Movies like Pending (2016)
The best movies like Pending (2016) are Cosmic Ray (1962), Very Nice, Very Nice (1961) and Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted (1990). If Pending hooked you, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedGrindhouse (2007)7.0/10 from 1,981 votes
- Newest180 (2026)Released 2026
Cosmic Ray (1962)
Experimental short uses Ray Charles' “What'd I Say” as accompaniment to constantly shifting collage of female nude, cartoons, and newsreels of atomic bomb explosions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVery Nice, Very Nice (1961)
Arthur Lipsett's first film is an avant-garde blend of photography and sound. It looks behind the business-as-usual face we put on life and shows anxieties we want to forget. It is made of dozens of pictures that seem familiar, with fragments of speech heard in passing and, between times, a voice saying, "Very nice, very nice." The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIndustrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted (1990)
After her boyfriend ends their relationship, the dreamself of a heartbroken woman floats through the air over an industrial wasteland singing ballads of love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlack Mirror (2011)
A nameless drifter navigates a barren landscape punctuated by satellite dishes, radio towers and droning airplanes. Stopping periodically in anonymous hotel rooms, she makes attempts to connect to an unidentified second party.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDalíland (2022)
In 1973, a young gallery assistant goes on a wild adventure behind the scenes as he helps aging genius Salvador Dali prepare for a big show in New York.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisGemini Man (2019)
Henry Brogan is an elite 51-year-old assassin who's ready to call it quits after completing his 72nd job. His plans get turned upside down when he becomes the target of a mysterious operative who can seemingly predict his every move. To his horror, Brogan soon learns that the man who's trying to kill him is a younger, faster, cloned version of himself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like this180 (2026)
When an unexpected road rage incident puts his son in critical condition, an enraged father spirals down a dark path of emotional turmoil and vengeance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisIt's a Boy Girl Thing (2006)
A visit to a natural history museum proves catastrophic for two high school rivals, an overachiever and a jock, when an ancient Aztec statue casts a spell that causes them to switch bodies and see exactly what it's like to walk in the other's shoes.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlack Is King (2020)
This visual album from Beyoncé reimagines the lessons of "The Lion King" (2019) for today's young kings and queens in search of their own crowns.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGrindhouse (2007)
Grindhouse combines Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror, a horror comedy about a group of survivors who battle zombie-like creatures, and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof, an action thriller about a murderous stuntman who kills young women with modified vehicles. It is presented as a double feature with fictitious exploitation trailers preceding each segment.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAmazon Women on the Moon (1987)
Centered on a television station which features a 1950s-style sci-fi movie interspersed with a series of wild commercials, wacky shorts and weird specials, this lampoon of contemporary life and pop culture skewers some of the silliest spectacles ever created in the name of entertainment.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Grandmother (1970)
To escape neglect and abuse from his parents, a young boy plants some strange seeds and they grow into a grandmother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHouse Party (1990)
Young Kid has been invited to a party at his friend Play's house. But after a fight at school, Kid's father grounds him. None the less, Kid sneaks out when his father falls asleep. But Kid doesn't know that three of the thugs at school have decided to give him a lesson in behavior.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPoint Blank (2019)
A nurse is forced to spring a wounded murder suspect from the hospital when the man’s brother kidnaps his pregnant wife and wants to make a trade.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBad Sister (2015)
As a top student at St. Adeline's Catholic Boarding School, Zoe senses that something is not quite right about the school's new nun-- a sense proven to be true when it is revealed the "good' nun is an imposter with a fatal attraction to Zoe's brother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisConfess, Fletch (2022)
The roguishly charming and endlessly troublesome Fletch becomes the prime suspect in a murder case while searching for a stolen art collection. The only way to prove his innocence? Find out which of the long list of suspects is the culprit - from the eccentric art dealer and a missing playboy to a crazy neighbor and Fletch’s Italian girlfriend. Crime, in fact, has never been this disorganized.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNaqoyqatsi (2002)
A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (1978)
The story of the rise and fall of the Pre-Fab Four.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFist Fight (2017)
When one school teacher gets the other fired, he is challenged to an after-school fight.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVendetta (2022)
When his daughter is murdered, William Duncan takes the law into his own hands, setting out on a quest for retribution. After killing the street thug responsible for her death, he finds himself in the middle of a war with the thug's brother, father, and their gang, who are equally hell-bent on getting even. What ensues is a tense back-and-forth game of vengeance. By the end, William comes to find that the quest for revenge never has a winner.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBerlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927)
A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIJswee (2021)
IJswee is a documentary film about an ice club, a village and the warm winters. In the film we follow Oringers, the inhabitants of Odoorn, through the winter. The Oringers all experience IJswee in their own way. You will also see the Icecounter (Rafael van der Ziel), who builds ice sculptures and drinks frozen milk. You see the Drenthe countryside changing with the weather. You see animations, archive material and you hear the mysterious sounds of IJswee in the music of Wietse de Haan. And there are two trumpet players, who welcome winter with their music and say goodbye to it.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Trópico violeta (2019)
Women, landscapes and manifestations of color meet experimentally with the possibilities of the artisanal copying technique on 16mm.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
I am Perfectly Normal: Part I (2022)
A forgotten faceless celebrity ascends into heaven along the path of self-discovery and through a land of faded memory.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Hokus Fokus (2004)
A filmmaker gets lost in a world of his own creation, literally. He is plotted against by his outer demons, searches for his lost sex scene and contends with several other versions of himself. A joyful rule-breaking carnival ride through a filmmaker's dreamland.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Maria (2011)
Maria Lang is my very close filmmaker friend who lives in the southern german countryside. We see her gardening and visiting an exhibition of female impressionist painters.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Labirint (2017)
Two halves split by the perseverance of a scorpion. Come on, feet.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Baa Baa Land (2017)
An eight-hour contemplative epic, entirely starring sheep.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
No Service (2017)
The reception ebbs and flows as the unfamiliar landscape whirls by the window of a plane or train or car. Communication is delayed, fragmented, interrupted. Memories of a distant country.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Like Pending and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Pending?
The closest matches to Pending are Cosmic Ray (1962), Very Nice, Very Nice (1961) and Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted (1990). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Pending?
Start with Cosmic Ray (1962), the closest match to Pending.
What is the highest-rated movie like Pending?
Grindhouse (2007), rated 7.0/10 by 1,981 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Pending?
180 (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Pending?
Yes: Cosmic Ray (1962), Very Nice, Very Nice (1961) and Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted (1990).
How are movies similar to Pending chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Pending, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.