Movies like Heart of a Dog (1988)
The best movies like Heart of a Dog (1988) are Petrov's Flu (2021), Stargate SG-1: Children of the Gods (2009) and South Park: Joining the Panderverse (2023). If Heart of a Dog hooked you with its drama and comedy, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedIvan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession (1973)7.9/10 from 434 votes
- NewestThrillomedy (2025)Released 2025
Petrov's Flu (2021)
With the city in the throes of a flu epidemic, the Petrov family struggles through yet another day in a country where the past is never past, the present is a booze-fueled, icy fever dream of violence and tenderness, and where – beneath layers of the ordinary – things turn out to be extraordinary.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStargate SG-1: Children of the Gods (2009)
An alien similar to Ra appears out of the Stargate, killing five soldiers and kidnapping another, a year after the original Stargate mission. A new team is assembled, including some old members, and they go in search of the missing soldier in order to find out how Ra could still be alive. Meanwhile, the alien Goa'uld kidnap Sha're and Skaara, implanting them with symbiotes and making them Goa'uld hosts.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSouth Park: Joining the Panderverse (2023)
Cartman's deeply disturbing dreams portend the end of the life he knows and loves. Meanwhile, the adults in South Park are wrestling with their own life decisions, as the advent of AI is turning their world upside down.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Boy and His Dog (1975)
Set in the year 2024 in post-apocalyptic America, 18-year old Vic and his telepathic dog, Blood, are scavengers in the desolate wilderness ravaged by World War IV, where survivors must battle for food and shelter in the desert-like wasteland. Vic and Blood eke out a meager existence, foraging for food and fighting gangs of cutthroats.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVictor Frankenstein (2015)
While searching for animal body parts at a London circus, radical scientist Victor Frankenstein meets gifted surgeon Igor Strausman. Not only does the brilliant doctor offer Strausman his friendship, but also a chance to work with him on groundbreaking research that could change the world forever. When Victor's experiments with life and death go too far, only Igor can bring him back from the brink of madness and save him from his monstrous creation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Congress (2013)
An aging, out-of-work actress accepts one last job, though the consequences of her decision affect her in ways she didn't consider.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBeing John Malkovich (1999)
One day at work, unsuccessful puppeteer Craig finds a portal into the head of actor John Malkovich. The portal soon becomes a passion for anybody who enters its mad and controlling world of overtaking another human body.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIvan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession (1973)
A scientist builds a time machine and accidentally sends his apartment complex manager and a petty burglar to 16th century Moscow, while Tsar Ivan the Terrible travels to 1973.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & science fiction
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe House of Tomorrow (2019)
The film tells futurist, architect, and inventor R. Buckminster Fuller's incredible story through two teens hoping to get laid, become punk gods, and survive high school.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWarning Sign (1985)
An accident occurs in an ultra-secret government biological weapons laboratory spreading a sinister bacteria.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Zed & Two Noughts (1985)
Identical twin zoologists lose their wives in a car crash caused by a white swan. They become obsessed with the death and decay of animals, and develop a strange and unusual relationship with the driver of the car, a woman who is now an amputee.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Boys from Brazil (1978)
Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman discovers a sinister and bizarre plot, masterminded by Dr. Josef Mengele, to rekindle the Third Reich.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVesper (2022)
After the collapse of Earth's ecosystem, Vesper, a 13-year-old girl struggling to survive with her paralyzed Father, meets a mysterious Woman with a secret that forces Vesper to use her wits, strength and bio-hacking abilities to fight for the possibility of a future.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters (2007)
An action epic that explores the origins of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force (better known as Master Shake, Frylock, and Meatwad,) who somehow become pitted in a battle over an immortal piece of exercise equipment.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFamily Weekend (2013)
A 16-year-old girl takes her parents hostage after they miss her big jump-roping competition.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSwan Song (2021)
In the near future, Cameron Turner is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Presented with an experimental solution to shield his wife and son from grief, he grapples with altering their fate in this thought-provoking exploration of love, loss, and sacrifice.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHarrison Bergeron (1995)
"All men are not created equal. It is the purpose of the Government to make them so." This is the premise of the Showtime film adaption of Kurt Vonnegut's futuristic short story Harrison Bergeron. The film centers around a young man (Harrison) who is smarter than his peers, and is not affected by the usual "Handicapping" which is used to train all Americans so everyone is of equal intelligence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like this...First Do No Harm (1997)
When Lori Reimuller learns that her young son Robbie has epilepsy, she first trusts the judgment of the hospital staff in how best to bring it under control. As Robbie's health slides radically downhill, however, she becomes frustrated and desperate, and so does her own research into the existing literature on treatments. When she decides to try an alternative treatment called the Ketogenic Diet, devised long ago by a doctor from Johns Hopkins, she is met with narrow-minded resistance from Robbie's doctor, who is prepared to take legal action to prevent Lori from removing him from the hospital.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Visitor to a Museum (1989)
It is the future, the world is in ruins and a large portion of the population consists of deformed mutants living in reservations. In this world a man decides to spend his vacation visiting the ruins of a museum that is now buried under the sea.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Am Elizabeth Smart (2017)
The story of Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping and captivity, as told from her perspective.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAthisayan (2007)
Devan is an orphan raised by Maya, an investigative journalist. When she is abducted before she can expose a high-profile group of criminals, Devan consumes an invisibility potion to try and save her.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & science fiction
Night of the Creeps (1986)
In 1959, an alien experiment crashes to earth and infects a fraternity member. They freeze the body, but in the modern day, two geeks pledging a fraternity accidentally thaw the corpse, which proceeds to infect the campus with parasites that transform their hosts into killer zombies.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Fly II (1989)
Martin Brundle, born of the human/fly, is adopted by his father's place of employment (Bartok Inc.) while the employees simply wait for his mutant chromosomes to come out of their dormant state.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
SnoozefestMovies like thisZorba the Greek (1964)
An uptight English writer traveling to Crete on a matter of business finds his life changed forever when he meets the gregarious Alexis Zorba.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Philadelphia Experiment (1984)
Based on an "actual event" that took place in 1943. About a US Navy Destroyer Escort that disappeared from the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, and sent two men 40 years into the future to 1984.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both science fiction
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAwakenings (1990)
Dr. Malcolm Sayer, a shy research physician, uses an experimental drug to "awaken" the catatonic victims of a rare disease. Leonard is the first patient to receive the controversial treatment. His awakening, filled with awe and enthusiasm, proves a rebirth for Sayer too, as the exuberant patient reveals life's simple but unutterably sweet pleasures to the introverted doctor.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMake Me Psychic (1978)
Anita the duck buys a psychic device at a novelty store in an alternate universe and creates mayhem at a crazy party.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
Pureza (2022)
"Pureza" tells a story of a mother, Pureza, who goes in search of her son, Abel, disappeared after leaving for the mining in the Amazon.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Dread (2009)
Three college students set out to document what other people dread the most. However, one of the three turns out to secretly be a sadistic psychopath who uses this knowledge to gruesomely torture the subjects.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like this
Like Heart of a Dog and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Heart of a Dog?
The closest matches to Heart of a Dog are Petrov's Flu (2021), Stargate SG-1: Children of the Gods (2009) and South Park: Joining the Panderverse (2023). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Heart of a Dog?
Start with Petrov's Flu (2021), the closest match to Heart of a Dog.
What is the highest-rated movie like Heart of a Dog?
Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession (1973), rated 7.9/10 by 434 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Heart of a Dog?
Thrillomedy (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Heart of a Dog chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Heart of a Dog, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.