Movies Like Elise, or Real Life

If you liked Elise, or Real Life (1970), a drama movie directed by Michel Drach, 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 Stranger (2025)
★ 6.8/10Also drama
Algiers, 1938. Meursault, a quiet and unassuming employee in his early thirties, attends his mother's funeral without shedding a tear. The next day, he begins a casual affair with Marie, a work colleague. He quickly…
2
The Passengers of the Night (2022)
★ 6.9/10Also drama
On election night in 1981, celebrations spill out onto the street and there is an air of hope and change throughout Paris. But for Elisabeth, her marriage is coming to an end and she will now have to support herself…
3
La Belle Équipe (1936)
★ 7.4/10Also drama
Five unemployed workers win 100,000 Francs in the national lottery. Instead of sharing the money, they buy a ruin and build an open-air cafe. But difficulties come to split their friendly group apart.
4
DNA (2020)
★ 5.9/10Also drama
A woman has a close bond with her beloved Algerian grandfather, who protected her from a toxic home life as a child; his death triggers a deep identity crisis as tensions between her extended family members escalate…
5
Case 137 (2025)
★ 6.9/10Also drama
When Internal Affairs officer Stéphanie investigates a young man severely injured during a chaotic Paris demonstration and finds no police misconduct, the routine case hits close to home upon her discovering the victim…
6
It's a Free World... (2007)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
Working-class Angie, sacked from a recruitment agency for bad public behaviour, teams up with her flatmate to run a similar business from their kitchen. With immigrants desperate for work, the opportunities are…
7
Manon (1949)
★ 6.8/10Also drama
Port of Marseille, France, recently liberated from the German yoke. Caught as stowaways aboard a ship, Manon, a young woman who was accused of collaborating with the Nazis, and Robert, a freedom fighter who saved her…
8
The Nest (2020)
★ 6.1/10Also drama
Rory is an ambitious entrepreneur who brings his American wife and kids to his native country, England, to explore new business opportunities. After abandoning the sanctuary of their safe American suburban…
9
Norma Rae (1979)
★ 7.2/10Also drama
Norma Rae is a southern textile worker employed in a factory with intolerable working conditions. This concern about the situation gives her the gumption to be the key associate to a visiting labor union organizer…
10
The Banker (2020)
★ 7.6/10Also drama
In the 1960s, two entrepreneurs hatch an ingenious business plan to fight for housing integration—and equal access to the American Dream.
11
42 (2013)
★ 7.2/10Also drama
In 1947, Jackie Robinson becomes the first Black man to play in Major League Baseball facing unabashed racism from the public, the press and other players.
12
Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962)
★ 7.7/10Also drama
Agnès Varda eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time portrait of a singer set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of the minutes of one woman’s life, Cléo from 5…
13
Souleymane's Story (2024)
★ 7.5/10Also drama
As he pedals through the streets of Paris to deliver meals, Souleymane recounts his story. In two days, he has to go through his asylum application interview, the key to obtaining papers, but Souleymane is not ready.
14
Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
★ 7.2/10Also drama
The story of an old Jewish widow named Daisy Werthan and her relationship with her black chauffeur, Hoke. From an initial mere work relationship grew in 25 years a strong friendship between the two very different…
15
The House by the Sea (2017)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
By a little bay near Marseille lies a picturesque villa owned by an old man. His three children have gathered by his side for his last days. It’s time for them to weigh up what they have inherited of their father’s…
16
The Great Debaters (2007)
★ 7.3/10Also drama
The true story of a brilliant but politically radical debate team coach who uses the power of words to transform a group of underdog African-American college students into a historical powerhouse that took on the…
17
Ford v Ferrari (2019)
★ 8/10Also drama
American car designer Carroll Shelby and the British-born driver Ken Miles work together to battle corporate interference, the laws of physics, and their own personal demons to build a revolutionary race car for Ford…
18
Rush (2013)
★ 7.7/10Also drama
In the 1970s, a rivalry propels race car drivers Niki Lauda and James Hunt to fame and glory — until a horrible accident threatens to end it all.
19
Michou d'Auber (2007)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
Set in France during the struggle for Algerian independence, Messaoud's mother is terminally ill and his father, needing to work long hours in the factory, can't look after him, so decides to put him and his older…
20
Black Girl (1966)
★ 7.3/10Also drama
Eager to find a better life abroad, a Senegalese woman becomes a mere governess to a family in southern France, suffering from discrimination and marginalization.