Best Movies Like The Worst Person In The World | Screen Rant
Directed by Joachim Trier, The Worst Person In The World is a Norwegian movie that incorporates elements of dark humor and romantic comedy with a story that explores the coming of age of an indecisive young woman. Played by Renate Reinsve, the protagonist Julie evokes familiar themes from comedy-dramas that deal with the struggles of modern love, commitment, professional confusion, and even a mid-life crisis.
With Trier’s movie contesting at this year’s Oscars with two nominations, The Worst Person would prompt audiences to check out similar stories by modern auteurs like Noah Baumbach and Wong Kar-wai.
Greta Gerwig serves as the lead and the co-writer in Frances Ha, one of the best black & white movies of the past decade. The movie offers a glimpse into the titular character’s everyday misadventures as she deals with adulting and career struggles. Thrown in the middle are unstable friendships and relationships that are hanging by a thread.
Since its release, the movie has become a beloved favorite due to its genre subversions. Even though it is mostly focused on one character’s journey, the situational humor adds a rom-com-like atmosphere, much like The Worst Person In The World. Further, both Frances and Julie have different aspirations but their frustration is similar.
People Places Things deals with a graphic novelist’s recent divorce. As he struggles to stay relevant in his career, he must also prove his worth as a good dad while taking care of his twin daughters. And as expected, there is a newfound romantic interest in his life adding to the troubles.
In one of his most emotional roles, Jemaine Clement brings a sense of tragicomedy to this premise. And while this concept is reminiscent of the ups and downs of Julie’s life in The Worst Person In The World, it is also interesting to note how both movies feature differing perspectives of graphic novelists. While Clement’s Will is a struggling comic book writer, the character Aksel is well-established in his art and comes off as self-centered and entitled.
The Before trilogy is regarded as one of Richard Linklater’s best movies. Each installment deals with an aspect of a relationship between two lovers who meet each other in the gaps of several years. In the final chapter, the protagonists end up facing fears of aging and monotony. They wonder how their life would be if they made different life choices than before. The story then naturally leads to both troubling and wholesome moments.
All the talk of responsibilities, parenting, and marriage is bound to remind viewers of Julie’s fears in The Worst Person. The dinner-table conversations between Julie and her partners or friends, in particular, are reminiscent of Before Midnight’s dialogue-driven scenes.
Starring Elsie Fisher as an average teenager with average teen problems, Eighth Grade adds a twist to the coming-of-age genre with a very raw and realistic approach. Instead of the usual high school tropes, the eighth-grader faces the pressures of being popular in a generation addicted to social media.
The themes in The Worst Person In The World are very mature when compared to the adolescent narrative of Eighth Grade. But the latter can be seen as a prelude to Julie's confused adulthood. While Julie also struggles with finding a career and a stable relationship, Kayla from Eighth Grade worries about other issues that are a big deal for her naive stage. The contrast would make this Bo Burnham movie an amusing follow-up to The Worst Person.
This under-the-radar Netflix comedy movie is set in a "post-relationship" world. The titular protagonist is an aspiring playwright who is struggling with a recent breakup. When she falls in love with a man who is similarly moving on over a relationship gone sour, the two find common ground.
Some of the plot elements in The Incredible Jessica James are similar to the initial "chapters" of The Worst Person In The World. When Julie finds Askel to be cheating on her, she herself tries her hand at new relationships. Her ultimate goal is to explore different forms of love and find the one that suits her, much like Jessica James.
Before directing The Fault In Our Stars, Josh Boone began his career with Stuck In Love. The movie explores the love lives of a divorced author along with his son and daughter. In the case of all three characters, their relationships present different challenges and complexities.
While Stuck In Love requires three different scenarios to explore the nuances of modern-day love, The Worst Person In The World uses different phases of the protagonist's life to interpret the same. In other words, both movies prove that love can't be summed up in one rom-com formula.
Through the journeys of two recent mothers, Pedro Almodóvar's latest Spanish movie decodes the notion of motherhood in testing times. While one of the mothers is middle-aged and more than happy to give birth, the other is an adolescent who is scared about the new life that befalls her. As the two become friends and start raising their babies, their troubles only begin to increase.
Some scenes in The Worst Person In The World explore Julie's thoughts on being a mother. The experience of having children both scares and amuses her. In case the viewers also harbor similar thoughts, then Parallel Mothers is the perfect film.
Wong Kar-wai's timeless romantic film In The Mood For Love explores dimensions of infidelity through pure romance. As two neighbors suspect their partners to be cheating on them with each other, they start developing a close bond themselves. Falling in love seems inevitable, even for the two protagonists, but this would mean repeating the same mistakes that their partners did.
The Worst Person In The World touches upon similar aspects of cheating and the extent to which it might be justified. Ultimately, both stories open up a conversation on infidelity in relationships without adding much shock value.
A middle-aged couple befriends a younger couple to add some freshness to their seemingly-mundane life. But chaos ensues over time as the former fail to catch up with the younger generation. Apart from the obvious references to a mid-life crisis, While We're Young also laments the loss of youth. Time can move so fast that some people might just forget to live life in between.
Julie's fears are related to such thoughts. She's afraid that by the time she finds the perfect career and the perfect love, it might be too late. The fact that she's approaching her 30th birthday adds to the central conflict shared by the characters of While We're Young.
The Norwegian drama Reprise revolves around the lives of several Oslonians as they navigate life in their early 20s. The two lead characters are both aspiring writers, one of whom becomes famous while the other still struggles. The clash of interests and the fears of securing a livelihood forms the remainder of the premise.
Reprise makes for essential viewing for fans of The Worst Person In The World because it kicked off director Joachim Trier's directorial career while also serving as the first part of his Oslo trilogy. A spiritual trilogy of three movies set in Oslo, Reprise was followed by Oslo, August 31st, and then finally, The Worst Person.