Movies like The Crazy Stranger (1998)
The best movies like The Crazy Stranger (1998) are Once (2007), Swing (2002) and Safe Journey (1993). If The Crazy Stranger hooked you with its drama and music, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedSing Street (2016)7.9/10 from 2,546 votes
- NewestHigh Strung Free Dance (2018)Released 2018
- In FrenchSwing (2002)Also in French
Once (2007)
A vacuum repairman moonlights as a street musician and hopes for his big break. One day a Czech immigrant, who earns a living selling flowers, approaches him with the news that she is also an aspiring singer-songwriter. The pair decide to collaborate, and the songs that they compose reflect the story of their blossoming love.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & music
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSwing (2002)
In a suburb of Strasbourg, Alsace, France, ten year old boy, Max, spends his summer vacation with his grandmother. He hears Manouche gypsy Romani music being played in a local bar, and loves it. He goes to visit the gypsies in search of a guitar, where he meets a young Romani tomboy, 'Swing'. She introduces Max to her gypsy community who live in caravans and down-at-heel public housing. Over several days, Max is taken into the community to witness Romani lifestyle, traditions, knowledge of plants, and particularly their Manouche music. Max is particularly fascinated by Miraldo, the Romani guitarist he first heard in the bar, and asks to take guitar lessons with him (Miraldo is played by one of the greatest guitarists of gypsy jazz, Tchavolo Schmitt).
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & music
Safe Journey (1993)
Latcho Drom is a vista of the music, culture, and journey of the Romani people—from their homeland of India, to Europe and Southwest Asia.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both music
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Singer (2006)
Alain Moreau sings for one of the few remaining dance-bands in Clermont-Ferrand. Though something of an idol amongst his female audience he has a melancholic awareness of the slow disappearance of that audience and of his advancing years. He is completely knocked off balance when he meets strikingly attractive and much younger businesswoman Marion. She seems distant and apparently otherwise involved but soon shows quiet signs of reciprocating his interest.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKung-Fu Master! (1988)
A lonely 40-year old woman finds herself shattering taboos by falling in love with the 14-year old Julien – but is it romance, or a desperate attempt to turn back time in the face of middle age?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBeyond Silence (1996)
Beyond Silence is about a family and a young girl’s coming of age story. This German film looks into the lives of the deaf and at a story about the love for music. A girl who has always had to translate speech into sign language for her deaf parents yet when her love for playing music grows strong she must decide to continue doing something she cannot share with her parents.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStateside (2004)
The film follows a rebellious teenager on leave from the Marines who falls in love with a female musician. The relationship is threatened when she develops a mental illness...
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & music
All the Mornings of the World (1991)
Following the death of his wife, a renowned musician ostracises himself from the outer world and dedicates his life to music. However, his life changes when a young man approaches him to learn music.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & music
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSwing Kids (1993)
The story of a close-knit group of young kids in Nazi Germany who listen to banned swing music from the US. Soon dancing and fun leads to more difficult choices as the Nazis begin tightening the grip on Germany. Each member of the group is forced to face some tough choices about right, wrong, and survival.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both music & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPerhaps Love (2005)
A love triangle develops between the male and female leads and the director during the making of a musical in Mainland China.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWe Are the Best! (2013)
Three girls in 1980s Stockholm decide to form a punk band—despite not having any instruments, and being told by everyone that punk is dead.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & music
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBeloved (2011)
From Paris in the 1960s to London in the first decade of the third millennium, Madeleine and her daughter Véra flit from one amorous adventure to the next, living for the moment and taking all the opportunities that life offers. But not every love affair is without its consequences, its upsets and its disappointments. As time goes by and gnaws away at one’s deepest feelings, love becomes a harder game to play.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like this9 Songs (2004)
Matt, a young glaciologist, soars across the vast, silent, icebound immensities of the South Pole as he recalls his love affair with Lisa. They meet at a mobbed rock concert in a vast music hall - London's Brixton Academy. They are in bed at night's end. Together, over a period of several months, they pursue a mutual sexual passion whose inevitable stages unfold in counterpoint to nine live-concert songs.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & music
SnoozefestMovies like thisSing Street (2016)
A boy growing up in Dublin during the 1980s escapes his strained family life by starting a band to impress the mysterious girl he likes.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisHigh Strung Free Dance (2018)
Zander Raines, a dazzling and tempestuous young choreographer, gives the break of a lifetime to two hopeful artists when he casts a stunning contemporary dancer, Barlow, and innovative pianist, Charlie, in New York’s most-anticipated new Broadway show: Free Dance. But the move throws off the show’s delicate creative balance when Charlie falls hard for Barlow, while Zander embraces her as his muse.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both music & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Girl on the Bridge (1999)
It's night on a Paris bridge. A girl leans over Seine River with tears in her eyes and a violent yearning to drown her sorrows. Out of nowhere someone takes an interest in her. He is Gabor, a knife thrower who needs a human target for his show. The girl, Adele, has never been lucky and nowhere else to go. So she follows him. They travel along the northern bank of the Mediterranean to perform.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTransylvania (2006)
Zingarina arrives in Transylavania, accompanied by her close friend Marie and her guide and interpreter Luminitsa. She is not there only to visit this region of Romania but to trace her lover Milan, a musician who has made her pregnant and who left her without a word of explanation. When she finds him back, he brutally rejects her and Zingarina is terribly upset. She leaves her two companions and having become a wreck she hardly survives by following a wandering little girl. Her destiny changes for the best when she meets Tchangalo, a traveling trader...
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisJourney from Greece (2017)
Djam, a young Greek woman, is sent to Istanbul by her uncle Kakourgos, a former sailor with a passion for Rebetiko, to find a rare part that will repair their boat. In Istanbul, she encounters Avril, a nineteen-year-old French girl, alone and without any money, who came to Turkey as a voluntary worker with refugees. Djam, generous, cheeky, unpredictable, and free-spirited, takes Avril under her wing on the way to Mytilene. A journey filled with encounters, music, sharing, and hope.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEden (2014)
Paul, a teenager in the underground scene of early-nineties Paris, forms a DJ collective with his friends and together they plunge into the nightlife of sex, drugs, and endless music.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & music
SnoozefestMovies like thisAlmost Famous (2000)
In 1973, a precocious 15-year-old aspiring rock journalist lands a dream assignment from Rolling Stone to tour with a rising rock band, embarking on a coming-of-age journey as he discovers the exhilarating and heartbreaking realities behind rock stardom.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & music
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCrazy (2008)
Crazy is the story of a legendary guitar player who emerged from Nashville in the 1950s. Blessed with incomparable, natural talent, Hank Garland quickly established his reputation as the finest sessions player in Nashville.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both music & drama
Priceless (2006)
A beautiful young gold-digger mistakes a lowly hotel clerk as a rich and therefore worthwhile catch.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Man Who Cried (2000)
A young refugee travels from Russia to America in search of her lost father and falls in love with a gypsy horseman.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPolina (2016)
Polina is a young dancer from a modest family. After years of ballet academy, she is accepted by the Bolshoi; still, she decides to try and audition of a modern dance company in France. She makes it, but her journey will not end there...
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGolden Eighties (1986)
In a lively shopping center, proprietors and customers are bustling, including three women vying for a man's heart with song and dance.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both music & romance
Dalida (2017)
Based on the true story of acclaimed music icon "Dalida" born in Cairo, who gained celebrity in the 50s, singing in French, Spanish, Arabic, Hebrew, German, Italian, playing in awarded Youssef Chahine's picture "Le Sixième Jour", and who later committed suicide in 1987 in Paris, after selling more than 130 million records worldwide.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both music & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGuy (2018)
Gauthier, a young journalist, learns from his mother that he is the illegitimate son of Guy Jamet, a popular French singer whose heyday stretched unevenly from the 1960’s to the nineties. Guy is currently promoting a new album of old material and heads on tour. Armed with a camera, Gauthier decides to follow Guy, recording his daily routine and his concerts to create a documentary portrait.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & music
Worth the HypeMovies like thisI Want You (1998)
A young boy and his sister are drawn into one man's obsessive pursuit of his former lover.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & music
SnoozefestMovies like thisPure Country 2: The Gift (2010)
Three angels bestow the gift of song to a young girl, who must follow a series of rules in order hold on to it during her rise to fame and fortune.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Crazy Stranger?
The closest matches to The Crazy Stranger are Once (2007), Swing (2002) and Safe Journey (1993). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Crazy Stranger?
People who watched The Crazy Stranger most often go on to Once (2007), Swing (2002) and Safe Journey (1993).
What is the highest-rated movie like The Crazy Stranger?
Sing Street (2016), rated 7.9/10 by 2,546 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Crazy Stranger?
High Strung Free Dance (2018) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like The Crazy Stranger?
Yes: Swing (2002), Safe Journey (1993) and The Singer (2006).
How are movies similar to The Crazy Stranger chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Crazy Stranger, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.