Movies like Help Wanted (1981)
The best movies like Help Wanted (1981) are Porno (2019), Shanghaied (1915) and Our Wife (1931). If Help Wanted hooked you, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedDinner in America (2022)7.8/10 from 249 votes
- NewestThe Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More (2024)Released 2024
Porno (2019)
When a group of naive teens working at a movie theater in a small Christian town discover a mysterious film hidden in its basement, they unleash an alluring succubus who gives them a sex education…written in blood.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisShanghaied (1915)
A shipowner intends to scuttle his ship on its last voyage to get the insurance money. Charlie, a tramp in love with the owner's daughter, is grabbed by the captain and promises to help him shanghai some seamen. The daughter stows away to follow Charlie. Charlie assists in the galley and attempts to serve food during a gale.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOur Wife (1931)
Oliver is making plans to marry his sweetheart Dulcy with Stan as his best man, but the plans are thwarted when Dulcy's father sees a picture of Ollie and forbids the marriage. The couple plan to elope, and run away to a Justice of the Peace. After typical Laurel and Hardy blundering, they manage to sneak the girl away from her father's house.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Chaplin Revue (1959)
Three Chaplin silent comedies "A Dog's Life", "Shoulder Arms", and "The Pilgrim" are strung together to form a single feature length film. Chaplin provides new music, narration, and a small amount of new connecting material. "Shoulder Arms" is now described as taking place in a time before "the atom bomb".
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Woman (1915)
Mother, father and daughter go to the park. The women doze off on a bench while the father plays a hide-and-seek game with a girl, blindfolded. Charlie leads him into a lake. Both dozing ladies on the bench fall for Charlie and invite him for dinner. The father returns home with a friend. Charlie rushes upstairs and dresses like a woman, shaving his mustache. Both men fall for Charlie.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Fixer Uppers (1935)
Stan and Ollie are greeting card salesmen who agree to help a woman put a spark in her loveless marriage by making her husband jealous.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRise of the Footsoldier (2007)
Carlton Leach rises from one of the most feared generals of the football terraces to becoming a member of a notorious gang of criminals who rampaged their way through London and Essex in the late '80s and early '90s.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTongues Untied (1990)
Marlon Riggs, with assistance from other gay Black men, especially poet Essex Hemphill, celebrates Black men loving Black men as a revolutionary act. The film intercuts footage of Hemphill reciting his poetry, Riggs telling the story of his growing up, scenes of men in social intercourse and dance, and various comic riffs, including a visit to the "Institute of Snap!thology," where men take lessons in how to snap their fingers: the sling snap, the point snap, the diva snap.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDinner in America (2022)
An on-the-lam punk rocker and a young woman obsessed with a local band go on an unexpected and epic journey together through the decaying suburbs of the American Midwest.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More (2024)
Four tales unfold in Wes Anderson's anthology of short films adapted from Roald Dahl's beloved stories, "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar", "The Swan", "The Rat Catcher", and "Poison."
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Finishing Touch (1928)
Stan and Ollie are hired to build a house in just one day. When they are done, a bird lands on the house and it collapses. Naturally, the owner wants his money back.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPerfect Day (1929)
Two families embark on a pleasant Sunday picnic but manage to run into a variety of issues with their temperamental automobile. Each incident requires repeated exits and reboardings by Laurel, Hardy, their wives and grouchy, gout-ridden Uncle Edgar.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPolice (1916)
Charlie is released from prison and immediately swindled by a fake parson. A fellow ex-convict convinces Charlie to help burglarize a house.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhat a Way to Go! (1964)
A four-time widow discusses her four marriages, in which all of her husbands became incredibly rich and died prematurely because of their drive to be rich.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisYour Friends & Neighbors (1998)
Restless and unhappy, two couples get caught up in infidelity and deception. Barry is a sullen businessman married to Mary, a writer who is unsatisfied with their relationship. Mary begins an affair with Jerry, a smug theater professor and husband of her friend, Terri, who is also a writer. Adding to the adulterous mix are Cary, a callous doctor, and Cheri, an art-gallery assistant.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisMickey's House of Villains (2002)
The villains from the popular animated Disney films are gathered at the House of Mouse with plans to take over. Soon, the villains take over the house and kick out Mickey, Donald and Goofy. It's all up to Mickey and his friends to overthrow evil and return the House of Mouse to normal--or as close to normal as it gets.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHard Luck (1921)
A down on his luck young man makes several attempts at committing suicide but fails them too. He then finds himself becoming more confident through a series of petty adventures, to such an extent that this becomes his undoing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKing Cobra (2016)
It’s 2006, YouTube is in its infancy, and internet porn is still behind a paywall. Taking the stage name Brent Corrigan, a fresh-faced, wannabe adult video performer is molded into a star by Stephen, a closeted gay porn mogul who runs the skin flick empire Cobra Video from his seemingly ordinary suburban home.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisBarely Legal (2003)
Teenager Deacon works at a video shop, and his buddies, Fred and Matt, sell the bootleg porno films he acquires. Deacon gets fired, but the pals have the bright idea of filming their own Internet porn flick in order to make money and become more popular at school. Hijinks ensue as they cast and create their movie, but porn industry player Vic Ramalot grows jealous of their burgeoning success and tries to put a stop to the project.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisBob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969)
After returning to Los Angeles from a group therapy session, documentary filmmaker Bob Sanders and his wife, Carol, find themselves becoming vigilante couples counselors, offering unsolicited advice to their best friends, Ted and Alice Henderson. Not wanting to be rude, the Hendersons play along, but some latent sexual tension among the four soon comes bubbling to the surface, and long-buried desires don't stay buried for long.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Fluffer (2001)
Self-effacing, boyish Sean moves to LA to pursue a career in movies but finds it tougher than he imagined. He stumbles onto porn star Johnny Rebel - a handsome, muscled dream of men and women alike - who awakens Sean’s deep obsession.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
SnoozefestMovies like thisTitle 18 (2022)
An experimental short film made as part of a multi-media triptych, originally screened alongside a fashion collection and an art-installation. Drawing from Papa Yorick’s (Director and fashion designer) thesis “Men Are My Cumrag”, the film reenacts eight mainstay gay porn scripts, incorporating and parodying tropes and clichés, that explore masculine identities within the gay porn industry, through a satirical and critical lens.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Tips (2016)
Mario (Thiago Cazado) is in debt. To pay the bills, he displays the body on a famous porn site.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
I'm a Porn Star (2013)
I'm a Porn Star follows the lives of guys in the neighborhood who are likely a lot more famous than you - at least on the Internet. There are an estimated 370 million pornographic websites on-line. Porn is now a thirteen BILLION dollar business. So who's doing all this moonlighting? Turns out -- probably some people you know.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Beautiful Beings (2022)
A teenage boy, raised by a mother who considers herself psychic, takes a bullied kid into his group of violent misfits. As the group’s troubles escalate toward life-threatening situations, an inner voice awakens in the boy and, with the help of his mother and his new friend, he manages to find his own path.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBody Without Soul (1996)
A stark documentary about young male prostitutes in Prague, aged 15 to 18, who work the streets, train stations, and clubs. Through candid interviews and behind-the-scenes footage of gay porn shoots, the film explores their lives, struggles, and dreams, touching on themes of exploitation, identity, AIDS, and survival.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Damon and Hunter: Doing It Together (2006)
Comstock Films has created a unique film series that explores sexual relationships among couples. Each film focuses on one couple and begins with an intimate interview that sets up the background of the couple's relationship: how they met, the basis of their intimacy, what attracts them sexually to one another, and how they share their innermost desires and fantasies. The camera then turns to an intimate lovemaking session, recording in detail the passion and eroticism that exists between the two. Coverage is explicit, but not provocative; it allows viewers to share in the couple's healthy, passionate, romantic relationship and to experience first hand the erotic intimacy of their lovemaking. Damon and Hunter: Doing it Together features the first gay relationship in the series. Damon and Hunter are two adult film stars on the rise, but are also real-life lovers.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Bulgarian Lovers (2003)
Graying Spaniard Daniel has a healthy budget for indulging in the finer things in life. Daniel's favorite luxury is playing sponsor to younger men amid the lights and sights of Madrid's gay club scene. After Daniel shares a night with handsome Bulgarian emigre Kyril, he finds himself consumed with an insatiable lust for the charismatic foreigner. But, as their relationship takes shape, Daniel's latest conquest reveals his own manipulative tendencies.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
A Day in the Country (2010)
The doctor makes a house call but three is a crowd after the action is over… A film about existential loneliness.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Mondo Homo: Inquiry Into 70's Gay French Porn (2009)
Between 1975 and 1983 a new kind of film could be seen in French cinema: home-grown gay pornography. They were essentially the work of three production companies: Les Films de La Troika (Norbert Terry), AMT Productions (Anne-Marie Tensi) and Les Films du Vertbois (principally Jacques Scandelari). The genre met an untimely end with the advent of video, the last being made in 1983 'Mon Ami, Mon Amour (My Friend, my Lover)'.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Help Wanted?
The closest matches to Help Wanted are Porno (2019), Shanghaied (1915) and Our Wife (1931). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Help Wanted?
Start with Porno (2019), the closest match to Help Wanted.
What is the highest-rated movie like Help Wanted?
Dinner in America (2022), rated 7.8/10 by 249 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Help Wanted?
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Help Wanted?
Yes: Porno (2019), Shanghaied (1915) and Our Wife (1931).
How are movies similar to Help Wanted chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Help Wanted, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.