Movies like One for the Road (2009)
The best movies like One for the Road (2009) are The Fire Within (1963), Being Charlie (2016) and The Way Back (2020). If One for the Road hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedRequiem for a Dream (2000)8.0/10 from 11,478 votes
- NewestAnother Day (2026)Released 2026
- In FrenchThe Fire Within (1963)Also in French
The Fire Within (1963)
Depressed Alain Leroy leaves the clinic where he was detoxified. He meets friends, acquaintances and women, trying to find a reason to continue living.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBeing Charlie (2016)
Charlie is a troublesome 18-year-old who breaks out of a youth drug treatment clinic, but when he returns home to Los Angeles, he's given an intervention by his parents and forced to go to an adult rehab. There, he meets a beautiful but troubled girl, Eva, and is forced to battle with drugs, elusive love and divided parents.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Way Back (2020)
A former basketball all-star, who has lost his wife and family foundation in a struggle with addiction, attempts to regain his soul and salvation by becoming the coach of a disparate ethnically mixed high school basketball team at his alma mater.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Party Is Over (2018)
Despite their differences, Celeste and Sihem quickly become inseparable. The common will to get out of drugs seals their fusional friendship. This will be as much a force as an obstacle when, transferred from the center that welcomes them, they find themselves left to themselves, to the test of the real world and its temptations. They will have to fight to finally live.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Million Little Pieces (2019)
A young drug-addled writer approaching the bottom of his descent submits to two months of agonizing detox at a treatment center in Minnesota.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Love Song for Bobby Long (2004)
A headstrong young woman returns to New Orleans after the death of her estranged mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDistant Voices, Still Lives (1988)
Siblings Maisie and Tony, along with their mother, gather for their sister Eileen's wedding. It is a joyous occasion, but through flashbacks, it becomes clear that the family was not always happy. Their father was physically abusive to his wife and left the children emotionally traumatized. As a result, the children have grown into unhappy adults, looking for love they didn't receive when they were young.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAnother Day (2026)
Over an eight-year journey in Paris, a struggling young actress turns to alcohol to cope with her anxieties, spiraling into self-destruction before finding a path toward recovery through a new romance and her ailing sister.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFour Good Days (2021)
A mother helps her daughter work through four crucial days of recovery from substance abuse.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRosetta (1999)
Young, impulsive Rosetta lives a hard and stressful life as she struggles to support herself and her alcoholic mother. Refusing all charity, she is desperate to maintain a dignified job.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLadybird Ladybird (1994)
Maggie has had four children, by four different fathers, removed by social services because of a previous violent relationship. When she meets Jorge, a gentle Latin American refugee, she gradually sees her chance for happiness, but her past still haunts her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHoney Boy (2019)
The story of a child star attempting to mend his relationship with his law-breaking, alcohol-abusing father over the course of a decade, loosely based on Shia LaBeouf’s life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Starling Girl (2023)
17-year-old Jem Starling struggles with her place within her Christian fundamentalist community. But everything changes when her magnetic youth pastor Owen returns to their church.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBeautiful Boy (2018)
After he and his first wife separate, journalist David Sheff struggles to help their teenage son, who goes from experimenting with drugs to becoming devastatingly addicted to methamphetamine.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisClean and Sober (1988)
Hotshot real estate salesman Daryl has a bad cocaine habit. After embezzling his company's money, he wakes up next to a girl who overdosed. To hide from the police, he checks into a rehabilitation program guaranteeing anonymity. Under the mentorship of counselor Craig, Daryl accepts that he has a substance abuse problem. As he falls in love with fellow patient Charlie, Daryl begins committing to a newly sober life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRequiem for a Dream (2000)
The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisRachel Getting Married (2008)
A young woman who has been in and out from rehab for the past 10 years returns home for the weekend for her sister's wedding.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBack to Black (2024)
The extraordinary story of Amy Winehouse’s early rise to fame from her early days in Camden through the making of her groundbreaking album, Back to Black that catapulted Winehouse to global fame. Told through Amy’s eyes and inspired by her deeply personal lyrics, the film explores and embraces the many layers of the iconic artist and the tumultuous love story at the center of one of the most legendary albums of all time.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBetty (1992)
A drunken, self-destructive woman called Betty wanders into a Parisian bar where she meets middle-aged alcoholic Laure. Laure decides to take care of Betty. Recovering in a hotel room, Betty begins to recount to Laure the story of her bourgeois life and her unhappy and unfaithful marriage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Street Cat Named Bob (2016)
James Bowen, a homeless busker and recovering drug addict, has his life transformed when he meets a stray ginger cat.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Song of the Sheep (2024)
A shepherd discovers his wine is gone and one of his sheep, Hervé, can suddenly talk.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Knot (2025)
Glória manages to get a divorce and moves away, taking her daughters and the desire to start over. As she tries to turn the new house into a home and her body into a place of belonging, she faces, on the factory floor, a delicate competition for a supervisor position between colleagues and her best friend. Courage takes shape as anguish seeps into the flesh.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Sundowners (1960)
In the Australian Outback, the Carmody family--Paddy, Ida, and their teenage son Sean--are sheep drovers, always on the move. Ida and Sean want to settle down and buy a farm. Paddy wants to keep moving. A sheep-shearing contest, the birth of a child, drinking, gambling, and a racehorse will all have a part in the final decision.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLong Day's Journey Into Night (1962)
An Irish miser, his morphine addicted wife, their debauched older son, and a gravely ill younger son. A quiet Connecticut vacation home on one foggy day in August 1912 becomes the backdrop for domestic decline.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLoop (2017)
Some time ago, Mima had a car accident and a man died. She has almost managed to forget about it when someone starts sending her birthday cards perfumed with a man's fragrance.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Gipsy Queen (2019)
Disowned by her Romani community for having a child out of wedlock, a former boxing prodigy returns to the ring to build a new life for her children.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Mudville (2026)
Ray Patterson, a 47 year old unemployed dad, spends his days hitting baseballs at the community park in a desperate attempt to make it back onto the Atlanta Apaches, a major league baseball team he was signed to when he was younger. His struggles with drinking, which got him booted from the team in his early 20s, are still a daily problem. Ray is plagued with dreams of what he believes are Native American ghosts and supernatural forces that are attempting to bury him and his dreams in the dirt. When a metaphysical event threatens Ray's existence, his family watches hopelessly, while his wife, Holly, finds comfort in suburban witchery and the cosmic answers that the Tarot provides.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
And the Children Shall Lead (1985)
Mississippi in the early '60s is the setting for this story of a 12-year-old African-American girl who, along with her white friends, tries to ease increasing racial tensions.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Der Lotterieschwede (1958)
Bornholm island in 1880, where quarry worker Johan Jönsson lives a miserable life with his wife and children. He hopes to escape his poverty by winning a lottery ticket. But it doesn't bring him any luck. Instead of spending his little money on a doctor to have his sick child treated, he extends the lottery ticket. The child dies and Johan, plagued by remorse, turns to alcohol. After he has gambled away everything, the lottery ticket brings someone else the main prize. Johan commits suicide, but his son Per has realized that gambling is not the way to change the miserable existence of the workers.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
BARDO, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (2022)
A renowned Mexican journalist and documentary filmmaker living in Los Angeles, after being named the recipient of a prestigious international award, is compelled to return to his native country, unaware that this simple trip will push him to an existential limit.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
Like One for the Road and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like One for the Road?
The closest matches to One for the Road are The Fire Within (1963), Being Charlie (2016) and The Way Back (2020). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after One for the Road?
Start with The Fire Within (1963), the closest match to One for the Road.
What is the highest-rated movie like One for the Road?
Requiem for a Dream (2000), rated 8.0/10 by 11,478 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like One for the Road?
Another Day (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like One for the Road?
Yes: The Fire Within (1963), The Party Is Over (2018) and Another Day (2026).
How are movies similar to One for the Road chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside One for the Road, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.