Movies like Vagabond (1985)
The best movies like Vagabond (1985) are Ironweed (1987), Code Unknown (2000) and Holy Motors (2012). If Vagabond hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe 400 Blows (1959)8.0/10 from 2,425 votes
- NewestAtropia (2025)Released 2025
- In FrenchCode Unknown (2000)Also in French
Ironweed (1987)
An alcoholic drifter spends Halloween in his hometown of Albany, New York after returning there for the first time in decades.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCode Unknown (2000)
A series of events unfold like a chain reaction, all stemming from a minor event that brings the film's five characters together. Set in Paris, France, Anne is an actress whose boyfriend Georges photographs the war in Kosovo. Georges' brother, Jean, is looking for the entry code to Georges' apartment. These characters' lives interconnect with a Romanian immigrant and a deaf teacher.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHoly Motors (2012)
We follow 24 hours in the life of a being moving from life to life like a cold and solitary assassin moving from hit to hit. In each of these interwoven lives, the being possesses an entirely distinct identity: sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes youthful, sometimes old. By turns murderer, beggar, company chairman, monstrous creature, worker, family man.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCléo from 5 to 7 (1962)
Agnès Varda eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time portrait of a singer set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of the minutes of one woman’s life, Cléo from 5 to 7 is a spirited mix of vivid vérité and melodrama, featuring a score by Michel Legrand and cameos by Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEnter the Void (2010)
This psychedelic tour of life after death is seen entirely from the point of view of Oscar, a young American drug dealer and addict living in Tokyo with his prostitute sister, Linda. When Oscar is killed by police during a bust gone bad, his spirit journeys from the past -- where he sees his parents before their deaths -- to the present -- where he witnesses his own autopsy -- and then to the future, where he looks out for his sister from beyond the grave.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDivines (2016)
In a ghetto where religion and drug trafficking rub shoulders, Dounia has a lust for power and success. Supported by Maimouna, her best friend, she decides to follow in the footsteps of Rebecca, a respected dealer. But her encounter with Djigui, a young, disturbingly sensual dancer, throws her off course.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDheepan (2015)
Three war-torn strangers posing as a family flee Sri Lanka’s civil war to start over in a troubled Paris suburb, but their past traumas resurface as they struggle to survive in their new environment.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOne Deadly Summer (1983)
Shortly after Elle Wieck moves to a small French village, she begins dating Pin-Pon, a quiet young mechanic who has grown obsessed with the beautiful newcomer. But Elle has her own reason for the relationship...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFat Girl (2001)
Anaïs is twelve and bears the weight of the world on her shoulders. She watches her older sister, Elena, whom she both loves and hates. Elena is fifteen and devilishly beautiful. Neither more futile, nor more stupid than her younger sister, she cannot understand that she is merely an object of desire. And, as such, she can only be taken. Or had. Indeed, this is the subject: a girl's loss of virginity. And, that summer, it opens a door to tragedy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFlashbacks of a Fool (2008)
An aging Hollywood star, Joe Scott, lives a life of narcissistic hedonism, observed by his laconic personal assistant, Ophelia. The death of his childhood best friend, Boots, takes our protagonist, and the movie, into an extended flashback to a sea-side town in 1970s Britain.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIrreversible (2002)
A woman’s lover and her ex-boyfriend take justice into their own hands after she becomes the victim of a rapist. Because some acts can’t be undone. Because man is an animal. Because the desire for vengeance is a natural impulse. Because most crimes remain unpunished.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPapillon (2017)
Henri “Papillon” Charrière, a safecracker from the Parisian underworld, is wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colony of French Guiana, where he forges a strong friendship with Louis Dega, a counterfeiter who needs his protection.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAres (2016)
In a near future, the world order has changed. With its 10 millions of unemployed citizens, France has now become a poor country. Its people wavers between rebellion and resignation and find an outlet in the shape of TV broadcast ultra brutal fights in which the players are legally doped and unscrupulous.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisManon of the Spring (1986)
In this, the sequel to Jean de Florette, Manon has grown into a beautiful young shepherdess living in the idyllic Provencal countryside. She plots vengeance on the men who greedily conspired to acquire her father's land years earlier.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBlow-Up (1966)
A successful mod photographer in London whose world is bounded by fashion, pop music, marijuana, and easy sex, feels his life is boring and despairing. But in the course of a single day he unknowingly captures a death on film.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCaché (2005)
As the host of a literary TV show, Georges begins receiving anonymously filmed videos of his family alongside cryptic, disturbing drawings, but as the tapes become increasingly intimate, they reveal a stalker who has known him for a very long time.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWakefield (2017)
A man's nervous breakdown causes him to leave his wife and live in his attic for several months.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVivre Sa Vie (1962)
Twelve episodic tales in the life of a Parisian woman and her slow descent into prostitution.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe 400 Blows (1959)
For young Parisian boy Antoine Doinel, life is one difficult situation after another. Surrounded by inconsiderate adults, including his neglectful parents, Antoine spends his days with his best friend, Rene, trying to plan for a better life. When one of their schemes goes awry, Antoine ends up in trouble with the law, leading to even more conflicts with unsympathetic authority figures.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisPasha (1968)
Six months before his retirement from the criminal police, inspector Joss finds his colleague Gouvion dead, in a poorly faked suicide attempt. Joss loses his temper, and investigates on his own, which leads him through the bas-fond of Paris...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKroko (2003)
She is the blonde poison of the backyards, the femme fatale of the Wedding side street. Coolness hangs heavy on her eyelids. It could be mistaken for boredom - if it weren't for her tough tone of voice and her willingness to ice-coldly clear her opponents out of the way. One of her license-free joyrides results in an accident. A court orders her to do community service in a shared flat for the disabled, which she finds an imposition. But the "normalos" she lives with aren't that great either, and it seems as if Kroko finds something in the "spastics" that she lacks in her everyday life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Riding in Cars with Boys (2001)
In 1965, a young woman with dreams of becoming a writer has a son at the age of 15 and struggles to make things work with the drug-addicted father.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChungking Express (1994)
Two melancholic Hong Kong policemen fall in love: one with a mysterious underworld figure, the other with a beautiful and ethereal server at a late-night restaurant.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisAtropia (2025)
When an aspiring actress in a military role-playing facility falls in love with a soldier cast as an insurgent, their unsimulated emotions threaten to derail the performance.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Erl King (1931)
A young man races to save his son's life, but death – incarnated in the child's imagination as the titular Erl King – calls unceasingly.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Secret Garden (1993)
A young British girl born and reared in India loses her neglectful parents in an earthquake. She is returned to England to live at her uncle's castle. Her uncle is very distant due to the loss of his wife ten years before. Neglected once again, she begins exploring the estate and discovers a garden that has been locked and forgotten. Aided by one of the servants' boys, she begins restoring the garden, and eventually discovers some other secrets of the manor.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTick Tock Lullaby (2007)
A wry interweave film about baby making and how as time marches on the decision gets more intense and less romantic.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Killing Jesus (2017)
Paula, a young art student, witnesses the assassination of her father, a university professor. Frustrated by the local police she starts to investigate the murder herself. Driven by anger, frustration and sorrow, she commits fearless acts that put her and her family at risk.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Your Mother and I (2016)
Johnna's dad changed the world. Or so he says. Whilst Johnna and her dad are talking, they can't seem to connect, each growing more and more frustrated with one another, revolving around one another in their own orbits.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
W-A-L-K (2015)
During a lazy Montreal summer day, preteen Clara decides to master the art of walking in high-heel shoes. It would probably be an easier undertaking if she didn't have to take the dog, Eddie, along for the ride.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Vagabond?
The closest matches to Vagabond are Ironweed (1987), Code Unknown (2000) and Holy Motors (2012). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Vagabond?
Start with Ironweed (1987), the closest match to Vagabond.
What is the highest-rated movie like Vagabond?
The 400 Blows (1959), rated 8.0/10 by 2,425 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Vagabond?
Atropia (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like Vagabond?
Yes: Code Unknown (2000), Holy Motors (2012) and Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962).
How are movies similar to Vagabond chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Vagabond, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.