Movies like 20th Century Women (2016)
The best movies like 20th Century Women (2016) are The Florida Project (2017), The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015) and The Tender Bar (2021). If 20th Century Women hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedMommy (2014)8.2/10 from 2,925 votes
- NewestGood One (2024)Released 2024
The Florida Project (2017)
The story of a precocious six year-old and her ragtag group of friends whose summer break is filled with childhood wonder, possibility and a sense of adventure while the adults around them struggle with hard times.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015)
Minnie Goetze is a 15-year-old aspiring comic-book artist, coming of age in the haze of the 1970s in San Francisco. Insatiably curious about the world around her, Minnie is a pretty typical teenage girl. Oh, except that she’s sleeping with her mother’s boyfriend.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Tender Bar (2021)
JR is a fatherless boy growing up in the glow of a bar where the bartender, his Uncle Charlie, is the sharpest and most colorful of an assortment of quirky and demonstrative father figures. As the boy’s determined mother struggles to provide her son with opportunities denied to her — and leave the dilapidated home of her outrageous if begrudgingly supportive father — JR begins to gamely, if not always gracefully, pursue his romantic and professional dreams, with one foot persistently placed in Uncle Charlie’s bar.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLady Bird (2017)
Lady Bird McPherson, a strong willed, deeply opinionated, artistic 17 year old comes of age in Sacramento. Her relationship with her mother and her upbringing are questioned and tested as she plans to head off to college.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBoyhood (2014)
The film tells a story of a divorced couple trying to raise their young son. The story follows the boy for twelve years, from first grade at age 6 through 12th grade at age 17-18, and examines his relationship with his parents as he grows.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEighth Grade (2018)
Thirteen-year-old Kayla endures the tidal wave of contemporary suburban adolescence as she makes her way through the last week of middle school — the end of her thus far disastrous eighth grade year — before she begins high school.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGirl in Progress (2012)
As single mom Grace juggles work, bills, and her affair with a married doctor, her daughter, Ansiedad, plots a shortcut to adulthood after finding inspiration in the coming-of-age stories she's reading for school.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisMoonlight (2016)
The tender, heartbreaking story of a young man’s struggle to find himself, told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love, while grappling with his own sexuality.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDriveways (2020)
Eight-year-old Cody is spending the summer in an unfamiliar setting with his mom Kathy. Though he can't relate to the neighbourhood kids, things take an unexpected turn when he develops an unusual friendship with the widowed old man from next door.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1991. High school freshman Charlie is a wallflower, always watching life from the sidelines, until two senior students, Sam and her stepbrother Patrick, become his mentors, helping him discover the joys of friendship, music and love.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisShort Term 12 (2013)
Grace, a compassionate young supervisor at a foster care facility, helps at-risk teens. But when a new charge dredges up memories of her own troubled past, Grace's tough exterior begins eroding.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Squid and the Whale (2005)
Based on the true childhood experiences of Noah Baumbach and his brother, The Squid and the Whale tells the touching story of two young boys dealing with their parents' divorce in Brooklyn in the 1980s.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisI Killed My Mother (2009)
Hubert, a brash 17-year-old, is confused and torn by a love-hate relationship with his mother that consumes him more and more each day. After distressing ordeals and tragic episodes, Hubert will find his mother on the banks of Saint Lawrence river, where he grew up, and where a murder will be committed: the murder of childhood.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018)
Pennsylvania, 1993. After getting caught with another girl, teenager Cameron Post is sent to a conversion therapy center run by the strict Dr. Lydia Marsh and her brother, Reverend Rick, whose treatment consists in repenting for feeling “same sex attraction.” Cameron befriends fellow sinners Jane and Adam, thus creating a new family to deal with the surrounding intolerance.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMommy (2014)
A peculiar neighbor offers hope to a recent widow who is struggling to raise a teenager who is unpredictable and, sometimes, violent.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisToni (2023)
Toni has spent her entire life putting other people’s needs before her own. When she was 20 years old, she was pushed by her mother to join a TV singing competition, becoming a national star. Twenty years and five children later, she is a full-time mom who spends all her time and effort on raising her teenage kids. As she helps her children plan their future after graduation, she begins to imagine what her life could be if - for once - she did what she really wanted. Will she be able to turn her life around and dare to be something other than a mother and a daughter?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLicorice Pizza (2021)
The story of Gary Valentine and Alana Kane growing up, running around and going through the treacherous navigation of first love in the San Fernando Valley, 1973.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJuno (2007)
Faced with an unplanned pregnancy, sixteen year old high-schooler, Juno MacGuff, makes an unusual decision regarding her unborn child.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisL'immensità (2022)
Clara and Felice struggle to raise their three children in 1970s Rome. The eldest, Andrea, is transgender and yearns for another life where he gets to live as the boy he knows himself to be. Clara instinctively strives to protect her son by escaping into their imaginations to defuse family tensions.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisComing Through the Rye (2016)
Coming Through the Rye, set in 1969, is a touching coming of age story of sensitive, 16 year old Jamie Schwartz, who is not the most popular kid at his all boys' boarding school. Disconnected from students and teachers, he believes he is destined to play Holden Caulfield, the main character of The Catcher in the Rye, and has adapted the book as a play.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
An Education (2009)
Despite her sheltered upbringing, Jenny is a teen with a bright future; she's smart, pretty, and has aspirations of attending Oxford University. When David, a charming but much older suitor, motors into her life in a shiny automobile, Jenny gets a taste of adult life that she won't soon forget.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHoller (2021)
In a forgotten pocket of Southern Ohio where American manufacturing and opportunity are drying up, a determined young woman finds a ticket out when she is accepted to college. Alongside her older brother, Ruth Avery joins a dangerous scrap metal crew in order to pay her way. Together, they spend one brutal winter working the scrap yards during the day and stealing valuable metal from the once thriving factories by night. With her goal in sight, Ruth finds that the ultimate cost of an education for a girl like her may be more than she bargained for, and she soon finds herself torn between a promising future and the family she would leave behind.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFlower (2017)
Rebellious, quick-witted Erica Vandross is a 17-year-old firecracker living with her single mom, Laurie, and her mom's new boyfriend, Bob, in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley. When Bob's mentally unbalanced son, Luke, arrives from rehab to live with the family, Erica finds her domestic and personal life overwhelmed. With Luke and her sidekicks Kala and Claudine in tow, Erica acts out by exposing a high school teacher's dark secret.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAftersun (2022)
Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories fill the gaps between camcorder footages as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the troubled man she didn't.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisC'mon C'mon (2021)
Johnny and his young nephew forge a tenuous but transformational relationship when they embark on a cross-country trip to see life away from Los Angeles.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Kids Are All Right (2010)
Two women, Nic and Jules, brought a son and daughter into the world through artificial insemination. When one of their children reaches age, both kids go behind their mothers' backs to meet with the donor. Life becomes so much more interesting when the father, two mothers and children start to become attached to each other.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGood One (2024)
On a weekend backpacking trip in the Catskills, 17-year-old Sam contends with the competing egos of her father and his oldest friend.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUncle Frank (2020)
In 1973, when Frank Bledsoe and his 18-year-old niece Beth take a road trip from Manhattan to Creekville, South Carolina for the family patriarch's funeral, they're unexpectedly joined by Frank's lover Walid.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLittle Miss Sunshine (2006)
A family loaded with quirky, colorful characters piles into an old van and road trips to California for little Olive to compete in a beauty pageant.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Skeleton Twins (2014)
Estranged twins Maggie and Milo coincidentally cheat death on the same day, prompting them to reunite and confront the reasons their lives went so wrong. As the twins' reunion reinvigorates them, they realize the key to fixing their lives may just lie in repairing their relationship.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
Like 20th Century Women and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like 20th Century Women?
The closest matches to 20th Century Women are The Florida Project (2017), The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015) and The Tender Bar (2021). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after 20th Century Women?
People who watched 20th Century Women most often go on to The Florida Project (2017), The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015) and The Tender Bar (2021).
What is the highest-rated movie like 20th Century Women?
Mommy (2014), rated 8.2/10 by 2,925 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like 20th Century Women?
Good One (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like 20th Century Women?
Yes: The Florida Project (2017), The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015) and The Tender Bar (2021).
How are movies similar to 20th Century Women chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside 20th Century Women, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.