Movies like It Only Happens to Others (1971)
The best movies like It Only Happens to Others (1971) are A Mouthful of Air (2021), The Thing with Feathers (2025) and Goodbye June (2025). If It Only Happens to Others hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedMildred Pierce (1945)7.6/10 from 472 votes
- NewestGoodbye June (2025)Released 2025
- In FrenchDeclaration of War (2011)Also in French
A Mouthful of Air (2021)
Julie is a new mom and children's book author, who escapes into the bright Crayola-colored world of her creation in order to leave behind the darkness caused by her post-partum depression.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Thing with Feathers (2025)
Following the death of his wife, a young father's hold on reality crumbles, and a strange presence begins to stalk him from the shadowy recesses of the apartment he shares with his two young sons.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGoodbye June (2025)
Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFaces (1968)
Middle-aged suburban husband Richard abruptly tells his wife, Maria, that he wants a divorce. As Richard takes up with a younger woman, Maria enjoys a night on the town with her friends and meets a younger man. As the couple and those around them confront a seemingly futile search for what they've lost -- love, excitement, passion -- this classic American independent film explores themes of aging and alienation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992)
A suburban family chooses seemingly sweet Peyton Flanders as their newborn's nanny. Only much later does the infant's mother, Claire Bartel, realize Peyton's true intentions -- to destroy Claire and replace her in the family. The nail-biting suspense builds quickly in this chilling psychological thriller about deception and bitter revenge.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDeclaration of War (2011)
Roméo and Juliette are two young actors. They fall in love at first sight, move in together and make a baby. A love story and the founding of a home like millions of others. Except that their little boy, Adam, behaves abnormally. The young parents try hard to persuade themselves that everything is okay but, with the passing of time, they cannot delude themselves anymore: their son has a problem. From now on, war is declared. A war against illness. A war against Death. A war against despair.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisChaos (2001)
A bourgeois couple, modern yet conventional. One night by accident, a young prostitute barges into their lives. Hounded down, beaten up, threatened, she will continue to struggle, with the help of a well off lady, first for her survival-her resurrection-then for her dignity and freedom. Stormy encounters for everyone involved.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI'm Your Woman (2020)
A woman is forced to go on the run after her husband betrays his partners, sending her and her baby on a dangerous journey.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them (2014)
A New York couple's relationship is tested after the loss of their child. This film is the wide-released combination of the original two :him and :her volumes that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYoung Mothers (2025)
Housed in a shelter for young mothers, Jessica, Perla, Julia, Ariane, and Naïma, all of whom have grown up in difficult circumstances, struggle to obtain a better life for themselves and their children.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Reckless Moment (1949)
After discovering the dead body of her teenage daughter's lover, a housewife takes desperate measures to protect her family from scandal.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Last Woman (1976)
Psychological drama of the compelling relationship between a young French engineer and the girl he takes into his home after his wife has left him with their baby son.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Home of Our Own (1993)
In 1960s Los Angeles an energetic widow and her six children try to make a dream of theirs come true: to have a home of their own. They leave L.A. and head for the countryside, all the while facing numerous difficulties and obstacles during their journey.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMildred Pierce (1945)
A hard-working mother inches towards disaster as she divorces her husband and starts a successful restaurant business to support her spoiled daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEffie Gray (2014)
A look at the mysterious relationship between Victorian art critic John Ruskin and his teenage bride Effie Gray.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlack or White (2015)
A grieving widower is drawn into a custody battle over his granddaughter, whom he helped raise her entire life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDie My Love (2025)
After inheriting a remote Montana house, Jackson moves there from New York with his partner Grace, and the couple soon welcome a child. As Jackson becomes increasingly absent and rural isolation sets in, Grace struggles with loneliness, creative frustration, and unresolved emotional wounds. What begins as an attempt at renewal gradually turns into an intense psychological descent, placing strain on their relationship and exposing the fragile balance between love, identity, and motherhood.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Green Room (1978)
A widower maintains a memorial room filled with his late wife's belongings. When fire destroys it, he transforms a chapel into a new shrine to preserve her memory.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPieces of a Woman (2020)
When a young mother's home birth ends in unfathomable tragedy, she begins a year-long odyssey of mourning that fractures relationships with loved ones in this deeply personal story of a woman learning to live alongside her loss.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Child (2005)
A poor young Belgian mother wants her petty thief of a boyfriend to be gainfully employed to raise their newborn child, but he has other ideas.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAgnes of God (1985)
When a dead newborn is found, wrapped in bloody sheets, in the bedroom wastebasket of a young novice, psychiatrist Martha Livingston is called in to determine if the seemingly innocent novice, who knows nothing of sex or birth, is competent enough to stand trial for the murder of the baby.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHis and Hers (2001)
Johan and Anna-Karin have been a couple for years but despite many attempts, Anna-Karin doesn't get pregnant. A visit to a fertility clinic shows why: Johan's sperm quality is too low. Johan is waiting to take over his father's farm, but what's the point if they can never have children? The news also puts a strain on their relationship since Anna-Karin desperately wants to be a mother.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Silent Souls (2010)
Miron Alekseevich, director of a paper and pulp mill, goes to bury his wife Tanya in the place where they once spent their honeymoon. He goes not alone, but with a photographer named Stork, to whom he tells touching details of his life with Tanya. The narrative weaves together the memories of the characters, as well as the rituals and beliefs of the Meri people, a small Finnish tribe that once lived in the Northern Volga region and dissolved among the Russians.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Choice (2015)
A childless couple struggle in the aftermath of a sexual assault leaves the woman pregnant.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Divided Heart (1954)
During World War II, a German woman, Inga, goes missing and is presumed dead. Her infant son is placed in an orphanage where, years later, he's adopted by a childless couple. The adoptive parents' happiness is shattered when Inga reappears and insists on custody of her son.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Mein Kind (2024)
A couple, wants to realize their dream of having a child with a Ukrainian surrogate mother - and then the war comes.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
In the Winter Dark (1998)
Fear of an unidentified livestock predator unites an Australian couple, an outcast, and an abandoned woman.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
A Regimental Commander and His Wife (1985)
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Soultribe: A Dance of Life (2023)
Three families struggle to find their true selves and their soulmates in a world full of expectations, pressure and obstacles. Inspired by real events, this film shows how they pursue their dreams and potential without losing themselves.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Friendships, Secrets and Lies (1979)
Six former sorority sisters are suspected of murder when a baby's skeleton is found in the ruins of the sorority house.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like It Only Happens to Others?
The closest matches to It Only Happens to Others are A Mouthful of Air (2021), The Thing with Feathers (2025) and Goodbye June (2025). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after It Only Happens to Others?
Start with A Mouthful of Air (2021), the closest match to It Only Happens to Others.
What is the highest-rated movie like It Only Happens to Others?
Mildred Pierce (1945), rated 7.6/10 by 472 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like It Only Happens to Others?
Goodbye June (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like It Only Happens to Others?
Yes: Declaration of War (2011), Chaos (2001) and Young Mothers (2025).
How are movies similar to It Only Happens to Others chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside It Only Happens to Others, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.