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Movies like Happiness

Key Features:
Suburban life, Dysfunctional family, Infidelity, Sexual abuse, Existential crisis, Dark comedy, Satire, Moral decay, Nudity-high, Violence-moderate, Hardship, Desperation
Tone:
cynical, serious, gritty
Target Audience:
Fans of dark comedies, Viewers interested in social commentary, Those who appreciate unconventional narratives, Audiences seeking thought-provoking films
Emotional Arc:
Contentment → Disillusionment → Despair

Happiness

1965-02-10
Happiness Poster - Find Similar Movies

A young husband and father, perfectly content with his life, falls in love with another woman.

Genres
Drama, Romance
Cast
Jean-Claude Drouot, Claire Drouot, Olivier Drouot, Sandrine Drouot, Marie-France Boyer, Marcelle Faure-Bertin, Manon Lanclos, Sylvia Saurel, Marc Eyraud, Christian Riehl
Crew
Agnès Varda, Agnès Varda
Rating
7.412(279 votes)
HappinessHappiness
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Sitcom
Sitcom(1998)
6.38

The adventures of an upper-class suburban family abruptly confronted with the younger brother's discovery of his homosexuality, the elder sister's suicide attempt and sadomasochist tendencies, and the intrusion of a very free-spirited maid and her husband. And it all started with the arrival in the family of an innocent looking rat.



Happiness
Happiness(1998)
7.4

The lives of several individuals intertwine as they go about their lives in their own unique ways, engaging in acts which society as a whole might find disturbing in a desperate search for human connection.



Joint Custody
5.738

A wife finds out her husband has a mistress. She decides to propose her to share her life with her husband, alternating every two weeks.



Happily Ever After
5.817

Is love compatible with coupledom? And what of freedom and fidelity? These are some of the questions facing two married men.



Romance
Romance(1999)
5.451

Frustrated by the lack of intimacy in her relationship, a young schoolteacher goes through a series of intimidating and often violent sexual partners.



Happy, Happy
5.779

A perfect housewife, who just happens to be sex-starved, struggles to keep her emotions in check when an attractive family moves in next door.



Very Happy Alexander

Alexandre, a young and honest farmer, is oppressed by an authoritarian wife, who makes him work like a dog. When she dies in a car crash, he decides to stay in bed, absolutely free and inactive. Just a dog is occupied to carry food and newspapers to him.



Happy End
Happy End(2017)
6.168

A well-to-do French family living in Calais deal with a series of setbacks and crises while paying little attention to the grim conditions in the refugee camps within a few miles of their home.



France
France(2021)
5.213

A celebrity journalist, juggling her busy career and personal life, has her life over-turned by a freak car accident.



Ken Park
Ken Park(2003)
6.012

Ken Park focuses on several teenagers and their tormented home lives. Shawn seems to be the most conventional. Tate is brimming with psychotic rage; Claude is habitually harassed by his brutish father and coddled, rather uncomfortably, by his enormously pregnant mother. Peaches looks after her devoutly religious father, but yearns for freedom. They're all rather tight, or so they claim.



Jealous
Jealous(2017)
5.9

A divorced teacher suddenly becomes jealous of everyone, including her daughter, friends and neighbors.



Dad Friend
5.558

Stéphane defers his frustration at not having had a son on his sons-in-law. So when her younger daughter decides to leave a rugby player than the idolatrous father for a doctor he can not stand, he will do everything to get his son-in-law back. His daughter will not let it go.



Feelings
Feelings(2003)
5.9

Two seemingly happily married French couples are forced to contend with a number of issues.



Happy End
Happy End(1999)
6.572

When a wife becomes the breadwinner of her family after her husband loses his job, adultery becomes part of her life.



Loulou
Loulou(1980)
6.197

A bored wife leaves her husband for an unemployed, petty criminal.



Sexual Chronicles of a French Family

Three generations of a French family open up about their sexual experiences and desires after young Romain is caught masturbating in his biology class.



White Wedding
6.5

A philosophy professor has an illicit affair with one of his students, a bright yet troubled girl who lives alone.



Buffet Froid
7.057

Alphonse Tram is unwittingly involved in several murders despite having no memory of committing the crimes. His confusion lead him to confess to his neighbour, Inspector Morvandieu. Alphonse and Morvandieu become the axis around which murders occur.



Get Out Your Handkerchiefs

Solange is seriously depressed, and her kindhearted husband, Raoul, makes it his mission to cure her doldrums. After many failed attempts to cheer her up, Raoul hits upon a possible solution: find his wife a lover. Unfortunately, his choice, Stéphane, proves to be just as ineffectual in restoring her flagging spirits. In the end, the gorgeous Solange finds her own, highly problematic tonic to her troubles in the form of a 13-year-old boy.



School Life
6.892

In one of the poorest areas of Paris, a school counselor devotes herself to working with disadvantaged students, while facing challenges of her own.



Life During Wartime

Friends, family, and lovers struggle to find love, forgiveness, and meaning in an almost war-torn world riddled with comedy and pathos.



Comedy of Power
6.2

Magistrate Jeanne Charmant-Killman doggedly investigates CEO Michel Humeau, who is accused of participating in massive corporate malfeasance. As her investigation leads her into the upper echelons of government, Jeanne becomes intoxicated by the power she is amassing.



A Simple Story
5.9

A middle-aged woman leaves her partner and drifts back to her ex-husband, while the lives of her middle class friends intersect with her own.



In Paris
In Paris(2006)
6

After a love affair ends badly, a young Parisian named Paul sinks into the same kind of deep depression that led his sister to kill herself. He moves back home with his father and aimless brother Jonathan but refuses to get out of bed.



French Twist
6.1

After learning of her husband's infidelities, a housewife invites an itinerant lesbian to move in with them. None of their lives will ever be the same again.



The Lovers
6.6

A shallow, provincial wife finds her relationship with her preoccupied husband strained by romantic notions, leading her further towards Paris and the country wilderness.



SubUrbia
SubUrbia(1997)
6.2

A group of suburban teenagers try to support each other through the difficult task of becoming adults.



Betty
Betty(1992)
6.5

A drunken, self-destructive woman called Betty wanders into a Parisian bar where she meets middle-aged alcoholic Laure. Laure decides to take care of Betty. Recovering in a hotel room, Betty begins to recount to Laure the story of her bourgeois life and her unhappy and unfaithful marriage.



Fantasies
Fantasies(2021)
5.1

Faced with their fantasies, six couples try to explore the hidden sides of their intimate life. Six questions on access to pleasure. From role play to abstinence, via exhibition, six separate stories with the same questioning of desire today in the center.



Happiness Never Comes Alone

Sacha is a real seducer, a man with no ties or emotional or professional. Charlotte is a modern and independent woman, but barely has time to care for their three children. While Sacha and Charlotte are, at first glance, two incompatible beings, when they meet soon discover that they are quite complementary and need each other.



Weekend
Weekend(1967)
6.884

A supposedly idyllic weekend trip to the countryside turns into a never-ending nightmare of traffic jams, revolution, cannibalism and murder as French bourgeois society starts to collapse under the weight of its own consumer preoccupations.



A Crime in Paradise
6.606

In the 1980 French countryside, farmer Jojo and his ill-tempered wife Lulu hate each other, though their respective interests speak against divorce. The only thing that keeps the oppressed Jojo from murder is the threat of the guillotine...



La Pointe Courte
6.913

A penetrating study of a marriage on the rocks, set against the backdrop of a small Mediterranean fishing village. Both a stylized depiction of the complicated relationship between a married couple and a documentary-like look at the daily struggles of the inhabitants of Sète in the South of France.



Wiener-Dog
5.6

A dachshund passes from oddball owner to oddball owner, whose radically dysfunctional lives are all impacted by the pooch.



Vincent, Francois, Paul and the Others

Three friends navigate mid-life crises: a blocked writer, a disillusioned doctor, and a charming man facing bankruptcy and divorce. As their struggles strain friendships, a younger man captures the attention of one friend's wife, complicating their lives further.



So Happy Together
6.5

Famille : Groupe de personnes réunies par des liens de parenté et un fort sentiment de solidarité morale et matérielle. Quand Alain a épousé Nathalie, il ne savait pas qu'il épouserait aussi sa famille. Ce samedi, comme toutes les semaines, ils sont invités à dîner chez son beau-frère, Jean-Pierre à Créteil. C'est vrai, Alain en a marre de ces dîners familiaux, mais il ne sait pas encore ce qui l'attend véritablement ce soir-là... Ni les jours qui suivent



A Gun in Each Hand
5.976

J. is depressed. E. lives peacefully. S. tries to get back with his wife. G. resorts to anxiolytics. P. plays seduction games. María and Sara exchange their husbands. L. calls his lover in a peculiar way.



Bed and Board
7.1

Parisian everyman Antoine Doinel has married his sweetheart Christine Darbon, and the newlyweds have set up a cozy domestic life of selling flowers and giving violin lessons while Antoine fitfully works on his long-gestating novel. As Christine becomes pregnant with the couple's first child, Antoine finds himself enraptured with a young Japanese beauty. The complications change the course of their relationship forever.



Love in the Afternoon
7.245

Frederic leads a bourgeois life; he is a partner in a small Paris office and is happily married to Helene, a teacher expecting her second child. In the afternoons, Frederic daydreams about other women, but has no intention of taking any action. One day, Chloe, who had been a mistress of an old friend, begins dropping by his office. They meet as friends, irregularly in the afternoons, till eventually Chloe decides to seduce Frederic, causing him a moral dilemma.



Paulette
Paulette(2012)
6.459

Paulette lives alone in a housing project in the Paris suburbs. With her meager pension, she can no longer make ends meet.



Home
Home(2008)
6.86

Along with her husband and three children, Marthe lives in an eden of her own creation, nearly isolated from the rest of the world. The arrival of a construction vehicle, however, pierces their tranquil, hermetic existence—before long a disused highway has been re-opened, and the family finds their home situated in the midst of rush-hour traffic. While the privileges of clean air, quietude and privacy are thus denied them, Marthe remains determined to stay no matter the cost.



Happiness Is in the Field

Francis, the boss of a small plumbing supply company, is harassed by tax collectors, striking employees, and an impossible wife and daughter. His only joy is sharing lunch with his friend Gerard. Then a TV show called "where are you?" shows a woman from Gers who is searching for her husband who disappeared 28 years ago. The lost husband looks like an identical twin of Francis...



Jealousy
Jealousy(2013)
6.036

The professional and emotional cross-currents between two romantically entwined theater actors played by the director’s son Louis and Anna Mouglalis.



Maybe More
5.767

After 25 years together, married life has taken its toll on Xavier and Sophie, so when Sophie decides to invite their neighbours over for dinner, Xavier is less than enthusiastic to say the least! He can’t stand how obviously still in love they are and their lack of discretion… especially at night! On coming face-to-face with the uninhibited couple, Xavier and Sophie will be forced to confront their own, sad reality, before finding themselves pushed into a corner by a somewhat… indecent proposal.



Sex, Love & Therapy

Lambert, a recovering sex addict, tries to redeem himself by becoming a marriage counsellor. He stays abstinent for several months, but his alluring assistant's unbridled sexuality tests his resolve.



Pauline at the Beach

Marion is about to divorce from her husband and takes her 15-year-old niece, Pauline, on a vacation to Granville. There, she meets an old love...



French Women
5.757

A story about 11 girls living in Paris. Each of them has its own problems: career, love life, children. Every girl has their complexes and virtues. They always look elegant, hiding their inner feelings. Will they reach all the goals and overcome all their difficulties?



May Fools
May Fools(1990)
6.8

During the events of May 1968 in France, different worldviews of conflicting relatives collide in their family estate.



The Merry Widow
4.9

Anne-Marie lives an easy life with Gilbert, a rich plastic surgeon: a beautiful house, a doggy, a cleaning lady, expensive furniture, the lot. Not so easy in fact when she thinks twice. She does not get on with her husband any longer. She gets on his nerves and he does not attract her any longer. She feels good only when she jogs on the beach and ... when she is the arms of her lover, Leo. One day, Gilbert gets killed in a car accident. Good news, since she will be able to live with Leo. The trouble is her well-meaning family settle at her villa with a view to supporting the "poor widow" morally. Anne-Marie just cannot admit she is not distressed at all, especially to her son Christophe. She is now even more of a prisoner than when Gilbert was alive...



Cosmos
Cosmos(2015)
6.6

Two young men seek the solitude of the country; their peace is disturbed when a set of random occurrences suggest to their susceptible minds a pattern with sinister meanings.



In a Better World
7.1

The lives of two Danish families cross each other, and an extraordinary but risky friendship comes into bud. But loneliness, frailty and sorrow lie in wait.



Mon Oncle
Mon Oncle(1958)
7.4

Genial, bumbling Monsieur Hulot loves his top-floor apartment in a grimy corner of the city, and cannot fathom why his sister's family has moved to the suburbs. Their house is an ultra-modern nightmare, which Hulot only visits for the sake of stealing away his rambunctious young nephew. Hulot's sister, however, wants to win him over to her new way of life, and conspires to set him up with a wife and job.



Relationship Status: It's Complicated

Thirty-year-old Ben is about to marry Juliette. His quiet, ordered life will fall to pieces when he meets up again with the person he secretly wants to see the most: Vanessa, the high school bombshell who never so much as looked in his direction. She's back in Paris, and the only person she now knows is him…



Sex Is Comedy
5.815

A director struggles with a difficult sex scene between a young actor and actress who can't stand one another. Aided by her loyal assistant, she is hell-bent on getting the scene right without compromise.



Married Life
5.774

A very gentle middle-aged man is married, but when he falls in love with another woman, he decides that to divorce his wife would humiliate her too much – so instead he decides to kill her.



Nathalie...
5.742

Paris doctor Catherine starts to think her husband, Bernard, is having an affair when she hears an unfamiliar woman's message on his voice mail. Hoping to learn more about his extramarital activities, Catherine heads to a strip club, where she hires call girl Nathalie to have a fling with Gerard. As the affair progresses, Nathalie gives Catherine regular status reports, and the relationship between the women evolves from business to personal.



Normandy Nude
5.562

At the Mêle sur Sarthe, a small Norman village, farmers are affected by a crisis. Georges Balbuzard, the mayor of the city, is not one to let them down and decides to try everything to save his village...



Femmes Fatales
6.1

Two men, fortyish, worn out by their wives, abandon everything to go and live in the back of beyond. There they meet a truculent priest, a boozer, Émile who recalls them to life's simple pleasures. Calm is what they want. But soon their example inspires thousands of disorientated males...



Vivre Sa Vie
7.7

Twelve episodic tales in the life of a Parisian woman and her slow descent into prostitution.



Gloria Mundi
6.3

Daniel leaves prison. He returns to Marseilles where Mathilda, his daughter, has just given birth. Nicolas, her spouse, a self-employed driver, is exhausted while Mathilda is a sales assistant on a trial basis. But, one night, Nicolas is assaulted by taxi drivers determined to reduce unfair competition.



Les Indésirables
6.19

A local activist and a budding young mayor clash over the best path forward for their impoverished suburb.



The Grand Dukes
6

Three aging and failed comedians, Georges Cox, Victor Vialat and Eddie Carpentier, hit the road again with a lousy production of a lousy play, of course under the worst possible conditions.



Consenting Adults
5.4

Richard and Priscilla Parker are an ordinary suburban couple whose lives are invaded and rocked by their hedonistic, secretive new neighbors, Eddy and Kay Otis.



Les Gazelles
5.032

Marie and Eric, a couple in their thirties who have been together since college, buy their first apartment when Marie is suddenly overcome by doubt. Her encounter with a handsome, dark-haired man forces her to make a decision...



Mes héros
5.924

A son finds an escape from his turbulent marriage with his slightly dysfunctional and quirky parents who are hiding a young boy from the authorities.



Non-Fiction
5.4

Alain, a successful Parisian publisher struggling to adapt to the digital revolution, has major doubts about the new manuscript of Léonard, one of his long-time authors — another work of auto-fiction recycling his love affair with a minor celebrity. Selena, Alain’s wife, a famous stage actress, is of the opposite opinion.



La Ronde
La Ronde(1950)
7.3

An all-knowing interlocutor guides us through a series of affairs in Vienna, 1900. A soldier meets an eager young lady of the evening. Later he has an affair with a young lady, who becomes a maid and does similarly with the young man of the house. The young man seduces a married woman. On and on, spinning on the gay carousel of life.



Violette Nozière
6.673

Paris, 1933. The daughter of a respectable lower middle class couple, Violette Nozière, leads a disreputable double life. Far from being the innocent 18-year-old her parents mistake her for, she spends her nights with dissolute young men in the less salubrious areas of the city.



Lady Chatterley
6.1

After a crippling injury leaves her husband impotent, Lady Chatterly is torn between her love for her husband and her physical desires. With her husband's consent, she seeks out other means of fulfilling her needs.



The Secret
7.105

Marie, who works as a successful door-to-door encyclopedia salesperson, has been married to her husband Francois for 12 years and has a two-year-old son. Though she is relatively content with her life, she feels something is wanting. Enter 50-year old African-American Bill. Initially she is annoyed by his insouciance, but she finds that she is irresistibly attracted to him. Soon the two are in the midst of sordid illicit affair. She knows little about her new lover, and he seems uninterested in learning about her, but the long sessions of lovemaking are something else entirely. Feeling out of control, Marie is increasingly repelled by her own actions. Psychologically, she struggles to reconcile her torrid encounters with Bill and mundane domestic chores such as bathing her son. Moreover, she finds herself incapable of hiding her adulterous behavior, rather she comes home with scratches and hickeys all over her body, to the devastation Francois.



Everyone's Life
4.6

Before being judges, attorneys, or jury members, they are first of all men and women at a crossroads in their lives, with their dreams and their secrets, their hopes and their limitations, all beneath the same sun, each with their own dark side. In a lovely provincial town, during a jazz festival, life will juggle with their destinies.



Husbands and Wives

When their best friends announce that they're separating, a professor and his wife discover the faults in their own marriage.



The Players
4.734

Eight short films explore the subject of male infidelity. Serial cheaters, Fred and Greg, spend a night on the town doing what they do best, and with absolutely no regrets. The duo play various characters in assorted extracurricular situations, ranging from sexist to the darker sides of carnal desires.



Love, Wedding, Marriage

A happy newlywed marriage counselor's views on wedded bliss get thrown for a loop when she finds out her parents are getting divorced.



Rock'n Roll
5.2

Guillaume Canet is told by a young co-star that he's no longer Rock'n' Roll and can't sell films anymore. He then tries to prove her wrong and gets help from his girlfriend, Marion Cotillard.



Seven Years of Marriage

After seven years of marriage, a couple of professional workers (he, a doctor and she, a banker) try to refresh their sex life.



Incredible But True
6.039

Alain and Marie moved to the suburb house of their dreams. But the real estate agent warned them: what is in the basement may well change their lives forever.



Mom and Dad
5.402

In a suburban community, moms and dads, one after the other, mysteriously feel the irresistible impulse to attack and kill their own offspring.



Greener Grass
6.141

Suburban soccer moms find themselves constantly competing against each other in their personal lives as their kids settle their differences on the field.



Happy End
Happy End(1967)
7.481

A dark comedy about a murder and its consequences presented in a backwards manner, where death is actually a rebirth. The film starts with an "execution" of the main protagonist and goes back to explore his previous actions and motivations.



Flanders
Flanders(2006)
6.2

André Demester secretly and painfully loves Barbe, his childhood friend, accepting from her the little that she gives him. He leaves home to be a soldier in a war in a far off land. Barbarity, camaraderie and fear turn him into a warrior. As the seasons go by, Barbe, alone and wasting away, waits for the soldiers to return. Will Demester’s boundless love for Barbe save him?



Serial (Bad) Weddings

A catholic French couple sees their life upside down when their four daughters get married to men of different religion and origins.



Human Animals
6.778

The harmony of a seemingly idyllic neighborhood is disrupted when a dog attacks a young girl.



Seven Days
6.3

Like many happy people, Bruno Hamel is leading an uneventful life until one afternoon, when his daughter is raped and murdered. When the murderer is arrested, a terrible project germinates in Bruno's darkened mind. He plans to capture the "monster" and make him pay for his crime.



Love
Love(2015)
6.5

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.



Season's Beatings
5.851

Christmas, family, and infidelity. Yvette's husband has died, and her grown daughters join her at the grave: Sonia, wealthy, bourgeois, and generous; Louba, living with their dad Stanislas, singing at a Russian restaurant, penniless, the mistress for the past 12 years of a man who will never leave his wife; Milla, the youngest, acerbic, lonesome. Christmas was when they learned their parents were divorcing 25 years ago. Over the next few days, yuletide depression, Louba's pregnancy, Sonia's crumbling marriage, Stanislas's overtures to Yvette, and Milla's attraction to the man who's her father's rent-free lodger lead each one to re-examine self, family, and hopes. Is renewal possible?



Back Home
Back Home(2020)
5.8

The prodigal son of a family in turmoil returns home to his French rural home to reconnect with his family and make sense of their dysfunctions.



Suzanne’s Career
6.4

In the second of Rohmer's moral tales, he examines the relationship between two friends and a girl who at first appears easily exploited. It is a complex tale of feelings and misconceptions, acted out within the head of the main character, as part of Rohmer's attempt to more easily simulate the mindscape quality of literature within a film.



Suburbicon
5.9

In the quiet family town of Suburbicon during the 1950s, the best and worst of humanity is hilariously reflected through the deeds of seemingly ordinary people. When a home invasion turns deadly, a picture-perfect family turns to blackmail, revenge and murder.



She-Devil
She-Devil(1989)
6

A cunning and resourceful housewife vows revenge on her husband when he begins an affair with a wealthy romance novelist.



A Friendly Tale...
5.8

Lea and her husband Marc have known Francis and his wife Karine for a very long time. Over the years, each one of them has been assigned a specific role. The balance and dynamic of the group is blown up when Lea decides to write a novel, which turns into an immediate bestseller…



Like Mother, Like Daughter

An attention-craving mother nearing 50, unemployed and living with her pregnant daughter and son-in-law, suddenly finds herself with child, too...



The Unfaithful Wife

Insurance executive Charles suspects his wife Hélène of playing the field, so he has a private detective locate his wife's lover, author Victor Pegala.



Marie-Francine
5.443

A woman at the age of 50 moves back in with her parents after her husband leave her for a younger woman.



In the Shadow of Women

Pierre and Manon are poor. They make documentaries with nothing and they live by doing odd jobs. Pierre meets a young intern, Elisabeth, and she becomes his mistress. But Pierre will not leave Manon for Elisabeth; he wants to keep both.



Pardon Mon Affaire
6.966

On an otherwise normal day, Étienne, a happily married man and a good father, sees something that stops him dead in his tracks: a gorgeous woman in a billowing red dress. Long after she has left his vision, her memory continues to haunt his mind. He falls instantly in love with her and tries everything to get to know her better. Helping Étienne snare his elusive lady in red are his three bumbling buddies, which all have secret affairs and/or cheat on their wives.



Elisa
Elisa(1995)
6.4

Marie has had a tough childhood ever since her mother Elisa committed suicide. She has spent most of her life in an orphanage and now makes a living as a small time criminal in Paris. Now she wants to unravel her past and find her father whom she blames for her mother's death.



Boyfriends and Girlfriends

Middle-class Parisian suburbs: Blanche and Léa, office worker and student, meet and become friends. Léa is going out with Fabien, but is thinking of leaving him. Blanche falls for Léa's handsome and witty friend Alexandre, but is tongue-tied whenever she meets him. Léa goes on holiday and Blanche, still smitten with the dashing Alexandre, begins to get to know Fabien.



The Married Woman
6.848

A superficial woman finds conflict choosing between her abusive husband and her vain lover.

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