Movies like The Name of Things (2022)
The best movies like The Name of Things (2022) are Pain and Glory (2019), Bad Education (2004) and The Souvenir (2019). If The Name of Things hooked you, these 20 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Blonde One (2019)7.9/10 from 211 votes
- NewestThe Last Sunrise (2026)Released 2026
- In SpanishPain and Glory (2019)Also in Spanish
Pain 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
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: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Souvenir (2019)
A shy but ambitious film student falls into an intense, emotionally fraught relationship with a charismatic but untrustworthy older man.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Flower of My Secret (1995)
Middle-aged romance author Leo writes under a pseudonym, since she despises her own work. At home, her husband, who works overseas, is distant both physically and emotionally. As she reevaluates her life and writing, Leo is led to an unexpected relationship with Ángel, a sensitive newspaper editor.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMartin (Hache) (1997)
After having a nearly fatal drug overdose, 19-year-old Argentine Martin is sent to Madrid, where his film director father lives with his new, younger lover, Alicia, and his bisexual actor friend, Dante.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Beloved (2026)
Acclaimed film director Esteban Martínez is a legend both for his films and for his past marked by violence and excess. For his latest project, he offers his daughter Emilia a role under the pretext of helping her with her stalled acting career. Living together on set will foster a closeness they haven’t shared for years, but it will also reopen old wounds that never healed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Blonde One (2019)
Gabriel has just moved in with Juan. Shy and reserved, Gabo resists Juan’s wandering hands and intense gaze. With a parade of beauties filing out of Juan’s bedroom, his machismo seems firmly entrenched. Yet, the attraction between the two men is undeniable. What begins as a sexual arrangement born of proximity soon evolves into a captivating, tender, and intimate relationship - one that is as sweet as it is heartbreaking.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisClandestine Childhood (2012)
Juan lives in clandestinity. Just like his mum, his dad and his adored uncle Beto, outside his home he has another name. At school, Juan is known as Ernesto. And he meets María, who only has one name. Based on true events, set in the Argentina of 1979, this film is one about love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Life Without Me (2003)
A fatally ill mother with only two months to live creates a list of things she wants to do before she dies without telling her family of her illness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFlesh and the Devil (1926)
When lifelong best friends Leo and Ulrich return home after completing their military training, Leo meets the stunning Felicitas at a railway station and is mesmerized by her beauty. A scandal follows, for which Leo is sent away. Returning home three years later, he discovers that much has changed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGoal II: Living the Dream (2007)
Tempted away from Newcastle United to join Real Madrid, rising star Santiago Munez finds this latest change of fortune the greatest challenge yet - personally as well as professionally. He is reunited with Gavin Harris, though they must compete to be on the team, and estranged from fiancee Roz, whose nursing career keeps her back home.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Masterpiece (2018)
Arturo, the successful owner of an art gallery, and Renzo, a talented but decadent painter, are old friends who cannot stop bickering. One day, Arturo comes up with a solution to all their problems, but the plan they concoct turns out to be crazier and riskier than they originally expected.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Last Sunrise (2026)
Ry, a college student with a chronic illness, escapes to Mallorca for the summer with her mother, where she unexpectedly falls for a local and begins to embrace living in the moment. But as her condition worsens and long-hidden family secrets come to light, everything she has found before summer's end is threatened.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPast Lives (2023)
After decades apart, childhood friends Nora and Hae Sung are reunited in New York for one fateful weekend as they confront notions of destiny, love, and the choices that make a life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRapture (1980)
José Sirgado is a low-budget filmmaker whose heroin addiction distorts his perspective of the real world. Although he is a depressed and unstable individual, his mood improves when he receives the mysterious films of Pedro, with whom he shares his passion for cinema.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAll About My Mother (1999)
Following the tragic death of her teenage son, Manuela travels from Madrid to Barcelona in an attempt to contact the long-estranged father the boy never knew. She reunites with an old friend, an outspoken transgender sex worker, and befriends a troubled actress and a pregnant, HIV-positive nun.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHomo Argentum (2025)
The film consists of 16 shorts that explore, with humor and social criticism, the characteristics of the Argentine identity.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBroken Embraces (2009)
Harry Caine, a blind writer, reaches this moment in time when he has to heal his wounds from 14 years back. He was then still known by his real name, Mateo Blanco, and directing his last movie.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMalcolm & Marie (2021)
As a filmmaker and his girlfriend return home from his movie premiere, smoldering tensions and painful revelations push them toward a romantic reckoning.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEndless Poetry (2016)
A portrait of the director’s young adulthood, set in the 1940s–1950s, in the electric capital city of Santiago. There, he decides to become a poet and is introduced, by destiny, into the foremost bohemian and artistic circle of the time.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Name of Things?
The closest matches to The Name of Things are Pain and Glory (2019), Bad Education (2004) and The Souvenir (2019). Below are 17 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Name of Things?
Start with Pain and Glory (2019), the closest match to The Name of Things.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Name of Things?
The Blonde One (2019), rated 7.9/10 by 211 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Name of Things?
The Last Sunrise (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Spanish movies like The Name of Things?
Yes: Pain and Glory (2019), Bad Education (2004) and The Flower of My Secret (1995).
How are movies similar to The Name of Things chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Name of Things, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.