Movies like Backbone (1972)
The best movies like Backbone (1972) are Eleanor the Great (2025), Bitter Lake (2015) and Mr. Church (2016). If Backbone hooked you, these 20 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Backbone
Quick picks
- Highest ratedHer (2013)7.8/10 from 15,816 votes
- NewestSoulm8te (2026)Released 2026
Eleanor the Great (2025)
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBitter Lake (2015)
An experimental documentary that explores Saudi Arabia's relationship with the U.S. and the role this has played in the war in Afghanistan.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMr. Church (2016)
A unique friendship develops when a little girl and her dying mother inherit a cook - Mr. Church. What begins as an arrangement that should only last six months, instead spans fifteen years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBorn to Be Bad (1950)
Christabel Caine has the face of angel and the heart of a swamp rat. She'll step on anyone to get what she wants, including her own family. A master of manipulation, she covertly breaks off the engagement of her trusting cousin, Donna, to her fabulously wealthy beau, Curtis Carey. Once married to Curtis herself, Christabel continues her affair with novelist Nick Bradley, who knows she's evil, but loves her anyway.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
David, a robotic boy—the first of his kind programmed to love—is adopted as a test case by a Cybertronics employee and his wife. Though he gradually becomes their child, a series of unexpected circumstances make this life impossible for David.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Miracle Season (2018)
After the tragic death of star volleyball player Caroline "Line" Found, a team of dispirited high school girls must band together under the guidance of their tough-love coach in hopes of winning the state championship!
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGrindhouse (2007)
Grindhouse combines Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror, a horror comedy about a group of survivors who battle zombie-like creatures, and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof, an action thriller about a murderous stuntman who kills young women with modified vehicles. It is presented as a double feature with fictitious exploitation trailers preceding each segment.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019)
Jimmie Fails dreams of reclaiming the Victorian home his grandfather built in the heart of San Francisco. Joined on his quest by his best friend Mont, Jimmie searches for belonging in a rapidly changing city that seems to have left them behind.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCome to Daddy (2019)
After receiving a cryptic letter from his estranged father, Norval travels to his dad’s oceanfront home for what he hopes will be a positive experience. If only he’d known the dark truth about his old man beforehand.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisHer (2013)
In the not so distant future, Theodore, a lonely writer, purchases a newly developed operating system designed to meet the user's every need. To Theodore's surprise, a romantic relationship develops between him and his operating system. This unconventional love story blends science fiction and romance in a sweet tale that explores the nature of love and the ways that technology isolates and connects us all.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWomb (2010)
A woman's consuming love forces her to bear the clone of her dead beloved. From his infancy to manhood, she faces the unavoidable complexities of her controversial decision.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Purge (2013)
Given the country's overcrowded prisons, the U.S. government begins to allow 12-hour periods of time in which all illegal activity is legal. During one of these free-for-alls, a family must protect themselves from a home invasion.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWifelike (2022)
A grieving detective in the near-future hunts down criminals who trade artificial humans on the black market. In the fight to end AI exploitation, an underground resistance attempts to infiltrate him by sabotaging the programming of the artificial human assigned as his companion to behave like his late wife. She begins to question her reality as memories of a past life begin to surface in a world where nothing is as it seems.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHardball (2001)
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSoulm8te (2026)
After a ruthless tech giant acquires a small robotics company, a grieving engineer is tasked with testing their new AI companion. But when he attempts to reprogram her to be a truly sentient soulmate, she develops needs of her own—unleashing a relentless spree of precision-engineered mayhem.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Beaver (2011)
Suffering from a severe case of depression, toy company CEO Walter Black begins using a beaver hand puppet to help him open up to his family. With his father seemingly going insane, adolescent son Porter pushes for his parents to get a divorce.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAll of You (2025)
Laura and Simon have been best friends since college. Over the years, they've realized their bond is more than platonic. Can they—and should they—risk everything to explore a love that has existed all along?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlack Box (2020)
After losing his wife and his memory in a car accident, a single father undergoes an experimental treatment that causes him to question who he really is.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHell and Back Again (2011)
What does it mean to lead men in war? What does it mean to come home? Hell and Back Again is a cinematically revolutionary film that asks and answers these questions with a power and intimacy no previous film about the conflict in Afghanistan has been able to achieve. It is a masterpiece in the cinema of war.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOrlando (1992)
England, 1600. Queen Elizabeth I promises Orlando, a young nobleman obsessed with poetry, that she will grant him land and fortune if he agrees to satisfy a very particular request.
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 Backbone?
The closest matches to Backbone are Eleanor the Great (2025), Bitter Lake (2015) and Mr. Church (2016). Below are 17 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Backbone?
Start with Eleanor the Great (2025), the closest match to Backbone.
What is the highest-rated movie like Backbone?
Her (2013), rated 7.8/10 by 15,816 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Backbone?
Soulm8te (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Backbone?
Yes: Eleanor the Great (2025), Bitter Lake (2015) and Mr. Church (2016).
How are movies similar to Backbone chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Backbone, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.