Best movies like Happenstance
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Happenstance Starring Audrey Tautou, Faudel, Eric Savin, Nathalie Besançon, and more. If you liked Happenstance then you may also like: Friday Night, Le Week-End, A Woman Is a Woman, Random Encounters, Return to Me and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.
How, thanks to what's known as the "Butterfly theory" (a random series of unlinked events), can a young woman and a young man meet?
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Le Week-End
Nick and Meg Burrows return to Paris, the city where they honeymooned, to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary and rediscover some romance in their long-lived marriage. The film follows the couple as long-established tensions in their marriage break out in humorous and often painful ways.
A Woman Is a Woman
Longing for a baby, a stripper pursues another man in order to make her boyfriend jealous.
Random Encounters
What seems to be a chance encounter one day at a coffee shop leads to a full-fledged romance, but the couple must fight for their relationship to survive the craziness that is show business.
Return to Me
It took a lot of cajoling to get Bob, a recently widowed architect, to go on a blind date at a quirky Irish-Italian eatery. Once there, he's smitten instantly not with his date but with the sharp-witted waitress. Everything seems to be going great until an unbelievable truth is revealed, one that could easily break both of their hearts for good.
The Jane Austen Book Club
Six Californians start a club to discuss the works of Jane Austen. As they delve into Austen's literature, the club members find themselves dealing with life experiences that parallel the themes of the books they are reading.
Jet Lag
At Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, a beautician on her way to a new job in Mexico accidentally meets a cook who is on his way back from America. Labor strikes, bad weather, and pure luck cause the two of them to share a room overnight at the airport Hilton hotel. Will their initial mutual indifference and downright hostility turn into a one night stand or perhaps something more?
Kelly + Victor
When Kelly meets Victor on the dance floor of a Liverpool nightclub, the attraction is instant. After wandering through the night they find themselves at her flat, making love with a passion and urgency that neither had experienced before. Both Kelly and Victor are struggling to get by as best they can, while the people around them are choosing illegal lifestyles; she is escaping a brutish former lover, while he is being dragged into a world of drugs. It's when they make love that their darker instincts take over.
Before Sunrise
A young man and woman meet on a train in Europe, and wind up spending one evening together in Vienna. Unfortunately, both know that this will probably be their only night together.
Before Sunset
Nine years later, Jesse travels across Europe giving readings from a book he wrote about the night he spent in Vienna with Celine. After his reading in Paris, Celine finds him, and they spend part of the day together before Jesse has to again leave for a flight. They are both in relationships now, and Jesse has a son, but as their strong feelings for each other start to return, both confess a longing for more.
Brief Crossing
A young French man and an older English woman spend one night together on a ship.
Crush
Three 40-something women in a small English town meet weekly for a ritual of gin, cigarettes, and sweets -- and swapped stories arguing which of them has the most pathetic love life. Kate is headmistress at the local school; her best friends are the town's police chief and a cynical, thrice-divorced doctor.
God Is Great and I'm Not
Michèle, 20 years old, feels terrible after having broken up with her boy-friend. She meets Francois, who's a veterinarian and jewish. Michèle decides to convert into Judaism because she has to believe in something, if not in someone.
Falling in Love
During shopping for Christmas, Frank and Molly run into each other. This fleeting short moment will start to change their lives, when they recognize each other months later in the train home and have a good time together. Although both are married and Frank has two little kids, they meet more and more often, their friendship becoming the most precious thing in their lives.
Four Nights of a Dreamer
Jacques, a young man with artistic aspirations, spends four nights wandering Paris with a young woman, whom he rescued from suicide.
French Kiss
After her fiancee admits to infidelity while on a business trip in France, a woman attempts to get her lover back and marry him by traveling to Paris despite her crippling fear of flying. On the way she unwittingly smuggles something of value that has a charming crook chasing her across France as she chases after her future husband.
Girl on a Bicycle
Paolo, an Italian tour bus driver living in Paris, has just summoned up the courage to propose marriage to his German girlfriend Greta. However, a chance encounter with a French woman on a bicycle the very next day turns Paolo's life upside down.
The Girl on the Bridge
It's night on a Paris bridge. A girl leans over Seine River with tears in her eyes and a violent yearning to drown her sorrows. Out of nowhere someone takes an interest in her. He is Gabor, a knife thrower who needs a human target for his show. The girl, Adele, has never been lucky and nowhere else to go. So she follows him. They travel along the northern bank of the Mediterranean to perform.
Husbands and Wives
When Jack and Sally announce that they're splitting up, this comes as a shock to their best friends Gabe and Judy. Maybe mostly because they also are drifting apart and are now being made aware of it. So while Jack and Sally try to go on and meet new people, the marriage of Gabe and Judy gets more and more strained, and they begin to find themselves being attracted to other people.
A Lot Like Love
On a flight from Los Angeles to New York, Oliver and Emily make a connection, only to decide that they are poorly suited to be together. Over the next seven years, however, they are reunited time and time again, they go from being acquaintances to close friends to ... lovers?
Mood Indigo
A woman suffers from an unusual illness caused by a flower growing in her lungs.
The Sign of Leo
An American in Paris lives by sponging off his working friends, and throws a party using borrowed money when his rich American aunt dies, believing firmly in his horoscope.
The Story Of My Life
Raphael is a ghostwriter who takes a job writing for famous footy player Kevin. To his delight and his girlfriend, Murials horror, Kevins current girlfriend is an old (easily rekindled) flame of Raphaels. A freak accident leaves a close friend dead and Raphael is forced to reconsider his priorities.
The Kindness of Strangers
Clara and her two sons escape from her abusive husband with little more than their car and plan to start over in New York. After the car towed away, the family meets Alice, who gets them into an emergency shelter. While stealing food at a Russian restaurant called ‘Winter Palace’, Clara meets Marc, who has been given the chance to help the old eatery regain its former glory. The ‘Winter Palace’ soon becomes a place of unexpected encounters between people who are all undergoing some sort of crisis and whom fate has now brought together.
Man Up
A 34 year old single woman, Nancy, hung-over again, exhausted by the endless fruitless set ups by her friends, traveling across London to toast another 10 years of her parent's successful happy magical marriage runs in with a 40 year old divorcee, Jack, who mistakes her for his 24 year old blind date. Nancy, deciding to go with it, happens to hop on the most chaotic yet hilarious journey of her life which neither of them will ever forget.
Dream for an Insomniac
A girl with insomnia who works in a coffee house has impossibly high standards for her love and fears she will never meet a worthy man. Then in walks a new employee and they click - until she discovers he has a girlfriend. Undaunted, she moves to L.A. with a friend sure that he will dump the girlfriend and follow her. She puts all her faith in fate and hopes for the best.
A Faithful Man
Marianne leaves Abel for Paul, his best friend and the father of her unborn child. Eight years later, Paul dies and Marianne returns to Abel. However, things have changed for the both of them and feelings of jealousy surround their new relationship.
Perfect Opposites
The story of two college graduates from the Midwest who move to Los Angeles, where their love is tested for the first time.
Love Is in the Air
Antoine is a lawyer living in New York. On his way back to France for the final round of a job interview, Antoine finds himself sitting right next to his ex-girlfriend Julie. With a seven-hour flight ahead of them, they are going to have to speak to each other.
The Butterfly Effect
Luis, a Spanish student, goes to London to get a course in Economics. He lives at a house the neighbor of her aunt, but when she broke up with her husband, Luis goes to live with her.
Gaby Baby Doll
Gaby mustn’t be left alone at night. Yet that’s exactly what her boyfriend Vincent does, to test her love for him. She struggles against her natural instincts and quickly exhausts the patience of the local guys. But Gaby decides to turn to castle warden Nicolas, an expert in loneliness, for help.
Hunting and Gathering
When Camille falls ill, she is forced to live with Philibert and Franck.
Friday Night
Paris, 1995. Laure is about to meet friends for dinner. But on her way out, she discovers that the entire city is stalled by a massive transit strike. When she offers a handsome stranger a ride, Laure takes a highly charged, impossibly erotic detour.