Movies like Play (2018)
The best movies like Play (2018) are Honey: Rise Up and Dance (2018), Grace Unplugged (2013) and Taurus (2022). If Play 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 ratedTake the Lead (2006)6.9/10 from 768 votes
- NewestClika (2026)Released 2026
- In FrenchJourney from Greece (2017)Also in French
Honey: Rise Up and Dance (2018)
Street dancer Skyler comes out of the shadow of her trained dancer sister, Tosha, & joins a dance competition with the Honey dance studio; the prize is a college scholarship.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGrace Unplugged (2013)
A talented young singer and aspiring songwriter’s Christian faith and family ties are tested when she defies her worship-pastor father and pursues pop-music stardom in GRACE UNPLUGGED, a moving and inspiring new film that explores the true meaning of success.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTaurus (2022)
A rising but troubled musician searches for the inspiration to record one last song, pushing himself deep into the void.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music
SnoozefestMovies like thisBattle of the Year (2013)
A down-on-his-luck coach is hired to prepare a team of the best American dancers for an international tournament that attracts all the best crews from around the world, but the Americans haven't won in fifteen years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA (2017)
A young alcoholic ambient musician locks himself in his apartment on a dangerous seven day bender as he attempts to finish his upcoming album.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music
Popcorn FlickMovies 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisToo Late Blues (1961)
Ghost is an ideological musician and leader of a jazz band who would rather play his blues in the park to the birds than compromise himself. His peripatetic performances lead him to cross paths with a singer, while his masculinity is thrown into question following a violent brawl.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTake the Lead (2006)
A former professional dancer volunteers to teach dance in the New York public school system and, while his background first clashes with his students' tastes, together they create a completely new style of dance. Based on the story of ballroom dancer, Pierre Dulane.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Time for Dancing (2002)
Their love of dance, and their friendship, is challenged for two high school girls when one is diagnosed with cancer.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993)
A collection of vignettes highlighting different aspects of the life, work, and character of the acclaimed Canadian classical pianist.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBarbara (2017)
An actress will play Barbara, the French singer. The shoot will soon start. The actress works on her character, her voice, the songs, scores, the gestures, knitting, scenes she has to learn, things are going okay, there's progress, development, she is even overwhelmed. The film director also works, through his encounters, through archives, music, he let's himself be submerged, overwhelmed like the actress, by the actress.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music
SnoozefestMovies like thisCoda (2020)
A famous pianist at the twilight of his career meets a free-spirited music critic who soon becomes his rock as his mental state deteriorates.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisClika (2026)
Aspiring small-town musician Chito is determined to make it big. When a clip of him performing one of his songs goes viral, he seizes the opportunity and pushes to carve out a place for himself in the new wave of Mexican-American music... and ultimately gets caught in a game more dangerous than anticipated.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisYou Got Served (2004)
At Mr. Rad's Warehouse, the best hip-hop crews in Los Angeles compete for money and respect. But when a suburban crew crashes the party, stealing their dancers — and their moves — two warring friends have to pull together to represent the street.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisProdigies (2024)
Claire and Jeanne are twin sisters, united by the same passion: the piano. Coached by their father like athletes, they join the prestigious Karlsruhe Conservatory. They are now competing to be soloists and training for a concert that will make or break their careers. But Claire and then Jeanne discover they are suffering from a serious illness and are slowly losing the use of their hands. With the support of their family and their undying love of music, they will find a unique way to change their fate. An inspiring and moving tale, based on a true story.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBolero (1981)
The film follows four families, with different nationalities (French, German, Russian and American) but with the same passion for music, from the 1930s to the 1960s. The various story lines cross each other time and again in different places and times, with their own theme scores that evolve as time passes. The main event in the film is the Second World War, which throws the stories of the four musical families together and mixes their fates. Although all characters are fictional, many of them are loosely based on historical musical icons (Édith Piaf, Josephine Baker, Herbert von Karajan, Glenn Miller, Rudolf Nureyev, etc.) The Boléro dance sequence at the end brings all the threads together.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMo' Better Blues (1990)
Talented but self-centered trumpeter Bleek Gilliam is obsessed with his music and indecisiveness about his girlfriends Indigo and Clarke. But when he is forced to come to the aid of his manager and childhood friend, Bleek finds his world more fragile than he ever imagined.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music
SnoozefestMovies like thisA Chorus Line (1985)
A group of dancers congregate on the stage of a Broadway theatre to audition for a new musical production directed by Zach. After the initial eliminations, seventeen hopefuls remain, among them Cassie, who once had a tempestuous romantic relationship with Zach. She is desperate enough for work to humble herself and audition for him; whether he's willing to let professionalism overcome his personal feelings about their past remains to be seen.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFame (1980)
A chronicle of the lives of several teenagers who attend a New York high school for students gifted in the performing arts.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Tribute to Alvin Ailey (1990)
Alvin Ailey played a key role in the growth of modern dance in USA and his company, founded in 1958, is one of the USA’s oldest dance troupes as well as one of the most youthful and vital on the dance scene. In this two-part program, members of Ailey's dance company celebrate his memory by performing three works choreographed by Ailey himself, as well as a special ballet tribute choreographed by Ulysses Dove. Each piece is introduced by Judith Jamison, the dancer and choreographer whose career was nurtured to stardom by Ailey, and who was, at the time of this production, Artistic Director of the company. The Alvin Ailey Dance Theater is uniquely eclectic in range, repertory, and style. As a choreographer, Ailey explored the black experience and went beyond, finding universal human truths in all his work.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both music
An Evening with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (1986)
Dazzling, brash and dynamic, yet equally graceful and poetic. DIVINING was Judith Jamison's first major work as a choreographer for Ailey, evoking a strong feeling for African tribal ritual, is set to hauntingly rhythmic drum music. REVELATIONS, often describes as the company's signature tune, has become an American classic. It expresses Ailey's intense feelings for his roots, with Ailey's vivid "blood memories" of the blues, spirituals, gospel music, ragtime and folk songs as well as the hard life of the Southern black during the Depression. Set to Modern Jazz, THE STUCK-UP takes place in modern-day Harlem, about the cruel reality of urban street life as a young man is destroyed by drugs. CRY, choreographed by Alvin Ailey in 1971 for Judith Jamison, is one of his most famous pieces. Created as a birthday present for his mother, it is Ailey's tribute to black women and inspires moving emotions with its portrayal of struggle, anger and most importantly, its feeling of celebration.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both music
Three Dances (1946)
About two key pioneers of Swedish dance in the 1900s: Birgit Åkesson and Birgit Cullberg. Both were born in 1908 and became choreographers who made a big impression in the international dance history. Birgit Åkesson, in the serious "Fertility" directed by Alf Sjoberg, debuted in 1934 in Paris. She was co-designed the European avant-garde modern dance language, and created in the 1950s and 1960s, legendary works for the Stockholm Opera together with others including composer Karl-Birger Blomdahl and Erik Lindegren as librettist. Birgit Cullberg gives a much more relaxed and humorous impressions in "Antonius & Cleopatra", directed by Gerd Osten. Cullberg got her big break as a choreographer a few years in "Miss Julie" in 1950. After spending some time abroad Birgit Cullberg returned to Sweden and formed in 1967 the Cullberg Ballet, which she led until 1985. Topsy Håkansson, who performs the role as the gypsy.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Sleeping Beauty (The Australian Ballet) (2016)
David McAllister, the artistic director of The Australian Ballet, has created a sumptuous new production of this timeless classic. With lavish sets and costumes by award-winning designer Gabriela Tylesova, this ballet spills over with fairies, princes, nymphs and storybook characters. Set to Tchaikovsky's sublime score, this enchanting production casts a spell of delight all the way to true love's kiss.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both music
A Christmas Carol (2020)
The radical new take on Dickens’ classic seeks both to exhume the original story’s gritty commentary on social inequality and the corrupting influence of greed, and to breathe new life into the lyricism of the original text by setting its scenes to extraordinary tableaux of modern dance.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
La última y nos matamos (2013)
Adrián is told he suffers a terrible illness and decides to commit suicide, but his father reveals the truth to him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Yahaira: Mis vacaciones (2013)
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Den sista mannen (2012)
A story about the last man on earth.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Mea Culpa – A ReadyMadeOpera (2009)
In Mea Culpa, Christoph Schlingensief blurs a delicate line: he ignores the threshold that separates the healthy from the sick. By making his cancer the subject of an opera, premiering on the largest German-speaking theater, he is putting the art district under pressure: a wonderful institution like the Burgtheater must use its artistic resources lavishly to reveal the entire "truth" about us humans. At the end of the day, when the scenery on Janina Audick's revolving stage has finally come to rest, when Isolde's last Liebestad has been sung enchantingly beautifully by Elfriede Rezabek and indescribable jubilation breaks out, then Schlingensief is completely alone with his illness.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both music
Vumarlik (2022)
A man dies and get's send to the afterlife were he finds love and peace in his new life. Takođe jebe lik leš.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Play?
The closest matches to Play are Honey: Rise Up and Dance (2018), Grace Unplugged (2013) and Taurus (2022). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Play?
Start with Honey: Rise Up and Dance (2018), the closest match to Play.
What is the highest-rated movie like Play?
Take the Lead (2006), rated 6.9/10 by 768 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Play?
Clika (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like Play?
Yes: Journey from Greece (2017), Barbara (2017) and Prodigies (2024).
How are movies similar to Play chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Play, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.