Movies like 21 Grams (2003)
The best movies like 21 Grams (2003) are Bounce (2000), Babel (2006) and Magnolia (1999). If 21 Grams hooked you with its drama and crime, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedMagnolia (1999)7.7/10 from 4,227 votes
- NewestCollision Course (2026)Released 2026
Bounce (2000)
Buddy Amaral, a successful and self-absorbed Los Angeles advertising executive, switches airline tickets with a stranger just before boarding a long-delayed flight so that he might enjoy an overnight fling with a pretty Dallas businesswoman. When the plane goes down, killing all aboard, Buddy's guilt soon turns into an alcohol problem. As part of his 12-step program, Buddy seeks atonement and decides to seek out the woman he thinks he's left a widow.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisBabel (2006)
Tragedy strikes a married couple vacationing in the Moroccan desert, which jumpstarts an interlocking story involving four different families.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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: Fans watch both · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies 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: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPieces of a Woman (2020)
When a young mother's home birth ends in unfathomable tragedy, she begins a year-long odyssey of mourning that fractures relationships with loved ones in this deeply personal story of a woman learning to live alongside her loss.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Crossing Guard (1995)
Unable to move on from the loss of his daughter, Freddy, now a shell of the person he was before, swears to kill the man responsible for her death.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBefore the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)
When two brothers organize the robbery of their parents' jewelry store, the job goes horribly wrong, triggering a series of events that send them and their family hurtling towards a shattering climax.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisReign Over Me (2007)
A man who lost his family in the September 11 attack on New York City runs into his old college roommate. Rekindling the friendship is the one thing that appears able to help the man recover from his grief.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCrash (2005)
In post-Sept. 11 Los Angeles, tensions erupt when the lives of a Brentwood housewife, her district attorney husband, a Persian shopkeeper, two cops, a pair of carjackers and a Korean couple converge during a 36-hour period.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMystic River (2003)
The lives of three men who were childhood friends are shattered when one of them suffers a family tragedy.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThird Person (2014)
An acclaimed novelist struggles to write an analysis of love in one of three stories, each set in a different city, that detail the beginning, middle and end of a relationship.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Girl in the Park (2007)
A mother, enduringly traumatized by the disappearance of her three-year old daughter 15 years ago, has cut herself off from her ex-husband and son. However, when a troubled young woman with a checkered past enters her life, old psychic wounds painfully resurface, as does the illogical and increasingly irrational hope that the young woman may be the daughter she lost so long ago.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTraffic (2000)
An exploration of the United States of America's war on drugs from multiple perspectives. For the new head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the war becomes personal when he discovers his well-educated daughter is abusing cocaine within their comfortable suburban home. In Mexico, a flawed, but noble policeman agrees to testify against a powerful general in league with a cartel, and in San Diego, a drug kingpin's sheltered trophy wife must learn her husband's ruthless business after he is arrested, endangering her luxurious lifestyle.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAmores Perros (2000)
A fatalistic car crash in Mexico city sets off a chain of events in the lives of three people: a supermodel, a young man wanting to run off with his sister-in-law, and a homeless man.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWinged Creatures (2009)
A psychotic man opens fire in a diner, murdering numerous people before killing himself. The survivors struggle in different ways following this horrendous event: a doctor doubts his own instincts and elects to use an experimental medical procedure on his wife, while a gambler believes he's on a lucky streak. A waitress begins engaging in promiscuous sex, and a young girl whose father is among the dead gains unexpected fame.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both crime & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisIn the Bedroom (2001)
Summertime on the coast of Maine, "In the Bedroom" centers on the inner dynamics of a family in transition. Matt Fowler is a doctor practicing in his native Maine and is married to New York born Ruth Fowler, a music teacher. His son is involved in a love affair with a local single mother. As the beauty of Maine's brief and fleeting summer comes to an end, these characters find themselves in the midst of unimaginable tragedy.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Salton Sea (2002)
After the murder of his beloved wife, a man in search of redemption is set adrift in a world where nothing is as it seems. On his journey, he befriends slacker Jimmy "The Finn", becomes involved in rescuing his neighbor Colette from her own demons, and gets entangled in a web of deceit full of unexpected twists and turns.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this'R Xmas (2001)
A New York drug dealer is kidnapped, and his wife must try to come up with the money and drugs to free him from his abductors before Christmas.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisShort Cuts (1993)
Many loosely connected characters cross paths in this film, based on the stories of Raymond Carver. Waitress Doreen Piggot accidentally runs into a boy with her car. Soon after walking away, the child lapses into a coma. While at the hospital, the boy's grandfather tells his son, Howard, about his past affairs. Meanwhile, a baker starts harassing the family when they fail to pick up the boy's birthday cake.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Trap (2007)
Mladen and Marija are an ordinary and happy married couple of the "middle class" of the society in which they live as tenants. Mladen works as a civil engineer in a state company, and Marija is an English teacher in primary school. The couple finds joy in their only son, Nemanja. They discover that Nemanja has a rare heart disease and healing is possible with an operation in a foreign medical center, which costs €26,000.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPowder Blue (2009)
On the gritty streets of LA, the destinies of four people desperate for connection and redemption are about to collide.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · 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: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCrossing Over (2009)
Immigrants from around the world enter Los Angeles every day, with hopeful visions of a better life, but little notion of what that life may cost. Their desperate scenarios test the humanity of immigration enforcement officers. In Crossing Over, writer-director Wayne Kramer explores the allure of the American dream, and the reality that immigrants find – and create -- in 21st century L.A.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Secret Life of Words (2005)
A solitary nurse bonds with a badly burned patient who survived an accident on an oil rig.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSleepers (1996)
Two gangsters seek revenge on the state jail worker who during their stay at a youth prison sexually abused them. A sensational court hearing takes place to charge him for the crimes.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Air I Breathe (2007)
A gambler’s bet spiraling into chaos, a gangster's prophetic visions, a pop star’s dark entanglement, a doctor’s desperate race against time to rescue his beloved... Four interconnected stories reveal life unfolding through four emotional pillars — joy, passion, grief, and love.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHouse of Sand and Fog (2003)
Behrani, an Iranian immigrant buys a California bungalow, thinking he can fix it up, sell it again, and make enough money to send his son to college. However, the house is the legal property of former drug addict Kathy. After losing the house in an unfair legal dispute with the county, she is left with nowhere to go. Wanting her house back, she hires a lawyer and befriends a police officer. Neither Kathy nor Behrani have broken the law, so they find themselves involved in a difficult moral dilemma.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCollision Course (2026)
Spain, 2013. After robbing a bank, a getaway crash reveals the hidden side of each thief, exposing betrayals and lies that began long before the heist.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLevity (2003)
Manuel Jordan is a man who is free after serving 23 years for killing a teenager during an attempted robbery. After nearly two decades of staring at his victim's face on a newspaper clipping in his cell, the newly paroled man seeks redemption. Instead, redemption—in the form of a mysterious minister and two needy women— finds him.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
Like 21 Grams and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like 21 Grams?
The closest matches to 21 Grams are Bounce (2000), Babel (2006) and Magnolia (1999). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after 21 Grams?
People who watched 21 Grams most often go on to Bounce (2000), Babel (2006) and Magnolia (1999).
What is the highest-rated movie like 21 Grams?
Magnolia (1999), rated 7.7/10 by 4,227 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like 21 Grams?
Collision Course (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like 21 Grams?
Yes: Bounce (2000), Babel (2006) and Magnolia (1999).
How are movies similar to 21 Grams chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside 21 Grams, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.