Movies like 18 & Waiting 5 (2013)
The best movies like 18 & Waiting 5 (2013) are Fire with Fire (1986), Winter Spring Summer or Fall (2024) and Incoming (2024). If 18 & Waiting 5 hooked you, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedWinter Spring Summer or Fall (2024)7.3/10 from 267 votes
- NewestIn My Head (2025)Released 2025
Fire with Fire (1986)
A tough, street-smart kid serving a sentence in a state youth reformatory meets a beautiful, innocent girl studying at a nearby convent. When forbidden love blossoms between them, they must fight the prison authorities, their parents and the law.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWinter Spring Summer or Fall (2024)
Remi and Barnes, two very different teenagers, meet by chance in the winter of their senior year, then spend four days together over the course of a year that will change their lives forever.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIncoming (2024)
Their first week of high school. The biggest party of the year. Mistakes will be made as four teenage boys navigate a night of mayhem and debauchery.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977)
A disturbed and institutionalized 16-year-old girl struggles between fantasy and reality.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisOh, Ramona! (2019)
Oh, Ramona! seeks the transformation of Andrew from a teenager into an adult who lives candidly and selflessly his first love story, innocent and uninvolved, alternating with the second, intense and insane story, incapable of making a choice.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisReal Women Have Curves (2002)
In East Los Angeles, an 18-year-old struggles between her ambitions of going to college and the desires of her domineering mother for her to get married, have children, and oversee the small, rundown family-owned textile factory.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTeen Spirit (2019)
A shy teenager living on the Isle of Wight dreams of pop stardom. With the help of an unlikely mentor, she enters a singing competition that will test her integrity, talent, and ambition.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHala (2019)
Seventeen-year-old Pakistani American teenager Hala struggles to balance desire with her family, cultural, and religious obligations. As she comes into her own, she grapples with a secret that threatens to unravel her family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBelly (1998)
Tommy Bundy and Sincere are best friends as well as infamous and ruthless criminals and shot-callers in the hood. Respected by many but feared by all. As the police are closing in on them and new players are looking for a come up, will their reign last?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEndless Love (2014)
A privileged girl and a charismatic boy's instant desire sparks a love affair made only more reckless by parents trying to keep them apart.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSmall Apartments (2012)
When a clumsy deadbeat accidentally kills his landlord, he must do everything in his power to hide the body, only to find that the distractions of lust, the death of his beloved brother, and a crew of misfit characters force him on a journey where a fortune awaits him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisNewness (2017)
In contemporary Los Angeles, two millennials navigating a social media–driven hookup culture begin a relationship that pushes both emotional and physical boundaries.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTurtles All the Way Down (2024)
17-year-old Aza Holmes tries be a good daughter, a good friend, and a good student, all while navigating an endless barrage of invasive, obsessive thoughts that she cannot control. When she reconnects with Davis, her childhood crush, Aza is confronted with fundamental questions about her potential for love, happiness, friendship, and hope.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCode 8 Part II (2024)
In a world where superpowered people are heavily policed by robots, an ex-con teams up with a drug lord he despises to protect a teen from a corrupt cop.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMake Your Move (2013)
A pair of star-crossed dancers in New York find themselves at the center of a bitter rivalry between their brothers' underground dance clubs.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisHomeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story (2003)
Based on a true story. Liz Murray is a young girl who is taken care of by her loving, but drug-addicted parents. Liz becomes homeless at 15 and after a tragedy comes upon her, she begins her work to finish high school.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDavid and Lisa (1962)
Teenager David Clemens develops a hysterical fear that he will die if he comes into physical contact with another person. Perturbed, David's overbearing mother places him in a home for mentally disturbed young people, but David remains withdrawn from the other patients and his psychiatrist. Over time, however, David grows interested in 15-year-old Lisa, who suffers from multiple personalities – one who can only speak in rhyme, and the other, a mute.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBatman Unlimited: Mechs vs. Mutants (2016)
Mr. Freeze turns Killer Croc and Bane into super-sized monsters, and they bash their way through downtown Gotham until the Caped Crusader and his team of heroes join the fight in their giant robot mechs.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Fugitive Kind (1960)
Val Xavier, a drifter of obscure origins, arrives at a small town and gets a job in a store run by Lady Torrence. Her husband, Jabe M. Torrance, is dying of cancer. Val is pursued by Carol Cutere, the enigmatic local tramp-of-good-family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPorno (2019)
When a group of naive teens working at a movie theater in a small Christian town discover a mysterious film hidden in its basement, they unleash an alluring succubus who gives them a sex education…written in blood.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe In Between (2024)
Following the death of her brother, filmmaker Robie Flores returns to her hometown Eagle Pass on the Texas/Mexico border, wanting to turn back time. She collides with unruly experiences of adolescence – quinceañeras, Rio Grande river excursions, teen makeovers and beyond – that invite her to soak up the details of the home her brother adored and she ignored. What emerges is a playful dance between a personal and collective coming-of-age portrait of kids on the border and Robie herself as she rediscovers the possibilities of joy in the aftermath of grief.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Boys Feels: Stand by Me (2022)
During tender years, a companion can guide you through awkward moments when the heart rules the head, or be a partner in crime in the face of danger. Follow these young men through the highs and lows of early learning, when all around us is new, and peer pressure is at its most pervasive. The 6 short films are: It Was Dark [Il faisait noir] (2015); Suspendu (2015); Keep Going (2016); Headbutt (2017); Out of the Blue [Ud af det blå] (2016); Mars Colony (2020).
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Mean Girls (2004)
Cady Heron is a hit with The Plastics, the A-list girl clique at her new school, until she makes the mistake of falling for Aaron Samuels, the ex-boyfriend of alpha Plastic Regina George.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Girl (TBA)
Revisit one of Hollywood’s most notorious scandals through the eyes of the person most misrepresented by it. In 1977 California, 13-year-old Samantha is navigating adolescence and dreams of becoming an actress when she is drawn into the orbit of celebrated filmmaker Roman Polanski. What follows alters her life forever. As the case erupts across headlines, Samantha and her mother are thrust into a relentless media storm — she’s hounded by paparazzi and stripped of privacy at the moment where she most needs protection. Together, mother and daughter must fight to reclaim Samantha’s voice and preserve what remains of her childhood.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Miguelito (1985)
A young boy discovers his politician father's corruption and cruelty as he discovers his real mother is a victim of his own father's immorality and violence.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Tell Me Why I Don't Like Mondays (TBA)
Narrated through her diary, the story is a fictional account of Laura, a petite self-destructive and remote teenager living a drug fuelled dead-end, latch-key existence in a Southern Californian suburb.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year (2023)
The festive season brings nothing but havoc to a group of teens, struggling with their own mental politics.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
DFW Punk (2008)
DFW Punk, covering the Dallas/Ft. Worth punk/new wave scene. If you thought Texas in the late ’70s was all about urban cowboys, country tunes and bible-thumping, get ready to be proved dead wrong. 2007, MiniDV.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like 18 & Waiting 5?
The closest matches to 18 & Waiting 5 are Fire with Fire (1986), Winter Spring Summer or Fall (2024) and Incoming (2024). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after 18 & Waiting 5?
Start with Fire with Fire (1986), the closest match to 18 & Waiting 5.
What is the highest-rated movie like 18 & Waiting 5?
Winter Spring Summer or Fall (2024), rated 7.3/10 by 267 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like 18 & Waiting 5?
In My Head (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like 18 & Waiting 5?
Yes: Fire with Fire (1986), Winter Spring Summer or Fall (2024) and Incoming (2024).
How are movies similar to 18 & Waiting 5 chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside 18 & Waiting 5, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.