Movies like Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
The best movies like Sweet Smell of Success (1957) are Love Streams (1984), The Tender Bar (2021) and The King of Marvin Gardens (1972). If Sweet Smell of Success hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedRaging Bull (1980)7.9/10 from 4,987 votes
- NewestThe Tender Bar (2021)Released 2021
Love Streams (1984)
Two closely-bound, emotionally wounded siblings reunite after years apart.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Tender Bar (2021)
JR is a fatherless boy growing up in the glow of a bar where the bartender, his Uncle Charlie, is the sharpest and most colorful of an assortment of quirky and demonstrative father figures. As the boy’s determined mother struggles to provide her son with opportunities denied to her — and leave the dilapidated home of her outrageous if begrudgingly supportive father — JR begins to gamely, if not always gracefully, pursue his romantic and professional dreams, with one foot persistently placed in Uncle Charlie’s bar.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe King of Marvin Gardens (1972)
Jason Staebler lives on the Boardwalk and fronts for the local mob in Atlantic City. He is a dreamer who asks his brother David, a radio personality from Philadelphia, to help him build a paradise on a Pacific Island, which might be just another of his pie-in-the-sky schemes. Inevitably, complications begin to pile up.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Skeleton Twins (2014)
Estranged twins Maggie and Milo coincidentally cheat death on the same day, prompting them to reunite and confront the reasons their lives went so wrong. As the twins' reunion reinvigorates them, they realize the key to fixing their lives may just lie in repairing their relationship.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLife (2015)
In 1955, young photographer Dennis Stock develops a close bond with actor James Dean while shooting pictures of the rising Hollywood star.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChinese Coffee (2000)
When Harry Levine, an aging, unsuccessful Greenwich Village writer, is fired from his job as restaurant doorman, he calls on friend and mentor Jake, ostensibly to collect a long-standing debt.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Color Purple (1985)
An epic tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie, an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry. After Celie's abusive father marries her off to the equally debasing 'Mister' Albert Johnson, things go from bad to worse, leaving Celie to find companionship anywhere she can. She perseveres, holding on to her dream of one day being reunited with her sister in Africa.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Young One (1960)
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWhere the Truth Lies (2005)
An ambitious reporter probes the reasons behind the sudden split of a 1950s comedy team.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisManhattan Night (2016)
Porter Wren is a Manhattan tabloid writer with an appetite for scandal. On the beat he sells murder, tragedy, and anything that passes for the truth. At home, he is a dedicated husband and father. But when Caroline, a seductive stranger asks him to dig into the unsolved murder of her filmmaker husband Simon, he is drawn into a very nasty case of sexual obsession and blackmail--one that threatens his job, his marriage, and his life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisLouder Than Bombs (2015)
Three years after his wife, acclaimed photographer Isabelle Reed, dies in a car crash, Gene keeps everyday life going with his shy teenage son, Conrad. A planned exhibition of Isabelle’s photographs prompts Gene's elder son, Jonah, to return to the house he grew up in — and for the first time in a very long time, the father and the two brothers are living under the same roof.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisInto the Forest (2016)
In the not too distant future, two young women who live in a remote ancient forest discover the world around them is on the brink of an apocalypse. Informed only by rumor, they fight intruders, disease, loneliness & starvation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Believer (2001)
A hardcore US racist skinhead who, because of his intelligence, leads a gang dedicated to fighting the enemy: the supposed American-Jewish conspiracy for domination. However, he's hiding a secret: he's Jewish-born, a brilliant scholar whose questioning of the tenets of his faith has left him angry and confused, turning against those who he thinks have a tragic history of their own making.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUncle Frank (2020)
In 1973, when Frank Bledsoe and his 18-year-old niece Beth take a road trip from Manhattan to Creekville, South Carolina for the family patriarch's funeral, they're unexpectedly joined by Frank's lover Walid.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisShame (2011)
Brandon, a thirty-something man living in New York, eludes intimacy with women but feeds his deepest desires with a compulsive addiction to sex. When his younger sister temporarily moves into his apartment, stirring up bitter memories of their shared painful past, Brandon's life, like his fragile mind, gets out of control.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRaging Bull (1980)
The life of boxer Jake LaMotta, whose violence and temper that led him to the top in the ring destroyed his life outside of it.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisWe the Animals (2018)
Manny, Joel and Jonah tear their way through childhood and push against the volatile love of their parents. As Manny and Joel grow into versions of their father and Ma dreams of escape, Jonah, the youngest, embraces an imagined world all his own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYou Can Count on Me (2000)
A single mother's life is thrown into turmoil after her struggling, rarely-seen younger brother returns to town.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Glass House (2001)
When Ruby and Rhett's parents are killed in a car accident, their carefree teenage lives are suddenly shattered. Moving to an incredible house in Malibu with the Glasses', old friends of the family, seems to be the beginning of a new life for them.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNatural Born Killers (1994)
Two victims of traumatized childhoods become lovers and serial murderers irresponsibly glorified by the mass media.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRounders (1998)
Poker addict Mike McDermott knows the game inside out, but loses his money one night in a game to Russian-American gangster Teddy KGB. Promising his partner Jo he'll give up, he meets up with best friend Lester 'Worm' Murphy, just out of prison and owing lots of money to the wrong kind of people. McDermott becomes his co-guarantor and now there's only one way to raise the money, the pair have to get back into the game.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Simple Plan (1998)
Captivated by the lure of sudden wealth, the quiet rural lives of two brothers erupt into conflicts of greed, paranoia and distrust when over $4 million in cash is discovered at the remote site of a downed small airplane. Their simple plan to retain the money while avoiding detection opens a Pandora's box when the fear of getting caught triggers panicked behavior and leads to virulent consequences.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Prince of Tides (1991)
A troubled Southern man talks to his suicidal sister's psychiatrist about their family history and falls in love with her (and New York City) in the process.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMolly Bawn (1916)
Molly Bawn. British silent drama movie. Directed by Cecil M Hepworth. Starring Alma Taylor, Stewart Rome an Violet Hopson. adaptation of the1878 Irish novel of the same name by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford. Molly Bawn the novel by M. W. Hungerford contains her most famous idiom: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." It is also referenced in chapter 8 of James Joyce's Ulysses.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Zorba the Greek (1964)
An uptight English writer traveling to Crete on a matter of business finds his life changed forever when he meets the gregarious Alexis Zorba.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWall Street (1987)
A young and impatient stockbroker is willing to do anything to get to the top, including trading on illegal inside information taken through a ruthless and greedy corporate raider, who takes the youth under his wing.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHappiness (1998)
The lives of several individuals intertwine as they go about their lives in their own unique ways, engaging in acts which society as a whole might find disturbing in a desperate search for human connection.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHamlet (2000)
Modern day adaptation of Shakespeare's immortal story about Hamlet's plight to avenge his father's murder in New York City.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisHair (1979)
Upon receiving his draft notice and leaving his family ranch in Oklahoma, Claude heads to New York and befriends a tribe of long-haired hippies on his way to boot camp.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
Like Sweet Smell of Success and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Sweet Smell of Success?
The closest matches to Sweet Smell of Success are Love Streams (1984), The Tender Bar (2021) and The King of Marvin Gardens (1972). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Sweet Smell of Success?
Start with Love Streams (1984), the closest match to Sweet Smell of Success.
What is the highest-rated movie like Sweet Smell of Success?
Raging Bull (1980), rated 7.9/10 by 4,987 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Sweet Smell of Success?
The Tender Bar (2021) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Sweet Smell of Success?
Yes: Love Streams (1984), The Tender Bar (2021) and The King of Marvin Gardens (1972).
How are movies similar to Sweet Smell of Success chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Sweet Smell of Success, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.