Movies like Tristesse (2021)
The best movies like Tristesse (2021) are Hounddog (2008), Helen (2009) and The Safety of Objects (2002). If Tristesse hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedAmerican Beauty (1999)8.0/10 from 13,541 votes
- NewestUntil the End of the World (2026)Released 2026
- In SpanishPain and Glory (2019)Also in Spanish
Hounddog (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 thisHelen (2009)
On the outside, Helen has it all – a loving family and a successful career – but when her suppressed mental illness resurfaces, the world crumbles around her. Crippled by depression, Helen finds solace through her friendship with Mathilda, a kindred spirit struggling with bipolar disorder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Safety of Objects (2002)
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThirteen Conversations About One Thing (2001)
In New York City, the lives of a lawyer, an actuary, a house-cleaner, a professor, and the people around them intersect as they ponder order and happiness in the face of life's cold unpredictability.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Trials of Cate McCall (2013)
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPain and Glory (2019)
Salvador Mallo, a filmmaker in the twilight of his career, remembers his life: his mother, his lovers, the actors he worked with. The sixties in a small village in Valencia, the eighties in Madrid, the present, when he feels an immeasurable emptiness, facing his mortality, the incapability of continuing filming, the impossibility of separating creation from his own life. The need of narrating his past can be his salvation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisUntil the End of the World (2026)
Manuel's life is upended when Esmeralda, his lost love from 15 years ago, calls unexpectedly. Despite being set to marry another, he rediscovers Esmeralda, and they realize their love transcends time.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisBastard Out of Carolina (1996)
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLucky Them (2013)
More interested in partying and flirting with young musicians than work, veteran rock journalist Ellie Klug has one last chance to prove her value to her magazine’s editor: a no-stone-unturned search to discover what really happened to long lost rock god, Matt Smith, who also happens to be her ex-boyfriend. Teaming up with an eccentric amateur documentary filmmaker, Ellie hits the road in search of answers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAmerican Beauty (1999)
Lester Burnham, a depressed suburban father in a mid-life crisis, decides to turn his hectic life around after developing an infatuation with his daughter's attractive friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisMexicali (2026)
A former special forces contractor is forced out of retirement as an avocado farmer in Mexico when local gangsters try to force him and his family off their farm.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRise of the Footsoldier 3 (2017)
In the late 1980s, Pat Tate journeys from peddling pills in Marbella to his time in prison, where he solidifies his power before his release to reclaim his turf.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEmbattled (2020)
The eldest son of a ruthlessly tough MMA champion must fight his way out of the abusive cycle his father has continued.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Carpetbaggers (1964)
Jonas Cord is a disagreeable young tycoon who's building planes, directing films, and catting around on the corporate make in 1930s Hollywood.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHands of Stone (2016)
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEl Chicano (2019)
A pair of twin brothers from East L.A. choose to live their lives differently and end up on opposite sides of the law.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Truth About Emanuel (2013)
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEffie Gray (2014)
A look at the mysterious relationship between Victorian art critic John Ruskin and his teenage bride Effie Gray.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStrange Weather (2016)
Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Enforcer (2022)
A noir thriller set in Miami, the film follows an enforcer who discovers his femme fatale boss has branched out into cyber sex trafficking, putting a young runaway he’s befriended at risk. He sacrifices everything to save the young girl from the deadly organization he’s spent his life building.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTo Live and Die and Live (2025)
Muhammad returns home to Detroit to bury his stepfather and is thrust into settling his accounts, but Muhammad’s struggles with depression and addiction may finish him before he finishes the task.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Box of Moonlight (1996)
Al Fountain, a middle-aged electrical engineer, is on the verge of a mid-life crisis, when he decides to take his time coming home from a business trip, rents a car, and heads out looking for a lake he remembers from his childhood. But his wandering takes him into the life of Kid, a free-spirited young man who helps Al escape from the routine of everyday life and find freedom to enjoy himself.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisColor Me True (2018)
Kenji is a young aspiring movie director. He falls in love with Princess Miyuki, who came from a black‐and‐white movie.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Alex in Wonderland (1970)
Bohemian Alex Morrison has just finished directing his first feature length movie. In its previews, the movie is considered a critical, artistic and surefire commercial success. As such, Alex seemingly has his choice of what his next project will be. As he makes the rounds both in the Hollywood community and European movie centers for ideas, he fantasizes about movie scenarios of those everyday situations he is in.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Other Side of the Wind (2018)
At a media-swamped party to celebrate his seventieth birthday and screen his avant-garde film-in-progress, a legendary but jaded Hollywood director is faced both with voracious fans and unsettling questions about what became of his lead actor.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHappily Ever After (2004)
Is love compatible with coupledom? And what of freedom and fidelity? These are some of the questions facing two married men.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMensch Kotschie (2010)
A well-placed site manager and father slips into a midlife crisis and recalls promptly to a former lover. Satirical comedy that finds compelling cinematic narrative technique for the feeling of comprehensive alienation and emotional state of emergency worded precisely in images that make over room poetics, dramaturgy and color perspectivization experience the world of heroes transparent. The fact that the terseness is sometimes applied a little thick, weight to a minimum.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Swimmer (1968)
A man spends a summer day swimming home via all the pools in his quiet suburban neighborhood.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPlazos traicioneros (1958)
A down in his luck film director falls in love with an attractive waitress and decides to launch her as a big singing star. Once the goal is reached, the girl runs away and becomes involved with a gangster who leads her into prostitution.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
It's Just a Phase, Honeybunny (2021)
The successful writer Paul and the sought-after voice actress Emilia were always considered to be the absolute dream couple by friends: Harmonious, happy, successful, with three charming children named Bo, Marie and Fe. But now, in their late 40s, their relationship is threatened by a crisis.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Tristesse?
The closest matches to Tristesse are Hounddog (2008), Helen (2009) and The Safety of Objects (2002). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Tristesse?
Start with Hounddog (2008), the closest match to Tristesse.
What is the highest-rated movie like Tristesse?
American Beauty (1999), rated 8.0/10 by 13,541 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Tristesse?
Until the End of the World (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Spanish movies like Tristesse?
Yes: Pain and Glory (2019), Until the End of the World (2026) and Plazos traicioneros (1958).
How are movies similar to Tristesse chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Tristesse, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.