The Last Five YearsMovies like The Last Five Years
- Key Features:
- Musical, Marriage breakdown, Multiple perspectives, Relationship drama, New York City, Struggling artist, Writer, Romance, Heartbreak
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic, poetic
- Target Audience:
- Musical lovers, Romantics, Fans of relationship dramas
- Emotional Arc:
- ['Hope → Disillusionment → Acceptance']
The Last Five Years

In New York, a struggling actress and a successful writer sing about their failed marriage from two perspectives.
The Last Five Years
A young couple bound by a seemingly ideal love, begins to unravel as unexpected opportunities spin them down a volatile and violent path and threaten the future they had always imagined.

Michael has a great job, has his 4 best friends, and is in love with a beautiful girl at 30. He loves Jenna but his life seems predictable until someone else enters his life. It seems that everybody's having relationship problems.

Exactly one year after Tom meets Violet, he surprises her with a wedding ring. By all accounts, Tom and Violet are destined for their happily ever after. However, this engaged couple just keep getting tripped up on the long walk down the aisle.

A single mother in London's Camden Town hears music when she meets a handsome stranger with a past. But she's not sure she's ready to open her heart.

Former high school musical star, Marc Pease, finds himself still living in the past, eight years after graduating.

Brought together by their shared love of music, ten years on Liam and Natalie are at breaking point. In their case opposites attract but don't necessarily work long-term. Making the difficult decision to separate, they must split their prized music library. But the soundtrack that defined their relationship keeps pulling them back together.

A drama centered on a rebellious girl who is sent to a Southern beach town for the summer to stay with her father. Through their mutual love of music, the estranged duo learn to reconnect.

A commitment-phobic 27-year old’s relationship is put to the test when she and her boyfriend attend 7 weddings in the same year.

As young French couple Gilles and Marion officially separate, we see, in reverse order, the milestone moments in their relationship: Gilles revealing his unfaithfulness at a tense dinner party; Marion giving birth to their premature son while Gilles is elsewhere; Gilles and Marion's joyous wedding; and, finally, the fateful moment when they meet as acquaintances at an Italian beach resort, and their love affair begins.

On the eve of a major performance, singer Vivienne receives life-altering news that causes her to reevaluate her priorities. Crisscrossing the busy streets of New York City, she tries to balance her upcoming tour, family, and friends. Through interaction with her overbearing mother, Jeanne, her long-time manager, Ben, and her ex-husband, Nick, Vivienne strives to make peace with the decisions and sacrifices she's made along the way.

Michael and Joanna are a young and successful married couple who appear to have it all. But when Michael finds himself alone on a business trip with an attractive new colleague and Joanna encounters the other great love of her life, each is thrust into an evening of temptation.

In the last five years of his life, David Bowie ended nearly a decade of silence to engage in an extraordinary burst of activity, producing two groundbreaking albums and a musical. David Bowie: The Last Five Years explores this unexpected end to a remarkable career. Made with remarkable access, Francis Whately’s documentary is a revelatory follow-up to his acclaimed 2013 documentary David Bowie: Five Years, which chronicled Bowie’s golden ‘70s and early-‘80s period.

A couple who can't stop fighting embark on a last-ditch effort to save their marriage: turning their fights into songs and starting a band.

Harriet finds art imitating life when she discovers certain songs can transport her back in time – literally. While she relives the past through romantic memories of her former boyfriend, her time travelling collides with a burgeoning new love interest in the present. As she takes her journey through the hypnotic connection between music and memory, she wonders – even if she could change the past, should she?

Aspiring singer-songwriter Jed King struggles to catch a break and escape the long shadow of his father, a country music legend. After reluctantly accepting a gig at a local vineyard harvest festival, Jed is love-struck by the vineyard owner’s daughter, Rose, and a romance quickly blooms. Soon after their wedding, Jed writes Rose “The Song,” which becomes a breakout hit. Thrust into a life of stardom and a world of temptation in the form of fellow performer Shelby Bale, Jed’s life and marriage begin to fall apart.

A young man, plagued by the music in his head, has to come to terms with an uncertain future while balancing love, family and Brazilian culture in Newark, New Jersey.

A long-time married couple who've spent their lives together in the same New York apartment become overwhelmed by personal and real estate-related issues when they plan to move away.

In this modern love story set against the Austin, Texas music scene, two entangled couples — struggling songwriters Faye and BV, and music mogul Cook and the waitress whom he ensnares — chase success through a rock ‘n’ roll landscape of seduction and betrayal.

In a dazzling, dreamlike Las Vegas, longtime couple Hank and Frannie break up on their fifth anniversary and each pursue the fantasy of new love over one neon-soaked night—he with a free-spirited acrobat, she with a seductive musician. But as illusion and reality blur, both must decide whether passion or devotion truly defines the heart.

Twenty-year-old Matsuri Takabayashi learns that she only has ten years to live due to an incurable disease. She decides to not dwell on her life and not to fall in love—until she meets a man named Kazuto Manabe at a school reunion.

The film spans 30 years in Julieta’s life from a nostalgic 1985 where everything seems hopeful, to 2015 where her life appears to be beyond repair and she is on the verge of madness.

A washed-up '80s pop star gets a chance at a comeback when reigning pop diva Cora Corman invites him to write & record a duet with her, but there's a problem--Alex hasn't written a song in years; he's never written lyrics and he has to come up with a hit in a matter of days.

Ten lost souls slip in and out of one another's arms in a daisy-chained musical exploration of love's bittersweet embrace. A film adaptation of Michael John LaChiusa's celebrated musical, originally based on Arthur Schnitzler's play, La Ronde.

An egotistical saxophone player and a young singer meet on V-J Day and embark upon a strained and rocky romance, even as their careers begin a long uphill climb.

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.

A stage director and an actress struggle through a grueling, coast-to-coast divorce that pushes them to their personal extremes.

Twenty-eight-year-old Margot is happily married to Lou, a good-natured cookbook author. But when Margot meets Daniel, a handsome artist who lives across the street, their mutual attraction is undeniable.

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

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.

Bernie and Joan are two fiery flirters who are passionate about everything from hookups to breakups and each other. When he sets up his best friend, Danny, with her roommate, Debbie, the sparks soon fly as they try to navigate the relationship minefields from the bar to the bedroom and are eventually put to the test in the real world.

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

A narcissistic artist's world turns upside down after his wife's affair and a disastrous exhibition of his work.

Laura and Harrison have the picture-perfect romance built on the foundation of a shared love of music. After a deadly accident, Laura gets the chance to save the love of her life when she discovers that their mixtape can transport her back in time.

After ten years of dating, Chloe’s boyfriend Eric still hasn’t matured. Hoping to give him the push he needs, she dumps him; confident Eric will grow up and beg her to come back. However, six months later, Eric meets Chloe for dinner with big news: he’s getting married in a week. Needing a break to mend her broken heart, Chloe takes a vacation, but when she arrives, she learns that Eric and his fiancée are getting married at the same resort!

An artist dumps her longtime boyfriend, but her attempt to take a break from dating ends when she quickly finds herself in two passionate romances.

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

Musician Jon Batiste attempts to compose a symphony as his wife, writer Suleika Jaouad, undergoes cancer treatment.

Ismael and Julie, in the hope of sparking their stalled relationship, enter a playful yet emotionally laced threesome with Alice. When tragedy strikes, these young Parisians are forced to deal with the fragility of life and love. For Ismael, this means negotiating through the advances of Julie's sister and a young college student – one of which may offer him redemption.

Have you ever sat by the phone wondering why he said he would call, but didn't, or you can't figure out why she doesn't want to sleep with you anymore, or why your relationship just isn't going to the next level... they're just not that into you. Gigi just wants a man who says he'll call—and does—while Alex advises her to stop waiting by the phone. Beth wants a proposal after years of a committed relationship with her boyfriend, Neil, who sees nothing wrong with the status quo. Janine's not sure if she can trust her husband, Ben, who can't quite trust himself around Anna. Anna can't decide between the sexy married guy, or her straightforward, no-sparks standby, Conor, who can't get over the fact that he can't have her. And Mary, who's found an entire network of loving, supportive men, just needs to find one who's straight.

Harper was one of the best dancers to hit Broadway, but an injury caused her to leave the spotlight, become a choreographer, and raise her daughter Mirabella. When Mirabella decides to quit the show to get married, her mother is determined to put a stop to the wedding and show Mirabella that she cannot give up her career for love.

Haruki secretly had feelings for Akihiko for years, but Akihiko was still in a relationship with his roommate, the violinist Ugetsu Murata. Haruki, Akihiko, and Ugetsu's love clashes and starts to move forward.

Ten years after their divorce, Jane and Jake Adler unite for their son's college graduation and unexpectedly end up sleeping together. But Jake is married, and Jane is embarking on a new romance with her architect. Now, she has to sort out her life—just when she thought she had it all figured out.

Dean and Cindy live a quiet life in a modest neighborhood. They appear to have the world at their feet at the outset of the relationship. However, his lack of ambition and her retreat into self-absorption cause potentially irreversible cracks in their marriage.

Long-term couple Owen and Hallie are breaking up—or maybe not?—and just as their relationship reaches a turning point, Matt and Willa embark on a romance of their own.

Ironworker Nick lives with his wife, Kitty, and three daughters. When he meets a significantly younger woman, Tula, he starts an affair with her, much to the chagrin of his wife, and his life is thrown into upheaval. Kitty kicks Nick out of the house, and he is forced to make some difficult decisions.

Two young women and their friends spend spare time at an exclusive nightclub in 1980s New York.

After 20 years of marriage, Maria decides to leave her husband. She moves into room 212 at the hotel across the street, with a bird’s-eye view of her apartment, her husband and the life she shared with him. While she wonders if she made the right decision, many of the people in her life offer their opinions on the matter. They intend to let her know, whether she likes it or not, on what proves to be a life-changing evening.

A vacuum repairman moonlights as a street musician and hopes for his big break. One day a Czech immigrant, who earns a living selling flowers, approaches him with the news that she is also an aspiring singer-songwriter. The pair decide to collaborate, and the songs that they compose reflect the story of their blossoming love.

A quirky couple spends their three-year dating anniversary looking back at their relationship and contemplating whether they should break up.

Alain Moreau sings for one of the few remaining dance-bands in Clermont-Ferrand. Though something of an idol amongst his female audience he has a melancholic awareness of the slow disappearance of that audience and of his advancing years. He is completely knocked off balance when he meets strikingly attractive and much younger businesswoman Marion. She seems distant and apparently otherwise involved but soon shows quiet signs of reciprocating his interest.

Determined not to turn into her parents, or be drawn into any relationship longer than a one night stand, Zoe constantly struggles with her failing business and love life. Then she falls in love for the first time with Paul. But there's one problem: Paul is married.

Happy young married couple Paige and Leo are, well, happy. Then a car accident puts Paige into a life-threatening coma. Upon awakening she has lost the previous five years of memories, including those of her beloved Leo, her wedding, a confusing relationship with her parents, or the ending of her relationship with her ex-fiance. Despite these complications, Leo endeavors to win her heart again and rebuild their marriage.

When a struggling musician can't afford her rent, she signs up for a website where rich older men pay to date younger women. Her new money-making venture sends her down a dark rabbit hole that forces her to grow up fast, shaping her music, and how she sees the world.

As a young New York couple goes from college romance to marriage and the birth of their first child, the unexpected twists of their journey create reverberations that echo over continents and through lifetimes.

Sidney and Dre can attribute their lifelong friendship and the launch of their careers to one single childhood instant... witnessing the birth of hip-hop on a New York street corner. Now some 15 years later, she is a revered music critic at a national magazine and he is a successful, though unfulfilled, hip-hop record company executive. Both come to realize that their true life passions will only be fulfilled by remembering what they learned that day on the corner.

The second-half of the movie picks up in the present day, seven years later, with Ryan returning home from being on the road touring as a professional singer and Molly working at her father's corporation.

Soon after the rising young singer-songwriter Beau Williams gets involved with a fallen, emotionally unstable country star Kelly Canter, the pair embark on a career resurrection tour helmed by her husband/manager James and featuring a beauty queen-turned-singer Chiles Stanton. Between concerts, romantic entanglements and old demons threaten to derail them all.

Tangled in a troubled marriage, a frustrated couple finds hope in a watch-based app that rewards good deeds — until unhealthy obsessiveness takes over.

Chico and Ana move to an apartment in São Paulo. As they unpack Ana found a cassette tape. It's a mix-tape that Clarisse made 20 years earlier to her husband Daniel. Albeit separated by time, both stories will cross paths in a unique way.

In a woods filled with magic and fairy tale characters, a baker and his wife set out to end the curse put on them by their neighbor, a spiteful witch.

A modern day train hopper fighting to be a successful musician and a single mom battling to maintain custody of her daughter defy their circumstances by coming together in a relationship that may change each others lives forever.

After a quick courtship, two lovers hastily decide to tie the knot. As their first year of marriage unfolds, temptation and incompatibility put their relationship in jeopardy.

In this alternate world, Bia and Manuel will have a tempestuous relationship. Pixie, the hateful and stunning owner of Laix, decides to buy the Fundom. The great conflict erupts when Pixie announces a concert. This will have Bia and Helena, who in this upside down universe are divas and rivals, fighting to be the headliner in the final show.

A struggling actress is cast in her last off (off) Broadway show - a modern take on “A Christmas Carol” - before giving up her dream and moving home. Instead, she finds romance with her director and a renewed passion for her craft and the city. But when the historic theater loses its lease and the show is set to fold, she and her cast mates are need of a Christmas miracle.

Teddy wakes up the morning after his wedding to discover that he's jumped forward a year in his life to his first anniversary. Trapped in an endless cycle of time jumps, transported another year ahead every few minutes, he is faced with a race against time as his life crumbles around him.

Evan Hansen, a high schooler with social anxiety, unintentionally gets caught up in a lie after the family of a classmate who committed suicide mistakes one of Hansen’s letters for their son’s suicide note.

The separation of a long married couple goes awry when they fall for each other again.

A divorced writer from the Midwest returns to her hometown to reconnect with an old flame, who's now married with a family.

While dining out with friends, Sy suggests the difficulty of separating comedy from tragedy. To illustrate his point, he tells his guests two parallel stories about Melinda ; both versions have the same basic elements, but one take on her state of affairs leans toward levity, while the other is full of anguish. Each story involves Melinda coping with a recent divorce through substance abuse while beginning a romantic relationship with a close friend's husband.

The life of a woman is transformed after she is diagnosed with a terminal disease, fired from her job and abandoned by her boyfriend. Given two months to live, she throws caution to the wind to pursue her dreams.

Will Henry is a newly single graphic novelist balancing being a parent to his young twin daughters and teaching a classroom full of college students, all the while trying to navigate the rich complexities of new love and letting go of the woman who left him.

Nora Wilder is freaking out. Everyone around her is either in a relationship, married, or has children. Nora is in her thirties, alone with job she's outgrown and a mother who constantly reminds her of it all. Not to mention her best friend Audrey's "perfect marriage". But after a series of disastrous dates, Nora unexpectedly meets Julien, a quirky Frenchman who opens her eyes to a lot more than love.

Neglected by her husband, Sarah embarks on an impromptu road trip with her young daughter and her best friend, Mindy. Along the way, the dynamic between the two friends intensifies before circumstances force them apart. Years later, Sarah attempts to rebuild their intimate connection in the days before Mindy’s wedding.

After 15 years as a couple, Ale and Alex decide to throw a party to celebrate their separation, leaving their loved ones perplexed.

As seniors in high school, Troy and Gabriella struggle with the idea of being separated from one another as college approaches. Along with the rest of the Wildcats, they stage a spring musical to address their experiences, hopes and fears about their future.

A wife questions her life choices as she travels to Stockholm with her husband, where he is slated to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Anna and Piero fighting routine of a long marriage, when Piero loses his memory, Anna reconstructs his way. For its part, the concierge Rocco and his friend Michele play in a group that emulates the Beatles and face opposition from their partners. Finally, Marcello and Paola are a divorced couple who, from time to time, pretend they are still together to avoid problems. They are victims of a relentless war of sexes.

Newly single, 35, and uninspired by his job, Jesse Fisher worries that his best days are behind him. But no matter how much he buries his head in a book, life keeps pulling Jesse back. When his favorite college professor invites him to campus to speak at his retirement dinner, Jesse jumps at the chance.

Ted Ryker is the top salesman in the New York office of a business machine company; the corporate stock lives by quarterly sales numbers, the competition is keen, and the economy may be in a downturn. Ted's company is marking time until a new product is ready – probably in a few months. Into the mix comes a new hire, a callow Midwesterner named Jamie, who's come East with his fiancée Belisa.

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…

After years of putting her career ahead of love, stand-up comic Andrea Singer has stumbled upon the perfect guy. On paper, he checks all the boxes, but is he everything he appears to be?

After many years of marriage, Walter and Madge have grown apart: He lives on the floor and she lives on the ceiling. When Walter tries to reignite their old romance, their equilibrium comes crashing down, and the couple that can’t agree which way is up must find a way to put their marriage back together.

Toni has spent her entire life putting other people’s needs before her own. When she was 20 years old, she was pushed by her mother to join a TV singing competition, becoming a national star. Twenty years and five children later, she is a full-time mom who spends all her time and effort on raising her teenage kids. As she helps her children plan their future after graduation, she begins to imagine what her life could be if - for once - she did what she really wanted. Will she be able to turn her life around and dare to be something other than a mother and a daughter?

A New York writer on sex and love is finally getting married to her Mr. Big. But her three best girlfriends must console her after one of them inadvertently leads Mr. Big to jilt her.

Beautiful aspiring rock star Jude is stuck in a rut - relegated to recording commercial jingles and lost in a series of one night stands. When she is evicted from her Brooklyn apartment, she is forced to move into the Hamptons home of her wealthy - and selfish - father Paul Lombard, an over-the-hill, Sinatra-esque crooner angling for a musical comeback.

The story of several friends in New York City facing financial poverty, homophobia, AIDS, and, of course, rent.

In this modern telling of the classic tale, aspiring singer Katie Gibbs falls for the new boy at her performing arts high school. But Katie's wicked stepmother and stepsister are scheming to crush her dream before she can sing her way into his heart.

Odile is a business executive looking for a new, bigger apartment. Her younger sister Camille has just completed her doctoral thesis in history and is a Paris tour guide. Simon is a regular on Camille's tours because he's attracted to her. Camille has fallen for Marc, and they begin an affair. Nicolas is also looking for an apartment, since he hopes to eventually have his family join him in Paris.

Famous singer Fanny Brice has divorced her first husband Nicky Arnstein. During the Great Depression she has trouble finding work as an artist, but meets Billy Rose, a newcomer who writes lyrics and owns a nightclub.

A young singer/songwriter, despite being married, becomes involved with her new guitarist, who she soon discovers has a dark past and may be a danger to her and those close to her.

Two youngsters from rival New York City gangs fall in love, but tensions between their respective friends build toward tragedy.

Eva is a divorced soon-to-be empty-nester wondering about her next act. Then she meets Marianne, the embodiment of her perfect self. Armed with a restored outlook on being middle-aged and single, Eva decides to take a chance on her new love interest Albert — a sweet, funny and like-minded man. But things get complicated when Eva discovers that Albert is in fact the dreaded ex–husband of Marianne...

A New York girl sets her father up with a beautiful woman in a shaky marriage while her half sister gets engaged.

On the brink of turning 30, a promising theater composer navigates love, friendship and the pressure to create something great before time runs out.

A love triangle develops between the male and female leads and the director during the making of a musical in Mainland China.

From Paris to Venice to Broadway to Hollywood, the lives of Cole Porter and his wife, Linda Lee Thomas were never less than glamorous and wildly unconventional. And though Cole's thirst for life strained their marriage, Linda never stopped being his muse, inspiring some of the greatest songs of the twentieth century.

Follow pop provocateur Lady Gaga as she releases a new album, preps for her Super Bowl halftime show, and confronts physical and emotional struggles.

After his long-time girlfriend dumps him, a thirty-year-old record store owner seeks to understand why he is unlucky in love while recounting his "top five breakups of all time".

A small town girl and a city boy meet on the Sunset Strip, while pursuing their Hollywood dreams.
