller-skating rink closes, forcing them to visit a different rink.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFoster (2011)
Looking to adopt a child and unable to conceive a child of their own, the Morrisons' lives are turned upside down when a seven-year-old boy unexpectedly shows up on their doorstep.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Summer in Provence (2014)
In the wake of their parent's separation, three siblings spend the summer in the south of France with their estranged Grandfather. In less than 24 hours, a clash of generations has occurred between the teenagers and the old man. During this turbulent summer, both generations will be transformed by one another.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisC'est La Vie (1990)
A story is about young teenage girl, with sister and brothers, a pleasant uncle and aunt, an annoying nanny, a young boy interested in kissing her, a close relationship with the imaginary addressee of her daily diary and her parents' disintegrating marriage - all this in a rented house in a summer resort.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYou, Me & Tuscany (2026)
When a woman crashes at an empty Italian villa, posing as the owner's fiancée, she discovers an unexpected romance that could transform her life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Brady Bunch Movie (1995)
The original '70s TV family is now placed in the 1990s, where they're even more square and out of place than ever.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBon Voyage, Marie (2025)
An unexpected road trip brings a dysfunctional family together for one last journey with their elder, sparking moments of connection, joy, and reconciliation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMarty (1955)
Marty, a butcher who lives in the Bronx with his mother, is unmarried at 34. Good-natured but socially awkward, he faces constant badgering from family and friends to get married but has reluctantly resigned himself to bachelorhood. He then meets Clara, an unattractive school teacher. Realising their emotional connection, Marty promises to call, but family and friends try to convince him not to.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisKitchen Brigade (2022)
Cathy is a sous-chef wanting to open a restaurant. With financial difficulties, Cathy accepts a job at a shelter for young migrants. At first she hates the job then her passion for cuisine starts to change children's lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBeautiful Girls (1996)
During a snowy winter in the small fictional town of Knight's Ridge, Massachusetts, a group of lifelong buddies hang out, drink and struggle to connect with the women who affect their decisions, dreams and desires.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Lot Like Love (2005)
On a flight from Los Angeles to New York, Oliver and Emily make a connection, only to decide that they are poorly suited to be together. Over the next seven years, however, they are reunited time and time again, they go from being acquaintances to close friends to... lovers?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Sure Thing (1985)
Gib, a beer-guzzling slob, and Alison, an uptight Ivy-Leaguer, are an unlikely duo stuck together on a cross-country trip during Christmas break. At first they get on each other's nerves but, as time passes, they find their divergent natures complement each other. Now they need to realize what they've already found before it's too late.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGyeongju (2014)
A Beijing professor returns to his stomping grounds for a friend's funeral. Reflecting on the past, he meets a tea shop owner who sparks feelings of love in a time of pain.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Something Like Summer (2017)
Something Like Summer traces the tumultuous relationship of Ben and Tim, secret high school sweethearts who grow over the years into both adulthood enemies and complicated friends.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both romance & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisBy the Wayside (2012)
Four friends (a background actor, a documentarian, a homeless musician, and a virgin) descend into a life-awakening 24 hours that involve excess drinking, prostitutes, a sage-like lounge singer and psychedelic drugs.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Dear Frankie (2004)
Nine-year-old Frankie and his single mum Lizzie have been on the move ever since Frankie can remember, most recently arriving in a seaside Scottish town. Wanting to protect her deaf son from the truth that they've run away from his father, Lizzie has invented a story that he is away at sea on the HMS Accra. Every few weeks, Lizzie writes Frankie a make-believe letter from his father, telling of his adventures in exotic lands. As Frankie tracks the ship's progress around the globe, he discovers that it is due to dock in his hometown. With the real HMS Accra arriving in only a fortnight, Lizzie must choose between telling Frankie the truth or finding the perfect stranger to play Frankie's father for just one day...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEagle Rock (2019)
In the early 1970s, a young woman in prison for murder reflects on what led her to the crime, the cult she was a part of, and her relationship with its leader.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Tree of Life (2011)
The impressionistic story of a Texas family in the 1950s. The film follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father. Jack finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCan't Shine Without You My Brother (2019)
In the course of a year, Yahya loses three brothers. To survive the sorrow he has built a hut in the forest. There he can live out his fantasies and meet them again. Yahya gets one last chance to talk to them, touch them, capture them, carry them and be carried by them.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like 1981 and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like 1981?
The closest matches to 1981 are Moonstruck (1987), The Other Sister (1999) and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after 1981?
Start with Moonstruck (1987), the closest match to 1981.
What is the highest-rated movie like 1981?
Marty (1955), rated 7.5/10 by 484 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like 1981?
You, Me & Tuscany (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like 1981?
Yes: My Summer in Provence (2014), C'est La Vie (1990) and Bon Voyage, Marie (2025).
How are movies similar to 1981 chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside 1981, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.