Here are Cinephile Corner’s 10 recommendations for movies like Crossing Delancey:
Materialists
Materialists feels like a transitional work. It shows Celine Song experimenting with scale, ensemble dynamics, and new narrative textures—but it lacks the intimacy and precision that defined her first film. It’s a movie with moments that flirt with those same highs in small doses, but one that ultimately falls short. Still, it leaves me hopeful: the emotional territory Song wants to chart is rare in contemporary cinema, and while Materialists stumbles, it’s a sign that she’s aiming high. Her best films are likely still ahead.
You Hurt My Feelings
You Hurt My Feelings is a movie tearing apart the artistic complex. A film that questions whether professionals can have their lives figured out in the twenties or thirties. It’s honest and personal, as if Nicole Holofcener is using Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a stand in for directors and creatives everywhere.
Splitsville
Splitsville is the better of Dakota Johnson’s two 2025 relationship comedies, a looser, livelier counterpoint to Celine Song’s Materialists. Directed by and co-starring Michael Angelo Covino with frequent collaborator Kyle Marvin, it plays like a pinball machine of modern romance, funny more often than not, rarely profound, yet consistently watchable. Covino and Marvin build a brisk farce around two couples whose ideas about fidelity collide, and the result is breezy and entertaining in the moment, and a little thin after.
The Daytrippers
Even if The Daytrippers struggles to evolve due to sluggish pacing and typical genre tropes, it’s still worth your time to see early Greg Mottola work his magic. Excellent direction, and a starry cast, manages to keep the movie afloat.
The Royal Tenenbaums
The Royal Tenenbaums not only stands as one of Wes Anderson’s best movies of his career, but also a defining work of the independent filmmaking scene in the early 2000s. It’s dripping with color and visual intensity, masking a story with deep themes of broken families.
Nonnas
Nonnas is a reminder that charm, good casting, and a touch of sincerity can elevate a standard script into something enjoyable, if not exactly essential. It’s not destined for rewatchability or critical acclaim, but for a streaming comedy in 2025, that’s probably enough.
Blue Moon
Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke reunite for Blue Moon (2025), a compact character study that plays in similar fashion to their collaboration nearly 25 years ago Tape. Set almost entirely inside Sardi’s Bar in 1943, the film follows a single night in the life of lyricist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) on the evening that his ex-creative partner Richard Rodgers’ Oklahoma! premieres to rapturous success nearby. Hawke’s Hart drinks, riffs and ricochets through memories and resentments, bending conversations to his own restless monologue whether the audience is Eddie the bartender (Bobby Cannavale), the much younger Elizabeth (Margaret Qualley), or Rodgers himself (Andrew Scott).
Rye Lane
Few films in 2023 will reach the peaceful bliss that Hulu’s newest streamer Rye Lane does, a movie about two lost twenty-somethings recovering from painful breakups over the span of one eventful afternoon in South London. Told through an episodic lens that depicts the steps from heartbreak to a restored faith in relationships, Rye Lane is a cheerful reimagining of the romantic comedy.
We Live in Time
A movie like We Live in Time really shouldn’t work. The overly sentimental cancer drama is a well-trodden path, with its fair share of genuinely touching entries but even more bogged down by predictability and melodrama. We Live in Time doesn’t completely avoid these familiar pitfalls, as it leans into some of the same cheesy tropes that often plague this subgenre.
Fly Me to the Moon
Rumor has it that Apple is stepping away from theatrical releases for their original movies, and the lukewarm reception of Greg Berlanti‘s Fly Me to the Moon may be a big reason why. Starring Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson, this romantic comedy set against the backdrop of the U.S.-Soviet space race seemed poised for success. It had all the ingredients for a financial hit: big stars, a pastiche-heavy style, and the kind of premise that could benefit from strong word-of-mouth. Yet, it never gained traction.
READ MORE: Crossing Delancey (1988)
