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Movies Like Happening

Fans of Happening, will enjoy these picks that questions the purpose and weight of our choices while delivering targets the intellect with complex, multi-layered ideas. Carefully balances character depth with narrative flow makes this a deeper look into what makes these stories stick.

Mood Breakdown
Runtime Cluster

Standard feature-length experiences.

Viewer Fit

Best for fans of who appreciate concise storytelling.

Top Picks

Call Jane
6.5

Call Jane

2022

A married woman with an unwanted pregnancy lives in a time in America where she can't get a legal abortion and works with a group of suburban women to find help.

Angry Annie
7.6

Angry Annie

2022

Annie becomes pregnant. Since she doesn't want to keep the child, she meets a movement that performs illegal abortions. But, in the seventies, Annie will encounter allies and opponents along the way.

If These Walls Could Talk
6.6

If These Walls Could Talk

1996

A powerful, intimate portrait of three women living in the same house during different eras who all face unplanned pregnancies. The vignettes follow a recently widowed nurse struggling to take control of her life in the early 50s, a mother of four balancing raising a family and maintaining a career in the 70s, and a student making a difficult decision with the help of one woman that will change the course of both their lives in the 90s.

Story of Women
7.3

Story of Women

1988

France, World War II. In order to somehow make ends meet, the mother of two children, Marie Latour, does underground abortions and rents a room to a familiar prostitute. She doesn't pay any attention to her husband, who returned from the war because of his injury, and lives her own life. Abortions gradually begin to bring a good income, and boredom can be easily dispelled by starting up with a young lover.

Vera Drake
7.2

Vera Drake

2004

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

Joy
6.8

Joy

2024

A young nurse, a visionary scientist and an innovative surgeon face opposition from the church, state, media and medical establishment, in their pursuit of the world’s first ‘test tube baby’, Louise Joy Brown.

Sofia
6.2

Sofia

2018

Sofia, 20, lives with her parents in Casablanca. Suffering from pregnancy denial, she finds herself breaking the law by giving birth to a baby out of wedlock. The hospital gives her 24 hours to provide the father's papers before informing the authorities…

The Public Woman
6.0

The Public Woman

1984

An inexperienced young actress is invited to play a role in a film based on Dostoyevsky's 'The Possessed'. The film director, a Czech immigrant in Paris, takes over her life, and in a short time she is unable to draw the line between acting and reality. She winds up playing a real-life role posing as the dead wife of another Czech immigrant, who is manipulated by the filmmaker into commiting a political assassination.

More Movies Like Happening

My Little Princess
6.5

My Little Princess

2011

Young Violetta and her mother Hannah are a peculiar couple. Ten-year-old Violetta lives a quiet life with her grandmother, while her mother Hannah is an unpredictable photographer who lives off of the generosity of others. When Hannah forces her daughter to pose as a model, Violetta finds her life with her loving grandmother turned upside down.The resulting pictures quickly become a sensation for the trendy 70's Paris art scene, and Violetta finds herself caught in between her new stature as an art muse and her dull childhood.

Charlotte Gray
6.1

Charlotte Gray

2001

This is a drama set in Nazi-occupied France at the height of World War II. Charlotte Gray tells the compelling story of a young Scottish woman working with the French Resistance in the hope of rescuing her lover, a missing RAF pilot. Based on the best-selling novel by Sebastian Faulks.

The Safety of Objects
6.4

The Safety of Objects

2002

In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.

Unplanned
6.9

Unplanned

2019

As one of the youngest Planned Parenthood clinic directors in the nation, Abby Johnson was involved in upwards of 22,000 abortions and counseled countless women on their reproductive choices. Her passion surrounding a woman's right to choose led her to become a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood, fighting to enact legislation for the cause she so deeply believed in. Until the day she saw something that changed everything.

Declaration of War
7.1

Declaration of War

2011

Roméo and Juliette are two young actors. They fall in love at first sight, move in together and make a baby. A love story and the founding of a home like millions of others. Except that their little boy, Adam, behaves abnormally. The young parents try hard to persuade themselves that everything is okay but, with the passing of time, they cannot delude themselves anymore: their son has a problem. From now on, war is declared. A war against illness. A war against Death. A war against despair.

Riding in Cars with Boys
6.7

Riding in Cars with Boys

2001

In 1965, a young woman with dreams of becoming a writer has a son at the age of 15 and struggles to make things work with the drug-addicted father.

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.

Origin
6.4

Origin

2023

While investigating the global phenomenon of caste and its dark influence on society, a journalist faces unfathomable personal loss and uncovers the beauty of human resilience.

Holy Lands
6.1

Holy Lands

2019

When lapsed Jew and former cardiologist Harry suddenly decides to spend his retirement as a pig farmer in Nazareth, Israel, the move deeply shocks his family and his new neighbours. Back in New York, Harry’s ex-wife Monica is trying to manage the lives of their adult children, Annabelle and David, as well as her own.

Saint Omer
6.2

Saint Omer

2022

A novelist attends the trial of a woman accused of killing her 15-month-old daughter by abandoning her to the rising tide on a beach in northern France. But as the trial continues, her own family history, doubts, and fears about motherhood are steadily dislodged as the life story of the accused is gradually revealed.

Love
6.4

Love

2015

Murphy is an American living in Paris who enters a highly sexually and emotionally charged relationship with the unstable Electra. Unaware of the seismic effect it will have on their relationship, they invite their pretty neighbor into their bed.

Chaos
6.3

Chaos

2001

A bourgeois couple, modern yet conventional. One night by accident, a young prostitute barges into their lives. Hounded down, beaten up, threatened, she will continue to struggle, with the help of a well off lady, first for her survival-her resurrection-then for her dignity and freedom. Stormy encounters for everyone involved.

Why These Movies Are Similar

These recommendations share core qualities with Happening (2021): 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 Happening.

See full details for Happening (2021)

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