Movies like Seventeen (2011)
The best movies like Seventeen (2011) are The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), One Second (2020) and My Brother the Devil (2012). If Seventeen hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)7.8/10 from 11,618 votes
- NewestOnly Good Things (2025)Released 2025
- In ChineseOne Second (2020)Also in Chinese
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1991. High school freshman Charlie is a wallflower, always watching life from the sidelines, until two senior students, Sam and her stepbrother Patrick, become his mentors, helping him discover the joys of friendship, music and love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOne Second (2020)
A movie fan escapes from a labour camp during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and strikes up a relationship with a homeless female vagabond.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMy Brother the Devil (2012)
Fourteen-year-old Mo is a lonely, sensitive boy whose hunger for the rant and banter of buddies makes him prone to tread dangerous territories. He idolizes his handsome older brother, Rashid, a charismatic, well-respected member of a local gang, whose drug dealing enables “Rash” to provide for his family. Aching to be seen as a tough guy himself, Mo takes a job that unlocks a fateful turn of events and forces the brothers to confront their inner demons. It turns out that hate is easy. It is love and understanding that take real courage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDwelling in the Fuchun Mountains (2020)
In the Chinese town of Fuyang, four brothers go about their day-to-day lives, their destinies shaped by love and challenges.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Boys in the Band (2020)
At a birthday party in 1968 New York, a surprise guest and a drunken game leave seven gay friends reckoning with unspoken feelings and buried truths.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisVive L'Amour (1994)
Three lonely young denizens of Taipei unknowingly share an apartment: May, a real estate agent who uses it for her sexual affairs; Ah-jung, her current lover; and Hsiao-kang, who's stolen the key and uses the apartment as a retreat.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHounddog (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 thisMoonlight (2016)
The tender, heartbreaking story of a young man’s struggle to find himself, told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love, while grappling with his own sexuality.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTea and Sympathy (1956)
A sensitive young man recalls his time in boarding school when the only person who seemed compassionate towards him was his housemaster's wife.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTigertail (2020)
A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlack Dog (2024)
Released from jail, Lang returns to his hometown in Northwest China. As part of a dog patrol tasked with clearing stray dogs before the 2008 Olympics, he bonds with a black stray. The two lonely souls embark on a new journey together.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Good Neighbor (2022)
A nightmarish evening unfolds for neighbors David and Robert when they accidentally hit a woman on her bike and flee the scene. While David is increasingly plagued by feelings of guilt, Robert shows no remorse and becomes overbearing and possessive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Boys from Fengkuei (1983)
Ah-Ching and his friends have just finished school in their island fishing village, and now spend most of their time drinking and fighting. Three of them decide to go to the port city of Kaohsiung to look for work. They find an apartment through relatives, and Ah-Ching is attracted to the girlfriend of a neighbor. There they face the harsh realities of the big city.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBattle of the Year (2013)
A down-on-his-luck coach is hired to prepare a team of the best American dancers for an international tournament that attracts all the best crews from around the world, but the Americans haven't won in fifteen years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Month in the Country (1987)
A destitute WWI veteran is hired to help carry out restoration work on a medieval mural in a rural Yorkshire church. While living in the quiet village, he forms a close friendship with an archaeologist and begins to come to terms with his trauma.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAs You Are (2016)
Set in the early 1990s, "As You Are" is the telling and retelling of a relationship between three teenagers as it traces the course of their friendship through a construction of disparate memories prompted by a police investigation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLong Day's Journey Into Night (2018)
Luo Hongwu returns to Kaili, the hometown from which he fled many years ago. He begins the search for the woman he loved and whom he has never been able to forget.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHardball (2001)
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGiant Little Ones (2019)
Two popular teen boys, best friends since childhood, discover their lives, families, and girlfriends dramatically upended after an unexpected incident occurs on the night of a 17th birthday party.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisI'll Love You Forever... Tonight (1992)
Set in the late 1980s, this critically acclaimed indie classic from 1992 portrays a gritty side of gay life in Los Angeles. Ethan (Paul Marius), a 27-year-old photographer, believes he has no need for love or commitments, and is living his life amidst one-night stands. Ethan is coaxed by his "best buddy" Dennis (Jason Adams) into attending a reunion of college friends and lovers at a Palm Springs hideaway. What is supposed to be a restful vacation turns into a round of hard drinking and cruel sexual games. By the end of the "vacation," Ethan feels a need for new friends and returns to Los Angeles. Confronting his troubled family life, he calls his father - who doesn't want anything to do with him. In the end, Ethan realizes that he can make his own "family" with friends who will accept each other without judgments.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Ozon: Remastered & Uncut (2022)
He thrilled you with 'Swimming Pool', tickled you with '8 Women' and beguiled you with 'Young and Beautiful'. Dive into the the erotic twists and transgressive turns of the early short films of auteur director François Ozon. The 5 short films are: A Summer Dress [Une robe d'été] (1996); X2000 (1998); Truth or Dare [Action vérité] (1994); See the Sea [Regarde la mer] (1997); Little Death [La petite mort] (1995).
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Swans (2016)
By living his entire life fearing the prejudice of others, Aksel inadvertently made himself the source of true bias. Now, the real victims of prejudice will be revealed, as his secret is laid out for the world to see.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Walk on Water (2004)
Eyal, an Israeli Mossad agent, is given the mission to track down and kill the very old Alfred Himmelman, an ex-Nazi officer, who might still be alive. Pretending to be a tourist guide, he befriends his grandson Axel, in Israel to visit his sister Pia. The two men set out on a tour of the country, during which Axel challenges Eyal's values.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBrokeback Mountain (2005)
In 1960s Wyoming, two men develop a strong emotional and sexual relationship that endures as a lifelong connection complicating their lives as they get married and start families of their own.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisZinzan (2017)
After his son insists on bringing his boyfriend to practice, a rugby-mad father fears for his son’s chances of getting onto the national team.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Johnny Minotaur (1971)
Johnny Minotaur is a lyrical explosion of taboos: incest, intergenerational desire, pansexuality and autoeroticism are a few of the issues Charles Henri Ford grapples with through mythopoeic, sensual imagery, recitations of his diaries and a philosophical debate featuring an impressive narration by such artists as Salvador Dali, Allen Ginsberg, Warren Sonbert and Lynne Tillman.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Only Good Things (2025)
Catalão, Brazil, 1984. The rural region of Batalha dos Neves is made up of large crop pastures, a few farms and divided in half by the São Marcos River. Antonio lives alone and isolated taking care of his small farm until the day he encounters Marcelo, a lonely motorcycler who suffers an accident crossing the region. Antonio takes care of Marcelo’s wounds. The two fall in love and live a story that transforms, destabilizes, and causes ruptures in each of them.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Billy Elliot (2000)
County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBad Education (2004)
When an old friend brings filmmaker Enrique Goded a semi-autobiographical script chronicling their adolescence, Enrique is forced to relive his youth spent at a Catholic boarding school. Weaving through past and present, the script follows a transvestite performer who reconnects with a grade school sweetheart. Spurred on by this chance encounter, the character reflects on her childhood sexual victimization and the trauma of closeting her sexual orientation.
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 Seventeen?
The closest matches to Seventeen are The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), One Second (2020) and My Brother the Devil (2012). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Seventeen?
Start with The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), the closest match to Seventeen.
What is the highest-rated movie like Seventeen?
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), rated 7.8/10 by 11,618 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Seventeen?
Only Good Things (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Chinese movies like Seventeen?
Yes: One Second (2020), Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains (2020) and Lighting Up the Stars (2022).
How are movies similar to Seventeen chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Seventeen, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.