Movies like Drifting (2021)
The best movies like Drifting (2021) are The Breaking Ice (2023), A Simple Life (2012) and A Balloon's Landing (2024). If Drifting hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedHow to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (2024)8.1/10 from 462 votes
- NewestWasteman (2026)Released 2026
The Breaking Ice (2023)
In cold wintry Yanji, a city on China's northern border, young urbanite Haofeng, visiting from Shanghai, feels lost and adrift. By chance, he goes on a tour led by Nana, a charming tour guide who instantly fascinates him. She introduces him to Xiao, a personable but frustrated restaurant worker. The three bond quickly over a drunken weekend. Confronting their individual traumas, their frozen desires slowly thaw as they seek to liberate themselves from an icy world.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Simple Life (2012)
After suffering a stroke, an altruistic maid announces that she wants to quit her job and move into an old people's home.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Balloon's Landing (2024)
A frustrated Hong Kong writer, Tian-Yu, meets a Taipei street gangster, Xiang, and the two of them embark on a journey to find the Bay of Whales, a place that leads to paradise.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (2024)
M, a university dropout low on money and luck, volunteers to take care of his terminally ill grandmother, in the hope of pocketing an inheritance.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisBroker (2022)
When a young mother reconsiders abandoning her baby, she discovers a scheme selling foundlings for adoption.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDead Pigs (2018)
A pig farmer, a busboy, a salon owner, an expat architect and a jaded rich girl cross paths as thousands of dead pigs float down the Yangtze River toward Shanghai.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLighting Up the Stars (2022)
Having been released after serving his sentence, a funeral director accidentally crosses paths with a girl which brings about an unexpected change in his attitude towards life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Great Buddha+ (2017)
Security guard Pickle and his trash collector friend Belly Button kill time together in night shifts watching the American-educated boss's dash-cam recordings of his various sexual encounters with women. Against the buddies' will, something horrifying rather than erotic reveals.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisHunger (2023)
A talented young street-food cook pushes herself to the limit after accepting an invitation to train under an infamous and ruthless chef.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisShelter (2014)
Hannah and Tahir fall in love while homeless on the streets of New York. Shelter explores how they got there, and as we learn about their pasts we realize they need each other to build a future.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisUrchin (2025)
Mike, a rough sleeper in London, is trapped in a cycle of self-destruction as he attempts to turn his life around. Along the way, he encounters unexpected chances for a fresh start.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStuart: A Life Backwards (2007)
Story about the remarkable friendship between a reclusive writer and illustrator and a chaotic homeless man, whom he gets to know during a campaign to release two charity workers from prison.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCardboard Boxer (2016)
Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Baker (2023)
A quiet, stoic man, lives a monk-like existence in self-imposed exile. When his estranged son is killed in a drug deal gone bad, he is left to look after a granddaughter he never knew existed, and he is forced back into a life he tried to put behind him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWasteman (2026)
Taylor's hopes for a fresh start post-parole are jeopardised by cellmate Dee's arrival. As Dee takes Taylor under his wing, a vicious attack tests their bond, forcing Taylor to choose between protecting Dee and his own chances at freedom.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMammal (2016)
After Margaret, a divorcée living in Dublin, loses her teenage son, she develops an unorthodox relationship with Joe, a homeless youth. Their tentative trust is threatened by his involvement with a violent gang and the escalation of her ex-husband's grieving rage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLight Sleeper (1992)
John LeTour is a recovering drug user who suffers insomnia and still deals to a high-end New York clientele, even though he’s trying to move on from the business. John’s professional midlife crisis becomes something more acute — and dangerous — when he re-encounters an old flame while a string of seemingly drug-related murders rocks the city.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhat Doesn't Kill You (2008)
Two childhood friends from South Boston turn to crime as a way to get by, ultimately causing a strain in their personal lives and their friendship.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPermanent Midnight (1998)
Juggling increasing career success and a growing heroin habit, a television comedy writer attempts to go down a path of improvement.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisHeaven Knows What (2015)
A young heroin addict roams the streets of New York to panhandle and get her next fix, while her unstable boyfriend drifts in and out of her life at random.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe White Storm 2: Drug Lords (2019)
A financial tycoon, once a triad member, tries to eradicate the drug market while an old accomplice aims to be Hong Kong's first drug lord.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAnother Day in Paradise (1998)
In the hope of a big score, two junkie couples team up to commit various drug robberies which go disastrously wrong, leading to dissent, violence, and murder.
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 thisRunning Out of Time (1999)
Police inspector and excellent hostage negotiator Ho Sheung-Sang finds himself in over his head when he is pulled into a 72 hour game by a cancer suffering criminal out for vengeance on Hong Kong's organized crime syndicates.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBeing Flynn (2012)
Working in a Boston homeless shelter, Nick Flynn re-encounters his father, a con man and self-proclaimed poet. Sensing trouble in his own life, Nick wrestles with the notion of reaching out yet again to his dad.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAdulthood (2008)
After serving six years for killing his schoolmate, a young man learns that someone is out for revenge.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAmerican Gangster (2007)
Loosely based on the criminal career of Frank Lucas, a gangster from La Grange, North Carolina, who smuggled heroin into the United States on American service planes returning from the Vietnam War, before being detained by a task force led by Newark Detective Richie Roberts.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Killer (1989)
Mob assassin Jeffrey is no ordinary hired gun; the best in his business, he views his chosen profession as a calling rather than simply a job. So, when beautiful nightclub chanteuse Jennie is blinded in the crossfire of his most recent hit, Jeffrey chooses to retire after one last job to pay for his unintended victim's sight-restoring operation. But when Jeffrey is double-crossed, he reluctantly joins forces with a rogue policeman to make things right.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMade in Hong Kong (1997)
After his father abandons the family, Autumn Moon drops out of high school and becomes a debt collector for the Triads. On his rounds, he meets and falls in love with Ping, a daughter of one of the Triads' clients. She is suffering from a fatal kidney disease, and to pay for her medical expenses, Autumn Moon takes an assassination contract, but as he slips deeper into the criminal underworld, he's haunted by a figure from his past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGhost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004)
Cyborg detective Batou is assigned to investigate a series of murders committed by gynoids—doll-like cyborgs, which all malfunctioned, killed, then self-destructed afterwards. The brains of the gynoids initialize in order to protect their manufacturer's software, but in one gynoid, which Batou himself neutralized, one file remains: a voice speaking the phrase "Help me."
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Drifting?
The closest matches to Drifting are The Breaking Ice (2023), A Simple Life (2012) and A Balloon's Landing (2024). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Drifting?
People who watched Drifting most often go on to The Breaking Ice (2023), A Simple Life (2012) and A Balloon's Landing (2024).
What is the highest-rated movie like Drifting?
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (2024), rated 8.1/10 by 462 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Drifting?
Wasteman (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Drifting chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Drifting, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.