Movies like Umami (2023)
The best movies like Umami (2023) are Midnight Diner 2 (2016), Sweet Bean (2015) and Midnight Diner (2014). If Umami hooked you with its comedy and drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedTampopo (1985)7.8/10 from 469 votes
- NewestThe Good Half (2024)Released 2024
- In JapaneseMidnight Diner 2 (2016)Also in Japanese
Midnight Diner 2 (2016)
The Master's late-night diner welcomes a woman troubled by funeral fans, an elderly scam victim, and a noodle delivery man struggling with love.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSweet Bean (2015)
The master of a dorayaki pastry store hires a 76-year-old woman whose talents attract customers from all over. But she's hiding a troubling secret. Life's joys are found in the little details, and no matter what may be weighing you down, everyone loves a good pastry.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMidnight Diner (2014)
A restaurant opens at midnight. Both the menu offerings and personality of the owner draw a series of flawed patrons including Tamako, whose boyfriend has passed away, live-in worker Michiru, and ruckus-raising Kenzo.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRamen Shop (2018)
Masato is a young ramen chef in Japan. When he finds his late mother's journal after the sudden death of his emotionally distant father, he takes it with him to her native country, Singapore, hoping to piece together the story of his family and his life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLittle Forest: Winter/Spring (2015)
Ichiko bakes a cake for an end-of-year party with her friends. In the depths of winter, making mochi and curry keeps the people of Komori warm. Later, spring brings thoughts of her absent mother as well as rice planting and sakura, and she begins to think of leaving Komori behind again.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisKamome Diner (2006)
On a quiet street in Helsinki, Sachie has opened a diner featuring rice balls. For a month she has no customers. Then, in short order, she has her first customer, meets Midori, a gangly Japanese tourist, and invites her to stay with her.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLittle Forest: Summer/Autumn (2014)
Fleeing heartbreak in the big city, Ichiko returns to Komori, her rural hometown. She battles summer's rain and humidity, bakes her own bread, grows hothouse tomatoes and tills the fields. During autumn, the time for pickling and preserving fish and sweet potatoes, Ichiko begins reaping rice and recalls her departure five years before.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTampopo (1985)
In this humorous paean to the joys of food, a pair of truck drivers happen onto a decrepit roadside shop selling ramen noodles. The widowed owner, Tampopo, begs them to help her turn her establishment into a paragon of the "art of noodle-soup making". Interspersed are satirical vignettes about the importance of food to different aspects of human life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMadadayo (1993)
In postwar Tokyo, beloved writer-professor Hyakken Uchida retires and is buoyed through hardship by the fierce devotion of his former students, who honor him each year with a raucous “Not yet!” birthday toast. Told in warm, gently comic vignettes, Kurosawa’s farewell celebrates aging, friendship, and the sustaining ritual of teacher and pupils refusing to say goodbye.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRent-a-Cat (2012)
A young woman who rents out cats to lonely old folks finds her life turned upside down when a young man from her past shows back up in her life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSerial Cook (2018)
Meet Neslihan. A perfect cook, an expert on Turkish cuisine, strictly loyal to her husband, an impeccable house wife... and a serial killer.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Trip to Italy (2014)
Years after their successful restaurant review tour of Northern England, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are commissioned for a new tour in Italy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Hundred-Foot Journey (2014)
A story centered around an Indian family who moves to France and opens a restaurant across the street from a Michelin-starred French restaurant.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Way to the Heart (2024)
Ava, an award-winning chef at a big-city restaurant, has lost her spark. Her boss sends her out to find herself to save her menu and her job. She returns home and finds little to inspire her, but when she reunites with her childhood friend Logan, Ava has to get her head out of the clouds and her foot out of her mouth to rediscover her passion for food.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisDon't Think Twice (2016)
An improv group deals with several crises, including the loss of their lease and one member hitting the big time.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYoung Adult (2011)
A divorced writer from the Midwest returns to her hometown to reconnect with an old flame, who's now married with a family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisKodachrome (2017)
Matt Ryder is convinced to drive his estranged and dying father Benjamin Ryder cross country to deliver four old rolls of Kodachrome film to the last lab in the world that can develop them before it shuts down for good. Along with Ben's nurse Zooey, the three navigate a world changing from analogue to digital while trying to put the past behind them.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Dog Year (2009)
Jon Katz is close to burnout. He's a writer with writer's block; his wife has left for her sister's because he's emotionally distant; he rarely answers his phone. A kennel sends him a border collie that's undisciplined because of abuse. Despite a series of mishaps, Jon decides to keep trying with the dog, and he rents a dilapidated farm house to give the dog room to run. A local handyman refers Jon to a woman who might be able to help him train the dog. Reluctantly, Jon gives her a try. Is the dog the problem, or the owner?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisChloe and Theo (2015)
A young woman, Chloe, living by her wits on the streets of New York City, has a chance meeting with a wise Inuit Eskimo, Theo, who was sent to New York by his elders to provide a message to the people of the world – We either change our destructive was or be destroyed by them. Chloe, who has been searching for something to believe in, becomes inspired by Theo and , with the help of a kind lawyer, Monica, the three of them present Theo’s story to the United Nations in hopes of creating a better future for all of us.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisSubUrbia (1997)
A group of suburban teenagers try to support each other through the difficult task of becoming adults.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMoxie (2021)
Inspired by her mom's rebellious past and a confident new friend, a shy 16-year-old publishes an anonymous zine calling out sexism at her school.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Good Half (2024)
Renn Wheeland returns home to Cleveland for his mother's funeral. Once there, he forges new relationships while healing old ones, before confronting his problems and trying to face his grief.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Late Shift (1996)
David Letterman vies with Jay Leno and his manager to succeed Johnny Carson, retiring from "The Tonight Show."
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Parts You Lose (2019)
An unlikely friendship unfolds between a young deaf boy, Wesley, and a fugitive criminal who takes refuge in an abandoned barn on the family’s rural North Dakota farm.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDinner Rush (2000)
One unlucky evening, Louis Cropa, a part-time bookmaker, discovers that his restaurant has become a hotbed of conflicting characters. In addition to having to please a whiny food critic, Louis must fend off a hostile takeover from a pair of gangsters, to whom his sous-chef is in debt. Further, Louis has an argument with his son, the star chef, whose culinary creativity has brought success to the business.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEast Side Sushi (2014)
Years of working in the food industry have made Juana, a working-class Latina, a chef of speed and skill. Searching for financial stability, she stumbles into a high-energy, male-dominated Japanese cuisine kitchen. The new atmosphere re-ignites her passions for food and life and makes her hungry to get mixed up in the flavors of this new world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTalhotBlond (2012)
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStillwater (2021)
Bill Baker, an American oil-rig roughneck from Oklahoma, travels to Marseille to visit his estranged daughter, Allison, who is in prison for a murder she claims she did not commit. Confronted with language barriers, cultural differences, and a complicated legal system, Bill builds a new life for himself in France as he makes it his personal mission to exonerate his daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThunderstruck (2012)
After NBA star Kevin Durant switches talent with 16 year old Brian, the teenager becomes the star of his high school team, but Durant starts struggling and eventually learns an important lesson.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Umami?
The closest matches to Umami are Midnight Diner 2 (2016), Sweet Bean (2015) and Midnight Diner (2014). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Umami?
People who watched Umami most often go on to Midnight Diner 2 (2016), Sweet Bean (2015) and Midnight Diner (2014).
What is the highest-rated movie like Umami?
Tampopo (1985), rated 7.8/10 by 469 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Umami?
The Good Half (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Japanese movies like Umami?
Yes: Midnight Diner 2 (2016), Sweet Bean (2015) and Midnight Diner (2014).
How are movies similar to Umami chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Umami, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.