Best movies like Life of Riley
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
In the midst of rehearsals for a new play, amateur dramatics proponents Colin and Kathryn receive the shattering news that their friend George is fatally ill and only has a few months to live.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: France
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: realistic, humorous, talky, semi serious, romantic, captivating, entertaining, sexy, clever, crying
Best tv shows and movies like Life of Riley (2014):
Similar in 77%
The Humbling (2014)
Plot Summary:
Following a breakdown and suicide attempt, an aging actor becomes involved with a much younger woman but soon finds that it's difficult to keep pace with her.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA, Italy
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: tragicomedy, semi serious, humorous, realistic, psychological, clever, contemplative, independent film, interesting
Similar in 81%
Not on the Lips (2003)
Plot Summary:
A musical drawing room farce set in Paris in October, 1925. Gilberte, in middle-age, flirts with men but loves her husband Georges, wishing he were more demonstrative. He's negotiating a deal with an American, Eric Thomson, who turns out to be Gilberte's first husband from an annulled and secret stateside marriage. Along with her sister Arlette, Gilberte begs Eric not to tell Georges about the marriage. Meanwhile, a young artist, Charly, pursues Gilberte while Arlette tries to match him with the young Huguette, who loves him. Will Eric play along or try to re-win Gilberte's affection? Can Gilberte play one off against another? And who will manage to kiss whom on the lips?.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Musical, Romance
Country: Switzerland, France
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: feel good, humorous, realistic, witty, semi serious, clever, offbeat, stylized
Similar in 87%
You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet (2012)
Plot Summary:
From beyond the grave, celebrated playwright Antoine d'Anthac gathers together all his friends who have appeared over the years in his play "Eurydice." These actors watch a recording of the work performed by a young acting company, La Compagnie de la Colombe. Do love, life, death and love after death still have any place on a theater stage? It's up to them to decide. And the surprises have only just begun.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: France, Germany
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, realistic
Similar in 78%
The Salt of Life (2011)
Plot Summary:
Gianni is sixty. He is retired but has not become lazy for all that. In fact he is a helpful fellow who gives a hand to all those who need one: shopping for his wife, walking the pretty neighbor's dog, and so on. Everybody likes Gianni, but is it for the right reasons? Doesn't his wife profit by the situation (she still works so it is only logical that Gianni do all the chores)? Isn't he subject to the excruciating whims of his rich mother?... Sure, everybody LIKES Gianni, but who LOVES him? Agreed, being kind to them, he is the ladies pet, but he does not attract them anymore. That is why, when his macho lawyer friend Alfonso blames him for not having young mistresses "like every other senior Italian male", Gianni, who is beginning to ask himself questions about what it is like to become old, starts chasing dames.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Romance
Country: Italy
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, captivating, psychological, light, romantic, uplifting, entertaining, semi serious, feel good
Similar in 83%
Daddy or Mommy (2015)
Plot Summary:
Florence and Vincent Leroy are a model couple. They have great jobs, a perfect marriage and delightful children. And now they want their divorce to be an equal success. But when they are both simultaneously promoted to their dream jobs, their relationship becomes a nightmare. From that moment on, the gloves are off, the two exes declare war and will do everything in their power to NOT have custody of their children.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: France, Belgium
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: humorous, semi serious, realistic, tense, entertaining, funny, romantic, touching, feel good, captivating
Similar in 79%
Season's Beatings (1999)
Plot Summary:
Christmas, family, and infidelity. Yvette's husband has died, and her grown daughters join her at the grave: Sonia, wealthy, bourgeois, and generous; Louba, living with their dad Stanislas, singing at a Russian restaurant, penniless, the mistress for the past 12 years of a man who will never leave his wife; Milla, the youngest, acerbic, lonesome. Christmas was when they learned their parents were divorcing 25 years ago. Over the next few days, yuletide depression, Louba's pregnancy, Sonia's crumbling marriage, Stanislas's overtures to Yvette, and Milla's attraction to the man who's her father's rent-free lodger lead each one to re-examine self, family, and hopes. Is renewal possible?.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: France
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: sentimental, clever, offbeat, humorous, realistic, witty, semi serious, entertaining, masterpiece
Similar in 82%
Smoking/No Smoking (1993)
Plot Summary:
"Smoking" and "No Smoking" are two segments of the film which are based on closely connected plays. The original plays covered eight separate stories, which have been pared down to three each for these movies. At a certain point in the story of each segment, the five female characters (all played by Sabine Azema) and the four male characters (all played by Pierre Arditi) have their lives skillfully recapped in terms of "what might have happened" if they had made or failed to make certain choices. For example, "No Smoking" focuses chiefly on the relationship between the mild-mannered Miles Coombes and his infinitely more aggressive and ambitious wife, Rowena.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: France, Italy, Switzerland
Duration: 298 min
Plot tags: clever, anthology, postmodern, offbeat, humorous, realistic, semi serious, biting, suspense
Similar in 76%
A Tale of Springtime (1990)
Plot Summary:
Simple conversations engender complicated human interactions. The first in Eric Rohmer's Four Seasons series, Conte de printemps (A Tale In Springtime) is the story of an introverted young girl (Florence Darel) just reaching adulthood who takes a liking to an older woman she meets at a party (Anne Teyssedre) and determines to match her off with her father (Hugues Quester), despite the latter's already having a lover of his own. There is a certain absurdity to this, apparent to both adults, who though both reluctantly attracted to each other resent Darel's attempts at matchmaking. Nevertheless, both of them are intelligent enough to understand that there is no 'proper' way to meet, and are alive to the possibilities that life brings them. Darel, for her part, is a persistent catalyst. As with all Rohmer films, the stage is set, in an age of increasing impermanence and uncertainty in human relationships, for a series of minimalist reflections on love and life.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: France
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: clever, talky, witty, art house, feel good, humorous, realistic, semi serious, crying, light
Similar in 76%
Boyfriends and Girlfriends (1987)
Plot Summary:
Middle-class Parisian suburbs: Blanche and Lea, office worker and student, meet and become friends. Lea is going out with Fabien, but is thinking of leaving him. Blanche falls for Lea's handsome and witty friend Alexandre, but is tongue-tied whenever she meets him. Lea goes on holiday and Blanche, still smitten with the dashing Alexandre, begins to get to get know Fabien. A classic Rohmer moral tale.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: France
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: sex comedy, aesthetic, clever, feel good, humorous, realistic, talky, semi serious, crying, eighties
Similar in 83%
My Sex Life... or How I Got Into an Argument (1996)
Plot Summary:
Paul Dedalus is at a crossroads in his life. He has to make several decisions; should he complete his doctorate, does he want to become a full professor, does he really love his long-standing girlfriend, or should he re-start with one of his other lovers?.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: France
Duration: 178 min
Plot tags: clever, humorous, realistic, witty, contemplative, talky, semi serious, sexual, neurotic, crying
Similar in 75%
Same Old Song (1997)
Plot Summary:
Odile is a business executive looking for a new, bigger apartment. Her younger sister Camille has just completed her doctoral thesis in history and is a Paris tour guide. Simon is a regular on Camille's tours because he's attracted to her. Camille has fallen for Marc, and they begin an affair. Nicolas is also looking for an apartment, since he hopes to eventually have his family join him in Paris.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Musical, Romance
Country: France, Switzerland, UK, Italy
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: anthology, sentimental, clever, offbeat, feel good, humorous, realistic, witty, semi serious, crying
Similar in 77%
Venus (2006)
Plot Summary:
Maurice is an aging veteran actor who becomes absolutely taken with Jessie - the grandniece of his closest friend. When Maurice tries to soften the petulant and provincial young girl with the benefit of his wisdom and London culture, their give-and-take surprises both Maurice and Jessie as they discover what they don't know about themselves.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 13000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: UK
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: sentimental, romantic, touching, realistic, romantic comedy, twisted, humorous, semi serious, psychological, sexy
Similar in 80%
Private Fears in Public Places (2006)
Plot Summary:
In Paris, six people all look for love, despite typically having their romantic aspirations dashed at every turn.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: France, Italy
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: sentimental, humorous, realistic, sincere, clever, touching, semi serious, anthology, sensitive, gloomy
Similar in 87%
Sleep with Me (1994)
Plot Summary:
Six different writers wrote a scene each of this romantic comedy featuring the marriage and turbulent relationship of Joseph and Sarah, with Joseph's best friend Frank trying hard to cope with letting the love of his life marry his best friend. Featuring Quentin Tarantino in a cameo as Sid, a movie-bore party goer.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: sexy, clever, humorous, realistic, witty, talky, semi serious, sex comedy, hot
Similar in 77%
Frenchmen (2003)
Plot Summary:
The life of four best friends in Paris: Antoine (a gym school teacher), Jeff (director of a monthly journal), Alex (Jeff's associate in the monthly journal and a Don Juan) and Manu (owner of fine food store). Their time is shared between their respective jobs, their relationship with women (their own and others...) and the times they meet together to discuss about life and play sport lottery.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: France
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, witty, semi serious, clever
Similar in 84%
Frenchmen 2 (2007)
Plot Summary:
Alex, Antoine, Jeff and Manu. Four friends, four years later. Their relationships, friendship, shared secrets, feelings of guilt and their desire to change and improve.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 822
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: France
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: witty, humorous, realistic, semi serious
Similar in 87%
Love, etc. (1996)
Plot Summary:
A triangle: love, obsession, and choice. Pierre, a ladies' man who has little cash and no fixed residence, describes his best friend Benoît as the world's oldest 32-year-old. The shy, well-employed Benoît's life changes when he answers the personal ad of Marie, a 25-year-old who restores paintings. He's attracted to her and she likes his steady calm and his honest attention. They're soon a couple, and they include Pierre in their dinners, outings, and trips. What will happen when Pierre realizes that he too is in love with Marie?.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 746
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: France
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: romantic, touching, humorous, realistic, talky, semi serious, crying
Similar in 84%
My Wife Is an Actress (2001)
Plot Summary:
My Wife is an Actress is a French Romantic Comedy/Drama film starring real life couple Yvan Attal and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Attal plays a journalist who becomes obsessively jealous when his actress wife gets a part in a movie with an attractive co-star. Attal also wrote and directed the film.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: France
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: melancholic, disturbing, stylized, touching, semi serious, humorous, witty, erotic, romantic comedy, clever
Similar in 90%
Miss You Already (2015)
Plot Summary:
The friendship between two life-long girlfriends is put to the test when one starts a family and the other falls ill.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 20000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: UK
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: touching, semi serious, sad, humorous, realistic, depressing, tear jerker, social, happy, black comedy
Similar in 80%
My Old Lady (2014)
Plot Summary:
Mathias Gold (Kevin Kline) is a down-on-his-luck New Yorker who inherits a Parisian apartment from his estranged father. But when he arrives in France to sell the vast domicile, he's shocked to discover a live-in tenant who is not prepared to budge. His apartment is a viager - an ancient French real estate system with complex rules pertaining to its resale - and the feisty Englishwoman Mathilde Girard (Maggie Smith), who has lived in the apartment with her daughter Chloé (Kristin Scott Thomas) for many years, can by contract collect monthly payments from Mathias until her death.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: UK, France, USA
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: emotional, sentimental, humorous, semi serious, happy, realistic, psychological, light, clever, feel good
Similar in 77%
Le Week-End (2013)
Plot Summary:
Nick and Meg Burrows return to Paris, the city where they honeymooned, to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary and rediscover some romance in their long-lived marriage. The film follows the couple as long-established tensions in their marriage break out in humorous and often painful ways.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: UK, France
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, humorous, happy, powerful, clever, realistic, witty, contemplative, talky
Similar in 87%
Lawless Heart (2001)
Plot Summary:
In a British seaside resort, several lives intertwine following the funeral of a gay restaurant owner.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: UK, France
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: melancholic, sentimental, touching, semi serious, talky, romantic, captivating, entertaining, humorous, realistic
Similar in 77%
2 Days in Paris (2007)
Plot Summary:
Adam Goldberg delivers "an uproarious study in transatlantic culture panic" as Jack, an anxious, hypochondriac-prone New Yorker vacationing throughout Europe with his breezy, free-spirited Parisian girlfriend, Marion. But when they make a two-day stop in Marion's hometown, the couple's romantic trip takes a turn as Jack is exposed to Marion's sexually perverse and emotionally unstable family.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 32000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: France, Germany
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: humorous, romantic, artsy, funny, melancholic, witty, contemplative, romantic comedy, realistic, talky
Similar in 78%
Too Beautiful for You (1989)
Plot Summary:
A car dealer, well-to-do and with a beautiful wife, finds himself attracted to his rather plain new temporary secretary. Despite her own commitments she feels the same and the two soon embark on an affair. Though it would seem it has happened before his wife finds this particular entanglement of her husband's very difficult to accept.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Crime, Drama, Romance
Country: France
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: talky, cynical, clever, humorous, realistic, semi serious, crying, erotic, psychological, atmospheric
Similar in 77%
The Jane Austen Book Club (2007)
Plot Summary:
Six Californians start a club to discuss the works of Jane Austen. As they delve into Austen's literature, the club members find themselves dealing with life experiences that parallel the themes of the books they are reading.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 29000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: feel good, humorous, romantic, sweet, light, entertaining, witty, touching, sentimental, semi serious
Similar in 75%
Kings and Queen (2004)
Plot Summary:
Nora Cotterelle, a woman in her 30s is caring for her ill father, Louis Jenssens. While Nora tries to present a facade that all is well with her life, she is twice divorced and has a son, Elias, whose father is dead. Nora's present relationship is not going well, and she is soon to marry a businessman, while Elias is becoming increasingly withdrawn. A parallel storyline follows her former lover and second husband, Ismaël Vuillard, a musician, with whom she had lived for seven years. He is given to strange behaviour, and as a result he has been committed to a mental hospital, from which he is planning to escape. Nora learns that her father's digestive problems are actually cancer, and facing her father's death, Nora desperately seeks out Ismaël to ask that he reconnect with Elias, but he has mixed feelings about adopting her son. Moreover, he has met Arielle, another patient.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: France
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags: touching, sentimental, serious, emotional, clever, realistic, contemplative, talky, gloomy, crying
Similar in 90%
The Taste of Others (2000)
Plot Summary:
Agnès Jaoui co-writes and directs this romantic comedy of manners set in France's rustic Provence. Unpolished and ultra-pragmatic industrialist Jean-Jacques Castella (co-scripter Jean-Pierre Bacri) reluctantly attends Racine's tragedy "Berenice" in order to see his niece play a bit part. He is taken with the play's strangely familiar-looking leading lady Clara Devaux (Anne Alvaro). During the course of the show, Castella soon remembers that he once hired and then promptly fired the actress as an English language tutor. He immediately goes out and signs up for language lessons. Thinking that he is nothing but an ill-tempered philistine with bad taste, Clara rejects him until Castella charms her off her feet.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: France
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: biting, meditative, sincere, touching, art house, clever, witty, talky, powerful, humorous
Similar in 84%
Russian Dolls (2005)
Plot Summary:
Five years after their summer together in Barcelona, Xavier, William, Wendy, Martine and Isabelle reunite.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 21000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: France, UK
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: romantic, sentimental, feel good, humorous, witty, road movie, depressing, epic, clever, realistic
Similar in 89%
Sleeping with Other People (2015)
Plot Summary:
Can two serial cheaters get a second chance at love? After a one-night stand in college, New Yorkers Lainey and Jake meet by chance twelve years later and discover they each have the same problem: because of their monogamy-challenged ways, neither can maintain a relationship. Determined to stay friends despite their mutual attraction, they make a pact to keep it platonic, a deal that proves easier said than done.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 47000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: light, sexy, funny, sex comedy, teen, melancholic, romantic comedy, independent film, humorous, semi serious
Similar in 87%
Violette (2013)
Plot Summary:
Born out of wedlock early in the last century, Violette Leduc meets Simone de Beauvoir in postwar Saint-Germain-des-Près. An intense lifelong relationship develops between the two women authors, based on Violette's quest for freedom through writing and on Simone's conviction that she holds in her hands the destiny of an extraordinary writer.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Biography, Drama, Romance
Country: France, Belgium
Duration: 139 min
Plot tags: captivating, realistic, sincere, serious, psychological, intellectual, heartbreaking, existential, crying, queer cinema