Movies like Life Can Be So Wonderful (2007)
The best movies like Life Can Be So Wonderful (2007) are Passion (2008), All Day and a Night (2020) and Call Me Crazy: A Five Film (2013). If Life Can Be So Wonderful hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Ballad of Narayama (1983)7.5/10 from 213 votes
- NewestHere (2024)Released 2024
- In JapanesePassion (2008)Also in Japanese
Passion (2008)
A young couple's announcement of their engagement to their friends is followed by a series of interactions and conflicts that forces everyone to reflect on their lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAll Day and a Night (2020)
While serving life in prison, a young man looks back at the people, the circumstances and the system that set him on the path toward his crime.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCall Me Crazy: A Five Film (2013)
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTigertail (2020)
A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Ballad of Narayama (1983)
In a small village in a valley everyone who reaches the age of 70 must leave the village and go to a certain mountain top to die. If anyone should refuse they would disgrace their family. Old Orin is 69. This winter it is her turn to go to the mountain. But first she must make sure that her eldest son Tatsuhei finds a wife.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMost (2003)
A poetic and powerful story of a father forced to choose between love and duty.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPastoral: To Die in the Country (1974)
A director faces creative block while working on his latest film – a reimagination of his adolescence growing up in a mountain village in rural Japan.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLorelei (2020)
A man is released from prison after 15 years. He reunites with his high school girlfriend, now a single mother of three. What follows is a lyrical take on love, regret and second chances.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCardboard Boxer (2016)
Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGracie (2007)
A teenager faces an uphill battle when she fights to give women the opportunity to play competitive soccer.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFemale Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 (1972)
After being used and betrayed by the detective she had fallen in love with, young Matsu is sent to a female prison full of sadistic guards and disobedient prisoners.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTaboo (1999)
Set during Japan's Shogun era, this film looks at life in a samurai compound where young warriors are trained in swordfighting. A number of interpersonal conflicts are brewing in the training room, all centering on a handsome young samurai named Sozaburo Kano. The school's stern master can choose to intervene, or to let Kano decide his own path.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Short History of the Long Road (2019)
Nola grew up living in a van with her father, Clint—two nomads against the world. When tragedy strikes, Nola must confront the reality of life on the road alone, learning to own her grief, her past, and her new destination.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Safety of Objects (2002)
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOne Million Yen Girl (2008)
A 21-year-old girl is released from prison, only to deal with the neighborhood gossip about her and family conflicts. She decides to save one million yen, move to where no one knows her and keep repeating the process.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIntentions of Murder (1964)
The neglected common-law wife of a Japanese librarian is repeatedly harassed by a young man with a heart condition who seduces her with the prospect of a better life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNine Days (2021)
A bureaucrat interviews five souls to decide which of them will be given a life on Earth. But he soon faces an existential challenge of his own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHere (2024)
An odyssey through time and memory, centered on a place in New Jersey where—from wilderness, and then, later, from a home—love, loss, struggle, hope and legacy play out between couples and families over generations.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHelen (2009)
On the outside, Helen has it all – a loving family and a successful career – but when her suppressed mental illness resurfaces, the world crumbles around her. Crippled by depression, Helen finds solace through her friendship with Mathilda, a kindred spirit struggling with bipolar disorder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFemale Prisoner Scorpion: #701's Grudge Song (1973)
Nami is once again on the run from the law but is saved by an old classmate who works at a strip club. Through a subsequent conversation they discover they both have a score to settle with a particular crooked cop. However, Nami has doubts about ever trusting a man.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisToday, Together (2019)
Ji-eun finds breaking up very hard. Min-jeong just wants a happy day. Soo-jin is struggling for a normal life. Hye-ri and Min-yeong are in a complicated situation…
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Three Stories (1955)
Three stories connected by the motifs of water and death told in neorealist style.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Equals (2014)
An omnibus film on children's rights and the problems that the youngest members of our society have to face. Each story tackles a specific theme and has its own hero.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Sad Movie (2005)
These intertwining stories about romance and separation follow a firefighter who can't find the right time to propose, a shy theme park worker who falls for an artist, an estranged mother and son, and a man seeking to regain his lost love.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisP.S. - Post Scriptum (1988)
A three-part omnibus drama that shows destinies of three grown men: first segment (Escape) is about a sculptor, the second segment (Shade) is about a loner, while the third segment (Ring) is about a movie star.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Women Play Twice (2010)
Segment 1 - actress Saki Aibu plays a woman who doesn't do anything. Segment 2 - actress Asami Mizukawa plays an unlucky woman who messes up a man. Segment 3 - actress Koyuki plays an excessively beautiful woman. Segment 4 - actress Yuka plays an easy/promiscuous woman. Segment 5 - actress Kyoko Hasegawa plays an ordinary woman.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Pension (2018)
The four stories that possibly or impossibly can be happened in the pension; The parents who lost their child go to the pension with poison where the killer stays with his family; The husband and wife on a trip who are growing tired of their married life and the wife’s hidden secret reveals when they reach the pension; A woman who demands to stay a night at a particular suite to save her kidnapped child; A man who is asked to manage the pension for a night, he organizes fantastic night with his girlfriend, but things go wrong…
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Short Plays (2014)
Football seen through the eyes of some of the best directors of the world.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The First Love Series (2010)
This omnibus movie tells different stories of first love: Hyeok-soo, who has been living a wasted life, falls in love with the hardworking Seo-yeon but their love is put to the test by a strange twist of fate. Yong-sik believes that physically intimacy is important while his girlfriend Hye-jeong doesn’t, and the two break up. But the two reunite a year later and feel attracted to each other. During a trip, Su-heui finds out that the woman staying in the room next door is her husband’s first love.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Panama Canal Stories (2014)
Five shorts spanning a century on lives impacted by the Panama Canal. Men, women and children who are influenced by the existence of the "Canal", the event that changed the history of not only a country but the world.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Life Can Be So Wonderful?
The closest matches to Life Can Be So Wonderful are Passion (2008), All Day and a Night (2020) and Call Me Crazy: A Five Film (2013). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Life Can Be So Wonderful?
Start with Passion (2008), the closest match to Life Can Be So Wonderful.
What is the highest-rated movie like Life Can Be So Wonderful?
The Ballad of Narayama (1983), rated 7.5/10 by 213 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Life Can Be So Wonderful?
Here (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Japanese movies like Life Can Be So Wonderful?
Yes: Passion (2008), The Ballad of Narayama (1983) and Pastoral: To Die in the Country (1974).
How are movies similar to Life Can Be So Wonderful chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Life Can Be So Wonderful, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.