Movies like The Paperman (2017)
The best movies like The Paperman (2017) are If Anything Happens I Love You (2020), Mr. Church (2016) and Goodbye June (2025). If The Paperman hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
The Paperman
Quick picks
- Highest ratedNobody Knows (2004)8.0/10 from 702 votes
- NewestFatherland (2026)Released 2026
If Anything Happens I Love You (2020)
Grieving parents journey through an emotional void as they mourn the loss of a child after a tragic school shooting.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMr. Church (2016)
A unique friendship develops when a little girl and her dying mother inherit a cook - Mr. Church. What begins as an arrangement that should only last six months, instead spans fifteen years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGoodbye June (2025)
Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRabbit Hole (2010)
Life for a happy couple is turned upside down after their young son dies in an accident.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Glass House (2001)
When Ruby and Rhett's parents are killed in a car accident, their carefree teenage lives are suddenly shattered. Moving to an incredible house in Malibu with the Glasses', old friends of the family, seems to be the beginning of a new life for them.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlack or White (2015)
A grieving widower is drawn into a custody battle over his granddaughter, whom he helped raise her entire life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisReservation Road (2007)
Two fathers' lives intersect when one of them is involved in a terrible and sudden hit-and-run car accident that leaves the other's son dead. In response, the two men react in unexpected ways as a reckoning looms in the near future.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them (2014)
A New York couple's relationship is tested after the loss of their child. This film is the wide-released combination of the original two :him and :her volumes that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisManchester by the Sea (2016)
After his older brother passes away, Lee Chandler is forced to return home to care for his 16-year-old nephew. There he is compelled to deal with a tragic past that separated him from his family and the community where he was born and raised.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThings We Lost in the Fire (2007)
A recent widow invites her husband's troubled best friend to live with her and her two children. As he gradually turns his life around, he helps the family cope and confront their loss.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Thing with Feathers (2025)
Following the death of his wife, a young father's hold on reality crumbles, and a strange presence begins to stalk him from the shadowy recesses of the apartment he shares with his two young sons.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Dry White Season (1989)
During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMagnolia (1999)
On one random day in the San Fernando Valley, a dying father, a young wife, a male caretaker, a famous lost son, a police officer in love, a boy genius, an ex-boy genius, a game show host and an estranged daughter will each become part of a dazzling multiplicity of plots, but one story.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHorns (2013)
In the aftermath of his girlfriend's mysterious death, a young man awakens to strange horns sprouting from his temples.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVersa (2025)
A young couple looking to start a family who experience emotions—from grief and loss to ultimate joy—as they embark on an ethereal, abstract, and imaginative cosmic dance of life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisUncle Frank (2020)
In 1973, when Frank Bledsoe and his 18-year-old niece Beth take a road trip from Manhattan to Creekville, South Carolina for the family patriarch's funeral, they're unexpectedly joined by Frank's lover Walid.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBastard Out of Carolina (1996)
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisShotgun Stories (2007)
Shotgun Stories tracks a feud that erupts between two sets of half brothers following the death of their father. Set against the cotton fields and back roads of Southeast Arkansas, these brothers discover the lengths to which each will go to protect their family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Truth About Emanuel (2013)
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Safety of Objects (2002)
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMoonstruck (1987)
37-year-old Italian-American widow Loretta Castorini believes she is unlucky in love, and so accepts a marriage proposal from her boyfriend Johnny, even though she doesn't love him. When she meets his estranged younger brother Ronny, an emotional and passionate man, she finds herself drawn to him. She tries to resist, but Ronny, who blames his brother for the loss of his hand, has no scruples about aggressively pursuing her while Johnny is out of the country. As Loretta falls for Ronny, she learns that she's not the only one in her family with a secret romance.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNobody Knows (2004)
In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004)
The turbulent personal and professional life of actor Peter Sellers (1925-1980), from his beginnings as a comic performer on BBC Radio to his huge success as one of the greatest film comedians of all time; an obsessive artist so dedicated to his work that neglected his loved ones and sacrificed part of his own personality to convincingly create that of his many memorable characters.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHamburger Hill (1987)
The men of Bravo Company are facing a battle that's all uphill… up Hamburger Hill. Fourteen war-weary soldiers are battling for a mud-covered mound of earth so named because it chews up soldiers like chopped meat. They are fighting for their country, their fellow soldiers and their lives. War is hell, but this is worse. Hamburger Hill tells it the way it was, the way it really was. It's a raw, gritty and totally unrelenting dramatic depiction of one of the fiercest battles of America's bloodiest war. This happened. Hamburger Hill - war at its worst, men at their best.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTell No One (2006)
A man receives a mysterious email appearing to be from his wife, who was murdered years earlier. As he frantically tries to find out whether she's alive, he finds himself being implicated in her death.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBirth (2004)
It took Anna 10 years to recover from the death of her husband, Sean, but now she's on the verge of marrying her boyfriend, Joseph, and finally moving on. However, on the night of her engagement party, a young boy named Sean turns up, saying he is her dead husband reincarnated. At first she ignores the child, but his knowledge of her former husband's life is uncanny, leading her to believe that he might be telling the truth.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFatherland (2026)
In 1949, German writer Thomas Mann and his daughter Erika embark on a road trip across a Germany in ruins, from US-dominated Frankfurt to Soviet-controlled Weimar.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHelping Hand (TBA)
Six months after losing his mother, Jared's life collapses into depression, addiction, and emotional numbness, pushing away the last person who cares for him. Alone in his apartment, he is visited by Depression - a seductive female entity who comforts him only to guide him toward his suicide. At his breaking point, a glowing divine hand interrupts his descent, pulling him into The Abyss where his despair takes physical form. On the edge of hopelessness, Jared encounters a breathtaking vision of God's glory, revealing the truth about healing and the presence he ignored. Returned to life with renewed peace, Jared begins his journey toward restoration.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
From Anil Batra... (TBA)
After his father’s sudden death, Karun inherits the old man’s buzzing phone, and with it, a chaotic network of friends, secrets, debts, and love, forcing him to confront the man he never bothered to know.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
In Hands Reach (2017)
A young girl returns home to an empty apartment. She gets invited on a date but she has to finish her chores first. This would be very easy for her, but her addiction makes it a struggle.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Paperman?
The closest matches to The Paperman are If Anything Happens I Love You (2020), Mr. Church (2016) and Goodbye June (2025). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Paperman?
Start with If Anything Happens I Love You (2020), the closest match to The Paperman.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Paperman?
Nobody Knows (2004), rated 8.0/10 by 702 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Paperman?
Fatherland (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Paperman?
Yes: If Anything Happens I Love You (2020), Mr. Church (2016) and Goodbye June (2025).
How are movies similar to The Paperman chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Paperman, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.