Movies like The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005)
The best movies like The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005) are Philanthropy (2002), Decalogue X (1989) and 12:08 East of Bucharest (2006). If The Death of Mr. Lazarescu hooked you with its drama and comedy, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedWild Tales (2014)7.9/10 from 3,942 votes
- NewestKontinental '25 (2025)Released 2025
Philanthropy (2002)
In 21st century Bucharest, to go out in the city on Saturday evening on the arm of a beautiful woman is a risky financial investment. Ovidiu, an unassuming high school teacher, never could afford it. Looking for a source of income more substantial than a teacher's salary, Ovidiu plunges into a fabulous world – the beggar mob.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDecalogue X (1989)
Jerzy and Artur’s father dies, leaving behind a valuable stamp collection, which, they discover, is coveted by dealers of varying degrees of shadiness. The more involved the brothers get in their father’s world, the more dire and comical their situation becomes.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Absolute CinemaMovies like this12:08 East of Bucharest (2006)
It's the 22nd of December. Sixteen years have passed since the revolution, and in a small town Christmas is about to come. Piscoci, an old retired man is preparing for another Christmas alone. Manescu, the history teacher, tries to keep up with his debts. Jderescu, the owner of a local television post, seems not to be so interested in the upcoming holidays. For him, the time to face history has come. Along with Manescu and Piscoci, he is trying to answer for himself a question which for 16 years has not had an answer: "Was it or wasn't it a revolution in their town?"
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Cremator (1969)
In 1930s Prague, a Czech cremator who firmly believes cremation relieves one from earthly suffering is drawn inexorably to Nazism.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDo Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (2023)
On behalf of a multinational company, a production assistant drives around the Romanian city of Bucharest, interviewing various citizens who have been injured due to work accidents to cast one of them in a “safety at work” video.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLittle Siberia (2025)
A pastor's faith turns upside down when a meteorite lands in his small Finnish town, its impact stirring up chaos and criminal intentions.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisAaltra (2004)
In this pitch black comedy the rivalry between two neighbors escalates into an all out war. Through a maintenance error on a tractor they both end up, paralyzed, in a wheelchair. It seems they are doomed to stay together. They no longer focus their rage on each other but on the manufacturer of the tractor, in Helsinki. So get ready for a hilarious wheelchair road movie.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCalifornia Dreamin' (2007)
1999. Kosovo War. In a small Romanian village, the chief of the railway station, who also happens to be a local gangster, stops a NATO train transporting military equipment. Their arrival in this small village dramatically changes its landscape.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Oak (1992)
A description of Romania before Ceausescu's downfall, through the story of Nela. Daughter of a former colonel of the Securitate, the romanian political police. She refused to become like her sister, an agent of this Securitate, and lives with her father. After he died, she leaves Bucharest, and ends up in a little town, where she meets Mitica, a surgeon, another herself, laughing at everything.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAbout Endlessness (2019)
A reflection on human life in all its beauty and cruelty, its splendor and banality, guided by a Scheherazade-esque narrator. Inconsequential moments have the same significance as historical events. Simultaneously an ode and a lament, presents a kaleidoscope of all that is eternally human, an infinite story of the vulnerability of existence.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSieranevada (2016)
Back from a professional trip to Paris, a neurologist at the pinnacle of his career has to pick up his wife so that they can attend a family meal to commemorate his father, who died a year before. At his mother's flat, the guests are waiting for the priest to arrive while arguing about all kinds of things connected and unconnected with the world’s events and wars.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPolice, Adjective (2009)
A cop named Cristi must go undercover to trail teen Victor who is suspected of selling pot in the north-eastern city of Vaslui.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTales from the Golden Age (2009)
Composed of six unconventional vignettes, each one dealing with the late communist period in Romania, a narrative is told through its urban myths from the perspective of ordinary people. The title refers to the alluded "Golden Age" of the last 15 years of Ceaușescu's regime.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSilent Wedding (2008)
In a small village of Communist-era Romania a young couple wish to marry, but Joseph Stalin dies the night prior to their wedding ceremony forcing the bride and groom to marry in silence.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007)
Two college roommates have 24 hours to make the ultimate choice as they finalize arrangements for a black market abortion.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisChild's Pose (2013)
Child's Pose is a contemporary drama focusing on the relationship between a mother and her 32-year-old son. After the accidental killing of a boy in a car crash, the mother tries to prevent her son being charged for the death, and she refuses to accept that her son is a grown-up man.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKontinental '25 (2025)
Orsolya is a bailiff in Cluj, the main city in Transylvania. One day she has to evict a homeless man from a cellar, an action with tragic consequences that triggers a moral crisis which Orsolya must weather as best she can.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (2021)
Emi, a school teacher, finds her career and reputation under threat after a personal sex tape is leaked on the Internet. Forced to meet the parents demanding her dismissal, Emi refuses to surrender to their pressure.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGraduation (2016)
After his daughter is assaulted and left with an injury that may jeopardize her opportunity to study in the UK, a Romanian doctor decides to do whatever it takes to secure her future.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisForce Majeure (2014)
While holidaying in the French Alps, a Swedish family deals with acts of cowardliness as an avalanche breaks out.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNever Gonna Snow Again (2021)
Zenia is an industrious Ukrainian migrant worker in Poland who makes house calls as a masseur to the needy and aspirational residents of a middle-class gated community near Warsaw. He is privy to all of their problems, anxieties and secrets – and something of an unwitting guru figure. Zenia’s grounded spirituality, apparent healing powers and broad shoulders make him an object of lust for many of the lost souls in the community.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTuesday, After Christmas (2010)
Paul Hanganu loves two women. Adriana his wife and the mother of their daughter, the woman with whom he's shared the thrills of the past ten years, and Raluca the woman who has made him redefine himself. He has to leave one of them before Christmas.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Rest Is Silence (2008)
In 1911-12, the Romanian movie director Grigore Brezianu and the financial tycoon Leon Popescu made together the 2 hours long movie "Romania's Independence" - an as faithful as possible screen adaptation of the real Independence War that had been fought in 1877. Now, "Restul e tacere" tells us, in a loose and half-fictionalized way, the story of this movie making.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Wild Tales (2014)
Injustice and the demands of the world can cause stress for many people. Some of them, however, explode. This includes a waitress serving a grouchy loan shark, an altercation between two motorists, an ill-fated wedding reception, and a wealthy businessman who tries to buy his family out of trouble.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Firemen's Ball (1967)
The firemen of a provincial Czechoslovakian town throw a ball in honor of the old chief's retirement. There will be music and dancing, a beauty pageant and a raffle. The whole town will be in attendance. However, the proceedings are dogged by difficulty at every step. Workplace injuries, stolen prizes, a shortage of pretty girls... and fire.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Witness (1979)
Hungary, 1950s. József Pelikán, who works as a dam keeper on the Danube, meets by chance Zoltán Dániel, an old friend whom he saved from death years before and who is now a powerful politician.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisBeyond the Hills (2012)
Alina returns to Romania from Germany, hoping to bring Voichita—the only person in the world she loves and was loved by—back with her. But Voichita has found God, and God is the hardest lover of all to best.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisR.M.N. (2022)
A few days before Christmas, having quit his job in Germany, Matthias returns to his Transylvanian village. He wishes to involve himself more in the education of his son, Rudi, left for too long in the care of his mother, Ana, and to rid him of the unresolved fears that have gripped him. He’s also eager to see his ex-lover Csilla and preoccupied about his old father, Otto. When a few new workers are hired at the small factory that Csilla manages, the peace of the community is disturbed, underlying fears grip the adults, and frustrations, conflicts and passions erupt through the thin sliver of apparent understanding and calm.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisI Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians (2018)
"I do not care if we go down in history as barbarians." These words, spoken in the Council of Ministers of the summer of 1941, started the ethnic cleansing on the Eastern Front. The film attempts to comment on this statement.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe New Year That Never Came (2024)
The New Year That Never Came is a tragicomedy whose action takes place in a single day, before the revolution of 1989, in which the characters search for normality, safety, love, freedom and meaning in an absurd world.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Death of Mr. Lazarescu?
The closest matches to The Death of Mr. Lazarescu are Philanthropy (2002), Decalogue X (1989) and 12:08 East of Bucharest (2006). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Death of Mr. Lazarescu?
People who watched The Death of Mr. Lazarescu most often go on to Philanthropy (2002), Decalogue X (1989) and 12:08 East of Bucharest (2006).
What is the highest-rated movie like The Death of Mr. Lazarescu?
Wild Tales (2014), rated 7.9/10 by 3,942 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Death of Mr. Lazarescu?
Kontinental '25 (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to The Death of Mr. Lazarescu chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.