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Challengers poster

Movies that feel likeChallengers (2024)

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.

If you loved Challengers, the closest films we have are Three Steps Above Heaven (2010), Jules and Jim (1962) and Enchanted April (1991). All three share Challengers' contemplative and romantic feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Right Now, Wrong Then (2015).

🍅 88% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Luca Guadagninocontemplativeromantictenderwarm
7 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · HBO Max · Hulu

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If Challengers hit the spot, these will too

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

Contemplative where it counts, romantic 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.

Jules and Jim poster
Jules and Jim
1962 · dir. François Truffaut
🍅 94%★ 7.6drama · romanceMax

Both are built on the same subject: love triangle

The difference: Made in the 1960s, in a different era of the craft

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.

Enchanted April poster
Enchanted April
1991 · dir. Mike Newell
🍅 85%★ 7.3romance · drama

Tender and warm in the same breath

When married British women Rose Arbuthnot and Lottie Wilkins decide to take a break from their respective spouses, they stay at a castle in Italy for a quiet holiday. Joining the ladies is Caroline Dester, a young socialite, and Mrs. Fisher, an older aristocrat. Liberated from their daily routines, the four women ease into life in rural Italy, and each finds herself transformed by the experience.

Past Lives poster
Past Lives
2023 · dir. Celine Song
🍅 95%★ 7.8drama · romanceRent or buy

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.

Wicked poster
Wicked
2024 · dir. Jon M. Chu
🍅 88%★ 7.3drama · romance · fantasyHulu

Drama built on stillness, 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.

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

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.

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

Romantic romance in both cases

The difference: Takes it somewhere less warm than Challengers does

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.

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

Tender drama, and it commits to that

The difference: The critics' underdog of the pair

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.

Asako I & II poster
Asako I & II
2018 · dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi
🍅 77%★ 7.1drama · romance

Romance with a pulse of stillness, in both cases

Asako lives in Osaka. She falls in love with Baku, a free-spirit. One day, Baku suddenly disappears. Two years later, Asako now lives in Tokyo and meets Ryohei. He looks just like Baku, but has a completely different personality.

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

The same preoccupation in 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.

The Souvenir poster
The Souvenir
2019 · dir. Joanna Hogg
🍅 90%★ 6.4drama · romanceRent or buy

Both lean on romance more than on drama

A shy but ambitious film student falls into an intense, emotionally fraught relationship with a charismatic but untrustworthy older man.

Right Now, Wrong Then poster
Right Now, Wrong Then
2015 · dir. Hong Sang-soo
🍅 92%★ 7.1drama · romance

Tender romance, and it commits to that

By mistake, film director Ham Chunsu arrives in Suwon a day early. With time to kill before his lecture the next day, Chunsu stops by a restored, old palace and meets an artist named Yoon Heejung. Together, they go to Heejung's workshop to look at her paintings, have Sushi with Soju for dinner, and get close. Later, they go to another café and have more drinks with Heejung's acquaintances. When asked if he is married, Chunsu is forced to reveal the fact that he is, and Heejung gets deeply disappointed...

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