Movies like The Darkest Universe (2016)
The best movies like The Darkest Universe (2016) are I Met a Girl (2020), How to Please a Woman (2022) and A California Christmas: City Lights (2021). If The Darkest Universe hooked you with its romance and comedy, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedLife Is Beautiful (1997)8.4/10 from 14,400 votes
- NewestThe Baltimorons (2025)Released 2025
I Met a Girl (2020)
An aspiring musician struggling with schizophrenia falls for a mysterious woman who may be all in his head. When she suddenly vanishes, he takes off on a cross-country journey across Australia to find her, forcing his long-suffering brother to chase after him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHow to Please a Woman (2022)
When her all-male house-cleaning business gets out of control, a mature woman must embrace her own sexuality, if she is to make a new life for herself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA California Christmas: City Lights (2021)
Follows Callie and Joseph one year after they fell in love, now running a dairy farm and winery, but their romance is threatened when business and family obligations call Joseph back to the city.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Good House (2021)
When wry New England realtor Hildy Good rekindles a romance with her old high-school flame, Frank Getchell, it ignites long-buried emotions and family secrets that propel Hildy toward a reckoning with the one person she's been avoiding for decades: herself. Based on the best-selling novel by Ann Leary.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Best You Can (2025)
Cynthia Rand is a buttoned-up New Yorker married to a brilliant professor 25 years her senior. She begins feeling the effects of her husband’s advancing age on their relationship, just as her world is turned upside down by the arrival of sharp but chronically underachieving security guard Stan Olszewski in this smart rom-com that reunites Bacon and Sedgwick on screen for the first time in 20 years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEnemies, a Love Story (1989)
A ghostwriter finds himself romantically involved with his current wife, a married woman and his long-vanished wife.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYou Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)
Two married couples find only trouble and heartache as their complicated lives unfold. After 40 years of marriage, Alfie leaves his wife to pursue what he thinks is happiness with a call girl. His wife, Helena, reeling from abandonment, decides to follow the advice of a psychic. Sally, the daughter of Alfie and Helena, is unhappy in her marriage and develops a crush on her boss, while her husband, Roy, falls for a woman engaged to be married.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisWhich Brings Me to You (2023)
Two romantic burnouts, Jane and Will, are immediately drawn to each other at a mutual friend’s wedding. After a disastrous hookup in the coatroom, the two spend the next 24 hours together, trading candid confessions of messy histories and heartbreak, on the off chance that this fling might be the real thing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHe Said, She Said (1991)
Womanising, right-wing Dan Hanson and quiet, liberal Lorie Bryer work for the Baltimore Sun. Rivals for the job of new writer of a vacant column, the paper ends up instead printing their very different opinions alongside each other, which leads to a similarly combative local TV show. At the same time their initial indifference to each other looks like it may evolve into something more romantic.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Giant Mechanical Man (2012)
An offbeat romantic comedy about a silver-painted street performer and the soft spoken zoo worker who falls for him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Elder Son (2006)
A thief on the run convinces a single father that he is his long-lost son. Complications ensue when he falls in love with his newfound "sister".
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & comedy
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Diary of a Chambermaid (1946)
Celestine, the chamber-maid, has a new job in the country, at the Lanlaires. She has decided to use her beauty to seduce a wealthy man, but Mr. Lanlaire is not a right choice: the house is firmly controlled by Madame Lanlaire, helped by the strange valet Joseph. Then she tries the neighbour, former officer Mauger. This seems to work. But soon the son of the Lanlaires comes back. He is young, attractive and does not share his mother's antirepublican opinions. So Celestine's beauty attracts Captain Mauger, young Georges Lanlaire, and Joseph. Three men, from three different social classes, with three different conceptions of life. Will Celestine be able to convince Georges of her sincerity?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMadame (2017)
Anne and Bob, a well-to-do American couple, have just moved to a beautiful manor house in romantic Paris. To impress their sophisticated friends, they decide to host a lavish dinner party, but must disguise their maid as a noblewoman to even out the number of guests. When the maid runs off with a wealthy guest, Anne must chase her around Paris to thwart the joyous and unexpected love affair.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & comedy
SnoozefestMovies like thisMy Favorite Brunette (1947)
Ronnie Jackson is a lowly baby photographer who secretly fantasizes about being a private detective. When a lovely baroness actually mistakes him for one and asks him to help locate her missing husband, Baron Montay, Ronnie finds himself agreeing. Several days later he is on death row whiling away the hours until his execution by recounting to a group of reporters the bizarre tale of how he ended up there.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHappiness for Beginners (2023)
At a crossroads after her divorce, a schoolteacher ventures toward a fresh start in life — and love — when she signs up for a grueling group hiking trip.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA California Christmas (2020)
With his carefree lifestyle on the line, a wealthy charmer poses as a ranch hand to get a hardworking farmer to sell her family’s land before Christmas.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisL.A. Without a Map (1999)
An aspiring Hollywood actress, on a visit to a charming North England town, has a brief fling with the town undertaker, who also writes obituaries for the local paper. Returning home, where she works as a waitress at a Japanese restaurant, she tells everyone about the handsome "writer" she met on her trip. Unfortunately, he decides to follow her back to Hollywood, setting up the expected light romantic comedy with asides as the newcomer gains experience about the goings on in Hollywood.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Baltimorons (2025)
A newly sober man's Christmas Eve dental emergency leads to an unexpected romance with his older dentist as they explore Baltimore together.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSong of the Thin Man (1947)
While attending a glamorous jazz cruise on New York’s East River, Nick and Nora Charles witness the fatal shooting of a wealthy patron. When suspicion falls on a young bandleader and his musicians, the couple steps in to clear their friends and uncover the real killer. Their investigation leads through a lively world of jazz clubs, radio personalities, high society, and backstage rivalries, where almost everyone has a secret and the next clue may be hidden in the music.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKiller Heat (2024)
An expat PI is hired to investigate a suspicious death in Crete, Greece, where jealousies run deep amongst the victim's powerful family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisTo Be or Not to Be (1942)
During the Nazi occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Man Walks Into a Bar... (2016)
A man walks into a bar, the start of a bad joke with an even worse pun? or a cautionary tail that tells us, don't tempt fate.........just don't.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & mystery
D'Unbelievables D'Telly (1998)
Irish Comedy Starring Jon Kenny & Pat Shortt
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Chameleon (2025)
After embarrassingly sitting with a full cup at the end of a game of Never Have I Ever, Maria sets out to live a little by doing all the things she's never done.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & comedy
Life Is Beautiful (1997)
A touching story of an Italian book seller of Jewish ancestry who lives in his own little fairy tale. His creative and happy life would come to an abrupt halt when his entire family is deported to a concentration camp during World War II. While locked up he tries to convince his son that the whole thing is just a game.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisFunnybone (TBA)
A supernatural, darkly funny family drama about two estranged siblings who return home after their father’s death, only to discover an enormous prehistoric bone buried in their backyard.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
A young boy wins a tour through the most magnificent chocolate factory in the world, led by the world's most unusual candy maker.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPaul Mooney: A Piece of My Mind - God Bless America (2014)
The venomous, no holds barred style of standup comedy legend Paul Mooney is on full display in this concert special. The vitriolic funnyman spares no politician or pop icon from his scathing wit, throwing jabs at Sarah Palin, Mel Gibson, Tiger Woods and many others. Defiant, socially relevant and always hilarious, it’s a legendary Mooney performance, taped live at the Cobb Energy Centre in Atlanta, Georgia.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
In China They Eat Dogs (1999)
Arvid is an ordinary bank clerk who lives a rather unassuming life with his dear girlfriend. But his life is turned completely upside down when he bravely manages to avert a robbery against the bank where he works.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGhost (1990)
After a young man is murdered, his spirit stays behind to warn his lover of impending danger, with the help of a reluctant psychic.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both romance
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Darkest Universe?
The closest matches to The Darkest Universe are I Met a Girl (2020), How to Please a Woman (2022) and A California Christmas: City Lights (2021). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Darkest Universe?
Start with I Met a Girl (2020), the closest match to The Darkest Universe.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Darkest Universe?
Life Is Beautiful (1997), rated 8.4/10 by 14,400 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Darkest Universe?
The Baltimorons (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Darkest Universe?
Yes: I Met a Girl (2020), How to Please a Woman (2022) and A California Christmas: City Lights (2021).
How are movies similar to The Darkest Universe chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Darkest Universe, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.