Movies like The Marriage Fool (1998)
The best movies like The Marriage Fool (1998) are Catch and Release (2006), The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009) and Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School (2006). If The Marriage Fool hooked you with its comedy and drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedEternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)8.1/10 from 16,982 votes
- NewestEternity (2025)Released 2025
Catch and Release (2006)
For a grieving fiancée, learning to love again requires the help of her late love's three best friends.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009)
After her much older husband forces a move to a suburban retirement community, Pippa Lee engages in a period of reflection and finds herself heading toward a quiet nervous breakdown.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisMarilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School (2006)
Frank Keane, a baker by trade, has been consumed by grief over his wife's untimely death. But everything changes when he pulls his bread truck over on a rural highway to help a dying stranger entangled in a car wreck, who was on his way to a fateful reunion.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisEternity (2025)
In an afterlife where souls have one week to decide where to spend eternity, Joan is faced with the impossible choice between the man she spent her life with and her first love, who died young and has waited decades for her to arrive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisElsa & Fred (2014)
After his daughter persuades him to move into a new apartment, aged widower Fred strikes up a friendship with his eccentric 74-year-old neighbour Elsa, who convinces him it's never too late to keep enjoying life. Although he seemed resigned to a miserable bedridden existence, Fred embraces Elsa's youthful enthusiasm as she introduces him to the path of life and entertains him with outlandish stories about her past life. But when he discovers Elsa's terminally ill, Fred decides to accompany her on the trip of her dreams to the eternal city of Rome to help her fulfil a lifelong ambition.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Courtship of Eddie's Father (1963)
Although he's only seven, Eddie's got it all figured out. He wants his father, a widower, to get remarried — to the girl next door. Unfortunately, she's not one of the women that his dad's been dating.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
SnoozefestMovies like thisVenus (2006)
Maurice is an aging veteran actor who becomes taken with Jessie, the grandniece of his closest friend. When Maurice tries to soften the petulant and provincial young girl with the benefit of his wisdom and London culture, their give-and-take surprises both Maurice and Jessie as they discover what they don't know about themselves.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAuthor! Author! (1982)
While facing the stress of his original play being produced on Broadway, playwright Ivan Travalian deals with having to raise his son, his stepdaughters, and his stepsons.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSleepless in Seattle (1993)
After the death of his mother, a young boy calls a radio station in an attempt to set his father up on a date. Across the country, an engaged woman becomes convinced that they belong together, despite their never having met. Will their paths collide despite the odds?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Face of Love (2013)
A widow falls for a guy who bears a striking resemblance to her late husband.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMiddle of the Night (1959)
Jerry Kingsley is a wealthy garment manufacturer left lonely in his 50s when his wife dies. Despite the difference in their ages, he strikes up a romance with divorced 24-year-old receptionist Betty. The relationship is dismissed by his daughter, Lillian, discouraged by his sister, Evelyn, and denounced by Betty's mother. But when Jerry begins to mention marriage, even Betty is forced to confront her ambivalence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Man Called Otto (2022)
When a lively young family moves in next door, grumpy widower Otto Anderson meets his match in a quick-witted, pregnant woman named Marisol, leading to an unlikely friendship that turns his world upside down.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThis Is Where I Leave You (2014)
When their father passes away, four grown, world-weary siblings return to their childhood home and are requested -- with an admonition -- to stay there together for a week, along with their free-speaking mother and a collection of spouses, exes and might-have-beens. As the brothers and sisters re-examine their shared history and the status of each tattered relationship among those who know and love them best, they reconnect in hysterically funny and emotionally significant ways.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEveryone Says I Love You (1996)
A New York girl sets her father up with a beautiful woman in a shaky marriage while her half sister gets engaged.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMaestro (2023)
A towering and fearless love story chronicling the lifelong relationship between Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein. A love letter to life and art, Maestro at its core is an emotionally epic portrayal of family and love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDemolition (2016)
An emotionally desperate investment banker finds hope through a woman he meets.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI'll See You in My Dreams (2015)
A sudden loss disrupts Carol’s orderly life, propelling her into the dating world for the first time in 20 years. Finally living in the present tense, she finds herself swept up in not one, but two unexpected relationships that challenge her assumptions about what it means to grow old.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOur Souls at Night (2017)
Addie Moore and Louis Waters, a widow and widower, have lived next to each other for years. The pair have almost no relationship, but that all changes when Addie tries to make a connection with her neighbour.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAvanti! (1972)
A successful businessman travels to Italy to arrange for the return of his tycoon father's body, only to learn that dear old dad died with his longtime mistress.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLost in Translation (2003)
Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHigh Fidelity (2000)
After his long-time girlfriend dumps him, a thirty-year-old record store owner seeks to understand why he is unlucky in love while recounting his "top five breakups of all time".
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIn the Jaws of Life (1984)
Two parallel tales about two modern women. One is Štefica Cvek, average and lonely girl who desperately tries to find the man of her dreams. The other story is about a woman director who is making the movie about Štefica and has the same problem.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
Holly Golightly is an eccentric New York City playgirl determined to marry a Brazilian millionaire. But when young writer Paul Varjak moves into her apartment building, her past threatens to get in their way.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMifune (1999)
Kresten, newly wed, is on the threshold of a great career success in his father-in-law’s company. But when the death of his own father takes him back to his poverty-stricken childhood home, far out in the country, his career plans fall apart. For one thing he has to deal with his loveable, backward brother, who is now all alone; for another, he meets a stunning woman who comes to the farm as a housekeeper, in disguise of her real profession as a call-girl.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThree Colors: White (1994)
Polish immigrant Karol Karol finds himself out of a marriage, a job and a country when his French wife, Dominique, divorces him after six months due to his impotence. Forced to leave France after losing the business they jointly owned, Karol enlists fellow Polish expatriate Mikołaj to smuggle him back to their homeland.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPocketful of Miracles (1961)
A New York gangster and his girlfriend attempt to turn street beggar Apple Annie into a society lady when the peddler learns her daughter is marrying royalty.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTrouble in Paradise (1932)
Thief Gaston Monescu and pickpocket Lily are partners in crime and love. Working for perfume company executive Mariette Colet, the two crooks decide to combine their criminal talents to rob their employer. Under the alias of Monsieur Laval, Gaston uses his position as Mariette's personal secretary to become closer to her. However, he takes things too far when he actually falls in love with Mariette, and has to choose between her and Lily.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Joel Barish, heartbroken that his girlfriend underwent a procedure to erase him from her memory, decides to do the same. However, as he watches his memories of her fade away, he realises that he still loves her, and may be too late to correct his mistake.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisBilly Elliot (2000)
County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like this
Like The Marriage Fool and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Marriage Fool?
The closest matches to The Marriage Fool are Catch and Release (2006), The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009) and Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School (2006). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Marriage Fool?
Start with Catch and Release (2006), the closest match to The Marriage Fool.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Marriage Fool?
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), rated 8.1/10 by 16,982 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Marriage Fool?
Eternity (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Marriage Fool?
Yes: Catch and Release (2006), The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009) and Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School (2006).
How are movies similar to The Marriage Fool chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Marriage Fool, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.