Movies like Polarity (2005)
The best movies like Polarity (2005) are Petulia (1968), Unfaithful (2002) and Manhattan (1979). If Polarity hooked you, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedManhattan (1979)7.7/10 from 2,711 votes
- NewestMinotaur (2026)Released 2026
Petulia (1968)
Dr. Archie Bollen is having a midlife crisis. He's just divorced his wife and is establishing a new life for himself. One night, he catches the eye of Petulia Danner, a charming, free-spirited young woman. Petulia's vibrant personality hides her fear of her abusive husband, David, whose father is a powerful society figure. As Petulia and Archie's feelings for each other grow, they must decide what it is they truly want.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUnfaithful (2002)
A New York suburban couple's marriage goes dangerously awry when the wife indulges in an adulterous fling.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisManhattan (1979)
Manhattan explores how the life of a middle-aged television writer dating a teenage girl is further complicated when he falls in love with his best friend's mistress.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFatal Attraction (1987)
A married man's one-night stand comes back to haunt him when that lover begins to stalk him and his family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSwallow (2020)
Hunter, a newly pregnant housewife, finds herself increasingly compelled to consume dangerous objects. As her husband and his family tighten their control over her life, she must confront the dark secret behind her new obsession.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlonde (2022)
From her volatile childhood as Norma Jeane, through her rise to stardom and romantic entanglements, this reimagined fictional portrait of Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe blurs the lines of fact and fiction to explore the widening split between her public and private selves.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Intervention (2016)
A weekend getaway for four couples takes a sharp turn when one of the couples discovers the entire trip was orchestrated to host an intervention on their marriage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisAuto Focus (2002)
A successful TV star during the 1960s, former "Hogan's Heroes" actor Bob Crane projects a wholesome family-man image, but this front masks his persona as a sex addict who records and photographs his many encounters with women, often with the help of his seedy friend, John Henry Carpenter. This biographical drama reveals how Crane's double life takes its toll on him and his family, and ultimately contributes to his death.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Devil's Double (2011)
A chilling vision of the House of Saddam Hussein comes to life through the eyes of the man who was forced to become the double of Hussein's sadistic son.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYour Friends & Neighbors (1998)
Restless and unhappy, two couples get caught up in infidelity and deception. Barry is a sullen businessman married to Mary, a writer who is unsatisfied with their relationship. Mary begins an affair with Jerry, a smug theater professor and husband of her friend, Terri, who is also a writer. Adding to the adulterous mix are Cary, a callous doctor, and Cheri, an art-gallery assistant.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Talk of the Town (1942)
Hilarity ensues when a falsely accused fugitive from justice hides at the house of his childhood friend, which she has recently rented to a high-principled law teacher.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAsylum (2005)
A woman becomes very curious about one of her psychiatrist husband's inmates, a man who was found guilty in the murder and disfigurement of his former wife.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMeet Monica Velour (2010)
For Tobe, a nerdy, horny, frizzy-haired cineaste who doesn't quite fit in with the average contemporary teen, the pinnacle of womanhood is Monica Velour, a soft-core actress who reached the zenith of her career in the 1980s. When Tobe learns that his love idol is headlining hundreds of miles away at the Gentlemen's Petting Zoo in Indiana, he drives off with carefree glory, filled with the hope of meeting her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Prophecy (1995)
The angel Gabriel comes to Earth to collect a soul which will end the stalemated war in Heaven. However, it is hidden inside of a Native American girl and only a former priest and a schoolteacher can stop him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRita, Sue and Bob Too (1987)
On a run-down Bradford council estate, teenagers Rita and Sue both share a job babysitting for Bob and Michelle's children. On the way home one night, Bob takes Rita and Sue up to a deserted, countryside landscape. Knowing what he has in mind, the girls are only too happy to oblige and both have a sexual encounter with him that becomes a regular occurrence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMiddle of the Night (1959)
Jerry Kingsley is a wealthy garment manufacturer left lonely in his 50s when his wife dies. Despite the difference in their ages, he strikes up a romance with divorced 24-year-old receptionist Betty. The relationship is dismissed by his daughter, Lillian, discouraged by his sister, Evelyn, and denounced by Betty's mother. But when Jerry begins to mention marriage, even Betty is forced to confront her ambivalence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFifty Shades Freed (2018)
Believing they have left behind shadowy figures from their past, newlyweds Christian and Ana fully embrace an inextricable connection and shared life of luxury. But just as she steps into her role as Mrs. Grey and he relaxes into an unfamiliar stability, new threats could jeopardize their happy ending before it even begins.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFierce People (2006)
A massage therapist looking to overcome her addictions and reconnect with her son, whose father is an anthropologist in South America studying the Yanomani people, moves in with a wealthy ex-client in New Jersey.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKinds of Kindness (2024)
A triptych fable following a man without choice who tries to take control of his own life; a policeman who is alarmed that his wife who was missing-at-sea has returned and seems a different person; and a woman determined to find a specific someone with a special ability, who is destined to become a prodigious spiritual leader.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEvil Nanny (2016)
A couple hires a live-in nanny to watch the offspring while they work. At first, everything goes perfectly, but when an unsafe incident means the parents no longer want the nanny around, they find out this nanny is savvy at not being evicted from her live-in situation. So savvy, in fact, that she can make these parents' lives a true nightmare.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
SnoozefestMovies like thisSingles (1992)
A group of young adults in their twenties, who share an apartment in the city of Seattle, ponder on love and face all the challenges of adulthood.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKitchen Stories (2003)
Swedish efficiency researchers come to Norway for a study of Norwegian men, to optimize their use of their kitchen. Folke Nilsson (Tomas Norström) is assigned to study the habits of Isak Bjørvik (Joachim Calmeyer). By the rules of the research institute, Folke has to sit on an umpire's chair in Isak's kitchen and observe him from there, but never talk to him. Isak stops using his kitchen and observes Folke through a hole in the ceiling instead. However, the two lonely men slowly overcome the initial post-war Norwegian-Swede distrust and become friends.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Worth the HypeMovies like thisScary Mother (2017)
A 50-year-old housewife, Manana, struggles with her dilemma - she has to choose between her family life and her passion, writing, which she had repressed for years - she decides to follow her passion and plunges herself into writing, sacrificing to it mentally and physically.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Minotaur (2026)
When Gleb, a successful company director, finds himself under siege from mounting corporate pressures, an increasingly unstable world, and the discovery of his wife's affair, the collapse of his carefully ordered life accelerates toward violence.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSerial Mom (1994)
Beverly is the perfect happy homemaker, along with her doting husband and two children, but this nuclear family just might explode when her fascination with serial killers collides with her ever-so-proper code of ethics.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSolino (2002)
The movie portrays the story of an Italian family emigrated in Germany in the 1970s. Romano (Gigi Savoia), the father, decides to open a pizzeria which, by mutual decision with the wife Rosa (Antonella Attili), will call Solino, leaving his sons Gigi and Giancarlo to work there. A hostile relationship comes to life between the father and his sons, which will end up in the escape of the boys from family.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTalk of the Town (1995)
Comedy about a woman who hosts a radio talk-show who turns thirty and worries about not having a husband. With the help of her gay brother, she places an personal advert in the local paper and meets a charming dentist. Unfortunately, she finds out he is married, and her brother also falls for him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
One Night Stand (1997)
In Los Angeles, Max Carlyle makes a good living directing commercials and has a happy home life with his wife, Mimi, and two children. When Carlyle travels to New York City to visit his friend Charlie, who has been diagnosed with AIDS, he has repeat run-ins with a beautiful woman, Karen, and eventually sleeps with her. Though he goes home the next day and doesn't return until a year later, Carlyle's infidelity still lingers.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Stepford Wives (1975)
Joanna Eberhart comes to the town of Stepford, Connecticut with her family, but soon discovers there lies a sinister truth in the all too perfect behavior of the female residents.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKakkakuyil (2001)
Kakkakuyil movie is about Sivaraman(Mohanlal) who has come to Mumbai for a visa. But Sivaraman finds his friend Govindan Kutty (Mukesh) amidst a sea of problems. Sivaraman is forced to participate in a bank robbery planned by Thomas and his gang, which puts them in more trouble.And they find a place as Kunjunni with the body of Govindan kutty and sound of Sivaraman in the house of a blind old couple (Nedumudi Venu and Kaviyoor Ponnamma), whose grandson Kunjunni who had left them a long time ago (when he was 7) and is now coming home.But a turn of events finds Sivaraman and Govindan kutty (combined) as Kunjunni with the body of Govindan kutty and sound of Sivaraman.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Like Polarity and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Polarity?
The closest matches to Polarity are Petulia (1968), Unfaithful (2002) and Manhattan (1979). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Polarity?
Start with Petulia (1968), the closest match to Polarity.
What is the highest-rated movie like Polarity?
Manhattan (1979), rated 7.7/10 by 2,711 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Polarity?
Minotaur (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Polarity?
Yes: Petulia (1968), Unfaithful (2002) and Manhattan (1979).
How are movies similar to Polarity chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Polarity, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.