Top 5 Best Movies Like Materialists (Ranked & Where to Stream)

Luca Guadagnino turns elite tennis into an arena of sweat-drenched manipulation and tactical intimacy. Anchored by Zendaya’s steely turn as Tashi Duncan, the narrative operates on kinetic ferocity, tracking a decade-long power struggle between two former confidants. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross provide a driving electronic score that mirrors every strategic betrayal on and off the court, showing how professional stature and sexual dominance feed off the same raw impulses. For anyone hunting for movies like Materialists, this picture delivers that exact dynamic where genuine passion is perpetually weighed against ambition, prestige, and unresolved romantic debts.

Lone Scherfig adapts David Nicholls’ novel with an astute eye for the quiet cruelty of passing time. Checking in on Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew on the exact same date across two decades, the story contrasts Emma’s unyielding working-class principles with Dexter’s hollow media fame and privileged drift. Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess generate an authentic push-and-pull, showing how divergent life trajectories strain an undeniable bond. Those drawn to the lingering history and class consciousness in Materialists will appreciate how this film examines whether early intimacy can withstand the distorting pressures of wealth and status.

Director Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum tackles the harsh realities of American medical debt and institutional hardship through a pragmatic lens. Cassie, an uninsured musician drowning in bills, agrees to a fraudulent military marriage of convenience with Luke, an indebted Marine recruit. Sofia Carson and Nicholas Galitzine lean into the ideological friction of their arrangement, keeping their domestic truce grounded in mutual necessity rather than sudden romantic sentimentality. Viewers looking for movies like Materialists will appreciate the exploration of an explicitly transactional bond that slowly fractures as real emotional vulnerability supersedes the financial contract.

John Landis and Eddie Murphy strike comic gold by upending the rituals of elite arranged marriages. Prince Akeem flees a pampered existence in Zamunda to sweep floors at a fast-food restaurant in Queens, desperate to meet an equal partner who values his spirit over his family fortune. Murphy and Arsenio Hall display peerless comedic range, balancing broad laughs with grounded observations about self-determination and elite isolation. The premise mirrors the core dilemma of Materialists, asking whether unvarnished romantic connection can survive when wealth, deceptive personas, and societal expectations frame the entire courtship.

David Dobkin’s comedy trades on the razor-sharp banter between Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson as cynical divorce mediators who exploit high-society receptions for effortless escapades. Their calculated routine collapses the moment Wilson’s character infiltrates an aristocratic political dynasty and inadvertently falls for an engaged woman. Beneath the raucous set pieces, the script exposes the transactional phoniness of elite social circles and the performative nature of traditional courtship rituals. Fans of Materialists will appreciate its skepticism toward high-society romance, especially when cynical calculations get derailed by sudden, messy honesty.