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Movies that feel like 21 Grams (2003)

If you loved 21 Grams, the closest films we have are Babel (2006), Tell No One (2006) and Frailty (2002). All three share 21 Grams' contemplative and melancholy feel, which is what we rank on before quality. 11 of the 12 picks below are included with a subscription right now on HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video and Paramount Plus Premium and others, checked against today's data.

Paul Rivers, an ailing mathematician lovelessly married to an English émigré; Christina Peck, an upper-middle-class suburban housewife and mother of two girls; and Jack Jordan, a born-again ex-con, are brought together by a terrible accident that changes their lives.

🍅 80% Rotten Tomatoes7.6 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Alejandro G. Iñárritucontemplativegrittytensemelancholyromantic

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If 21 Grams hit the spot, these will too

Babel poster
Babel
2006 · dir. Alejandro G. Iñárritu
🍅 68%7.5drama

Alejandro G. Iñárritu working the same nerve twice

The difference: None of the grit 21 Grams is built on

Tragedy strikes a married couple vacationing in the Moroccan desert, which jumpstarts an interlocking story involving four different families.

Feels alike?
Tell No One poster
Tell No One
2006 · dir. Guillaume Canet
🍅 93%7.5drama · thriller · crime

Both are working the same pair: grief, sadness

The difference: Sits closer to mystery than 21 Grams does

A man receives a mysterious email appearing to be from his wife, who was murdered years earlier. As he frantically tries to find out whether she's alive, he finds himself being implicated in her death.

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Frailty poster
Frailty
2002 · dir. Bill Paxton
🍅 76%7.2drama · thriller · crime

The same preoccupation in both: grief

A mysterious man arrives at the offices of an FBI agent and recounts his childhood: how his religious fanatic father received visions telling him to kill people who were in fact "demons."

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Thief poster
Thief
1981 · dir. Michael Mann
🍅 80%7.4crime · thriller · drama

Contemplative and gritty in the same breath

The difference: Made in the 1980s, in a different era of the craft

Frank is an expert professional safecracker, specialized in high-profile diamond heists. He plans to use his ill-gotten income to retire from crime and build a nice life for himself complete with a home, wife and kids. To accelerate the process, he signs on with a top gangster for a big score.

Feels alike?
Amores Perros poster
Amores Perros
2000 · dir. Alejandro G. Iñárritu
🍅 93%8drama · thriller

Both are Alejandro G. Iñárritu's work, and they rhyme

The difference: Missing the grit of 21 Grams

A fatalistic car crash in Mexico city sets off a chain of events in the lives of three people: a supermodel, a young man wanting to run off with his sister-in-law, and a homeless man.

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Magnolia poster
Magnolia
1999 · dir. Paul Thomas Anderson
🍅 82%8drama

One thread runs through both: suicide attempt

On one random day in the San Fernando Valley, a dying father, a young wife, a male caretaker, a famous lost son, a police officer in love, a boy genius, an ex-boy genius, a game show host and an estranged daughter will each become part of a dazzling multiplicity of plots, but one story.

Feels alike?
Mystic River poster
Mystic River
2003 · dir. Clint Eastwood
🍅 89%7.9thriller · drama · mystery

The same mix in both: tension, then melancholy

The lives of three men who were childhood friends are shattered when one of them suffers a family tragedy.

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Lethal Weapon 2 poster
Lethal Weapon 2
1989 · dir. Richard Donner
🍅 82%7.3action · thriller · crime

Crime with a pulse of romance, in both cases

Riggs and Murtaugh are on the trail of South African diplomats using their immunity to engage in criminal activities.

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Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father poster
🍅 94%8.5documentary · crime

Both lean on grit more than on drama

In 2001, Andrew Bagby, a medical resident, is murdered not long after breaking up with his girlfriend. Soon after, when she announces she's pregnant, one of Andrew's many close friends, Kurt Kuenne, begins this film, a gift to the child.

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Open Your Eyes poster
Open Your Eyes
1997 · dir. Alejandro Amenábar
🍅 87%7.7drama · thriller · science fiction

Both keep coming back to the same thing: car crash

Handsome 25-year-old Cesar had it all -- a successful career, expensive cars, a swank bachelor's pad, and an endless string of beautiful and willing women -- until he is thrown into a strange psychological mystery after a car accident scars his face and lands him in prison.

Feels alike?
Lantana poster
Lantana
2001 · dir. Ray Lawrence
🍅 90%7.2crime · drama · mystery

Contemplative thriller in both cases

Plagued with grief over the murder of her daughter, Valerie Somers suspects that her husband John is cheating on her. When Valerie disappears, Detective Leon Zat attempts to solve the mystery of her absence. A complex web of love, sex and deceit emerges -- drawing in four related couples whose various partners are distrustful and suspicious about each other's involvement.

Feels alike?
Nobody Knows poster
Nobody Knows
2004 · dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda
🍅 92%8drama

Drama built on melancholy, twice over

In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.

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The best-reviewed films that share 21 Grams’ defining feeling.