Movies like The Pension (2018)
The best movies like The Pension (2018) are Holy Lands (2019), The Parts You Lose (2019) and Call Me Crazy: A Five Film (2013). If The Pension hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedDreams (1990)7.7/10 from 611 votes
- NewestKokoro: Heart of a City (2025)Released 2025
- In KoreanSunflower (2006)Also in Korean
Holy Lands (2019)
When lapsed Jew and former cardiologist Harry suddenly decides to spend his retirement as a pig farmer in Nazareth, Israel, the move deeply shocks his family and his new neighbours. Back in New York, Harry’s ex-wife Monica is trying to manage the lives of their adult children, Annabelle and David, as well as her own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Parts You Lose (2019)
An unlikely friendship unfolds between a young deaf boy, Wesley, and a fugitive criminal who takes refuge in an abandoned barn on the family’s rural North Dakota farm.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCall Me Crazy: A Five Film (2013)
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisF.I.S.T. (1978)
Johnny Kovak joins the Teamsters trade-union in a local chapter in the 1930s and works his way up in the organization. As he climbs higher and higher his methods become more ruthless and finally senator Madison starts a campaign to find the truth about the alleged connections with the Mob.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Question of Faith (2017)
When Tragedy Strikes three Families, their Destiny forces them on a coverging path and mercy as the challenges of their fate could also resurrect their beliefs
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972)
Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAdopt a Highway (2019)
Russ Millings has just been released from prison after serving 21 years for a 3rd strike conviction for possessing an ounce of marijuana. As he tries to adapt to a world he doesn’t recognize – including trying to learn how to use the internet – he finds an abandoned baby in a dumpster behind the fast food restaurant where he works as a dishwasher. Unsure of what to do, and caught between impulses of kindness and panic, Russ soon realizes this could be his chance at redemption.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCome Sunday (2018)
Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisRiot in Cell Block 11 (1954)
A prisoner leads his counterparts in a protest for better living conditions which turns violent and ugly.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWhat Maisie Knew (2013)
In New York City, six-year-old Maisie is caught in the middle of a bitter custody battle between her self-absorbed parents—an aging rock singer mother and a distracted art dealer father. As both quickly marry new partners to strengthen their legal standing, Maisie is shuttled back and forth in an endless game of emotional point-scoring. Yet amid the chaos and upheaval, Maisie begins to find true comfort and affection in her new step-parents.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisConversations with God (2006)
"Conversations with God" is the true story of Neale Donald Walsch that inspired and changed the lives of millions. The journey begins after he unexpectedly breaks his neck in a car accident and loses his job.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBrute Force (1947)
Timeworn Joe Collins and his fellow inmates live under the heavy thumb of the sadistic, power-tripping guard Captain Munsey. Only Collins' dreams of escape keep him going, but how can he possibly bust out of Munsey's chains?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBang the Drum Slowly (1973)
The story of a New York pro baseball team and two of its players. Henry Wiggen is the star pitcher and Bruce Pearson is the normal, everyday catcher who is far from the star player on the team and friend to all of his teammates. During the off-season, Bruce learns that he is terminally ill, and Henry, his only true friend, is determined to be the one person there for him during his last season with the club. Throughout the course of the season, Henry and his teammates attempt to deal with Bruce's impending illness, all the while attempting to make his last year a memorable one.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSunflower (2006)
Tae-sik gets out of a prison after spending 10 years for killing a man and wishes nothing but an ordinary life. A local lady welcomes him into her household like a son and he gets a second chance in life. His former gang tries to destroy his new home in order to build a night club but he won’t let them destroy his new family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSleuth (2007)
Locked in a high-tech English manor, bound in a deadly duel of wits, Andrew Wyke and Milo Tindle come together as English gentlemen to discuss the matter of Wyke's wife: the woman both are sleeping with.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Organization (1971)
After a group of young revolutionaries break into a company's corporate headquarters and steal $5,000,000 worth of heroin to keep it off the street, they call on San Francisco Police Lieutenant Virgil Tibbs for assistance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Quiller Memorandum (1966)
After two British Secret Intelligence Service agents are murdered at the hands of a cryptic neo-Nazi group known as Phoenix, the suave agent Quiller is sent to Berlin to investigate.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisA Map of the World (1999)
School nurse Alice Goodwin lives with her husband and two daughters on a dairy farm in a small Wisconsin community. After an accident on her property involving a friend's child, the town turns against her and Alice finds herself fighting charges of child abuse.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGrass (2018)
Ahreum sits in a small café, typing on her laptop. Around her, customers enact various dramas from their lives. Is she writing what she hears or is she hearing what's been written?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Fate of Two Queens (1954)
Anthology film in which Hedy Lamarr plays 2 queens during 2 different time periods. Ulmer directed the Genoveffa di Brabante part whereas Allégret was responsible for the empress Josephine section after he left due to artistic differences with Lamarr.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Paris Je T'aime (2006)
Olivier Assayas, Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven and Alfonso Cuaron are among the 20 distinguished directors who contribute to this collection of 18 stories, each exploring a different aspect of Parisian life. The colourful characters in this drama include a pair of mimes, a husband trying to choose between his wife and his lover, and a married man who turns to a prostitute for advice.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDreams (1990)
Eight visually rich vignettes drawn from Kurosawa’s own dreams—fox weddings and vanished orchards, a soldier’s ghosts, a walk through Van Gogh’s canvases, nuclear nightmares, and a water-mill utopia—meditate on childhood, art, mortality, and humanity’s uneasy bond with nature.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this30/30 Vision: Three Decades of Strand Releasing (2019)
Over 30 filmmakers and friends of Strand Releasing have come together to honor the company’s indelible contribution to independent cinema over the past thirty years. The participating filmmakers have each created a short film for the project, all shot on iPhones.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Honeysuckle (2021)
Like the twining vines of the honeysuckle, each of the three stories in this film follow a character whose growth is impeded by the clouds of society hanging over their heads. From a Hungarian taxi driver torn between the preservation of his family and the unexpected humane responsibility found in the clandestine activities he does for profit, to the Hungarian teenager of a single mother whose idea of life goals and success seems perpetually defined by the missing figure of a role model, and finally to the young Indian Carnatic singer who amidst personal and national turmoil decides to sacrifice the one thing that defines her - her talent, Honeysuckle aims not to narrate or condescendingly offer a message, as much as it seeks to illustrate the many life directions available, and the way none of them are good, in a world severely lacking a moral center.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
O sláve a tráve (1985)
Each of the four short stories, framed by the figure of the photographer, depicts the lives of women and girls whose work has brought them to the limelight, but also marked their relationships with those closest to them.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Dynamite Watcher (1963)
Three separate short stories by Jan Drda from the collection The Dumb Barricade: The Dynamite Watchman, Hatred and Traces.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Homicide Sonata (2011)
First, the tale of a doctor who hides the accidental death of his son. Second, the story of a sculptress who kills and makes a sculpture out of a habitual sex offender who breaks into her home. Third, the story of a detective who administers euthanasia to satisfy the wishes of a terminally ill younger brother. Last, the tale of a young girl who develops psychological problems after her mother is killed by her abusive father
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Kokoro: Heart of a City (2025)
Film anthology that assembles stories about heartbreak, friendship, first love and self-love involving modern and complex relationships in Mexico City, where different young and old people go through different stages of personal growth in a magical, loving, toxic and sometimes even surreal city, where it is just as easy to run into other characters who live similar situations, as it is to meet the love of your life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Pension?
The closest matches to The Pension are Holy Lands (2019), The Parts You Lose (2019) and Call Me Crazy: A Five Film (2013). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Pension?
Start with Holy Lands (2019), the closest match to The Pension.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Pension?
Dreams (1990), rated 7.7/10 by 611 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Pension?
Kokoro: Heart of a City (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Korean movies like The Pension?
Yes: Sunflower (2006), Grass (2018) and Homicide Sonata (2011).
How are movies similar to The Pension chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Pension, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.