Movies Like The Fan, the Referee and the Footballer
If you loved The Fan, the Referee and the Footballer's Comedy 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

Totòtruffa '62
Antonio, a former variety actor, keeps his daughter in an excellent boarding school by organizing small scams with his friend and colleague Felice. Commissioner Malvasia good-naturedly persecuted him. When their respective unsuspecting children fall in love, the two fathers make peace.

Thunderstruck
After NBA star Kevin Durant switches talent with 16 year old Brian, the teenager becomes the star of his high school team, but Durant starts struggling and eventually learns an important lesson.

Bagnomaria
In Pietrasanta all are excited for the annual party of summer end. Here we find four characters: Merigo, a naive guy passionate of bike; Pierre, son of the mayor; Simone, a pestiferous kid; Mario, lifeguard of "Bagnomaria".

Almost Friends
A man in his mid-20s, still living at home with his mother and stepfather, puts all his eggs in one basket: the girl who works at his local coffee shop. The problem is, she has a serious boyfriend. As they become closer, the line between friendship and intimacy is blurred, and the situation forces both to examine where they are in their lives.

Variety Lights
In Italy, Checco Dal Monte manages a troupe of traveling performers with plenty of heart but minimal talent. At a small town engagement, he encounters the starry-eyed, gorgeous Lily Antonelli, and hires her as a dancer on the show. Vivacious Lily quickly sells out crowds and earns the resentment of Checco's mistress, Melina Amour, but the fledgling performer has far bigger ambitions and soon sets her sights on a higher-profile role.

Much Ado About Nothing
A modern retelling of Shakespeare's classic comedy about two pairs of lovers with different takes on romance and a way with words.

Mike Bassett: England Manager
After England's football (soccer) manager has a heart attack, Mike Bassett is hired as the new manager and promptly announces the team will win the World Cup.

The Champion
Christian is an extremely talented as well as unpredictable football player. After his latest screw-up, the president of his team decides to assign him a personal tutor, to help him in controlling his temper. Valerio is a shy and solitary professor, the exact opposite of the champion. Sparks will fly between the two at first, but soon their relationship will change both for the better.
More Movies Like The Fan, the Referee and the Footballer


Come Home and Meet My Wife
50 year old Giulio and his 17 year old goddaughter, Vincenzina, fall madly in love with each other and soon are wed. Unfortunately for Giulio he walks in on his friend and Vincenzina upon a return from a trip. His jealousy and anger get the best of him and he kicks his wife out of the house. Years pass and Giulio decides to rekindle the love affair with Vincenzina.

Small Apartments
When a clumsy deadbeat accidentally kills his landlord, he must do everything in his power to hide the body, only to find that the distractions of lust, the death of his beloved brother, and a crew of misfit characters force him on a journey where a fortune awaits him.

Little Italy
Former childhood pals Leo and Nikki are attracted to each other as adults—but will their feuding parents' rival pizzerias put a chill on their sizzling romance?

Perfect Strangers
During a dinner, a group of friends decide to share whatever message or phone call they will receive during the evening, with unforeseen consequences.

The Predators
This is the story of two completely opposite households: the Pavone are intellectual and bourgeois, the Vismara are proletarian and fascists. They are two tribes sharing the same jungle: Rome. A trivial accident brings these two poles together. The madness of a 25-year old youth will set them on a collision course, discovering the cards to reveal that everyone has a secret. People are never what they seem – but we are all predators in the end.

L'allenatore nel pallone
Oronzo Canà is called to coach Longobarda, the football team of a small town of Northern Italy, newly promoted to the First Division. His only task is not to be relegated, but Longobarda's owner plots against him, finding the team's current ranking far too expensive, and his top Brazilian striker is affected by a deep saudade.

Somewhere in Queens
Leo and Angela Russo live a simple life in Queens, surrounded by their overbearing Italian-American family. When their son finds success on his high school basketball team, Leo tears the family apart trying to make it happen.

Splendor
Veronica is a white-bread beauty searching for a good man in Los Angeles. While slam dancing at a Halloween rave, she meets Abel, a sensitive poet. Then she meets Zed, a supersexy tattooed drummer with incredible biceps. Who will she choose? Does she go for true love or cheap sex? She can't decide so she chooses both. But after managing to nurture a picture-perfect threesome, along comes Ernest, a rich movie director with deep baby blues that sweep Veronica off her feet. What's a girl to do now?

Landline
A teenager living with her sister and parents in Manhattan during the 1990s discovers that her father is having an affair.

Tickets
A train travels across Italy toward Rome. On board is a professor who daydreams a conversation with a love that never was, a family of Albanian refugees who switch trains and steal a ticket, three brash Scottish soccer fans en route to a match, and a complaining widow traveling to a memorial service for her late husband who's accompanied by a community-service volunteer who's assisting her. Interactions among these Europeans turn on class and nationalism, courtesy and rudeness, and opportunities for kindness.

Rich and Poor
Pozzetto is a rich man obsessed by the idea of becoming poor. So, his psychiatric suggests him to leave home and live just like a poor man for some days. He will then become familiar with this way of living, and fear less the idea of becoming poor. So he does, and his old family & friends soon forget about him. They don't miss him at all.
Why These Movies Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with The Fan, the Referee and the Footballer (1983): Comedy 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 The Fan, the Referee and the Footballer.
See full details for The Fan, the Referee and the Footballer (1983)