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You Can't Take It with You poster

Movies that feel likeYou Can't Take It with You (1938)

Alice, the only relatively normal member of the eccentric Sycamore family, falls in love with Tony Kirby, but his wealthy banker father and snobbish mother strongly disapprove of the match. When the Kirbys are invited to dinner to become better acquainted with their future in-laws, things don't turn out the way Alice had hoped.

If you loved You Can't Take It with You, the closest films we have are It Happened One Night (1934), Mon Oncle (1958) and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936). All three share You Can't Take It with You's witty and playful feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is The Palm Beach Story (1942).

🍅 94% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7.8 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Frank Caprawittyplayfulromanticwhimsical
9 of 12 streaming nowHBO Max · Amazon Prime Video · Disney Plus

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If You Can't Take It with You hit the spot, these will too

It Happened One Night poster
It Happened One Night
1934 · dir. Frank Capra
🍅 98%★ 8.1comedy · romance

Frank Capra working the same nerve twice

The difference: Less whimsical, more its own thing

A runaway heiress makes a deal with the rogue reporter trailing her but the mismatched pair end up stuck with each other when their bus leaves them behind.

Mon Oncle poster
Mon Oncle
1958 · dir. Jacques Tati
🍅 94%★ 7.6comedyMax

The same mix in both: wit, then play

The difference: 20 years apart, and the 1950s show

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.

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town poster
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
1936 · dir. Frank Capra
🍅 90%★ 7.8comedy · drama · romance

Frank Capra directing both, with the same fingerprints on each

The difference: Leans further into drama

Longfellow Deeds lives in a small town, leading a small town kind of life. When a relative dies and leaves Deeds a fortune, Longfellow moves to the big city where he becomes an instant target for everyone. Deeds outwits them all until Babe Bennett comes along. When small-town boy meets big-city girl anything can, and does, happen.

The Palm Beach Story poster
The Palm Beach Story
1942 · dir. Preston Sturges
🍅 94%★ 7.5comedy · romance

Both keep coming back to the same thing: love

A New York inventor, Tom Jeffers, needs cash to develop his big idea, so his adoring wife, Gerry, decides to raise it by divorcing him and marrying an eccentric Florida millionaire, J. D. Hackensacker III.

Meet John Doe poster
Meet John Doe
1941 · dir. Frank Capra
🍅 92%★ 7.6drama · comedy · romancePrime Video

Romantic comedy, and it commits to that

As a parting shot, fired reporter Ann Mitchell prints a fake letter from unemployed "John Doe," who threatens suicide in protest of social ills. The paper is forced to rehire Ann and hires John Willoughby to impersonate "Doe." Ann and her bosses cynically milk the story for all it's worth, until the made-up "John Doe" philosophy starts a whole political movement.

Horse Feathers poster
Horse Feathers
1932 · dir. Norman Z. McLeod
🍅 97%★ 7.5comedy · romance

Common ground: black and white

Quincy Adams Wagstaff, the new president of Huxley U, hires bumblers Baravelli and Pinky to help his school win the big football game against rival Darwin U.

The Awful Truth poster
The Awful Truth
1937 · dir. Leo McCarey
🍅 94%★ 7.6comedy · romance

Romance with a pulse of wit, in both cases

Unfounded suspicions lead a married couple to begin divorce proceedings, whereupon they start undermining each other's attempts to find new romance.

Look Who's Talking poster
Look Who's Talking
1989 · dir. Amy Heckerling
🍅 56%★ 6comedy · romance

Whimsical comedy in both cases

The difference: The scrappier of the two with critics

After a single, career-minded woman is left on her own to give birth to the child of a married man, she finds a new romantic chance in a cab driver. Meanwhile, the point-of-view of the newborn baby is narrated through voice-over.

Steamboat Bill, Jr. poster
Steamboat Bill, Jr.
1928 · dir. Charles Reisner
🍅 96%★ 7.8comedy · romance

Both are built on the same subject: black and white

The just-out-of-college, effete son of a no-nonsense steamboat captain comes to visit his father whom he's not seen since he was a child.

Steamboat Willie poster
Steamboat Willie
1928 · dir. Walt Disney
🍅 100%★ 7.4animation · comedyDisney+

Both lean on play more than on romance

Mickey Mouse, piloting a steamboat, delights his passenger, Minnie Mouse, by making musical instruments out of the menagerie on deck.

My Man Godfrey poster
My Man Godfrey
1936 · dir. Gregory La Cava
🍅 97%★ 7.9comedyPrime Video

Comedy built on romance, twice over

Fifth Avenue socialite Irene Bullock needs a "forgotten man" to win a scavenger hunt, and no one is more forgotten than Godfrey Park, who resides in a dump by the East River. Irene hires Godfrey as a servant for her riotously unhinged family, to the chagrin of her spoiled sister, Cornelia, who tries her best to get Godfrey fired. As Irene falls for her new butler, Godfrey turns the tables and teaches the frivolous Bullocks a lesson or two.

Trouble in Paradise poster
Trouble in Paradise
1932 · dir. Ernst Lubitsch
🍅 90%★ 7.9comedy · crime · romance

The same preoccupation in both: secretary

Thief Gaston Monescu and pickpocket Lily are partners in crime and love. Working for perfume company executive Mariette Colet, the two crooks decide to combine their criminal talents to rob their employer. Under the alias of Monsieur Laval, Gaston uses his position as Mariette's personal secretary to become closer to her. However, he takes things too far when he actually falls in love with Mariette, and has to choose between her and Lily.

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The best-reviewed films that share You Can't Take It with You’s defining feeling.