20 best movies like Playing by Heart (1998)

Duets is a road-trip comedy which revolves around the little known world of karaoke and the whimsical characters who inhabit it. All roads lead to Omaha, site of a national karaoke competition where this motley group of singers and stars come together for a blow-out sing-off.

A comedy-drama about best friends - one a straight woman, Abbie, the other a gay man, Robert - who decide to have a child together. Five years later, Abbie falls in love with a straight man and wants to move away with her and Robert's little boy Sam, and a nasty custody battle ensues.

A young man is rocked by two announcements from his elderly father: that he has terminal cancer, and that he has a young male lover.

A Taiwanese-American man is happily settled in New York with his American boyfriend. He plans a marriage of convenience to a Chinese woman in order to keep his parents off his back and to get the woman a green card. Chaos follows when his parents arrive in New York for the wedding.

When 19-year-old gay-rights activist Tommy and 24-year-old Alan first meet in 1973, they find themselves on the opposite sides of the political coin...

No sooner does Italian-American widow Loretta accept a marriage proposal from her doltish boyfriend, Johnny, than she finds herself falling for his younger brother, Ronny. She tries to resist, but Ronny lost his hand in an accident he blames on his brother, and has no scruples about aggressively pursuing her while Johnny is out of the country. As Loretta falls deeper in love, she comes to learn that she's not the only one in her family with a secret romance.

Soon-to-be-wed graduate student Finn Dodd develops cold feet when she suspects her fiancé is cheating on her. In order to clear her head, Finn visits her grandmother, Hy, and great aunt, Glady Joe Cleary, in Grasse, Calif. There, Finn learns that Hy and Glady Joe are members of a group of passionate quilters, and over the course of her visit she is regaled with tales of love and life by women who have collected rich experiences and much wisdom.

Aaron Davis (Steve Sandvoss) and Christian Markelli (Wes Ramsey) are the two most opposite people in the world. Aaron is a young Elder (or a Mormon missionary) who wants to do his family proud and is quite passionate about his religion and film. Christian is a shallow WeHo waiter/party boy who only looks forward to bedding a new guy every night.

With the help of a talking freeway billboard, a "wacky weatherman" tries to win the heart of an English newspaper reporter, who is struggling to make sense of the strange world of early-90s Los Angeles.

A young widow discovers that her late husband has left her 10 messages intended to help ease her pain and start a new life.

Rose Morgan, who still lives with her mother, is a professor of Romantic Literature who desperately longs for passion in her life. Gregory Larkin, a mathematics professor, has been burned by passionate relationships and longs for a sexless union based on friendship and respect.

Verona and Burt have moved to Colorado to be close to Burt's parents but, with Veronica expecting their first child, Burt's parents decide to move to Belgium, now leaving them in a place they hate and without a support structure in place. They set off on a whirlwind tour of of disparate locations where they have friends or relatives, sampling not only different cities and climates but also different families. Along the way they realize that the journey is less about discovering where they want to live and more about figuring out what type of parents they want to be.

Revolves around a young couple and their friends struggling with adulthood and issues of relationships and commitment. Based on the 2001 Italian film L'ultimo bacio, directed by Gabriele Muccino.

A man and woman meet by chance at a romantic inn over dinner and, although both are married to others, they find themselves in the same bed the next morning questioning how this could have happened. They agree to meet on the same weekend each year—in the same hotel room—and the years pass each has some personal crisis that the other helps them through, often without both of them understanding what is going on.

An adventurous love story between two young women of different social and economic backgrounds who find themselves going through all the typical struggles of a new romance.

After inheriting a large country estate from his late father, Peter invites his friends from college: married couple Roger and Mary, the lonely Maggie, fashionable Sarah, and writer Andrew, who brings his American TV star wife, Carol. Sarah's new boyfriend, Brian, also attends. It has been 10 years since college, and they find their lives are very different.

Drew Baylor is fired after causing his shoe company to lose hundreds of millions of dollars. To make matters worse, he's also dumped by his girlfriend. On the verge of ending it all, Drew gets a new lease on life when he returns to his family's small Kentucky hometown after his father dies. Along the way, he meets a flight attendant with whom he falls in love.

Ben and Katie Jordan are a married couple who go through hard times in fifteen years of marriage.

Pakistan-born comedian Kumail Nanjiani and grad student Emily Gardner fall in love but struggle as their cultures clash. When Emily contracts a mysterious illness, Kumail finds himself forced to face her feisty parents, his family's expectations, and his true feelings.

The life you love may be your own.... The wife of a much older man finds herself attracted to their neighbour's son, who is closer to her age.

During their travels from Chicago to New York, Harry and Sally Will debate whether or not sex ruins a perfect relationship between a man and a woman. Eleven years later, and they're still no closer to finding the answer.

Upon first sight of a beautiful instructor, a bored and overworked estate lawyer signs up for ballroom dancing lessons.

Cheated on, mistreated and stepped on, the women are holding their breath, waiting for the elusive "good man" to break a string of less-than-stellar lovers. Friends and confidants Vannah, Bernie, Glo and Robin talk it all out, determined to find a better way to breathe.

At a picturesque lakeside estate, a love triangle unfolds between the legendary diva Irina, her lover Boris, and the ingénue Nina.

Book superstore magnate, Joe Fox and independent book shop owner, Kathleen Kelly fall in love in the anonymity of the Internet – both blissfully unaware that he's putting her out of business.

Megan is an all-American girl. A cheerleader. She has a boyfriend. But Megan doesn't like kissing her boyfriend very much. And she's pretty touchy with her cheerleader friends. Her conservative parents worry that she must be a lesbian and send her off to "sexual redirection" school, where she must, with other lesbians and gays learn how to be straight.

George Clooney plays the dry cynical character of Ryan Bingham, an executive who specializes in "downsizing". Ryan lives out of his suitcase, traveling the country for the sole purpose terminating unwanted employees day after day. Just as Ryan is about to reach his life-long goal of the ten million mile frequent flyer mark some major changes come his way. Changes that threaten to crack the cold heartless exterior that is Ryan Bingham.

In LA's Fairfax district, where ethnic groups abound, four households celebrate Thanksgiving amidst family tensions. In the Nguyen family, the children's acculturation and immigrant parents' fears collide. In the Avila family, Isabel's son has invited her estranged husband to their family dinner. Audrey and Ron Williams want to keep their own family's ruptures secret from Ron's visiting mother. In the Seelig household, Herb and Ruth are unwilling to discuss openly their grown daughter's living with her lover, Carla. Around each table, things come to a head. A gun, an affair, a boyfriend, and a pregnancy precipitate crises forcing each family to find its center.

One man does all he can to veil his Asian heritage; the other takes great pains to hide his sexual orientation. Both of these things begin to change when Ryan is hired to prepare film star Ning for a fashion shoot, and the men develop a bond.

Angie lives in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, N.Y. and dreams of a better life than everyone she knows. When she finds that she is pregnant by her boyfriend Vinnie, she decides that she will have the baby, but not Vinnie as a husband. This turns the entire neighborhood upside down and starts her on a journey of self discovery. This journey includes her family, a new lover and her life. Even her best friend Tina has trouble understanding Angie. Written by Tony Fontana

After leaving Washington D.C. hospital, plastic surgeon Ben Stone heads for California, where a lucrative practice in Beverly Hills awaits. After a car accident, he's sentenced to perform as the community's general practitioner.

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 woman who is robbed on her way to catch the 1:30 train to Boston is left stranded in New York City. She meets a man who helps her during the course of the night and the two form a romance.

A Hollywood-set romantic tale of a guy who is content to live his life without a job yet with the love of his life, a young actress.

When college friends reunite after 15 years over the Christmas holidays, they discover just how easy it is for long-forgotten rivalries and romances to be reignited.

Miranda Presley moves from New York to Nashville to become a songwriter. At an unsuccessful audition she meets James Wright, a promising newcomer. After only a few days they marry but start to quickly regret it.

A very personal story that is both funny and poignant, TORCH SONG TRILOGY chronicles a New Yorker's search for love, respect and tradition in a world that seems not especially made for him.

Three friends get together and bury a box making a pact to open it at midnight at their high school graduation. In the little town in Georgia that they live in, things soon change. One is little miss perfect, one is an engaged prom queen, and the other is a pregnant outcast. The night of graduation, they open the box and they strike up a conversation. All of a sudden, one brings up the topic of her going to Los Angeles for a record contract audition. They all decide to go together and they leave. With a little money, they set out on the road with a guy named Ben. When one of them tells the other a rumor that he might be a homicidal maniac they are all scared of him. When they reach LA, Lucy falls in love with Ben and against her father's wishes, she stays and she goes to the audition.

A divorcee has a passionate affair with a much younger surfing instructor in Hawaii.

Music From Another Room is a romantic comedy that follows the exploits of Danny, a young man who grew up believing he was destined to marry the girl he helped deliver as a five year old boy when his neighbor went into emergency labor. Twenty-five years later, Danny returns to his hometown and finds the irresistible Anna Swann but she finds it easy to resist him since she is already engaged to dreamboat Eric, a very practical match. In pursuit of Anna, Danny finds himself entangled with each of the eccentric Swanns including blind, sheltered Nina, cynical sister Karen, big brother Bill and dramatic mother Grace as he fights to prove that fate should never be messed with and passion should never be practical.

When a chance encounter brings together the cynical Dell and the quick-witted Kimberly, the stage is set for a tempestuous love affair that unfolds like a puzzle. As the film zigzags back and forth in time-from a meteor shower in LA, to an encounter in a Paris hotel room, to a fateful phone call-an unforgettable portrait of a relationship emerges.

A pregnant New York social worker begins to develop romantic feelings for her gay best friend, and decides she'd rather raise her child with him, much to the dismay of her overbearing boyfriend.

Quirky Jamie Harris is a magnet for less-than-kind men as she hops beds. But things start to look up when she becomes the object of affection of two seemingly normal men. Unfortunately, there's the immense problem of her self-imposed 90-day moratorium on sex.

A gay teenager finds out who he is and what he wants, who his friends are, and who loves him, in this autobiographical tale set in middle U.S. in the 1980s. Growing up, learning about life, love, sex, friends, and lovers.

Rebellious Mickey and good-natured Gus navigate the thrills and agonies of modern relationships.

A couple who have known each other since 8 are destined to be together until death do them apart.

Based on Evelyn Waugh's 1945 classic British novel, Brideshead Revisited is a poignant story of forbidden love and the loss of innocence set in England prior to the Second World War.

A working girl from New Jersey looks for love with a fast-lane Manhattan salesman from Queens.

A family dog—with a near-human soul and a philosopher's mind—evaluates his life through the lessons learned by his human owner, a race-car driver.

In the fall of 1963, Eddie Birdlace is an 18-year-old Marine Corps volunteer who is about to ship out with three of his buddies for a tour of duty in Vietnam. Planning a massive blowout for their last night in San Francisco, Eddie, his buddies, and a number of other Marines set up a contest they call a "dogfight."