feelsalike.com

Movies that feel like Summer Wars (2009)

If you loved Summer Wars, the closest films we have are The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006), Paprika (2006) and Ghost in the Shell (1995). All three share Summer Wars's whimsical and cerebral feel, which is what we rank on before quality. 10 of the 12 picks below are included with a subscription right now on HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max and Sony Pictures Core Amazon Channel and others, checked against today's data.

Teenage math whiz Kenji Koiso agrees to take a summer job at the Nagano hometown of his crush, Natsuki. When he arrives, he finds that her family have reunited to celebrate the 90th birthday of their matriarch. His job: pretend to be Natsuki's fiancé. Meanwhile, his attempt to solve a mathematical equation causes a parallel world's collision with Earth.

🍅 81% Rotten Tomatoes7.4 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Mamoru Hosodawhimsicalcerebral
Stream it:HBO Max

When is Summer Wars streaming? →

If Summer Wars hit the spot, these will too

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time poster
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
2006 · dir. Mamoru Hosoda
🍅 87%7.6fantasy · animation · drama

Both are Mamoru Hosoda films, and they rhyme

The difference: Leans fantasy where Summer Wars does not

When 17-year-old Makoto Konno gains the ability to 'leap' backwards through time, she immediately sets about improving her grades and preventing personal mishaps. However, she soon realises that changing the past isn't as simple as it seems, and eventually, will have to rely on her new powers to shape the future of herself and her friends.

Feels alike?
Paprika poster
Paprika
2006 · dir. Satoshi Kon
🍅 87%7.7animation · science fiction · thriller

Adult animation and anime, at the center of both

The difference: Plays it as thriller more than Summer Wars does

Dr. Atsuko Chiba is a research psychologist who uses a device called the DC Mini to enter her patients' dreams, wherein she adopts the alter-ego "Paprika". When the device is stolen, she must stop rogue elements from merging the dream and waking worlds.

Feels alike?
Ghost in the Shell poster
Ghost in the Shell
1995 · dir. Mamoru Oshii
🍅 95%7.9action · animation · science fiction

Both keep circling back to artificial intelligence

In the year 2029, the barriers of our world have been broken down by the net and by cybernetics, but this brings new vulnerability to humans in the form of brain-hacking. When a highly-wanted hacker known as 'The Puppetmaster' begins involving them in politics, Section 9, a group of cybernetically enhanced cops, are called in to investigate and stop the Puppetmaster.

Feels alike?
Fantastic Planet poster
Fantastic Planet
1973 · dir. René Laloux
🍅 91%7.7animation · science fiction

Both built around adult animation

The difference: 36 years apart, and the 1970s show

On the planet Ygam, the Draags, extremely technologically and spiritually advanced blue humanoids, consider the tiny Oms, human beings descendants of Terra's inhabitants, as ignorant animals. Those who live in slavery are treated as simple pets and used to entertain Draag children; those who live hidden in the hostile wilderness of the planet are periodically hunted and ruthlessly slaughtered as if they were vermin.

Feels alike?
Akira poster
Akira
1988 · dir. Katsuhiro Otomo
🍅 91%8animation · science fiction · action

The same mix in both: whimsy, then ideas

A secret military project endangers Neo-Tokyo when it turns a biker gang member into a rampaging psychic psychopath that only two teenagers and a group of psychics can stop.

Feels alike?
Dragon Ball Z: The Tree of Might poster
Dragon Ball Z: The Tree of Might
1990 · dir. Daisuke Nishio
6.8action · animation · science fiction

Anime is the engine of both

Goku and friends must stop a band of space pirates from consuming fruit from the Tree of Might before it's destructive powers drain Earth's energy.

Feels alike?
WALL·E poster
WALL·E
2008 · dir. Andrew Stanton
🍅 95%8.4animation · family · science fiction

Whimsical animation in both cases

After hundreds of years doing what he was built for, WALL•E— a robot designed to clean up the earth—discovers a new purpose in life when he meets a sleek search robot named EVE. EVE comes to realize that WALL•E has inadvertently stumbled upon the key to the planet's future, and races back to space to report to the humans. Meanwhile, WALL•E chases EVE across the galaxy and sets into motion one of the most imaginative adventures ever brought to the big screen.

Feels alike?
Monsters vs Aliens poster
Monsters vs Aliens
2009 · dir. Rob Letterman
🍅 73%6.4animation · family · adventure

Science fiction built on ideas, twice over

When Susan Murphy is unwittingly clobbered by a meteor full of outer space gunk on her wedding day, she mysteriously grows to 49-feet-11-inches. The military jumps into action and captures Susan, secreting her away to a covert government compound. She is renamed Ginormica and placed in confinement with a ragtag group of Monsters...

Feels alike?
Batman: Knightfall Part 1: Knightfall poster
Batman: Knightfall Part 1: Knightfall
2026 · dir. Jeff Wamester
8.8animation · action · adventure

Whimsical animation, and it commits to that

Arkham Asylum has been destroyed, and all its inmates have been unleashed upon Gotham City. As Batman races to round up some of his greatest enemies, he is pushed to his physical and mental limits and into a final confrontation with a new threat: the man called Bane!

Feels alike?
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse poster
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
2018 · dir. Bob Persichetti
🍅 97%8.4animation · action · adventure

Science fiction with a pulse of ideas, in both cases

Struggling to find his place in the world while juggling school and family, Brooklyn teenager Miles Morales is unexpectedly bitten by a radioactive spider and develops unfathomable powers just like the one and only Spider-Man. While wrestling with the implications of his new abilities, Miles discovers a super collider created by the madman Wilson "Kingpin" Fisk, causing others from across the Spider-Verse to be inadvertently transported to his dimension.

Feels alike?
Atlantis: The Lost Empire poster
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
2001 · dir. Gary Trousdale
🍅 48%6.9animation · family · adventure

Both are animation through and through

The difference: Reviewed a good deal more coolly

A young linguist named Milo Thatch joins an intrepid group of explorers to find the mysterious lost continent of Atlantis.

Feels alike?
Despicable Me 2 poster
Despicable Me 2
2013 · dir. Chris Renaud
🍅 75%7.3animation · comedy · family

Cut from the same science fiction cloth

Gru is recruited by the Anti-Villain League to help deal with a powerful new super criminal.

Feels alike?

In the mood for more whimsical?

all whimsical movies →

The best-reviewed films that share Summer Wars's defining feeling.