Movies Like Carnal Knowledge
If you loved Carnal Knowledge's Drama and Romance 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

Friends with Kids
In the wake of their friends' marriages and eventual offspring, longtime pals Julie and Jason decide to have a child together without becoming a couple. By becoming "time-share" parents, they reason, they can experience the joys of parenthood without significantly curbing their personal freedom. However, when Julie and Jason both become involved with others, they discover that they secretly harbor romantic feelings for each other.

Hello, My Name Is Doris
A self-help seminar inspires a sixty-something woman to romantically pursue her younger co-worker.

St. Elmo's Fire
Reluctant to let go of college life, a close-knit team of seven friends--irresponsible saxophone player Billy, young Republican Alec, his girlfriend Leslie, struggling journalist Kevin, drama queen Jules, lovesick waiter Kirby, and Wendy, a social worker with a heart of gold--realise the party is over. And as the burdens of maturity close in on the young dreamers, the complexities of adulthood and the daily struggle of growing up put their sacred friendship to the test. But everyone knows life is not a bed of roses. It won't be easy, but when all is said and done, what will it take for St. Elmo's clique to find its place in the real world?

Sleeping with Other People
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.

Romance & Cigarettes
Ironworker Nick lives with his wife, Kitty, and three daughters. When he meets a significantly younger woman, Tula, he starts an affair with her, much to the chagrin of his wife, and his life is thrown into upheaval. Kitty kicks Nick out of the house, and he is forced to make some difficult decisions.

Good Dick
A fidgety, wisecracking video store clerk develops a fixation on a particularly reclusive customer, a frequent visitor to the pornography section of Cinefile, the video store where he works in Los Angeles. After multiple failures to impress her during their brief daily transactions, he finds her street address in the store's database, drives to her apartment building and initiates an unconventional campaign to win her affections.

Unfaithful
A New York suburban couple's marriage goes dangerously awry when the wife indulges in an adulterous fling.

Threesome
At a sizable public college, high-minded student Eddy is forced to room with the slovenly Stuart, but the pair strike up a surprising friendship. When attractive co-ed Alex is assigned to live with the two male students because of her gender-neutral name, a roundabout love triangle ensues. Eddy secretly yearns for Stuart, who wants Alex, but she prefers Eddy. The complex situation leads to sexual experimentation and strained relationships.
More Movies Like Carnal Knowledge

Alfie
A tale of a philosophical womanizer who is forced to question his seemingly carefree existence.

The Little Death
A comedy film that looks into the loosely connected lives of people with strange sexual fantasies.

Manhattan
Manhattan explores how the life of a middle-aged television writer dating a teenage girl is further complicated when he falls in love with his best friend's mistress.

Tootsie
When struggling, out of work actor Michael Dorsey secretly adopts a female alter ego – Dorothy Michaels – in order to land a part in a daytime drama, he unwittingly becomes a feminist icon and ends up in a romantic pickle.

Circle of Friends
Three girlhood friends now at college share first loves, first kisses and first betrayals. At the center of it all is the best-looking boy on campus. Can a self-conscious dreamer hook the biggest fish in the pond?

XX/XY
Three friends begin a dangerous three-way relationship that spirals out of control, leading to dire consequences that haunt them ten years later.

Someone Great
An aspiring music journalist lands her dream job and is about to move to San Francisco when her boyfriend of nine years decides to call it quits. To nurse her broken heart, she and her two best friends spend one outrageous last adventure in New York City.

(Untitled)
A fashionable contemporary art gallerist in Chelsea, New York falls for a brooding new music composer in this comic satire of the state of contemporary art.

An Unmarried Woman
A wealthy woman from Manhattan's Upper East Side struggles to deal with her new identity and her sexuality after her husband of 16 years leaves her for a younger woman.

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

Class
Naive Midwestern prep student Jonathan bonds with his more worldly roommate, Skip, who takes the small-town boy under his wing. At Skip's urging, the inexperienced Jonathan is emboldened to seek out older women in the cocktail lounges of nearby Chicago, where he meets and beds the alluring Ellen, who unfortunately turns out to be Skip's mother. The division between the friends is further deepened when a cheating scandal engulfs the school.

Appropriate Behavior
Shirin is struggling to become an ideal Persian daughter, politically correct bisexual and hip young Brooklynite but fails miserably in her attempt at all identities.
Why These Movies Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with Carnal Knowledge (1971): Drama and Romance 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 Carnal Knowledge.
See full details for Carnal Knowledge (1971)