The Next Best Thing

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.

Streaming availability changes weekly. Check the Where to watch panel above — we re-pull TMDB's JustWatch index every week. If nothing's listed, the film is between licence windows.

Our similarity graph picks 6 films based on shared director, keywords, mood-cluster overlap, and MovieLens user co-rating — niche-biased away from blockbusters. Full list: /like/the-next-best-thing-2000/.

John Schlesinger directed The Next Best Thing in 2000. See John Schlesinger's full filmography, where to start with John Schlesinger, or where to go after you've seen everything by John Schlesinger.

The Next Best Thing was released in 2000 (EN original-language production), with a runtime of 108 minutes.