Movies Like Wish You Were Here
If you loved Wish You Were Here's Comedy and 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

Cyrus
With John's social life at a standstill and his ex-wife about to get remarried, a down on his luck divorcée finally meets the woman of his dreams, only to discover she has another man in her life - her son. Before long, the two are locked in a battle of wits for the woman they both love-and it appears only one man can be left standing when it's over.

Vera Drake
Abortionist Vera Drake finds her beliefs and practices clash with the mores of 1950s Britain – a conflict that leads to tragedy for her family.

Summerland
A woman during the Second World War opens her heart to an evacuee after initially resolving to be rid of him.

How I Live Now
An American girl, sent to the English countryside to stay with relatives, finds love and purpose while fighting for her survival as war envelops the world around her.

Peyton Place
In the outwardly respectable New England community of Peyton Place, shopkeeper Constance McKenzie tries to make up for a past indiscretion -- which resulted in her illegitimate daughter Allison -- by adopting a chaste, prudish attitude towards all things sexual. In spite of herself, Constance can't help but be attracted to handsome new teacher Michael Rossi. Meanwhile, the restless Allison, who'd like to be as footloose and fancy-free as the town's "fast girl" Betty Anderson, falls sincerely in love with mixed-up mama's boy Norman Page.

Palindromes
Aviva is thirteen, awkward and sensitive. Her mother Joyce is warm and loving, as is her father, Steve, a regular guy who does have a fierce temper from time to time. The film revolves around her family, friends and neighbors.

Anywhere but Here
Single mother Adele August is bad with money, and even worse when it comes to making decisions. Her straight-laced daughter, Ann, is a successful high school student with Ivy League aspirations. When Adele decides to pack up and move the two of them from the Midwest to Beverly Hills, Calif., to pursue her dreams of Hollywood success, Ann grows frustrated with her mother's irresponsible and impulsive ways.

Delirious
Les, a small-time celebrity photographer desperate to make it big, befriends Toby, a homeless young man with no direction except a vague desire to become an actor. When by chance, Toby becomes romantically involved with K'Harma Leeds, the hottest pop star of the moment, Les grows jealous and plots revenge.
More Movies Like Wish You Were Here

Testament
It is just another day in the small town of Hamlin until something disastrous happens. Suddenly, news breaks that a series of nuclear warheads has been dropped along the Eastern Seaboard and, more locally, in California. As people begin coping with the devastating aftermath of the attacks — many suffer radiation poisoning — the Wetherly family tries to survive.

Submarine
15-year-old deep-thinking Welsh schoolboy Oliver Tate struggles to initiate and maintain a relationship with Jordana, his devilish, dark-haired classmate at their Swansea high school. As his parents' marriage begins to fall apart, similar problems arise in his relationship with Jordana.

He Said, She Said
Womanising, right-wing Dan Hanson and quiet, liberal Lorie Bryer work for the Baltimore Sun. Rivals for the job of new writer of a vacant column, the paper ends up instead printing their very different opinions alongside each other, which leads to a similarly combative local TV show. At the same time their initial indifference to each other looks like it may evolve into something more romantic.

Peace, Love & Misunderstanding
A conservative lawyer named Diane takes her two teenage children Jake and Zoe to meet their estranged, hippie grandmother in Woodstock after her husband asks for a divorce.

Real Women Have Curves
In East Los Angeles, an 18-year-old struggles between her ambitions of going to college and the desires of her domineering mother for her to get married, have children, and oversee the small, rundown family-owned textile factory.

American Pastoral
Set in postwar America, a man watches his seemingly perfect life fall apart as his daughter's new political affiliation threatens to destroy their family.

Blinded by the Light
In 1987, during the austere days of Thatcher’s Britain, a teenager learns to live life, understand his family, and find his own voice through the music of Bruce Springsteen.

What a Girl Wants
An American girl, Daphne, heads to Europe in search of the father she's never met. But instead of finding a British version of her bohemian mother, she learns the love of her mom's life is an uptight politician. The only problem now is that her long-lost dad is engaged to a fiercely territorial social climber with a daughter who makes Daphne's life miserable.

Laggies
Overeducated and underemployed, 28 year old Megan is in the throes of a quarterlife crisis. Squarely into adulthood with no career prospects, no particular motivation to think about her future and no one to relate to, Megan is comfortable lagging a few steps behind - while her friends check off milestones and celebrate their new grown-up status. When her high-school sweetheart proposes, Megan panics and- given an unexpected opportunity to escape for a week - hides out in the home of her new friend, 16-year old Annika and Annika's world-weary single dad Craig.

Summer of '42
Over the summer of 1942 on Nantucket Island, three friends -- Hermie, Oscy and Benjie -- are more concerned with getting laid than anything else. Hermie falls in love with the married Dorothy, whose husband is an army pilot recently sent to the battlefront of World War II.

Breezy
A free-spirited young woman, Breezy, hitches a ride with an aging real estate salesman, Frank. Sensing that she just wants to use him he tries to have nothing to do with her. She's not that easy to shake, however, and over time a bond forms between them.

Love Everlasting
Bridger is a young outsider who's always wanted more. He and his mother flee an abusive home, eventually finding a small town in the middle of nowhere. Once there, Bridger finds true acceptance with another misfit.
Why These Movies Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with Wish You Were Here (1987): Comedy and 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 Wish You Were Here.
See full details for Wish You Were Here (1987)