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Movies Like The Next Best Thing

If you liked The Next Best Thing (2000), a comedy and drama movie directed by John Schlesinger, here are 20 movies with a similar feel, based on TMDB's recommendations. Each one links to its cast, trailer and where it's streaming.

  1. 1Fatherhood

    Fatherhood (2021)

    ★ 7.5/10Also drama and comedy

    A widowed new dad copes with doubts, fears, heartache and dirty diapers as he sets out to raise his daughter on his own. Inspired by a true story.

  2. 2Celeste & Jesse Forever

    Celeste & Jesse Forever (2012)

    ★ 6.4/10Also comedy and drama

    Celeste and Jesse met in high school and got married young. They laugh at the same jokes and finish each other’s sentences. They are forever linked in their friends’ minds as the perfect couple – she, a high-powered…

  3. 3Nothing in Common

    Nothing in Common (1986)

    ★ 5.9/10Also drama and comedy

    A successful advertising executive finds his freewheeling life crashing to a halt when his parents end their longtime marriage.

  4. 4Peace, Love & Misunderstanding

    Peace, Love & Misunderstanding (2011)

    ★ 5.8/10Also comedy and drama

    A conservative lawyer named Diane takes her two teenage children Jake and Zoe to meet their estranged, hippie grandmother in Woodstock after her husband asks for a divorce.

  5. 5Stepmom

    Stepmom (1998)

    ★ 7.2/10Also drama and romance

    Jackie is a divorced mother of two. Isabel is the career minded girlfriend of Jackie’s ex-husband Luke, forced into the role of unwelcome stepmother to their children. But when Jackie discovers she is ill, both women…

  6. 6Your Place or Mine

    Your Place or Mine (2023)

    ★ 6.3/10Also romance and comedy

    When best friends and total opposites Debbie and Peter swap homes for a week, they get a peek into each other's lives that could open the door to love.

  7. 7Daddy's Little Girls

    Daddy's Little Girls (2007)

    ★ 6.9/10Also comedy and drama

    Monty is a mechanic struggling to make ends meet as he raises his three young daughters. When the court awards custody of his daughters to his shady ex-wife, Monty desperately tries to win them back with the help of…

  8. 8Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

    Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002)

    ★ 6/10Also comedy and drama

    In a sleepy Louisiana parish, a group of lifelong friends stage a rather unorthodox intervention to help a young playwright unravel the truth about her complicated mother and let go of her painful past.

  9. 9A California Christmas: City Lights

    A California Christmas: City Lights (2021)

    ★ 6.6/10Also romance and comedy

    Follows Callie and Joseph one year after they fell in love, now running a dairy farm and winery, but their romance is threatened when business and family obligations call Joseph back to the city.

  10. 10She's Having a Baby

    She's Having a Baby (1988)

    ★ 5.9/10Also comedy and drama

    Jake and Kristy Briggs are newlyweds. Being young, they are perhaps a bit unprepared for the full reality of marriage and all that it (and their parents) expect from them. Do they want babies? Their parents certainly…

  11. 11Young Adult

    Young Adult (2011)

    ★ 5.8/10Also comedy and drama

    A divorced writer from the Midwest returns to her hometown to reconnect with an old flame, who's now married with a family.

  12. 12You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

    You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)

    ★ 5.9/10Also comedy and drama

    Two married couples find only trouble and heartache as their complicated lives unfold. After 40 years of marriage, Alfie leaves his wife to pursue what he thinks is happiness with a call girl. His wife, Helena, reeling…

  13. 13Laggies

    Laggies (2014)

    ★ 6.1/10Also comedy and drama

    Overeducated and underemployed, 28 year old Megan is in the throes of a quarterlife crisis. Squarely into adulthood with no career prospects, no particular motivation to think about her future and no one to relate to…

  14. 14Is This Thing On?

    Is This Thing On? (2025)

    ★ 6.6/10Also comedy and drama

    As their marriage quietly unravels, Alex faces middle age and an impending divorce, seeking new purpose in the New York comedy scene while Tess confronts the sacrifices she made for their family—forcing them to…

  15. 15Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

    Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (2025)

    ★ 6.3/10Also romance and comedy

    Bridget Jones navigates life as a widow and single mum with the help of her family, friends, and former lover, Daniel. Back to work and on the apps, she's pursued by a younger man and maybe – just maybe – her son's…

  16. 16Father of the Bride

    Father of the Bride (2022)

    ★ 6.3/10Also romance and comedy

    A father comes to grips with his daughter’s upcoming wedding through the prism of multiple relationships within a big, sprawling Cuban-American family.

  17. 17Waiting to Exhale

    Waiting to Exhale (1995)

    ★ 6.2/10Also comedy and drama

    Cheated on, mistreated and stepped on, the women are holding their breath, waiting for the elusive "good man" to break a string of less-than-stellar lovers. Friends and confidants Vannah, Bernie, Glo and Robin talk it…

  18. 18Chéri

    Chéri (2009)

    ★ 6.1/10Also drama and comedy

    The son of a courtesan retreats into a fantasy world after being forced to end his relationship with the older woman who educated him in the ways of love.

  19. 19Smart People

    Smart People (2008)

    ★ 5.9/10Also comedy and drama

    Professor Lawrence Wetherhold might be imperiously brilliant, monumentally self-possessed and an intellectual giant -- but when it comes to solving the conundrums of love and family, he's as downright flummoxed as the…

  20. 20My Own Love Song

    My Own Love Song (2010)

    ★ 6.2/10Also comedy and drama

    A wheelchair-bound singer and her best friend embark on a roadtrip to Memphis.

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