Movies like The Trainer (2016)
The best movies like The Trainer (2016) are The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947), Stick It (2006) and Pumping Iron (1977). If The Trainer hooked you, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.

Quick picks
- Highest ratedI Can't Think Straight (2008)7.5/10 from 341 votes
- NewestThe People's Joker (2024)Released 2024
The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947)
Teenager Susan Turner, with a severe crush on playboy artist Richard Nugent, sneaks into his apartment to model for him and is found there by her sister Judge Margaret Turner. Threatened with jail, Nugent agrees to date Susan until the crush abates.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStick It (2006)
Haley is a naturally gifted athlete but, with her social behavior, the teen seems intent on squandering her abilities. After a final brush with the law, a judge sentences her to an elite gymnastics academy run by a legendary, hard-nosed coach. Once there, Haley's rebellious attitude wins her both friends and enemies.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPumping Iron (1977)
Amateur and professional bodybuilders prepare for the 1975 Mr. Olympia and Mr. Universe contests as five-time champion Arnold Schwarzenegger defends his Mr. Olympia title against Serge Nubret and the shy young Lou Ferrigno.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTake the Lead (2006)
A former professional dancer volunteers to teach dance in the New York public school system and, while his background first clashes with his students' tastes, together they create a completely new style of dance. Based on the story of ballroom dancer, Pierre Dulane.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWe Are Marshall (2006)
When a plane crash claims the lives of members of the Marshall University football team and some of its fans, the team's new coach and his surviving players try to keep the football program alive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhere the Day Takes You (1992)
King is a young man, but he's already a veteran of life on the streets of Los Angeles. The de facto leader of a group of teenage runaways, King acts as a mentor to troubled kids such as gay hustler Little J and junkie Greg. When Heather, a beautiful girl from Chicago, starts hanging out with King and his crew, it changes the dynamic of the gang. However, it seems as though nothing will alter their dangerous lifestyle.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Locket (1946)
A dark personal secret drives a young woman to use every man she encounters.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKid Galahad (1962)
After completing military service, Walter Gulick takes a job as a sparring partner at a gym, the owner of which sees potential in Walter as a professional fighter—and takes him under his wing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Perfect Ending (2012)
This intimate drama follows Rebecca, a woman who has kept her sexuality a secret from her friends but chooses to reveal it to a stranger. While Rebecca's revelations may not yield the results she expects, a perfect ending is still in reach.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBrand Upon the Brain! (2007)
After returning home to his long-estranged mother upon a request from her deathbed, a man raised by his parents in an orphanage has to confront the childhood memories that have long haunted him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Can't Think Straight (2008)
Tala, a London-based Palestinian, is preparing for her elaborate Middle Eastern wedding when she meets Leyla, a young British Indian woman who is dating her best friend. Spirited Christian Tala and shy Muslim Leyla could not be more different from each other, but the attraction is immediate and goes deeper than friendship. But Tala is not ready to accept the implications of the choice her heart has made for her and escapes back to Jordan, while Leyla tries to move on with her new-found life, to the shock of her tradition-loving parents. As Tala's wedding day approaches, simmering tensions come to boiling point and the pressure mounts for Tala to be true to herself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe People's Joker (2024)
An aspiring clown grappling with her gender identity combats a fascistic caped crusader.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Set-Up (1949)
Expecting the usual loss, a boxing manager takes bribes from a betting gangster without telling his fighter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisJust Charlie (2017)
Football star Charlie has the world at her feet. With a top club desperate to sign her, her future is seemingly mapped out. But the teenager sees only a nightmare. Raised as a boy, Charlie is torn between wanting to live up to her father's expectations and shedding this ill fitting skin.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNightfall (1956)
An innocent man turns fugitive as he reconstructs events that implicate him for a murder and robbery he did not commit.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWrite Before Christmas (2019)
A recently single Jessica sends Christmas cards to people who have impacted her life—the aunt who raised her, her younger brother in the military, a popstar who was part of the soundtrack of her life, the music teacher who inspired her, and the best friend who always tells the truth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHe Ran All the Way (1951)
A crook on the run hides out in an innocent girl's apartment.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Mole: Undercover in North Korea (2020)
A real-life undercover thriller about two ordinary men who embark on an outrageously dangerous ten-year mission to penetrate the world's most secretive and brutal dictatorship: North Korea.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCars 3 (2017)
Blindsided by a new generation of blazing-fast racers, the legendary Lightning McQueen finds himself pushed to the brink—and suddenly, the champion who once ruled the track is fighting just to stay in the race. With his career hanging in the balance, McQueen must turn to an ambitious young race technician with a plan of her own, draw strength from the legacy of the late Fabulous Hudson Hornet, and risk everything on one last shot at glory.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)
Two girlfriends on a summer holiday in Spain become enamored with the same painter, unaware that his ex-wife, with whom he has a tempestuous relationship, is about to re-enter the picture.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Fluffer (2001)
Self-effacing, boyish Sean moves to LA to pursue a career in movies but finds it tougher than he imagined. He stumbles onto porn star Johnny Rebel - a handsome, muscled dream of men and women alike - who awakens Sean’s deep obsession.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
SnoozefestMovies like thisTitle 18 (2022)
An experimental short film made as part of a multi-media triptych, originally screened alongside a fashion collection and an art-installation. Drawing from Papa Yorick’s (Director and fashion designer) thesis “Men Are My Cumrag”, the film reenacts eight mainstay gay porn scripts, incorporating and parodying tropes and clichés, that explore masculine identities within the gay porn industry, through a satirical and critical lens.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Tips (2016)
Mario (Thiago Cazado) is in debt. To pay the bills, he displays the body on a famous porn site.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
I'm a Porn Star (2013)
I'm a Porn Star follows the lives of guys in the neighborhood who are likely a lot more famous than you - at least on the Internet. There are an estimated 370 million pornographic websites on-line. Porn is now a thirteen BILLION dollar business. So who's doing all this moonlighting? Turns out -- probably some people you know.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Beautiful Beings (2022)
A teenage boy, raised by a mother who considers herself psychic, takes a bullied kid into his group of violent misfits. As the group’s troubles escalate toward life-threatening situations, an inner voice awakens in the boy and, with the help of his mother and his new friend, he manages to find his own path.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBody Without Soul (1996)
A stark documentary about young male prostitutes in Prague, aged 15 to 18, who work the streets, train stations, and clubs. Through candid interviews and behind-the-scenes footage of gay porn shoots, the film explores their lives, struggles, and dreams, touching on themes of exploitation, identity, AIDS, and survival.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Damon and Hunter: Doing It Together (2006)
Comstock Films has created a unique film series that explores sexual relationships among couples. Each film focuses on one couple and begins with an intimate interview that sets up the background of the couple's relationship: how they met, the basis of their intimacy, what attracts them sexually to one another, and how they share their innermost desires and fantasies. The camera then turns to an intimate lovemaking session, recording in detail the passion and eroticism that exists between the two. Coverage is explicit, but not provocative; it allows viewers to share in the couple's healthy, passionate, romantic relationship and to experience first hand the erotic intimacy of their lovemaking. Damon and Hunter: Doing it Together features the first gay relationship in the series. Damon and Hunter are two adult film stars on the rise, but are also real-life lovers.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Bulgarian Lovers (2003)
Graying Spaniard Daniel has a healthy budget for indulging in the finer things in life. Daniel's favorite luxury is playing sponsor to younger men amid the lights and sights of Madrid's gay club scene. After Daniel shares a night with handsome Bulgarian emigre Kyril, he finds himself consumed with an insatiable lust for the charismatic foreigner. But, as their relationship takes shape, Daniel's latest conquest reveals his own manipulative tendencies.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
A Day in the Country (2010)
The doctor makes a house call but three is a crowd after the action is over… A film about existential loneliness.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Mondo Homo: Inquiry Into 70's Gay French Porn (2009)
Between 1975 and 1983 a new kind of film could be seen in French cinema: home-grown gay pornography. They were essentially the work of three production companies: Les Films de La Troika (Norbert Terry), AMT Productions (Anne-Marie Tensi) and Les Films du Vertbois (principally Jacques Scandelari). The genre met an untimely end with the advent of video, the last being made in 1983 'Mon Ami, Mon Amour (My Friend, my Lover)'.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Like The Trainer and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Trainer?
The closest matches to The Trainer are The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947), Stick It (2006) and Pumping Iron (1977). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Trainer?
Start with The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947), the closest match to The Trainer.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Trainer?
I Can't Think Straight (2008), rated 7.5/10 by 341 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Trainer?
The People's Joker (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Trainer?
Yes: The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947), Stick It (2006) and Pumping Iron (1977).
How are movies similar to The Trainer chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Trainer, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.





























