47 Movies Like American Beauty (1999) You Need to Watch Next
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.
Updated June 2026
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If you loved American Beauty (1999) by Sam Mendes, here are 47 movies that share its content DNA. iRankMovies measures real similarity using cosine similarity across eight weighted dimensions — genre (50%), tone (12%), pace (10%), structure (8%), era (7%), theme (6%), audience (4%) and narrative perspective (3%) — not just the rating. The closest matches according to our analysis are May December, Network, Perfect Days. Every title is ranked by how closely it matches and backed by the iRank Score, a composite of IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDb across 12,000+ analysed titles.
47 Movies Similar to American Beauty
May December
2023 · Todd Haynes
Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, a married couple buckles under the pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about their past.
In common: Drama
Network
1976 · Sidney Lumet
When veteran anchorman Howard Beale is forced to retire his 25-year post because of his age, he announces to viewers that he will kill himself during his farewell broadcast. Network executives rethink
In common: Drama
Perfect Days
2023 · Wim Wenders
Hirayama is content with his life as a toilet cleaner in Tokyo. Outside of his structured routine, he cherishes music on cassette tapes, books, and taking photos of trees. Through unexpected encounter
In common: Drama
Farewell My Concubine
1993 · Chen Kaige
In an epic tale of theater, gender, love and class, two Beijing opera actors navigate political turmoil as their friendship evolves over decades.
In common: Drama
Like Stars on Earth
2007 · Aamir Khan
Ishaan Awasthi is an eight-year-old whose world is filled with wonders that no one else seems to appreciate. Colours, fish, dogs, and kites don't seem important to the adults, who are much more intere
In common: Drama
There Will Be Blood
2007 · Paul Thomas Anderson
Ruthless silver miner, turned oil prospector, Daniel Plainview, moves to oil-rich California. Using his son to project a trustworthy, family-man image, Plainview cons local landowners into selling him
In common: Drama
Shame
2011 · Steve McQueen
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 apar
In common: Drama
Ikiru
1952 · Akira Kurosawa
Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.
In common: Drama
Young & Beautiful
2013 · François Ozon
Isabelle, a 17-year-old student, loses her virginity during a quick holiday romance. When she returns home, she begins a secret life as a prostitute for a year.
In common: Drama
Train Dreams
2025 · Clint Bentley
A logger leads a life of quiet grace as he experiences love and loss during an era of monumental change in early 20th-century America.
In common: Drama
Pleasure
2021 · Ninja Thyberg
19 year old Linnéa leaves her small town in Sweden and heads for Los Angeles with the aim of becoming the world's next big porn star, but the road to her goal turns out to be bumpier than she imagined
In common: Drama
Scent of a Woman
1992 · Martin Brest
Charlie Simms is a student at a private preparatory school who comes from a poor family. To earn the money for his flight home to Gresham, Oregon for Christmas, Charlie takes a job over Thanksgiving l
In common: Drama
The Whale
2022 · Darren Aronofsky
A reclusive English teacher suffering from severe obesity attempts to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter for one last chance at redemption.
In common: Drama
The Hunt
2012 · Thomas Vinterberg
A teacher lives a lonely life, all the while struggling over his son’s custody. His life slowly gets better as he finds love and receives good news from his son, but his new luck is about to be brutal
In common: Drama
Magnolia
1999 · Paul Thomas Anderson
On one random day in the San Fernando Valley, a dying father, a young wife, a male caretaker, a famous lost son, a police officer in love, a boy genius, an ex-boy genius, a game show host and an estra
In common: Drama
Moonlight
2016 · Barry Jenkins
The tender, heartbreaking story of a young man’s struggle to find himself, told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love, while gra
In common: Drama
Detachment
2011 · Tony Kaye
A chronicle of three weeks in the lives of several high school teachers, administrators and students through the eyes of substitute teacher, Henry Barthes. Henry roams from school to school, imparting
In common: Drama
I Am Sam
2001 · Jessie Nelson
Sam, a neurodivergent man, has a daughter with a homeless woman who abandons them when they leave the hospital, leaving Sam to raise Lucy on his own. But as Lucy grows up, Sam's limitations as a paren
In common: Drama
Still Alice
2014 · Richard Glatzer
Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children, is a renowned linguistics professor who starts to forget words. When she receives a devastating diagnosis, Alice and her family find their bon
In common: Drama
Flight
2012 · Robert Zemeckis
Commercial airline pilot Whip Whitaker has a problem with drugs and alcohol, though so far he's managed to complete his flights safely. His luck runs out when a disastrous mechanical malfunction sends
In common: Drama
Showgirls
1995 · Paul Verhoeven
Fresh to Las Vegas with no connections, Nomi Malone takes a job as an exotic dancer. Her talents are quickly noticed by Cristal, a headlining dancer who senses an opportunity to bolster her own act. B
In common: Drama
Radical
2023 · Christopher Zalla
In a Mexican border town plagued by neglect, corruption, and violence, a frustrated teacher tries an unorthodox new method to break through his students’ apathy and unlock their curiosity, their poten
In common: Drama
Rocky Balboa
2006 · Sylvester Stallone
When he loses a highly publicized virtual boxing match to ex-champ Rocky Balboa, reigning heavyweight titleholder Mason Dixon retaliates by challenging the Italian Stallion to a 10-round exhibition bo
In common: Drama
Silenced
2011 · Hwang Dong-hyuk
Based on actual events that took place at Gwangju Inhwa School for the hearing-impaired, where young deaf students were the victims of repeated sexual assaults by faculty members over a period of five
In common: Drama
Lion
2016 · Garth Davis
A five-year-old Indian boy gets lost on the streets of Calcutta, thousands of kilometers from home. He survives many challenges before being adopted by a couple in Australia; 25 years later, he sets o
In common: Drama
Melissa P.
2005 · Luca Guadagnino
An adolescent girl, living with her mother and her grandmother, will have her first sexual experiences in a heavy and excessive way.
In common: Drama
Close
2022 · Lukas Dhont
Two 13-year-old boys spend an idyllic summer together, but their connection is put to the test when they become the subject of speculation at school.
In common: Drama
Mud
2013 · Jeff Nichols
Two teenage boys find a fugitive hiding out on an island in the Mississippi River and help him reunite with his lover and escape an avenging family and their armed posse.
In common: Drama
Awakenings
1990 · Penny Marshall
Dr. Malcolm Sayer, a shy research physician, uses an experimental drug to "awaken" the catatonic victims of a rare disease. Leonard is the first patient to receive the controversial treatment. His awa
In common: Drama
Marriage Story
2019 · Noah Baumbach
A stage director and an actress struggle through a grueling, coast-to-coast divorce that pushes them to their personal extremes.
In common: Drama
Miracles from Heaven
2016 · Patricia Riggen
When Christy discovers her 10-year-old daughter Anna has a rare, incurable disease, she becomes a ferocious advocate for her daughter’s healing as she searches for a solution. After Anna has a freak a
In common: Drama
The Fabelmans
2022 · Steven Spielberg
Growing up in post-World War II era Arizona, young Sammy Fabelman aspires to become a filmmaker as he reaches adolescence, but soon discovers a shattering family secret and explores how the power of f
In common: Drama
Erin Brockovich
2000 · Steven Soderbergh
A twice-divorced mother of three who sees an injustice, takes on the bad guy and wins -- with a little help from her push-up bra. Erin goes to work for an attorney and comes across medical records des
In common: Drama
Society of the Snow
2023 · J. A. Bayona
On October 13, 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, chartered to take a rugby team to Chile, crashes into a glacier in the heart of the Andes.
In common: Drama
How to Have Sex
2023 · Molly Manning Walker
Three British teenage girls go on a rites-of-passage holiday—drinking, clubbing and hooking up, in what should be the best summer of their lives.
In common: Drama
The Babysitters
2008 · David Ross
Seventeen-year-old Shirley is a good student who works as a babysitter in order to make money for college. One night Michael, a father Shirley works for, confesses he's unhappy with married life. Shir
In common: Drama
Malena
2000 · Giuseppe Tornatore
12-year-old Renato experiences three significant events on the same day: the beginning of the Second World War, getting a bike, and witnessing the arrival of the gorgeous Malèna. Through his eyes, we
In common: Drama
Nymphomaniac: Vol. I
2013 · Lars von Trier
A man named Seligman finds a fainted wounded woman in an alley and he brings her home. She tells him that her name is Joe and that she is nymphomaniac. Joe tells her life and sexual experiences with h
In common: Drama
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
1975 · Miloš Forman
A petty criminal fakes insanity to serve his sentence in a mental ward rather than prison. He soon finds himself as a leader to the other patients—and an enemy to the cruel, domineering nurse who runs
In common: Drama
Hope
2013 · Lee Joon-ik
After 8-year-old So-won narrowly survives a brutal sexual assault, her family labors to help her heal while coping with their own rage and grief.
In common: Drama
American History X
1998 · Tony Kaye
Derek Vineyard is paroled after serving 3 years in prison for killing two African-American men. Through his brother, Danny Vineyard's narration, we learn that before going to prison, Derek was a skinh
In common: Drama
The Social Network
2010 · David Fincher
In 2003, Harvard undergrad and computer programmer Mark Zuckerberg begins work on a new concept that eventually turns into the global social network known as Facebook. Six years later, Mark is one of
In common: Drama
Sentimental Value
2025 · Joachim Trier
Sisters Nora and Agnes reunite with their estranged father, the charismatic Gustav, a once-renowned director who offers stage actress Nora a role in what he hopes will be his comeback film. When Nora
In common: Drama
Wonder
2017 · Stephen Chbosky
The story of August Pullman – a boy with facial differences – who enters fifth grade, attending a mainstream elementary school for the first time.
In common: Drama
The Greatest Showman
2017 · Michael Gracey
The story of American showman P.T. Barnum, founder of the circus that became the famous traveling Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
In common: Drama
Miracle in Cell No. 7
2019 · Mehmet Ada Öztekin
Separated from his daughter, a father with an intellectual disability must prove his innocence when he is jailed for the death of a commander's child.
In common: Drama
Bowling for Columbine
2002 · Michael Moore
This is not a film about gun control. It is a film about the fearful heart and soul of the United States, and the 280 million Americans lucky enough to have the right to a constitutionally protected U
In common: Drama