Movies like Backstage (2005)
The best movies like Backstage (2005) are Hounddog (2008), Heaven Will Wait (2016) and Chaos (2001). If Backstage hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedBreathe (2014)7.1/10 from 492 votes
- NewestEleanor the Great (2025)Released 2025
- In FrenchHeaven Will Wait (2016)Also in French
Hounddog (2008)
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHeaven Will Wait (2016)
Mélanie, 16 years old, lives with her mother. She likes going to school, her friends, playing the cello, and she wants to change the world. But when she meets a boy on the Internet and falls in love with him, her world changes as she is gradually recruited by Daesh. Sonia is 17 years old, and she almost did something irrevocable to “guarantee” her family a place in paradise. These teenage girls might be called Anaïs, Manon or Leila, and one day they all might go some way down the recruitment process. But can they ever come back from it?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChaos (2001)
A bourgeois couple, modern yet conventional. One night by accident, a young prostitute barges into their lives. Hounded down, beaten up, threatened, she will continue to struggle, with the help of a well off lady, first for her survival-her resurrection-then for her dignity and freedom. Stormy encounters for everyone involved.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLucky Them (2013)
More interested in partying and flirting with young musicians than work, veteran rock journalist Ellie Klug has one last chance to prove her value to her magazine’s editor: a no-stone-unturned search to discover what really happened to long lost rock god, Matt Smith, who also happens to be her ex-boyfriend. Teaming up with an eccentric amateur documentary filmmaker, Ellie hits the road in search of answers.
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 thisBreathe (2014)
Charlie, a 17-year-old girl tortured by doubt, is thrilled when she becomes friends with Sarah, but when Sarah tires of Charlie and looks for a new friend, their relationship takes an ominous turn.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Safety of Objects (2002)
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Little Princess (2011)
Young Violetta and her mother Hannah are a peculiar couple. Ten-year-old Violetta lives a quiet life with her grandmother, while her mother Hannah is an unpredictable photographer who lives off of the generosity of others. When Hannah forces her daughter to pose as a model, Violetta finds her life with her loving grandmother turned upside down.The resulting pictures quickly become a sensation for the trendy 70's Paris art scene, and Violetta finds herself caught in between her new stature as an art muse and her dull childhood.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Girl in the Book (2015)
The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Trials of Cate McCall (2013)
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIron Jawed Angels (2004)
Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this150 Milligrams (2016)
In the hospital where she works in Brest, France, a lung specialist discovers a direct link between suspicious deaths and state-approved medicine. She fights single-handedly for the truth to come out.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBastard Out of Carolina (1996)
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Adopted (2011)
Lisa and Marine live a life of relative companionship together, where the only man permitted into the equation is Lisa’s young son, Leo. However, their simple existence is thrown into disarray when Marie meets and falls in love with Alex, a customer at her bookshop. Lisa is left feeling excluded, and tension develop. But soon an unexpected accident forces all of those involved to reassess the situation and adopt a different position in each other’s lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Believe in Unicorns (2015)
Feeling awkward and isolated, an imaginative and strong-willed teenage girl runs away from home with an older punk rock drifter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDarling (2007)
Darling is a woman of today. It seems to always choose the wrong path. Suffers but does not look like a victim. Do not feel sorry for herself. On the contrary, shows a passion for life against all odds. She is struggling to exist. If you fall, get up. Because Darling is naive and fearless, brave and instinctive. Has the life force of a tragic heroine.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDalida (2017)
Based on the true story of acclaimed music icon "Dalida" born in Cairo, who gained celebrity in the 50s, singing in French, Spanish, Arabic, Hebrew, German, Italian, playing in awarded Youssef Chahine's picture "Le Sixième Jour", and who later committed suicide in 1987 in Paris, after selling more than 130 million records worldwide.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStrange Weather (2016)
Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisHoly 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 thisEleanor the Great (2025)
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009)
After her much older husband forces a move to a suburban retirement community, Pippa Lee engages in a period of reflection and finds herself heading toward a quiet nervous breakdown.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisLaocoon & Sons: The Story of the Transformation of Esmeralda del Rio (1975)
Once upon a time there was a country known by the name of Laura Molloy. Laura Molloy was the name of this country. Only women lived in Laura MolloyEsmeralda del Rio was a woman. One day Esmeralda del Rio had the idea to undergo a series of transformations, which were to take her very far. So far did she go that she had no way of knowing how far she had gone. Two things were certain: Esmeralda del Rio was blond and in her own way she practiced a kind of magic which I would like to call 'blond magic'.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
That Lovely Girl (2014)
Moshe and Tami are a couple, Moshe is in his fifties and Tami is in her early twenties. They live together in a cruel and violent relationship, from which Tami seems unable to set herself free. Tami and Moshe are father and daughter...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Isolde (1989)
After librarian Isolde attempts suicide, she leaves her politician husband for a younger student with a dark past. Isolde's former husband, however, has something else in mind for the young man.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Baise-moi (2000)
Nadine and Manu are two mad women, as tidy as can be, almost perfectionists. They have several things in common: extreme sex, drugs, beer and the trigger. They find the solution to their problems with guns and beware to those who dare to get in their way!
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Furies (1960)
Five women whose lives revolve around an absent man constantly battle each other in their decaying old mansion.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Across My Land (2017)
Father and son 'minutemen' patrol the American/Mexican border near their home in Nogales, Arizona.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Not Okay (2022)
An ambitious young woman, desperate for followers and fame, fakes a trip to Paris to up her social media presence. When a terrifying incident takes place in the real world and becomes part of her imaginary trip, her white lie becomes a moral quandary that offers her all the attention she’s wanted.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBerthe Morisot (2012)
At 25, Berthe dreams of making a living from her painting, never to marry, and to always stay with her sister Edma. Her parents do not see things from the same angle. Then Berthe meets Edouard Manet, who takes an interest in this young artist apprentice whose face inspires him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Mouth to Mouth (2005)
An aimless adolescent joins several itinerant misfits who live on the fringe of society and welcome at-risk youths into their fold.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Backstage?
The closest matches to Backstage are Hounddog (2008), Heaven Will Wait (2016) and Chaos (2001). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Backstage?
Start with Hounddog (2008), the closest match to Backstage.
What is the highest-rated movie like Backstage?
Breathe (2014), rated 7.1/10 by 492 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Backstage?
Eleanor the Great (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like Backstage?
Yes: Heaven Will Wait (2016), Chaos (2001) and Breathe (2014).
How are movies similar to Backstage chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Backstage, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.