Movies like Playing by Heart (1998)
The best movies like Playing by Heart (1998) are Father of the Bride (2022), Which Brings Me to You (2023) and A California Christmas: City Lights (2021). If Playing by Heart 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 ratedDirty Dancing (1987)7.3/10 from 6,752 votes
- NewestThe Baltimorons (2025)Released 2025
Father of the Bride (2022)
A father comes to grips with his daughter’s upcoming wedding through the prism of multiple relationships within a big, sprawling Cuban-American family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhich Brings Me to You (2023)
Two romantic burnouts, Jane and Will, are immediately drawn to each other at a mutual friend’s wedding. After a disastrous hookup in the coatroom, the two spend the next 24 hours together, trading candid confessions of messy histories and heartbreak, on the off chance that this fling might be the real thing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA California Christmas: City Lights (2021)
Follows Callie and Joseph one year after they fell in love, now running a dairy farm and winery, but their romance is threatened when business and family obligations call Joseph back to the city.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYou Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)
Two married couples find only trouble and heartache as their complicated lives unfold. After 40 years of marriage, Alfie leaves his wife to pursue what he thinks is happiness with a call girl. His wife, Helena, reeling from abandonment, decides to follow the advice of a psychic. Sally, the daughter of Alfie and Helena, is unhappy in her marriage and develops a crush on her boss, while her husband, Roy, falls for a woman engaged to be married.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisShe's Having a Baby (1988)
Jake and Kristy Briggs are newlyweds. Being young, they are perhaps a bit unprepared for the full reality of marriage and all that it (and their parents) expect from them. Do they want babies? Their parents certainly want them to. Is married life all that there is? Things certainly aren't helped by Jake's friend Davis, who always seems to turn up just in time to put a spanner in the works.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisFools Rush In (1997)
After a one night stand with Alex, Isabel realizes that she is pregnant and they decide to get married. However, along with the marriage comes compromise of one's own cultural traditions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAuthor! Author! (1982)
While facing the stress of his original play being produced on Broadway, playwright Ivan Travalian deals with having to raise his son, his stepdaughters, and his stepsons.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisL.A. Without a Map (1999)
An aspiring Hollywood actress, on a visit to a charming North England town, has a brief fling with the town undertaker, who also writes obituaries for the local paper. Returning home, where she works as a waitress at a Japanese restaurant, she tells everyone about the handsome "writer" she met on her trip. Unfortunately, he decides to follow her back to Hollywood, setting up the expected light romantic comedy with asides as the newcomer gains experience about the goings on in Hollywood.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Baltimorons (2025)
A newly sober man's Christmas Eve dental emergency leads to an unexpected romance with his older dentist as they explore Baltimore together.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPaper Heart (2009)
Paper Heart follows Nick and Charlyne on a cross-country journey to document what exactly "love" is. Interviewing ministers, happily married couples, chemists, romance novelists, divorce lawyers, a group of children and more, the determined young girl attempts to find definition and perhaps even experience the mysterious emotion.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisHappiness for Beginners (2023)
At a crossroads after her divorce, a schoolteacher ventures toward a fresh start in life — and love — when she signs up for a grueling group hiking trip.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChéri (2009)
The son of a courtesan retreats into a fantasy world after being forced to end his relationship with the older woman who educated him in the ways of love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (2025)
Bridget Jones navigates life as a widow and single mum with the help of her family, friends, and former lover, Daniel. Back to work and on the apps, she's pursued by a younger man and maybe – just maybe – her son's science teacher.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCatch and Release (2006)
For a grieving fiancée, learning to love again requires the help of her late love's three best friends.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisPeace, Love & Misunderstanding (2011)
A conservative lawyer named Diane takes her two teenage children Jake and Zoe to meet their estranged, hippie grandmother in Woodstock after her husband asks for a divorce.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisCousins (1989)
When Larry and Maria learn that their respective spouses are cheating on them, they try to turn the tables on them by pretending to have an affair. However, they soon find themselves falling in love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & romance
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 thisThe Woman in Red (1984)
When a happily married family man, who would never consider an affair, meets a beautiful woman in red, he is totally infatuated and desperate to make her acquaintance. However, as he tries out various schemes to sneak out to meet her, he realizes that adultery is not quite as easy as it looks.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisZoey 102 (2023)
Pacific Coast Academy alumni return to Malibu for an over-the-top wedding that turns into a high school reunion for the books.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEveryone Says I Love You (1996)
A New York girl sets her father up with a beautiful woman in a shaky marriage while her half sister gets engaged.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlonde Crazy (1931)
The adventures of a cocky con man and his beautiful accomplice.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLovers and Other Strangers (1970)
Mike Vecchio and Susan Henderson are preparing for their upcoming wedding. However, they seem to be the only two people at the wedding that are happy. Mike's brother Richie and his wife Joan are going through a divorce, which is upsetting his overly devout Catholic mother Beatrice. Also, Susan's father is carrying on an affair and her sex starved older sister Wilma is going through her troubles with her husband Johnny. All this is going on while Mike's best friend Jerry is trying to bed the maid of honor, Susan's cousin Brenda.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Plaza Suite (1971)
Film version of the Neil Simon play has three separate acts set in the same hotel suite in New York's Plaza Hotel with Walter Matthau in a triple role. In the first, Karen Nash tries to get her inattentive husband Sam's attention and help save their failing marriage. In the second, brash film producer Jesse Kiplinger tries to seduce his former one-time flame Muriel. In the third, Roy Hubley and his wife Norma try and persuade their daughter, a bride to-be with cold feet, out of the bathroom before her approaching wedding ceremony.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDirty Dancing (1987)
Expecting the usual tedium that accompanies a summer in the Catskills with her family, 17-year-old Frances 'Baby' Houseman is surprised to find herself stepping into the shoes of a professional hoofer—and unexpectedly falling in love.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Secret Call (1931)
The Secret Call is adapted from The Woman, a play by William C. DeMille (brother of Cecil B.) Peggy Shannon plays Wanda Kelly, the daughter of a disgraced politician. Reduced to working as a switchboard operator, Wanda is privy to the many secrets and indiscretions of the clients of a big-city hotel. She also finds romance in the form of handsome Tom Blake (Richard Arlen). The huge cast of characters comes in handy for the film's multitude of subplots, none of which ever get their wires crossed. Peggy Shannon acquits herself nicely in her first major role, but by the end of the decade her career was in decline.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
There's a Girl in My Soup (1970)
TV personality Robert Danvers, an exceedingly vain rotter, seduces young women daily, never staying long with one. He meets his match in Marion, an American, 19, who's available but refuses any romantic illusions.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Double Hour (2009)
A chambermaid and a former cop meet at a speed dating event and a romance develops. But during a romantic getaway things suddenly take a turn for the worse when her mysterious past is revealed.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFront Page Midgets (2018)
For 40 year old Nikola, everyday life is just about producing the worst, the most vulgar reality shows and hidden cameras for TV. His life begins to change when he starts to mentor young girl pushed to be star by her ambitious mother. In turn of the events, Nikola starts to wonder if it is he who is the target of some hidden camera show.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & comedy
Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
Fast-talking, quick-thinking Detroit street cop Axel Foley has bent more than a few rules and regs in his time, but when his best friend is murdered, he heads to sunny Beverly Hills to work the case like only he can.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Playing by Heart?
The closest matches to Playing by Heart are Father of the Bride (2022), Which Brings Me to You (2023) and A California Christmas: City Lights (2021). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Playing by Heart?
Start with Father of the Bride (2022), the closest match to Playing by Heart.
What is the highest-rated movie like Playing by Heart?
Dirty Dancing (1987), rated 7.3/10 by 6,752 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Playing by Heart?
The Baltimorons (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Playing by Heart?
Yes: Father of the Bride (2022), Which Brings Me to You (2023) and A California Christmas: City Lights (2021).
How are movies similar to Playing by Heart chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Playing by Heart, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.