Movies like Hard Luck (1921)
The best movies like Hard Luck (1921) are Shanghaied (1915), Our Wife (1931) and Beau Hunks (1931). If Hard Luck hooked you with its comedy, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Kid (1921)8.1/10 from 2,484 votes
- NewestSketch (2025)Released 2025
Shanghaied (1915)
A shipowner intends to scuttle his ship on its last voyage to get the insurance money. Charlie, a tramp in love with the owner's daughter, is grabbed by the captain and promises to help him shanghai some seamen. The daughter stows away to follow Charlie. Charlie assists in the galley and attempts to serve food during a gale.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOur Wife (1931)
Oliver is making plans to marry his sweetheart Dulcy with Stan as his best man, but the plans are thwarted when Dulcy's father sees a picture of Ollie and forbids the marriage. The couple plan to elope, and run away to a Justice of the Peace. After typical Laurel and Hardy blundering, they manage to sneak the girl away from her father's house.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBeau Hunks (1931)
Stan and Ollie join the French Foreign Legion after Ollie's sweetheart rejects him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGrandma's Boy (1922)
A meek young man must find the courage within when a rogue tramp menaces his hometown.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMe and My Pal (1933)
On the morning of his wedding to oil baron Peter Cucumber's daughter, Ollie receives a jigsaw puzzle from Stan as a wedding gift. The boys soon become absorbed in the puzzle. A taxi driver, butler, policeman and messenger boy join in as well.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOliver the Eighth (1934)
Barbershop owners Stan and Ollie answer an ad in the newspaper from a wealthy widow looking for a husband. Ollie only mails in his response and is invited to the widow's mansion. Stan discovers his unmailed letter and insists on tagging along. At the mansion, the widow's creepy butler informs them that the woman is crazy. She was once jilted by an Oliver and now her hobby is marrying Olivers and then slitting their throats. Now the boys must figure out how to escape.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSketch (2025)
When a young girl’s sketchbook falls into a strange pond, her drawings come to life—chaotic, real, and on the loose. As the town descends into chaos, her family must reunite and stop the monsters they never meant to unleash.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPerfect Day (1929)
Two families embark on a pleasant Sunday picnic but manage to run into a variety of issues with their temperamental automobile. Each incident requires repeated exits and reboardings by Laurel, Hardy, their wives and grouchy, gout-ridden Uncle Edgar.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWhy Worry? (1923)
A hypochondriac vacations in the tropics for the fresh air - and finds himself in the middle of a revolution instead.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDough and Dynamite (1914)
Pierre and Jacques are working as waiters at a restaurant where the cooks go on strike. When the two are forced to work as bakers, the striking cooks put dynamite in the dough, with explosive results.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Chaplin Revue (1959)
Three Chaplin silent comedies "A Dog's Life", "Shoulder Arms", and "The Pilgrim" are strung together to form a single feature length film. Chaplin provides new music, narration, and a small amount of new connecting material. "Shoulder Arms" is now described as taking place in a time before "the atom bomb".
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThicker Than Water (1935)
Oliver's in trouble with his wife after missing a payment on their furniture, having given the money to Stanley, who used it instead to pay Mrs. Hardy for his room and board. At Stan's suggestion Ollie then withdraws the couple's savings from the bank to pay for the furniture and inadvertently pays virtually the whole amount at an auction for a grandfather clock which is soon crushed under a passing truck. Mrs Hardy then unintentionally causes serious injuries to Ollie requiring him to be rushed to hospital for a blood transfusion. The doctor conscripts Stan to be the unwilling blood donor. Problems occur with the transfusion and when Stan and Ollie leave the hospital they appear to have morphed into each other.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMy Wife's Relations (1922)
Buster and a woman are mistakenly married and her initially unfriendly family begins to treat him nicely when they come to believe he has a large inheritance awaiting him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSolid Serenade (1946)
Tom ties up Spike and sneaks into the courtyard of the glamorous Toodles Galore with his bass, hoping to woo her with his song, much to the annoyance of a sleeping Jerry.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Fixer Uppers (1935)
Stan and Ollie are greeting card salesmen who agree to help a woman put a spark in her loveless marriage by making her husband jealous.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSufferin' Cats! (1943)
Tom fights with another cat over Jerry.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisYou're Darn Tootin' (1928)
Members of a municipal band, Stanley and Oliver seem to be always following someone else's lead, rather than that of the temperamental conductor.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
SnoozefestMovies like thisTowed in a Hole (1932)
Although they are successful fishmongers, Stan convinces Ollie that they should become fishermen too, but making a boat seaworthy isn't an easy task.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTaking Care of Business (1990)
An uptight advertising exec has his entire life in a filofax organizer which mistakenly ends up in the hands of a friendly convict who poses as him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)
Charles Dreyfus, who has finally cracked over inspector Clouseau's antics, escapes from a mental institution and launches an elaborate plan to get rid of Clouseau once and for all.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSchool Safari (2005)
In this film, we meet Jack who is inspired by his Uncle Bob - who he believes to be an explorer in Africa. Jack starts to see the world around him and all those in it, just as if he were out on safari in the Serengeti!
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
A Night On The Tiles (2005)
The film follows the shenanigans of the goings on in the male and female toilets of a local nightclub. We meet the two young toilet attendants who have more interest in each other than the events of the evening.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
The Wages of Tin (1925)
aka Billy, the Ford Buster
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
STRIKE (An Epic Superhero Short Film) (2013)
John Eckert just broke up with his dream girl, and feels like his life isn't amounting to anything. But all of this is about to change when a freak lightning storm gives him the ability to control electricity. When the town becomes the target of a super villain, he must hone his abilities and save the day.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
The Kid (1921)
A tramp cares for a boy after he's abandoned as a newborn by his mother. Later the mother has a change of heart and aches to be reunited with her son.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisElizabethtown (2005)
Drew Baylor is fired after causing his shoe company to lose hundreds of millions of dollars. To make matters worse, he's also dumped by his girlfriend. On the verge of ending it all, Drew gets a new lease on life when he returns to his family's small Kentucky hometown after his father dies. Along the way, he meets a flight attendant with whom he falls in love.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSuppietij (1991)
The extremities of a middle-class being ramble on, reflecting poetically on the wretchedness of moderation.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
De Civitate Rei (1993)
Costante dies and leaves his wife Torella his computer discovery. Torella entrusts the disk to her husband’s friend Gervasio, a lazy man scorned by his family. Twenty years later, Torella tries to get back the disk but Gervasio, who has become rich thanks to the discovery, agrees to go to court over it and comes away the winner. He therefore summons divine misfortune: he loses his third son, suffocated by wealth; kills his wife in a blind rage; and is executed by his first-born son who, after a violent panic attack and reckoning with his conscience, chooses life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Hard Luck?
The closest matches to Hard Luck are Shanghaied (1915), Our Wife (1931) and Beau Hunks (1931). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Hard Luck?
Start with Shanghaied (1915), the closest match to Hard Luck.
What is the highest-rated movie like Hard Luck?
The Kid (1921), rated 8.1/10 by 2,484 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Hard Luck?
Sketch (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Hard Luck?
Yes: Shanghaied (1915), Our Wife (1931) and Beau Hunks (1931).
How are movies similar to Hard Luck chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Hard Luck, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.