Movies like 40 Years Old, Comes to Life (2020)
The best movies like 40 Years Old, Comes to Life (2020) are O Lucky Man! (1973), The Clique (2008) and Hooking Up (2020). If 40 Years Old, Comes to Life hooked you with its comedy and fantasy, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe World of Apu (1959)8.1/10 from 299 votes
- NewestAbout Moonlight (2025)Released 2025
O Lucky Man! (1973)
An ambitious coffee salesman has a series of improbable and ironic adventures seemingly designed to challenge his naive idealism.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & fantasy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Clique (2008)
A young girl tries to fit in with a clique of popular middle school girls after moving into the guest house of one of their homes.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisHooking Up (2020)
Bailey and Darla embark upon a misguided and mutually deceitful form of therapy, one in which they must drive across the country, re-enacting Darla's colorful history as a sex addict. As their true motivations for the road trip come to light, the unlikely pair force one another to confront their issues, discovering that there might actually be more to love than just sex.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFamily Weekend (2013)
A 16-year-old girl takes her parents hostage after they miss her big jump-roping competition.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSomewhere in Queens (2023)
Leo and Angela Russo live a simple life in Queens, surrounded by their overbearing Italian-American family. When their son finds success on his high school basketball team, Leo tears the family apart trying to make it happen.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 · both drama & comedy
SnoozefestMovies like thisKinds of Kindness (2024)
A triptych fable following a man without choice who tries to take control of his own life; a policeman who is alarmed that his wife who was missing-at-sea has returned and seems a different person; and a woman determined to find a specific someone with a special ability, who is destined to become a prodigious spiritual leader.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFilth (2013)
A bigoted junkie cop suffering from borderline personality disorder and drug addiction manipulates and hallucinates his way in a bid to secure promotion.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTotally F***ed Up (1994)
Gay, alienated Los Angeles teens have a hard time as their parents kick them out of their homes, they don’t have money, their lovers cheat, and they are harassed by gay-bashers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJeff, Who Lives at Home (2012)
Dispatched from his basement room on an errand for his mother, slacker Jeff might discover his destiny (finally) when he spends the day with his brother as he tracks his possibly adulterous wife.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIn the Soup (1992)
An aspiring young filmmaker gets involved with an eccentric gangster for the financing of his first film.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Big Kahuna (1999)
Three salesmen working for a firm that makes industrial lubricants are waiting in the company's "hospitality suite" at a manufacturers' convention for a "big kahuna" named Dick Fuller to show up, in hopes they can persuade him to place an order that could salvage the company's flagging sales.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHeavy Traffic (1973)
A white dropout struggles to become a cartoonist and filmmaker, drawing inspiration from the harsh, gritty world around him. Still sharing his rundown apartment with his middle-aged parents, an oafish slob of an Italian father and a ditzy nutcase of a Jewish mother, he's ridiculed and looked down upon by his friends, hypocrites who run with violent gangs and the Italian Mafia, and a shallow Black girl who makes her living downtown with the pimps and pushers. The cartoonist gets a chance to pitch a film idea to a movie mogul, but the story proves too outrageous: a far-future Earth, depleted by war and pollution, where a mutant antihero challenges and kills God.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Dirt (2019)
The story of Mötley Crüe and their rise from the Sunset Strip club scene of the early 1980s to superstardom.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFritz the Cat (1972)
In late 1960s New York City, fed up with monotonous college life and police repression, free-spirited Fritz, an impenitent seducer and unrestrained party-animal, decides to explore the world. And just like that, as he flees NYC, heading to San Francisco, Fritz embarks on an endless adventure of illumination. Immersed in a world surrounded by drugs and sex, Fritz participates in mad orgies, brings about a revolution, incites mass urban riots, and crosses paths with drug-addled Nazi bikers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBand Aid (2017)
A couple who can't stop fighting embark on a last-ditch effort to save their marriage: turning their fights into songs and starting a band.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSilver City (2004)
The discovery of a corpse and the ensuing probe by an idealistic journalist threatens to unravel a bumbling local politician's campaign for governor of Colorado.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLife Is Sweet (1991)
Just north of London live Wendy, Andy, and their twenty-something twins, Natalie and Nicola. Wendy clerks in a shop, Andy is a cook who forever puts off home remodeling projects, Natalie is a plumber and Nicola is jobless. This film is about how they interact and play out family, conflict and love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSuper (2010)
After his wife falls under the influence of a drug dealer, an everyday guy transforms himself into Crimson Bolt, a superhero with the best intentions, though he lacks for heroic skills.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStranger Than Fiction (2006)
Harold Crick is a lonely IRS agent whose mundane existence is transformed when he hears a mysterious voice narrating his life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMy Words, My Lies - My Love (2009)
David, a waiter, finds an unpublished manuscript in a dresser drawer. To impress a girl, he claims to be the author. When the novel becomes a best-seller, the real author introduces himself and begins to take over David's life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & comedy
As Good as It Gets (1997)
A misanthropic author, a single mother and waitress, and a gay artist form an unlikely friendship after the artist is assaulted in a robbery.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Storied Life of A.J. Fikry (2022)
This comical love story follows the story of A.J. Fikry, whose life is not at all what he expected it to be. His wife has died, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history and now his prized possession, a rare edition of Poe poems, has been stolen. He’s given up on people and even the books in his store offer another reminder that the world is changing too rapidly. But when a mysterious package arrives at the store, it gives Fikry the chance to make his life over and see things anew.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlithe Spirit (1945)
While holding a séance for skeptical novelist Charles Condomine, self-proclaimed 'spiritualist medium' Madame Arcati inadvertently summons the spirit of his deceased first wife Elvira, leading to an increasingly complex love triangle with Ruth, his current wife of five years.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & fantasy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNeverwas (2005)
Zach Riley is a psychiatrist, who leaves a job at a prestigious university, to take up a job at the privately run mental institution, Millwood. What he doesn't reveal at the time of his appointment is that this was the very place where his novelist father, T.L. Pierson, spent many years of his life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAbout Moonlight (2025)
Time doesn’t wait for us. Daniel works on his book while spending time in the countryside with his mother and sister. His writing, which has his the troubled relationship with his father as main subject, is composed of memories full of pain, longing and conflict.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Come Live with Me (1941)
Seeking US citizenship, a Viennese refugee arranges a marriage of convenience with a struggling writer.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
The Jewel of the Nile (1985)
Joan Wilder is thrust back into a world of murder, chases, foreign intrigue... and love. This time out she's duped by a duplicitous Arab dignitary who brings her to the Middle East, ostensibly to write a book about his life. Of course, he's up to no good, and Joan is just another pawn in his wicked game. But Jack Colton and his sidekick Ralph show up to help our intrepid heroine save the day.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe World of Apu (1959)
Apu, now a jobless ex-student dreaming vaguely of a future as a writer, is invited to join an old college friend on a trip up-country to a village wedding.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like this
Like 40 Years Old, Comes to Life and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like 40 Years Old, Comes to Life?
The closest matches to 40 Years Old, Comes to Life are O Lucky Man! (1973), The Clique (2008) and Hooking Up (2020). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after 40 Years Old, Comes to Life?
Start with O Lucky Man! (1973), the closest match to 40 Years Old, Comes to Life.
What is the highest-rated movie like 40 Years Old, Comes to Life?
The World of Apu (1959), rated 8.1/10 by 299 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like 40 Years Old, Comes to Life?
About Moonlight (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like 40 Years Old, Comes to Life?
Yes: O Lucky Man! (1973), The Clique (2008) and Hooking Up (2020).
How are movies similar to 40 Years Old, Comes to Life chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside 40 Years Old, Comes to Life, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.