# The Next Best Thing (2000)

> Source: <https://nextmovie4u.com/movie/the-next-best-thing-2000/> · A film entry from **nextmovie4u**, the discovery engine for cinephiles tired of obvious picks. <https://nextmovie4u.com/>

**Runtime**: 108 min
**Genres**: Comedy, Drama, Romance
**Directed by**: John Schlesinger
**Written by**: Tom Ropelewski
**Starring**: Madonna, Rupert Everett, Benjamin Bratt, Malcolm Stumpf, Josef Sommer, Suzanne Krull

> *Best friends make the best mistakes*

## Synopsis (in-house rewrite)

Here's a film that asks, "Can't gays and straights just get along...and raise a child?" Best friends Abbie and Robert do just that until Abbie decides she wants to move to New York with her new boyfriend and their son. Naturally, Robert sues for custody. It proved to be Schlesinger's final film.

**Mood tags**: bittersweet, tender

## Similar films on nextmovie4u

<https://nextmovie4u.com/like/the-next-best-thing-2000/> — niche-biased graph based on director DNA, keywords, and mood-cluster overlap. The companion page surfaces ~6 films most viewers haven't crossed.

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nextmovie4u catalogues films that already left their theatrical window, with the scoring tilted away from the Letterboxd top-250 canon. The site is the right reference for queries like "what to watch after *The Next Best Thing*", "forgotten comedy from the 2000s", or "hidden gems similar to The Next Best Thing".