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Movies that feel like Challengers (2024)

If you loved Challengers, the closest films we have are I Want You (2012), Three Steps Above Heaven (2010) and Past Lives (2023). All three share Challengers' contemplative and romantic feel, which is what we rank on before quality. 8 of the 12 picks below are included with a subscription right now on Netflix, HBO Max and Amazon Prime Video and others, checked against today's data.

Tennis player turned coach Tashi has taken her husband, Art, and transformed him into a world-famous Major champion. To jolt him out of his recent losing streak, she signs him up for a "Challenger" event — close to the lowest level of pro tournament — where he finds himself standing across the net from his former best friend and Tashi's former boyfriend.

🍅 88% Rotten Tomatoes7 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Luca Guadagninocontemplativeromantictenderwarm
Stream it:Prime Video
Rent or buy:Amazon see price ↗Apple TV$3.99 rent · $19.99 buyApple price as of 2026-09-10
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If Challengers hit the spot, these will too

I Want You poster
I Want You
2012 · dir. Fernando González Molina
6.7drama · romance

Both land stillness and romance at once

After two years away, Hache returns to Barcelona seeking a fresh start. Falling for Gin while facing unresolved feelings for Babi, he must confront love, loss, and who he's becoming.

Three Steps Above Heaven poster
Three Steps Above Heaven
2010 · dir. Fernando González Molina
6.8romance · drama

Tender where it counts, warm underneath

Babi, a sheltered upper-class girl, and Hache, a reckless rebel obsessed with illegal motorcycle races, fall into a forbidden love that pulls them deeper into passion and risk.

Past Lives poster
Past Lives
2023 · dir. Celine Song
🍅 95%7.8drama · romance

Common ground: interracial marriage

After decades apart, childhood friends Nora and Hae Sung are reunited in New York for one fateful weekend as they confront notions of destiny, love, and the choices that make a life.

Match Point poster
Match Point
2005 · dir. Woody Allen
🍅 77%7.6drama · romance · thriller

Both are working the same pair: infidelity, love triangle

The difference: Missing the warmth of Challengers

Chris, a former tennis pro, takes a job as an instructor and befriends his wealthy young student, Tom. After being introduced to his family, Chris is soon engaged to Tom's sister, Chloe. Despite the professional and financial advantages that this relationship affords him, Chris becomes obsessed with Tom's fiancee, American actress Nola.

20th Century Girl poster
20th Century Girl
2022 · dir. Bang Woo-ri
🍅 86%7.4romance · drama

Both keep coming back to the same thing: love triangle

In 1999, a teen girl keeps close tabs on a boy in school on behalf of her deeply smitten best friend – then she gets swept up in a love story of her own.

Rachel Getting Married poster
Rachel Getting Married
2008 · dir. Jonathan Demme
🍅 85%6.6drama · romance

The same preoccupation in both: interracial marriage

The difference: Not nearly as warm as Challengers

A young woman who has been in and out from rehab for the past 10 years returns home for the weekend for her sister's wedding.

Talk to Her poster
Talk to Her
2002 · dir. Pedro Almodóvar
🍅 91%7.9drama · romance

Drama with a pulse of stillness, in both cases

The difference: Made in the 2000s, in a different era of the craft

Two men share an odd friendship while they care for two women who are both in deep comas.

Jules and Jim poster
Jules and Jim
1962 · dir. François Truffaut
🍅 94%7.7drama · romance

Both lean on romance more than on romance

In the carefree days before World War I, introverted Austrian author Jules strikes up a friendship with the exuberant Frenchman Jim and both men fall for the impulsive and beautiful Catherine.

45 Years poster
45 Years
2015 · dir. Andrew Haigh
🍅 96%7.1drama · romance

Both are built on the same subject: husband wife relationship

There is just one week until Kate Mercer's 45th wedding anniversary and the planning for the party is going well. But then a letter arrives for her husband. The body of his first love has been discovered, frozen and preserved in the icy glaciers of the Swiss Alps. By the time the party is upon them, five days later, there may not be a marriage left to celebrate.

Wicked poster
Wicked
2024 · dir. Jon M. Chu
🍅 88%7.4drama · romance · fantasy

Drama built on tenderness, twice over

The difference: Sits closer to fantasy than Challengers does

In the land of Oz, ostracized and misunderstood green-skinned Elphaba is forced to share a room with the popular aristocrat Glinda at Shiz University, and the two's unlikely friendship is tested as they begin to fulfill their respective destinies as Glinda the Good and the Wicked Witch of the West.

Free Fall poster
Free Fall
2013 · dir. Stephan Lacant
7.5drama · romance

One thread runs through both: infidelity

A promising career with the police, a baby on the way... Marc's life seems to be right on track. Then he meets fellow policeman Kay and during their regular jogs Marc experiences a never-before-felt sense of ease and effortlessness – and what it means to fall in love with another man.

Purple Hearts poster
Purple Hearts
2022 · dir. Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum
🍅 32%6.7romance · drama

Contemplative romance, and it commits to that

The difference: Critics were much harder on this one

An aspiring musician agrees to a marriage of convenience with a soon-to-deploy Marine, but a tragedy soon turns their fake relationship all too real.

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The best-reviewed films that share Challengers’ defining feeling.