Movies Like Happiness Avenue

If you liked Happiness Avenue (1986), a movie directed by Katsuyuki Hirano, 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
The Garden of Words (2013)
★ 7.6/10
Takao, who is training to become a shoemaker, skipped school and is sketching shoes in a Japanese-style garden. He meets a mysterious woman, Yukino, who is older than him. Then, without arranging the times, the two…
2
Weathering with You (2019)
★ 8/10
The summer of his high school freshman year, Hodaka runs away from his remote island home to Tokyo, and quickly finds himself pushed to his financial and personal limits. The weather is unusually gloomy and rainy every…
3
The Last 10 Years (2022)
★ 7.2/10
Twenty-year-old Matsuri Takabayashi learns that she only has ten years to live due to an incurable disease. She decides to not dwell on her life and not to fall in love—until she meets a man named Kazuto Manabe at a…
4
The Wind Rises (2013)
★ 7.8/10
A lifelong love of flight inspires Japanese aviation engineer Jiro Horikoshi, whose storied career includes the creation of the A-6M World War II fighter plane.
5
Maborosi (1995)
★ 7.5/10
A tragedy strikes a young woman's life without warning or reason. She continues living while searching for meaning in a lonely world.
6
The Dog Stars (2026)
★ 7.2/10
After the world's population has been ravaged by a pandemic, a man lives a lonesome existence in a Colorado airplane hangar with his dog and a dour gunman he has befriended. When a mysterious transmission comes through…
7
It Feels So Good (2019)
★ 6.6/10
When it rains it pours. Kenji divorced his wife, lost his job and his old squeeze Naoko is getting married back home in the north of Japan, specifically in Akita. He returns there in order to attend her wedding. Naoko…
8
Drawing Closer (2024)
★ 8.4/10
With only a year left to live, 17-year-old Akito finds new meaning in life by bringing joy to a terminally ill girl who has just six months remaining.
9
Ocean Waves (1993)
★ 6.4/10
At Kichijōji Station, Tokyo, Taku Morisaki glimpses a familiar woman on the platform opposite boarding a train. Later, her photo falls from a shelf as he exits his apartment before flying to Kōchi Prefecture. Picking…
10
Steins;Gate: The Movie - Load Region of Déjà Vu (2013)
★ 7.6/10
One year after the events of the anime, Rintarou begins to feel the repercussions of extensive time travel, and eventually completely fades from reality. Kurisu, being the only companion to remember him, now must find…
11
Sayonara (1957)
★ 6.7/10
Air Force Major Lloyd Gruver is reassigned to a Japanese air base and is confronted with US racial prejudice against the Japanese people. The issue is compounded because a number of the soldiers become romantically…
12
ALL YOU NEED IS KILL (2026)
★ 6.8/10
When a massive alien flower known as "Darol" unexpectedly erupts in a deadly event, unleashing monstrous creatures that decimate the population of Japan, Rita is caught in the destruction—and killed. But then she wakes…
13
The Twilight Samurai (2002)
★ 7.8/10
Seibei Iguchi leads a difficult life as a low ranking samurai at the turn of the nineteenth century. A widower with a meager income, Seibei struggles to take care of his two daughters and senile mother. New prospects…
14
To Every You I've Loved Before (2022)
★ 6.8/10
While struggling to make friends after his parents’ divorce, Koyomi Takasaki meets Kazune Takigawa, but apparently, they already have. Kazune reveals that she’s from World Line 85, an alternate universe in which she…
15
The Moment You Fall in Love (2016)
★ 7.5/10
Following Natsuki Enomoto's confession rehearsals with Yuu Setoguchi, their younger siblings Kotarou and Hina struggle to confess their own love. Despite a disastrous first meeting in middle school with her…
16
To Me, the One Who Loved You (2022)
★ 6.1/10
Koyomi Hidaka and Shiori Sato meet at his father’s research center and begin to fall in love, but so do their parents, who eventually marry. To avoid becoming stepsiblings, they decide to run away to a parallel…
17
My Fault: London (2025)
★ 7.4/10
18-year-old Noah moves from America to London, with her mother who's recently fallen in love with William, a wealthy British businessman. Noah meets William’s son, bad-boy Nick, and soon discovers there is an…
18
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl (2019)
★ 8.2/10
In Fujisawa, Sakuta Azusagawa is in his second year of high school. Blissful days with his girlfriend and upperclassman, Mai Sakurajima, are interrupted by the appearance of his first crush, Shoko Makinohara.
19
Dogwood Tree (2010)
★ 7.5/10
A young girl tries to maintain a long-distance relationship with an aspiring fisherman.
20
The Pagemaster (1994)
★ 6.4/10
Rich knows a lot about accidents. So much so, he is scared to do anything that might endanger him, like riding his bike, or climbing into his treehouse. While in an old library, he is mystically transported into the…