Movies like Paddleton
The best movies like Paddleton (2019) are Joshy (2016), Elling (2001) and The Climb (2020). If Paddleton 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 ratedThe Fundamentals of Caring (2016)7.3/10 from 2,387 votes
- NewestTwinless (2025)Released 2025
Joshy (2016)
After his engagement ends badly, Josh decides to take advantage of his bachelor-party plans in Ojai, California, with the few friends still willing to join him. Focused on drugs and their own hangups, his self-absorbed friends refuse to confront the elephant in the room and ask Josh how he’s feeling. As welcome and unwelcome guests stop by, Josh will attempt to find some closure over this weekend with the guys.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
SnoozefestMovies like thisElling (2001)
40-year-old Elling, sensitive, would-be poet, is sent to live in a state institution when his mother, who has sheltered him his entire life, dies. There he meets Kjell Bjarne, a gentle giant and female-obsessed virgin, also in his 40s.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Climb (2020)
Kyle and Mike are best friends who share a close bond — until Mike sleeps with Kyle’s fiancée. A stormy but enduring relationship ensues between Kyle, with limitless patience, and Mike, who only lives his life by sowing discord in that of others, across many years of laughter, heartbreak, and rage.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Fundamentals of Caring (2016)
Having suffered a tragedy, Ben becomes a caregiver to earn money. His first client, Trevor, is a hilarious 18-year-old with muscular dystrophy. One paralyzed emotionally, one paralyzed physically, Ben and Trevor hit the road on a trip into the western states. The folks they collect along the way will help them test their skills for surviving outside their calculated existence. Together, they come to understand the importance of hope and the necessity of true friendship.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisI Like Movies (2023)
Socially inept 17-year-old cinephile Lawrence Kweller gets a job at a video store, where he forms a complicated friendship with his older female manager.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Professor (2019)
A world-weary college professor is given a life-changing diagnosis and decides to throw all pretense and conventions to the wind and live his life as boldly and freely as possible with a biting sense of humor, a reckless streak and a touch of madness.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLanguage Lessons (2021)
For his 45th birthday, wealthy Californian Adam receives a surprise gift from his choreographer partner: 100 weekly Spanish lessons with Cariño, a vivacious expat who teaches virtually from her home in Costa Rica. Adam's unconvinced at first; a self-described “creature-of-habit”, he’s unsure about where or how this new element will fit into his carefully-structured routine.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTwinless (2025)
Two men who lost their respective twin brothers develop a growing friendship after meeting in a support group. However, both harbor long-hidden secrets that threaten to tear them apart.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPrivate Life (2018)
Richard and Rachel, a couple in the throes of infertility, try to maintain their marriage as they descend deeper and deeper into the insular world of assisted reproduction and domestic adoption.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like this50/50 (2011)
Inspired by a true story, a comedy centered on a 27-year-old guy who learns of his cancer diagnosis and his subsequent struggle to beat the disease.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDìdi (弟弟) (2024)
In 2008, during the last month of summer before high school begins, an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy learns what his family can't teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to love your mom.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSacramento (2025)
When free-spirited Rickey suddenly reappears in father-to-be Glenn’s life, the two former best friends embark on a spontaneous road trip from LA to Sacramento.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPushing Dead (2016)
When a struggling writer, HIV positive for 20+ years, accidentally deposits a $100 birthday check, he is dropped from his health plan for earning too much. In this new era of sort-of universal care, can he take on a helpless bureaucracy or come up with $3000 a month to buy meds on his own?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Give or Take (2022)
When a disillusioned New Yorker's father dies, he goes home to Cape Cod and prepares the house for sale while sharing it with his father's temperamental live-in boyfriend. Grieving, they circle each other, butt heads, and negotiate how to remember the man they both loved, and the significance of what he left behind.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Kodachrome (2017)
Matt Ryder is convinced to drive his estranged and dying father Benjamin Ryder cross country to deliver four old rolls of Kodachrome film to the last lab in the world that can develop them before it shuts down for good. Along with Ben's nurse Zooey, the three navigate a world changing from analogue to digital while trying to put the past behind them.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStanding Up, Falling Down (2020)
An unlikely friendship kindles between a struggling stand-up comedian from L.A. — forced to move back home to Eastern Long Island with his tail between his legs — and a tragically flawed, but charming and charismatic, alcoholic dermatologist. Discovering to be kindred spirits, each helps the other find healing, in addition to the confidence to face the "failures" in their lives.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRide the Eagle (2021)
When Leif’s estranged mother, Honey dies she leaves him a ‘conditional inheritance’. He has to complete her elaborate to-do list before he gets her cabin in Yosemite. Leif steps into Honey’s wild world as the mother he never really knew tries to make amends from beyond the grave.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Upside (2019)
Phillip is a wealthy quadriplegic who needs a caretaker to help him with his day-to-day routine in his New York penthouse. He decides to hire Dell, a struggling parolee who's trying to reconnect with his ex and his young son. Despite coming from two different worlds, an unlikely friendship starts to blossom.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Land of Steady Habits (2018)
After leaving his wife and his job to find happiness, Anders begins a clumsy, heartbreaking quest to reassemble the pieces of his fractured life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
SnoozefestMovies like thisYouth in Oregon (2017)
A man is tasked with driving his embittered 80-year-old father-in-law cross country to be legally euthanized in Oregon, while along the way helping him rediscover a reason for living.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThunder Road (2016)
Jimmy Arnaud eulogizes his mother.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOutside In (2018)
An ex-con struggling to readjust to life in his small town forms an intense bond with his former high-school teacher.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOther People (2016)
David, a struggling comedy writer fresh off from breaking up with his boyfriend, moves from New York City to Sacramento to help his sick mother. Living with his conservative father and much-younger sisters for the first time in ten years, he feels like a stranger in his childhood home. As his mother’s health declines, David frantically tries to extract meaning from this horrible experience and convince everyone (including himself) that he's "doing okay.”
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017)
An estranged family gathers together in New York for an event celebrating the artistic work of their father.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSuck It Up (2017)
Ronnie lost her brother. Faye lost her first love. These two best friends set off on a debaucherous road trip to the mountains to get over the death of the man they both loved.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
The Station Agent (2003)
When his only friend dies, a man born with dwarfism moves to rural New Jersey to live a life of solitude, only to meet a chatty hot dog vendor and a woman dealing with her own personal loss.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Descendants (2011)
With his wife Elizabeth on life support after a boating accident, Hawaiian land baron Matt King takes his daughters on a trip from Oahu to Kauai to confront a young real estate broker, who was having an affair with Elizabeth before her misfortune.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Way Way Back (2013)
Shy 14-year-old Duncan goes on summer vacation with his mother, her overbearing boyfriend, and her boyfriend's daughter. Having a rough time fitting in, Duncan finds an unexpected friend in Owen, manager of the Water Wizz water park.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDon't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot (2018)
On the rocky path to sobriety after a life-changing accident, John Callahan discovers the healing power of art, willing his injured hands into drawing hilarious, often controversial cartoons, which bring him a new lease on life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBrad's Status (2017)
Although Brad has a satisfying career, a sweet wife and a comfortable life in suburban Sacramento, things aren't quite what he imagined during his college glory days. When he accompanies his musical prodigy son on a university tour, he can't help comparing his life with those of his four best college friends who seemingly have more wealthy and glamorous lives. But when circumstances force him to reconnect with his former friends, Brad begins to question whether he has really failed or if their lives are actually more flawed than they appear.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Paddleton?
The closest matches to Paddleton are Joshy (2016), Elling (2001) and The Climb (2020). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Paddleton?
People who watched Paddleton most often go on to Joshy (2016), Elling (2001) and The Climb (2020).
What is the highest-rated movie like Paddleton?
The Fundamentals of Caring (2016), rated 7.3/10 by 2,387 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Paddleton?
Twinless (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Paddleton?
Yes: Joshy (2016), The Climb (2020) and The Fundamentals of Caring (2016).
How are movies similar to Paddleton chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Paddleton, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.