Movies like The Things of Life (1970)
The best movies like The Things of Life (1970) are Jules and Jim (1962), The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954) and The Woman Next Door (1981). If The Things of Life hooked you with its drama and romance, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedPolisse (2011)7.7/10 from 1,338 votes
- NewestThe Roses (2025)Released 2025
- In FrenchJules and Jim (1962)Also in French
Jules and Jim (1962)
In the carefree days before World War I, introverted Austrian author Jules strikes up a friendship with the exuberant Frenchman Jim and both men fall for the impulsive and beautiful Catherine.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Last Time I Saw Paris (1954)
Reporter Charles Wills, in Paris to cover the end of World War II, falls for the beautiful Helen Ellswirth following a brief flirtation with her sister, Marion. After he and Helen marry, Charles pursues his novelistic ambition while supporting his new bride with a deadening job at a newspaper wire service. But when an old investment suddenly makes the family wealthy, their marriage begins to unravel — until a sudden tragedy changes everything.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Woman Next Door (1981)
Two ex-lovers wind up living next door to each other with their respective spouses. Forbidden passions ensue.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Secret (2000)
Marie, who works as a successful door-to-door encyclopedia salesperson, has been married to her husband Francois for 12 years and has a two-year-old son. Though she is relatively content with her life, she feels something is wanting. Enter 50-year old African-American Bill. Initially she is annoyed by his insouciance, but she finds that she is irresistibly attracted to him. Soon the two are in the midst of sordid illicit affair. She knows little about her new lover, and he seems uninterested in learning about her, but the long sessions of lovemaking are something else entirely. Feeling out of control, Marie is increasingly repelled by her own actions. Psychologically, she struggles to reconcile her torrid encounters with Bill and mundane domestic chores such as bathing her son. Moreover, she finds herself incapable of hiding her adulterous behavior, rather she comes home with scratches and hickeys all over her body, to the devastation of Francois.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Married Woman (1964)
A superficial woman finds conflict choosing between her abusive husband and her vain lover.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisValmont (1989)
Set in Baroque France, a scheming widow and her lover make a bet regarding the corruption of a recently married woman. The lover, Valmont, bets that he can seduce her, even though she is an honorable woman. If he wins, he can have his lover to do as he will. However, in the process of seducing the married woman, Valmont falls in love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Little Thief (1988)
In a small town in post-WWII France, 16-year-old Janine tries to improve her conditions by any means necessary. Three people—Michel, a married lover; Raoul, a fellow thief; Mauricette, a photographer she meets in prison—will help her learn from her mistakes.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Young Lovers (2022)
Elegant, retired architect Shauna (70) crosses paths with Pierre, a happily married doctor in his 40s, who first made an impression on her in a brief meeting 15 years previously. Both are quite troubled to meet again and begin an affair. While Pierre’s family life is soon turned upside down, Shauna struggles with feelings she thought belonged to the past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMore Than Ever (2022)
Hélène, a 33-year-old woman from Bordeaux, France, lives happily as a couple with Mathieu, her husband of many years. Her life turns upside down the day she learns she has a rare lung disease. Thanks to a blog, she discovers Norway and decides to follow her instinct. Despite all the love she has for her life partner Mathieu, who is very supportive through her illness, she leaves him behind in France and will cross all Europe to Norway alone in search of a new path and to meet a blogger named Mister that she found on the internet.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDangerous Liaisons (1988)
In 18th century France, Marquise de Merteuil asks her ex-lover Vicomte de Valmont to seduce the future wife of another ex-lover of hers in return for one last night with her. Yet things don’t go as planned.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisParis, 13th District (2021)
Émilie meets Camille who is attracted to Nora, who crosses paths with Amber. Three girls and a boy – They're friends, sometimes lovers and often both.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCoco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky (2009)
Paris 1913. Coco Chanel is infatuated with the rich and handsome Boy Capel, but she is also compelled by her work. Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring is about to be performed. The revolutionary dissonances of Igor's work parallel Coco's radical ideas. She wants to democratize women's fashion; he wants to redefine musical taste. Coco attends the scandalous first performance of The Rite in a chic white dress. The music and ballet are criticized as too modern, too foreign. Coco is moved but Igor is inconsolable.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPassages (2023)
Tomas and Martin are a gay couple living in Paris whose marriage is thrown into crisis when Tomas impulsively begins a passionate affair with young schoolteacher Agathe. But when Martin begins an affair of his own, Tomas must confront life decisions he may be unprepared—or unwilling—to deal with.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Fault: London (2025)
18-year-old Noah moves from America to London, with her mother who's recently fallen in love with William, a wealthy British businessman. Noah meets William’s son, bad-boy Nick, and soon discovers there is an attraction between them neither can avoid. As Noah spends the summer adjusting to her new life, her devastating past will catch up with her while falling in love for the first time.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Dreamers (2003)
When Isabelle and Theo invite Matthew to stay with them, what begins as a casual friendship ripens into a sensual voyage of discovery and desire in which nothing is off limits and everything is possible.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLe Combat dans l'île (1962)
The charismatic, surly son of a wealthy industrialist, Clément, leads a double life as a member of a right-wing extremist organization. When he’s ratted out after a failed assassination attempt on a prominent politician, Clément and his long-suffering wife Anne flee Paris to the idyllic country home of his childhood friend, pacifist print-maker Paul. As affection blossoms between Paul and Anne, the emotional, as well as political tensions, soar and eventually explode.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNo Limit (2022)
Roxana Aubrey decides to drop her studies and escape her life in Paris for a free diving course in the south of France. She is quickly pulled into a life that reaches new depths brought by the weight of an ocean's descent.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHenry & June (1990)
While traveling in Paris, author Henry Miller and his wife, June, meet Anais Nin, and sexual sparks fly as Nin starts an affair with the openly bisexual June. When June is forced to return to the U.S., she gives Nin her blessing to sleep with her husband. Then, when June returns to France, an unexpected, and sometimes contentious, threesome forms.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPolisse (2011)
Paris, France. Fred and his colleagues, members of the BPM, the Police Child Protection Unit, dedicated to pursuing all sorts of offenses committed against the weakest, must endure the scrutiny of Melissa, a photographer commissioned to graphically document the daily routine of the team.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRazzia (1955)
Henri, the Man from Nantes, comes back to his country after a successful stay in the United States, where he was working for Liski, the drug dealer. With the fame of being a tough guy preceding him, he sets himself to the task of knowing why the French operations were not so profitable - and soon he is master of all links of the organization. He can now get it honed to perfection - or destroy it. Only... the Police are following his every step.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPreludes to Ecstasy (1961)
Sten Lehtoja, a married, middle-aged businessman, picks up a young hitchhiker, Elsie, while driving to his summer home. Elsie spends the night and becomes his mistress. Later during the summer, Elsie also begins an affair with Reino, the teenage son of a local storekeeper. Sten offers to divorce his wife, and Elsie, attracted by the prospect of a secure social position, agrees to marry him when the divorce becomes final. One night when the couple are in bed, Reino climbs a ladder and attempts to force his way into their room; he falls and breaks his neck, and to avoid scandal Sten hides the body. But the strain of guilt ruins the romance, and Elsie contacts the police, who arrest her lover.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Voice from the Stone (2017)
Verena is a nurse who arrives at an old mansion in Italy to help a young boy who has fallen silent since the sudden passing of his mother.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisBihter: A Forbidden Passion (2023)
Bihter, who is desperate for love, sees Adnan, a wealthy and respected older guy, as a way out of the stereotype that society and her materialistic mother have given her. But she soon discovers that she is not satisfied with his attention and has other needs.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisClose Range Love (2014)
A smart high school student falls in love with her English teacher after she receives one-on-one tutoring from him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDebbie Macomber's A Mrs. Miracle Christmas (2021)
When a family faces loneliness and loss of faith, Mrs. Miracle swoops in to renew their Christmas Spirit, and they experience a holiday of heavenly proportions.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
The Roses (2025)
Life seems easy for picture-perfect couple Ivy and Theo: successful careers, a loving marriage, great kids. But beneath the façade of their supposed ideal life, a storm is brewing – as Theo's career nosedives while Ivy's own ambitions take off, a tinderbox of fierce competition and hidden resentment ignites.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Year of the Wolf (2007)
Sari is a young, beautiful and intelligent girl who is busy studying at university,but she suffers from epilepsy and has to face death on a daily basis. Mikko is hersomewhat older university teacher, who is tired of life, and who one day decides toabandon his wife, children and idea of a perfect life. Both characters have been tooscared to live their lives to the brim for too long. But they meet, and in spite oftheir prejudices and reserved natures, they manage to create a dramatic and movingmodern romance which confronts numerous taboos. While the imagery explores theboundary between life and death in a most poetic way, the odd couple's romance istold with both bite and humour. Society - be it in the shape of angry ex-wives,overprotective parents, conservative aunts or embittered colleagues - is doing whatit can to put a spanner in the works."
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Welcome to the Quiet Room (2007)
28 year old freelance writer Sakura Asuka wakes up tied in a white room. The white room is a protected room located in an isolated ward of a psychiatric hospital. Sakura first became unconscious because of heavy alcohol use and a druge overdose. She’s confined in the single room because of her high risk of committing suicide. Sakura tried to talk to the nurses and doctors but they didn’t listen to her. Under the circumstances another patient Miki, who suffers from an eating disorder, leads her to understand the unknown world. But, Sakura is looking for the way to get back to the real world as soon as possible.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Blonde (2022)
From her volatile childhood as Norma Jeane, through her rise to stardom and romantic entanglements, this reimagined fictional portrait of Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe blurs the lines of fact and fiction to explore the widening split between her public and private selves.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisLocomotive Teacher (2004)
Seigo Yoshioka (Kenji Sakaguchi) is a teacher that became mute after a kendo accident. He feels lost after the accident and eventually decides to teach again on a small island where his mother was born. The children there on the island quickly name him "Kikansha Sensei" (Teacher Locomotive) after learning he is mute. The parents on the island are mostly hostile to Seigo Yoshioka, believing he is incapable of teaching their children. But with Seigo Yoshioka's determination and kindness, a strong bond develops between the students and the mute teacher, which then changes the parents' opinions of Seigo Yoshioka. Suddenly, tragedy then strikes ...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like The Things of Life and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Things of Life?
The closest matches to The Things of Life are Jules and Jim (1962), The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954) and The Woman Next Door (1981). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Things of Life?
Start with Jules and Jim (1962), the closest match to The Things of Life.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Things of Life?
Polisse (2011), rated 7.7/10 by 1,338 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Things of Life?
The Roses (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like The Things of Life?
Yes: Jules and Jim (1962), The Woman Next Door (1981) and The Secret (2000).
How are movies similar to The Things of Life chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Things of Life, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.