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As a general case, how can I find movies or TV shows similar to an existing movie or TV show that I like?

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    For any future visitors, this question and it's answer are intended to be a one-stop shop for all future "i like x, what's something similar?". But instead of only answering one, fairly limited question, it gives users the ability to find their own answers.
    – DForck42
    Jan 7, 2013 at 19:04
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    Also, since this is community wiki, you can edit in your own answer to the connonical answer started by keen.
    – DForck42
    Jan 7, 2013 at 19:05
  • Just type "Similar movie/TV Show to XYZ" in Google Search. It will give you many link resources. Then see what you would like. Jan 8, 2013 at 7:14
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    Also, I would like to add that you can always come and chat at the Screening Room and another room for Indian Movies. I have found some good guys in the Indian movies room, and got lots of recommendations there.
    – KK.
    Mar 27, 2013 at 4:08
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    just search on google "Related:<Movie Name>"
    – vs4vijay
    Apr 17, 2013 at 11:01

7 Answers 7

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There are a couple of websites that can help find similar shows or movies:

  • If you go to the TV show or movie's Wikipedia page, scroll to the bottom and you'll see a box with the Categories for that page. Often this will contain links to various genres or classes of TV shows and movies. Clicking on those links will take you to lists of all the works that have been put into those Categories, so they'll share that similarity with the work you enjoyed.

  • TV Tropes is a site that documents and classifies works (it covers TV shows and films, but many other things as well, such as books, manga, fanfic, etc.) based on genres as well as 'tropes' which are more specific plot/writing devices. So you have pages that list various works that have casually killed off characters. Similar to Wikipedia, if you head to a specific TV show or movie page, you'll get a list of tropes that this TV show or movie used. Those trope pages will then have links to other works that are in the same genres or use the same tropes.

  • IMDb documents TV shows and films and the people who work on them. So if you like a specific actor, or the writing, or the directing of a TV show or film, hit up IMDb. You can look up a specific actor/writer/director and see everything they've worked on. Wikipedia also has some of this information, but IMDb tends to be more comprehensive as this is their specific focus. IMDb also tags shows with keywords which can be used to locate movies with similar plot elements (example).

  • Jinni.com is also used to search for movies and TV shows based on your taste.

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    Just a warning for anyone who's not familiar with TV Tropes. It's a giant time sink! It's nearly impossible to just read one page, and once you start following links, you can't stop. So make sure you have lots of free time first. Jan 7, 2013 at 18:34
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    Agreed forever on TVTropes. Enter at your own risk, and not at 2am.
    – pandorym
    Apr 16, 2013 at 11:14
  • I've removed themoviespoiler.com from the list. It really has no inbuilt search feature and searching the site is effectively a Google search. Recommending movies that are immediately spoiled for you is also probably not a good idea. Sep 24, 2013 at 4:57
  • If you're on Reddit, there's also /r/ifyoulikeblank/. Apr 21, 2015 at 14:11
  • Unfortunately Jinni.com no longer offers their service. I personally have moved all of my ratings to IMDB and use that for movies (and anime-planet for anime-specific recommendation).
    – Maurycy
    Aug 30, 2015 at 18:23
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Jinni is the way to go, and is the future! (See movie genome info.)

Wikipedia was mentioned, but what was not mentioned is that they have a few stellar consolidation pages to do searches from. This list of lists page is invaluable, as just one example.

IMDB was mentioned, but what was not mentioned is the unbelievably great Keyword search function. Searching for movies by keywords is a great way to do it. (Ahm.. I’m rather chuffed with myself for creating the first keyword for “female sitting on a toilet” (Wow – did I just share that?) and “meme”. Be sure to click on the “Movie” link on the right to refine your search to just movies or TV or whatever. Jinni is basically generating huge amounts of keywords like this for movies so that people like us will make it to the next level of the pagoda!

Netflix changed the world! (if you have a subscription.) They have great cross references to similar shows too. Also, you can use their central search field for your own keyword search based on movie summaries. (e.g. “Biker” will bring up Angels from Hell (1968))

Finally, YouTube again for keywords is ..key. Type in a movie name + “trailer” and then see what other movies pop-up on the right hand side. Love that!

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  • Jinni is already mentioned! :P
    – Mistu4u
    Jan 7, 2013 at 17:32
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    The answer is CW so that you may edit your own advice in it instead of posting another answer, this whole question is meant to be a canonical solution to users who post "I like X, where can I find more like it?"
    – Tablemaker
    Jan 7, 2013 at 17:33
  • @Mistu4u - The entry was edited and did not have the last two entries when I started. Didn't see the change before I entered my info. If it had jinni, I would not have bothered to answer the question.
    – ipso
    Jan 7, 2013 at 17:42
  • @Tyler - CW – oh. Does that mean everyone goes in and makes one big list?
    – ipso
    Jan 7, 2013 at 17:48
  • Essentially, yes. Your answer is great, don't get me wrong. But if we're going to be using this for a canonical then the CW works well. The great thing about CW is that no-one gets rep from it so that it is purely informational!
    – Tablemaker
    Jan 7, 2013 at 18:00
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Google Search

I think people should be trained/ advised to use Google search.

But seriously, just type "movie/TV Show similar to XYZ" in Google Search. It will give you many link resources. Then see what you would like in different results.

e.g. TV shows similar to Friends

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  • This is a beautiful infinite circle. Best method IMO.
    – alfadog67
    Aug 12, 2020 at 23:05
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IMDb Advanced usage

In addition to the Keywords mentioned in the main index answer, there are several more advanced ways to locate similar films and TV shows on IMDb which are hidden away in menus:

  • User Lists

    On IMDb, users can create lists of titles which appear on IMDb, then apply tags to their list to help you find them.

  • Advanced Search

    The new Keyword search interface is very thorough, however there are still search options which are not shown that can only be accessed by using the various advanced searches:

    • Advanced Title Search

      This is the only way to search using the following criteria:

      • Country
      • Language
      • Colour (Black & White / Colour)
      • Plot
      • Cast
      • Runtime
      • Production / Release status
      • Number of user ratings
      • Appears on an automatically generated list (Such as "Top 100 rated titles")
      • Production company
      • Box office gross
    • Common crew

      If you know two people who worked on the film together, you can use the Two People Working Together search, tell it the two people who worked together and click search to see a list of everything they were both credited on, for example Joel Hodgson & Frank Conniff

    • Searching additional fields

      Under the regular search bar at the top you can search the Plots and Quotes of titles, however you need to look under the Title Text Search section of Advanced Search in order to search these more specific title fields:

      • Trivia
      • Goofs (Mistakes)
      • Crazy Credits (Jokes or additional credits such as Chuck Lorre's blog at the end of The Big Bang Theory)
      • Filming Locations
      • Soundtracks
      • Literature (Printed reviews or books which mention the film)
      • Versions (Different edits of the title and what changes are included)
  • Exact Searches

    If you are absolutely certain of one of the following criteria, you can begin any search using that criteria:

    There are several issues with these searches though. If you use Country, Language or Year you will get a great "Refine search" menu which will allow you to narrow down your results:

    Image of the Refine Search Menu

    However, with Genre you don't. For this reason, if you pick a genre the best thing to do is trick the Keyword interface, Search for a random keyword, and then click the X button to dismiss the keyword:

    Image of where the X button is

    It will then allow you to filter all the titles without having any keywords:

    Image of the tricked keyword interface

    This works great, but please note you cannot share links to this page. If you copy the URL of the keyword interface without any keyword specified, you'll just get linked back to the list of keywords.

  • Filters

    Once you've got a list of the films similar to the ones you like, you can then sort them with the various filters on the site, here's a quick reference to what they mean:

    • MOVIEmeter

      This is the default filter, and it is based on a combination of the amount of page views the title receives, as well as the IMDb rating for the titles.

    • IMDb Rating or User Rating

      This is simply the rating shown for the title, measured in a number of stars. The advanced search interface says User Rating, whereas the Keyword interface calls it IMDb rating, but they are the same thing.

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I know I'm late, but in addition to jinni.com and moviespoiler.com, tastekid.com is really useful and along a similar vein.

But as a bonus, it also allows the user to get similar for Books, Music, and Video Games.

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  • To find similar movies and shows along with genres and subjects, similarkind.com is quite helpful. May 10, 2014 at 16:20
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You can try Criticker.com if you are willing to invest in rating movies. The site uses a so called Taste Compatibility Index, a measure of the similarity between two people's taste in films:

Once you've ranked a handful of movies at Criticker, you can generate TCIs with everyone else in the community. It's better than just finding a few people with whom you generally agree -- Criticker will show you the exact people whose tastes are the most similar to your own

So it does not directly tell you what types of movies match, but it will point you to people with similar taste, and you can then look at their favorites for suggestions of movies you might also like.

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Me, personally, I search in Google something like "shows / movies like BLANK Reddit". In my experience, there are a lot of posts in Reddit of people who asked for recommendations of shows or movies that might be like the one you already like.

You can also create an account in Reddit and ask in a few subreddits. Such as a subreddit of the movie / show you like, or r/MovieSuggestions and r/televisionsuggestions.

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