10 Movies Like 13 Going on 30

The ultimate list of films if you are craving something like 13 Going on 30.

A summary for 13 Going on 30:

Young Jenna Rink (played by Christa B. Allen) is best friends with Matt (played by Sean Marquette), and she can’t wait to turn 30 and live life with all its glamour and adult stuff that kids dream about. When her wish actually comes true overnight and she wakes up as a 30-year-old (played by Jennifer Garner), she realizes that adult life is not so much fun after all. Sure, there are some great things here and there, but is it really worth losing your best friend and everything that you had in your sweet childhood for the sake of the glamorous adult life? And mind you, this best friend has been forever in love with you. But now it might be too late… or is it?

This is a movie that gives you everything you want from a fun film night. There is romance, fantasy, music and even some drama to get you sobbing if you are longing for it.

And if you want more movies just like it, here we list 10 movies like 13 Going on 30:

1. You’ve Got Mail (1998)

The year is 1998 in New York. Kathleen Kelly (played by Meg Ryan), who runs a small children’s bookshop, and Joe Fox (played by Tom Hanks), who owns a giant chain bookstore that has just opened around the corner, are two strangers who email each other every day after meeting in an online chat room. They share their daily lives and deep ponderings with each other, and in time form a profound bond. Yet they don’t know what each other looks like in real life, and they are both not aware that the person they hate most in their lives is actually the person they open up to every day through a computer screen.

2. Freaky Friday (2003)

If you are looking for a coming-of-age movie with a cozy, heartwarming family aspect to it and a bit of magic, just like 13 Going on 30, then Freaky Friday might be it. After a pair of magical fortune cookies switches the consciousness and bodies of a mom (played by Jamie Lee Curtis) and her teenage daughter (played by Lindsay Lohan), the two are forced to live literally in each other’s shoes, and they come to understand each other in a way they never had before.

3. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)

We love movies that are set in New York, and especially the ones with Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is a refreshing take on the rom-com. Andie Anderson (played by Kate Hudson) works at a magazine and needs to date a guy and lose him in 10 days to prove a point for an article. Benjamin Barry (played by Matthew McConaughey) works as an advertising executive and bets his boss he can make any woman fall in love with him in 10 days. Both are tricking each other into dating for their own jobs and are faking their feelings for each other. Or is that the case? When does it stop being fake and start being real? It is heartwarming and also very much fun. It doesn’t have any actual magic in it, but it has all the whimsy you need, plus the same glossy magazine-world setting as 13 Going on 30.

4. People We Meet on Vacation (2026)

People We Meet on Vacation is a newer film which has the feeling of a modern romance movie but still has the delight of the older 90s and 00s romantic comedies. It is based on the best-selling book by Emily Henry, and it is what you would call a typical friends-to-lovers story, just like 13 Going on 30. Poppy (played by Emily Bader) and Alex (played by Tom Blyth) meet in college and become best friends. When life takes them to different cities after college, they travel to one destination together each year to keep their friendship alive. Year after year, we witness how their friendship evolves, and it never gets boring, because the leads have one of the best on-screen chemistries in recent years.

5. When Harry Met Sally (1989)

If you haven’t noticed, we love friends-to-lovers story arcs. And when it comes to those, When Harry Met Sally always and always leads this category. It is a classic that never gets old. Sally (played by Meg Ryan) meets Harry (played by Billy Crystal) when she agrees to let Harry join her on a car ride from Chicago to New York. They bicker the whole way: Harry is a cynic who swears men and women can never be just friends, and Sally is an organized, relentless optimist. Years later, they run into each other again, and this time they become very good friends, accepting that they could never be together because of the differences in their personalities and what they want from a relationship. However, you see, things do not always go as planned, and feelings might get involved.

6. Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)

Bridget Jones’s Diary is the ultimate rom-com and has been one of our all-time favorites since the day we first watched it. It mixes British humor with everything a rom-com has, and as a result, you have this sweet, heartwarming masterpiece with two handsome male leads (Hugh Grant and Colin Firth) and our favorite rom-com protagonist, none other than Renée Zellweger. Bridget Jones’s Diary is very relatable for many, and that’s what makes it so captivating: in some scenes, you realize that Bridget represents the awkwardness we all have inside. But the awkwardness doesn’t hold her back from her love-life adventures, which she describes in great detail in her diary entries.

7. Serendipity (2001)

It is New York again, and we love it again, because this time it is Christmas in New York, and few things are more beautiful than that combination. Jonathan (played by John Cusack) and Sara (played by Kate Beckinsale) meet at Bloomingdale’s when they both reach for the last pair of black cashmere gloves in the midst of the Christmas shopping frenzy. They end up spending the evening together at a café called Serendipity 3, but at the end of the night she refuses to give her number to Jonathan. Instead, she decides to leave it up to fate: he writes his number on a five-dollar bill, which she spends, and she writes hers inside a book, which she sells to a secondhand bookshop. She says if they are meant to be, the banknote will find her and the book will find him. And they part ways. Years later, Jonathan still has her on his mind, believing that she is the one for him, and goes on a quest to find her. It isn’t magical in a literal sense, but the film is full of fated events and serendipity, which makes you believe in love and meant-to-be chance encounters.

8. 17 Again (2009)

17 Again is like the reverse version of 13 Going on 30. Instead of a kid wanting to grow up, there is Mike O’Donnell (played by Matthew Perry), who is nearing 40, regretting the decisions he made in high school, and watching his marriage fall apart. After an encounter with a mysterious janitor at his old high school, he turns back into his 17-year-old self (played by Zac Efron) and is back in high school, this time alongside his own teenage kids. Even though at first it seems like a second chance, not to our surprise, he starts seeing the value of what he took for granted in his life, like his family and his wife (played by Leslie Mann). Just like 13 Going on 30, it reminds you to appreciate what you already have.

9. Sweet Home Alabama (2002)

Melanie Carmichael (played by Reese Witherspoon) is a girl who has everything she wants: a successful fashion career in New York, a fiancé who is the son of the mayor (played by Patrick Dempsey), and popularity. But before she can marry her fiancé, she needs to actually divorce her childhood sweetheart Jake (played by Josh Lucas) back home in Alabama, whom she left behind years ago but never officially divorced. She goes back home after many years to get him to sign the divorce papers, but while she is there, she faces the old memories and her old love, runs into old friends, and finds joy again in her hometown. Just like in 13 Going on 30, she has to ask herself whether this glamorous life is worth giving up the true love that has always been there.

10. Just Like Heaven (2005)

When it comes to 00s rom-coms, Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo are definitely staples, and in this movie they share the spotlight as a very unusual romantic duo. Well, because Reese Witherspoon’s character Elizabeth is basically a ghost. The story starts with David (played by Mark Ruffalo) moving into a new apartment, only to find out that Elizabeth’s spirit is still there, and only he can see her. Elizabeth, meanwhile, has no idea that she isn’t actually flesh and bone, or that her apartment has been rented out to someone else. It all begins with them fighting over the apartment, and evolves into a deep connection that involves feelings, of course.