Movies like Life in the Alley (2016)
The best movies like Life in the Alley (2016) are Olla (2019), In the Soup (1992) and Chloe and Theo (2015). If Life in the Alley 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 ratedBad Seeds (2018)7.6/10 from 641 votes
- NewestKind Mother (2025)Released 2025
- In FrenchOlla (2019)Also in French
Olla (2019)
After answering an ad on a dating website for Eastern European women, Olla leaves Ukraine and heads to French suburbia to move in with Pierre, who lives with his elderly mother. However, the suburbia cannot temper her desires, and nothing goes as expected.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIn the Soup (1992)
An aspiring young filmmaker gets involved with an eccentric gangster for the financing of his first film.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChloe and Theo (2015)
A young woman, Chloe, living by her wits on the streets of New York City, has a chance meeting with a wise Inuit Eskimo, Theo, who was sent to New York by his elders to provide a message to the people of the world – We either change our destructive was or be destroyed by them. Chloe, who has been searching for something to believe in, becomes inspired by Theo and , with the help of a kind lawyer, Monica, the three of them present Theo’s story to the United Nations in hopes of creating a better future for all of us.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisOn Becoming a Guinea Fowl (2024)
On an empty road in the middle of the night, Shula stumbles across the body of her uncle. As funeral proceedings begin around them, she and her cousins bring to light the buried secrets of their middle-class Zambian family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRide Away (2025)
From the Atlantic to the Black Sea, Mathias and Philippe, two old friends, embark on a bicycle journey that Mathias’s son made before his tragic death. The two men ride through the ordeals with tenderness, humor and emotion.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNew Biz in the Hood (2019)
Fred Bartel is the charismatic boss of a trendy Parisian communication agency, Happy Few. After a heated tax audit, he was forced by the administration to relocate overnight his company in La Courneuve. Fred and his team meet Samy, a young suburb who will quickly propose to teach them the rules and practices to adopt in this new environment.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisKitchen Brigade (2022)
Cathy is a sous-chef wanting to open a restaurant. With financial difficulties, Cathy accepts a job at a shelter for young migrants. At first she hates the job then her passion for cuisine starts to change children's lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFour Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle (1987)
Two young girls meet, Reinette from the countryside and Mirabelle from Paris, and decide to take a flat together in Paris where they attend University. Four successive stories about their daily lives illustrate the very different views, characters and relation to the world of these two friends.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIt Must Be Heaven (2019)
Filmmaker Elia Suleiman travels to different cities and finds unexpected parallels to his homeland of Palestine.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMacadam Stories (2015)
Improbable encounters bring tenderness, laughter and compassion to a world of urban alienation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBye Bye Morons (2020)
When 43-year-old hairdresser Suze Trappet finds out that she's seriously ill, she decides to go looking for a child she was forced to abandon when she was only 15. On her madcap bureaucratic quest she crosses paths with JB, a 50-year-old man in the middle of a burnout, and Mr. Blin, a blind archivist prone to overenthusiasm. The unlikely trio set off on a hilarious and poignant helterskelter journey across the city in search of Suze's long-lost child.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTwo Cars, One Night (2004)
Sometimes first love is found in the most unlikely of places, like in the carpark outside the Te Kaha pub.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe House of Tomorrow (2019)
The film tells futurist, architect, and inventor R. Buckminster Fuller's incredible story through two teens hoping to get laid, become punk gods, and survive high school.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLandline (2017)
A teenager living with her sister and parents in Manhattan during the 1990s discovers that her father is having an affair.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSubUrbia (1997)
A group of suburban teenagers try to support each other through the difficult task of becoming adults.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisArab Blues (2020)
Selma, a psychoanalyst, deals with a cast of colorful new patients after returning home to Tunisia to open a practice.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBad Seeds (2018)
Wael, a former street child, makes a living from small scams with his adoptive mother and partner-in-crime Monique. When this unconventional duo swindles the wrong guy, Victor, an old acquaintance of Monique now in charge of a support organization for troubled teens, they have no choice but to become his interim secretary and educator in order to redeem themselves.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Futile and Stupid Gesture (2018)
In a life full of triumph and failure, "National Lampoon" co-founder Doug Kenney built a comedy empire, molding pop culture in the 1970s.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Neighbors' Window (2019)
The story of a middle-aged woman with small children whose life is shaken up when two free-spirited twenty-somethings move in across the street.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChips Ahoy (1956)
Chip and Dale are starving in their tree home when they notice a plentiful supply of acorns on an island in a lake. To get to the island, they borrow a miniature model ship of Donald's to sail on. The irate Donald, however, doesn't appreciate them stealing his ship and makes several attempts to get it back and thwart their scheme to get to their acorn paradise. Chip and Dale are, of course, always one step ahead of Donald.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBEYOND SIGHT (2025)
In Beyond Sight, Dália is a teenager desperate to belong, even if it means adopting the cruel prejudices of her toxic group of friends. But when an unexpected accident leaves her blind, Dália finds herself on the other side of the judgment she once inflicted. Struggling to adapt, she crosses paths with a mysterious doctor who offers her a chance to regain her sight—through an experimental substance that promises not just vision, but a transformation into her best self: Zoe.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & comedy
Homesick Scientists (2011)
Four field researchers want to go home. Unfortunately, one of them apparently lost his mind. Since the return is not possible, as long as they remain in this state, ignited a controversy about what to do with him. Where do they come back and what was the object of their research, now becomes a much more important question.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
I'm the Police (2014)
Two guys in their early twenties, a hitchhiking Dutch student and a Swedish police officer with a broken police car, meet each other on a Swedish country road. On their way to the gas station, their suspicious understanding gradually changes.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
South of Heaven (2019)
When his boyfriend shows up unannounced, Elias' religious family learns their son's darkest secret.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Peregrine (2023)
When a boy is pushed by his Father to steal a rare Peregrine egg, he finds strength in the natural world to stand up to his Father and experiences his first sense of freedom.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Kind Mother (2025)
An estranged mother arrives at the silent retreat that her daughter is attending. When the two women engage in an unusual - and fantastical - power struggle, limits are tested, generational trauma is brought to light, and together they must grapple with mortality and forgiveness.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
My Friend Shokat (2018)
A young Persian-American boy takes matters into his own hands to save his pet goat from being eaten.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Daughter (2016)
Daughter explores the way women are viewed in society by following three female characters on a Friday night out in St Kilda, who's lives become entwined and affected by an act of violence this fateful night. The award winning short film and an awareness project was inspired by the tragic murder cases of Jill Meagher in Brunswick and St Kilda's own Tracy Connelly, whose occupation as a sex worker was highlighted in the media, leading to her murder and personal story being sadly overshadowed. The main themes explored in the film are violence against women and victim blaming, shown through the eyes of three female leads, lead by Katherine Langford (13 Reasons Why) as Scarlett, Aisha Tara (Heartbreak High) as Jemma and Carolyn Rey as Alethea.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Lilies (2014)
On a lonely night, at an unnamed town, Charlotte sits in a diner after a long drive from the middle of-nowhere. As she drinks her cup of stale coffee and reminisces about her journey, the door suddenly opens, and in come her ex girlfriend, Cleo, with a new male lover.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Longing (2014)
When Michal finds out her husband Meir is having an affair with a man, her world collapses. Not only is she is forced to deal with sexual rejection from Meir, she also has to endure social rejection.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like Life in the Alley and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Life in the Alley?
The closest matches to Life in the Alley are Olla (2019), In the Soup (1992) and Chloe and Theo (2015). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Life in the Alley?
Start with Olla (2019), the closest match to Life in the Alley.
What is the highest-rated movie like Life in the Alley?
Bad Seeds (2018), rated 7.6/10 by 641 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Life in the Alley?
Kind Mother (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like Life in the Alley?
Yes: Olla (2019), Ride Away (2025) and New Biz in the Hood (2019).
How are movies similar to Life in the Alley chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Life in the Alley, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.