NoBadPicks

Movies Like Happiness

If you loved Happiness's Drama storytelling, these films deliver a similar experience — carefully selected for tone, themes, and emotional depth. Each pick includes where to watch it right now.

Top Picks

Misunderstood
6.3

Misunderstood

2014

Rome, 1984, Aria is nine-year-old girl. On the verge of divorce, Aria's infantile and selfish parents are too preoccupied with their careers and extra-marital affairs to properly tend to any of Aria's needs. While her two older sisters are pampered, Aria is treated with cold indifference. Yet she yearns to love and to be loved. At school, Aria excels academically but is considered a misfit by everyone. She is misunderstood. Aria finds comfort in her cat - Dac and in her best friend - Angelica. Thrown out of both parents' homes, abandoned by all, even her best friend, Aria finally reaches the limit of what she can bear. She makes an unexpected decision in her life.

The Sicilian Girl
6.2

The Sicilian Girl

2008

Inspired to a true story, on November 5th 1991, Rita Atria a young 17-year-old Sicilian girl, goes to see an anti-Mafia judge Paolo Borsellino to denounce the Mafia system that was responsible for the murder of her father and her brother. It is the first time that such a young woman from a Mafia family rebels and betrays the Mafia. From that moment on, Rita's days are numbered. She only has nine months to live...

Bastard Out of Carolina
7.1

Bastard Out of Carolina

1996

A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.

Finally Dawn
6.1

Finally Dawn

2024

A young Roman woman during the 1950s is on the verge of becoming engaged to a man. She goes to Cinecittà to do an audition as an extra and is thrust into this almost infinite night during which she discovers herself.

A Daughter
6.4

A Daughter

2025

A middle-aged man, Pietro, becomes a widower and must take care of his daughter. He will never have the time to delve into his own pain, committing himself to raising his daughter with love and dedication, in an all-encompassing relationship in which one heals the other's wounds through his own. When, after a few years, he tries to start a new life with a new partner, not everything will go as hoped: his daughter's reaction will be exaggerated and Pietro will be put to the test. He will find himself struggling between anger and paternal instinct.

Nostalgia
6.8

Nostalgia

2022

Felice returns to his native Rione Sanità in Naples to look after his dying mother, having lived abroad for the last forty years. Here he discovers that his old friend Oreste has become a notorious crimeboss.

Bad Tales
6.7

Bad Tales

2020

In a small suburb on the outskirts of Rome, the cheerful heat of summer camouflages a stifling atmosphere of alienation. From a distance, the families seem normal, but it’s an illusion: in the houses, courtyards and gardens, silence shrouds the subtle sadism of the fathers, the passivity of the mothers and the guilty indifference of adults. But it’s the desperation and repressed rage of the children that will explode and cut through this grotesque façade, with devastating consequences for the entire community.

El Chicano
6.6

El Chicano

2019

A pair of twin brothers from East L.A. choose to live their lives differently and end up on opposite sides of the law.

More Movies Like Happiness

Oedipus Rex
6.8

Oedipus Rex

1967

In pre-war Italy, a young couple have a baby boy. The father, however, is jealous of his son - and the scene moves to antiquity, where the baby is taken into the desert to be killed. He is rescued, given the name Oedipus, and brought up by the King and Queen of Corinth as their son. One day an oracle informs Oedipus that he is destined to kill his father and marry his mother. Horrified, he flees Corinth and his supposed parents - only to get into a fight and kill an older man on the road…

A Question of Faith
7.3

A Question of Faith

2017

When Tragedy Strikes three Families, their Destiny forces them on a coverging path and mercy as the challenges of their fate could also resurrect their beliefs

The Nest
6.1

The Nest

2020

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 surroundings, the family is plunged into the despair of an archaic '80s Britain and their unaffordable new life in an English manor house threatens to destroy the family.

Dormant Beauty
6.3

Dormant Beauty

2012

A mosaic of several intertwined stories questioning the meaning of life, love and hope, set during the last six days in the life of Eluana Englaro, a young woman who spent 17 years in a vegetative state.

Small Body
7.0

Small Body

2022

A young woman in early-1900s Italy searches for a mystical sanctuary where her stillborn child can be brought back to life long enough to be baptized.

Everything's Gonna Be Alright
7.2

Everything's Gonna Be Alright

2020

Bruno Salvati is a director of little success, fresh from the separation from his wife Anna with whom he had two children, the twenty-year-old Adele and the seventeen-year-old Tito. Following a sudden illness, Bruno is diagnosed with a disease that requires the intervention of a donor. All his family relationships are called into question, including that with his father Umberto, the custodian of a secret that will force Bruno to embark on a journey in search of someone who can help him.

Familia
6.9

Familia

2024

Luigi looks after his mother and his little brother since their abusive father Franco left when he was 10. Now a young man brimming with rage, he joins a far-right gang in search of belonging just as Franco shows up again in their life.

The Raffle
6.7

The Raffle

1991

Struggling with a financial crisis, a good-looking widow decides to put herself up for grabs. However, going through with it becomes almost impossible with a new love and the legal system thrown into the mix.

Return
6.4

Return

2011

Back from a tour of duty, Kelli struggles to find her place in her family and the rust-belt town she no longer recognizes.

Kisses
7.1

Kisses

2008

Two kids, Dylan and Kylie, run away from home on Christmas Day and spend a night of magic and terror on the streets of inner-city Dublin.

Skater Girl
7.3

Skater Girl

2021

Prerna, a teenager growing up in rural India, comes of age when she’s introduced to the sport of skateboarding. As a result, she has to fight the odds to follow her dreams and compete in the national championship.

Paternal Leave
6.2

Paternal Leave

2025

Torn between longing and anger, 15-year-old Leo travels to the coast of northern Italy to meet her biological father. The two are complete strangers to each other. They struggle to find truth, affinity, love and the courage to face themselves.

Why These Movies Are Similar

These recommendations share core qualities with Happiness (2023): Drama themes, similar narrative structure, and comparable emotional depth. NoBadPicks uses a combination of TMDB collaborative filtering, genre matching, and AI analysis to surface films most likely to resonate with fans of Happiness.

See full details for Happiness (2023)

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