Movies like Transamerica (2005)
The best movies like Transamerica (2005) are To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995), Beginners (2011) and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994). If Transamerica hooked you with its drama and adventure, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedPrayers for Bobby (2009)8.1/10 from 663 votes
- NewestLayla (2025)Released 2025
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995)
Veteran drag queens Vida Boheme and Noxeema Jackson take novice Chi-Chi Rodriguez under their wing on a madcap road trip across the country to compete in the Drag Queen of America pageant in Los Angeles.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBeginners (2011)
Oliver meets the irreverent and unpredictable Anna only months after his father Hal Fields has passed away. This new love floods Oliver with memories of his father, who, following the death of his wife of 44 years, came out of the closet at age 75 to live a full, energized, and wonderfully tumultuous gay life – which included a younger boyfriend.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)
Two drag performers and a transgender woman travel across the desert to perform their unique style of cabaret.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSpanglish (2004)
Mexican immigrant and single mother Flor Moreno finds housekeeping work with Deborah and John Clasky, a well-off couple with two children of their own. When Flor admits she can't handle the schedule because of her daughter, Cristina, Deborah decides they should move into the Clasky home. Cultures clash and tensions run high as Flor and the Claskys struggle to share space while raising their children on their own, and very different, terms.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBoys on the Side (1995)
After breaking up with her girlfriend, a nightclub singer, Jane, answers a personal ad from Robin, a real estate agent with AIDS, seeking a cross-country travel partner. On their journey from New York City to Los Angeles, the two stop by Pittsburgh to pick up Jane's friend Holly, who is trying to escape an abusive relationship. With three distinct personalities, the women must overcome their differences to help one another.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBreakfast on Pluto (2005)
In the 1970s, a young transgender woman called “Kitten” leaves her small Irish town for London in search of love, acceptance, and her long-lost mother.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisViva (2015)
When his estranged father returns, a hairdresser is forced to quit performing at the local drag club.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Sum of Us (1994)
A widowed father has to deal with two complex issues: while he is searching for "Miss Right," his son, who is in his 20s and gay, is searching for "Mr. Right."
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUncle Frank (2020)
In 1973, when Frank Bledsoe and his 18-year-old niece Beth take a road trip from Manhattan to Creekville, South Carolina for the family patriarch's funeral, they're unexpectedly joined by Frank's lover Walid.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisC.R.A.Z.Y. (2005)
A young French Canadian, one of five boys in a conservative family in the 1960s and 1970s, struggles to reconcile his emerging identity with his father's values.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this20 Centimeters (2005)
Colloquially-told story of a few days in the life of Marieta, who's saving money for the last operation in her change from man to woman. She works as a prostitute in Madrid and longs for a legitimate job. Whenever she builds up her savings, her housemate and best friend Tomás finds ways to spend, lose, or cost her those funds. She meets Raúl, whom she likes and who likes her; the trouble is he also likes that part of her she wants removed. If that's not enough, she also has narcolepsy, and when she conks out, she dreams of musical-theater numbers in which she's the singing and dancing star. Are these dreams always going to be 20 centimeters out of reach?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Boys Don't Cry (1999)
A young transgender man explores his gender identity and searches for love in rural Nebraska.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPrayers for Bobby (2009)
Bobby Griffith was his mother's favorite son, the perfect all-American boy growing up under deeply religious influences in Walnut Creek, California. Bobby was also gay. Struggling with a conflict no one knew of, much less understood, Bobby finally came out to his family.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisGlen or Glenda (1953)
Glen doesn't dare tell his fiancée Barbara that he is a transvestite known as Glenda; in addition, Alan is undergoing medical treatment to become a woman named Anne; both stories are told by a psychiatrist.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisBut I'm a Cheerleader (2000)
Megan is an all-American girl. A cheerleader. She has a boyfriend. But Megan doesn't like kissing her boyfriend very much. And she's pretty touchy with her cheerleader friends. Her conservative parents worry that she must be a lesbian and send her off to "sexual redirection" school, where she must, with other lesbians and gays learn how to be straight.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMoonlight (2016)
The tender, heartbreaking story of a young man’s struggle to find himself, told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love, while grappling with his own sexuality.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLa Cage aux Folles (1978)
Two gay men living in St. Tropez have their lives turned upside down when the son of one of the men announces he is getting married. They try to conceal their lifestyle and their ownership of the drag club downstairs when the fiancée and her parents come for dinner.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTangerine (2015)
It's Christmas Eve in Tinseltown and Sin-Dee is back on the block. Upon hearing that her pimp boyfriend hasn't been faithful during the 28 days she was locked up, the working girl and her best friend, Alexandra, embark on a mission to get to the bottom of the scandalous rumor. Their rip-roaring odyssey leads them through various subcultures of Los Angeles, including an Armenian family dealing with their own repercussions of infidelity.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisReal Women Have Curves (2002)
In East Los Angeles, an 18-year-old struggles between her ambitions of going to college and the desires of her domineering mother for her to get married, have children, and oversee the small, rundown family-owned textile factory.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
Raised a boy in East Berlin, Hedwig undergoes a personal transformation in order to emigrate to the U.S., where she reinvents herself as an 'internationally ignored' but divinely talented rock diva, inhabiting a 'beautiful gender of one'.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Trip (2002)
When 19-year-old gay-rights activist Tommy and 24-year-old Alan first meet in 1973, they find themselves on the opposite sides of the political coin...
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSaving Face (2004)
A Chinese-American lesbian and her traditionalist mother are reluctant to go public with secret loves that clash against cultural expectations.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this20th Century Women (2016)
In 1979 Santa Barbara, California, Dorothea Fields is a determined single mother in her mid-50s who is raising her adolescent son, Jamie, at a moment brimming with cultural change and rebellion. Dorothea enlists the help of two younger women – Abbie, a free-spirited punk artist living as a boarder in the Fields' home and Julie, a savvy and provocative teenage neighbour – to help with Jamie's upbringing.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this3 Generations (2016)
A teenager transitions from female to male, and his family must come to terms with that fact.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Kids Are All Right (2010)
Two women, Nic and Jules, brought a son and daughter into the world through artificial insemination. When one of their children reaches age, both kids go behind their mothers' backs to meet with the donor. Life becomes so much more interesting when the father, two mothers and children start to become attached to each other.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLayla (2025)
When Layla, a struggling Arab drag queen, falls in love for the first time, they lose and find themself in a transformative relationship that tests who they really are.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Cowboys (2020)
Troy and his young transgender son Joe are on the run from his conservative mother in the Montana wilderness, with a detective in hot pursuit.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Perez Family (1995)
In the midst of the Mariel boat lift -- a hurried exodus of refugees from Cuba going to America -- an immigration clerk accidentally presumes that dissident Juan Raul Perez and Dorita Evita Perez are married. United by their last name and a mutual resolve to emigrate, Dorita and Juan agree to play along. But it gets complicated when the two begin falling for each other just as Juan reunites with his wife, Carmela, whom he hasn't seen in decades.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Like It Like That (1994)
After her husband is arrested for looting, Lisette struggles for independence while dealing with her transgender sibling, her critical mother-in-law and assorted neighborhood eccentrics.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Will & Harper (2024)
When Will Ferrell's good friend Harper comes out as a trans woman, they take a road trip to bond and reintroduce Harper to the country as her true self.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Transamerica?
The closest matches to Transamerica are To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995), Beginners (2011) and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Transamerica?
People who watched Transamerica most often go on to To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995), Beginners (2011) and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994).
What is the highest-rated movie like Transamerica?
Prayers for Bobby (2009), rated 8.1/10 by 663 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Transamerica?
Layla (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Transamerica?
Yes: To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995), Beginners (2011) and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994).
How are movies similar to Transamerica chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Transamerica, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.