Movies like Life Is Sweet (1991)
The best movies like Life Is Sweet (1991) are Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), Another Year (2010) and All or Nothing (2002). If Life Is Sweet hooked you with its comedy and drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedSecrets & Lies (1996)7.6/10 from 758 votes
- NewestMother's Pride (2026)Released 2026
Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)
A look at a few chapters in the life of Poppy, a cheery, colorful, North London schoolteacher whose optimism tends to exasperate those around her.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAnother Year (2010)
During a year, a very content couple approaching retirement are visited by friends and family less happy with their lives.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAll or Nothing (2002)
Penny works at a supermarket and Phil is a gentle taxi-driver. Penny’s love for Phil has run dry and they lead joyless lives with their two children, Rachel, a cleaner, and Rory, who is unemployed and aggressive.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMeantime (1983)
A working-class family in London's East End is struggling to stay afloat during the recession under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's premiership. Only the mother Mavis is working; father Frank and the couple's two sons Colin, a timid, chronically shy individual and Mark, an outspoken, headstrong young man, are on the dole. This situation is contrasted by the presence of Mavis's sister Barbara, and her husband John, whose financial and social loftiness appears to be a comfortable facade over the unspoken soreness of a lackluster marriage.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHigh Hopes (1989)
Working-class couple Shirley and Cyril are in conflict over whether they should have children, their problems with 'yuppies' moving into the neighbourhood and outpricing them, and the advent of Cyril's ageing mother's seventieth birthday.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNaked (1993)
An unemployed Brit vents his rage on unsuspecting strangers as he embarks on a nocturnal London odyssey.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCareer Girls (1997)
A young college student in London moves into a flat and becomes best friends with a flatmate; the former moves into her own flat 4 years later but 6 years after their parting, the former returns to London to pay the latter a visit.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Martins (2001)
Out of work, scrounger Robert Martin lives with his dysfunctional family - long suffering wife accident prone son and pregnant teenage daughter in a shabby house next door to a giant shopping center in the London suburbs. The Martins are the family from hell! Robert dreams if winning a dream holiday for his family, and when he fails to win yet another competition he flips, out tracks down the elderly winners, ties them up in the cellar and steals their tickets!
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Rita, Sue and Bob Too (1987)
On a run-down Bradford council estate, teenagers Rita and Sue both share a job babysitting for Bob and Michelle's children. On the way home one night, Bob takes Rita and Sue up to a deserted, countryside landscape. Knowing what he has in mind, the girls are only too happy to oblige and both have a sexual encounter with him that becomes a regular occurrence.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Sense of History (1992)
Jim Broadbent wrote and starred in this short film directed by none other than Mike Leigh. As a member of the landed gentry, the 23rd Earl of Leete has a duty to maintain and expand his lands. Shot in the style and manner of a BBC documentary, Broadbent tells his family history to the crew, who slowly come to realise - as do we - that things are not what they seem.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
A Room for Romeo Brass (2000)
Two twelve-year-old boys, Romeo and Gavin, undergo an extraordinary test of character and friendship when Morell, a naive but eccentric and dangerous stranger, comes between them. Morell befriends with the two boys and later asks them to help him pursue Romeo's beautiful elder sister. He gradually becomes more violent after she rejects him.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWish You Were Here (1987)
In a staid English seaside town after the Second World War, young Lynda grows up with her widowed father and younger sister. Rebellious Lynda has been swearing constantly from an early age. At sixteen, she becomes more exhibitionist and seeks out sexual encounters challenging the prevailing lower-middle class attitudes to sex.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMother's Pride (2026)
A comedy about a failing pub, a divided community and a grieving family whose lives are changed by brewing real ale and entering the Great British Beer Awards.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Secrets & Lies (1996)
After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense, a successful black optometrist, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to Cynthia, a working class white woman.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLocal Hero (1983)
An American oil company sends a man to Scotland to buy up an entire village where they want to build a refinery. But things don't go as expected.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Angels' Share (2012)
Robbie is a Glasgow boy locked in a family feud who just wants a way out. On community service, he meets Rhino, Albert and Mo. Little did Robbie imagine that turning to drink might change their lives, leading them to the distilleries of the Scottish Highlands and the biggest gamble of his life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRiff-Raff (1991)
Stevie, fresh from prison in Scotland, finds a job on a London construction site. Working conditions are poor and most of the men are working under aliases, due to immigration status and to not conflict with unemployment. Some help Stevie secure housing, squatting in a council estate. Then Stevie meets Susan, from Ireland, an aspiring singer.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Snapper (1993)
Sharon Curley is a 20-year-old living with her parents and many brothers and sisters in Dublin. When she gets pregnant and refuses to name the father, she becomes the talk of the town.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVera Drake (2004)
Abortionist Vera Drake finds her beliefs and practices clash with the mores of 1950s Britain – a conflict that leads to tragedy for her family.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOnce Upon a Time in the Midlands (2002)
Though Dek leads a simple and happy life with his girlfriend Shirley and her 12-year-old daughter Marlene, his grand, televised marriage proposal puts his devotion to the test—especially as Marlene's long-absent biological father, Jimmy, looms in the background.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMetroland (1998)
In late-1970s suburban London, Chris and Marion have settled into a comfortable yet all-too-predictable middle-class existence. Chris receives an unexpected visit from his free-spirited friend Toni, a reunion that reminds him of a more carefree time in 1960s Paris. Now, with lingering doubts about his marriage bubbling up, Chris must make the choice between revisiting his youthful abandon with Toni or facing the here and now with Marion.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Van (1996)
In a working-class quarter of Dublin, 'Bimbo' Reeves gets laid off from his job and, with his redundancy payout, buys a van and sells fish and chips with his buddy, Larry. Due to Ireland's surprising success at the 1990 FIFA World Cup, their business starts off well, but the relationship between the two friends soon becomes strained as Bimbo behaves more like a typical boss.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWonderland (1999)
Living in working-class London, Bill, Eileen, and their three grown daughters navigate quiet lives of loneliness: cafe waitress Nadia searches for love through personal ads, hairdresser and single mother Debbie balances casual romance with co-parenting alongside her volatile ex, and expectant mother Molly copes with a partner overwhelmed by impending fatherhood.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Withnail & I (1987)
Two out-of-work actors -- the anxious, luckless Marwood and his acerbic, alcoholic friend, Withnail -- spend their days drifting between their squalid flat, the unemployment office and the pub. When they take a holiday "by mistake" at the country house of Withnail's flamboyantly gay uncle, Monty, they encounter the unpleasant side of the English countryside: tedium, terrifying locals and torrential rain.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBrassed Off (1996)
A Yorkshire coal mine is threatened with closure and the only hope is for the men to enter their Grimley Colliery Brass Band into a national competition. They believe they have no hope until Gloria appears carrying her Flugelhorn. At first mocked for being a woman, she soon becomes the only chance for the band to win.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisUnder Milk Wood (2014)
An all star cast unite to perform a distinctive BBC Wales Television adaptation of Dylan Thomas's radio play, presented in collaboration with National Theatre Wales, to mark the centenary of Dylan Thomas' birth. The plot reveals the innermost thoughts of the residents of the small, Welsh fishing village Llareggub as it delves into the dreams of various townspeople including blind sailor Captain Cat, who is haunted by visions of drowned shipmates, Mog Edwards and Myfanwy Price, who dream of each other, and Mrs. Ogmore Pritchard, who dreams of her former husbands.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987)
Sammy and Rosie are an unconventional middle-class London married couple. They live in the midst of inner-city chaos, surround themselves with intellectual street people, and sleep with everybody - except each other! Things become interesting when Sammy's father, Rafi, who is a former Indian government minister, comes to London for a visit. Sammy, Rosie, and Rafi try to find meaning through their lives and loves.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Somers Town (2008)
Two teenagers, both newcomers to London, forge an unlikely friendship over the course of a hot summer. Tomo is a runaway from Nottingham; Marek lives in the district of Somers Town, between King's Cross and Euston stations, where his dad is working on a new rail link.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlow Dry (2001)
The annual British Hairdressing Championship comes to Keighley, a town where Phil and son Brian run a barbershop and Phil's ex-wife Shelly and her lover Sandra run a beauty salon.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Last of England (1987)
The artist's personal commentary on the decline of his country in a language closer to poetry than prose. A dark meditation on London under Thatcher.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Life Is Sweet?
The closest matches to Life Is Sweet are Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), Another Year (2010) and All or Nothing (2002). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Life Is Sweet?
People who watched Life Is Sweet most often go on to Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), Another Year (2010) and All or Nothing (2002).
What is the highest-rated movie like Life Is Sweet?
Secrets & Lies (1996), rated 7.6/10 by 758 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Life Is Sweet?
Mother's Pride (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Life Is Sweet?
Yes: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), Another Year (2010) and All or Nothing (2002).
How are movies similar to Life Is Sweet chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Life Is Sweet, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.