With changing times come changing careers, and movies like The Intern present ways where both young and old people alike adjust to such job shifts.
The legendary Robert De Niro portrays a gentle 70-year-old widower who accepts a job as an intern in an online fashion retail business. Its young CEO, played by Anne Hathaway, learns a thing or two from the old-timer who still makes wise business sense. The lighthearted dramedy compares how generations react to poignant career shifts.
Want to get inspired with more career-turning narratives? Then read on to find out my recommended movies like The Intern!
10 Career Self-Reinvention Movies Like The Intern
1. The Internship (2013)
Two longtime salesmen find themselves jobless when their employer closes his business. They enroll in a Google internship program to hopefully land a job—even though they don’t have enough tech-savvy and know-how.
 Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn team up as adults who can’t navigate digital technology to save their lives. The film shows intergenerational challenges in competing with technology-driven jobs, but also emphasized that both could learn from each other.
Though it appears like a big Google commercial as some critics pointed out, the film still offers a nearly accurate look at what happens inside such tech giants.
2. Chef (2014)
A hotheaded chef’s public meltdown leads him unemployed, while also giving him back the chance to get in touch with his love for cooking the cuisine he wants, and transforms this love into a new food truck business.
Jon Favreau directs himself in a story he wrote about how an adult could reinvent himself even after hardships and public scrutiny. After serving a glamorous restaurant, his chef character grounds himself in ways that would center him in his career once again.
Movies like The Intern and Chef send encouraging messages to established professionals that rebranding one’s life is possible today.
3. Jerry Maguire (1996)
A sports agent writes an epiphany that vilifies his company, getting him fired. In rebuilding himself with his own agency, he finds more epiphanies in dealing with professionals of his caliber and receiving love from folks outside the limelight.
Tom Cruise’s unforgettable “show me the money” line is now iconic, thanks to this film. It has a good balance of high-energy scenes, tender moments, and an intriguing behind-the-scenes peek of how the sports industry runs from the business side.
Watch how its heartwarming and fun mix of romance, career talk, and sports made this the 9th highest-grossing film of 1996.
4. The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
A college grad and aspiring journalist lands her first job as an assistant of a powerful fashion magazine’s editor-in-chief. She tries to reconcile her initial disdain for the glossy industry while navigating how to succeed in it, too.
Anne Hathaway is perfect as the idealistic and even sarcastic young professional who transforms herself unknowingly yet wittingly at times, serving the iconic Miranda Priestly character played to the T by Meryl Streep.
These movies like The Intern and The Devil Wears Prada might show a lighthearted approach to career changes, but their box-office success proves it’s a good formula to use.
5. Miss Congeniality (2000)
An FBI agent reluctantly takes on an undercover job to infiltrate a national beauty pageant being threatened by a terrorist. Without a fashion bone on her body, she slowly transforms and begins understanding the nature of such contests.
Sandra Bullock delivers another humorous and unforgettable role in a film that’s now a cult classic. While her character isn’t exactly trading one job for another, being in the shoes of others helps her realize how various jobs mean to different people.
This 2000 film proved to be very successful that they made a 2005 sequel. Watch it as a companion film.
6. Love and Other Drugs (2010)
A sex-obsessed slacker tries his hand at being a sales representative of a pharmaceutical company. In this new career, he slowly excels and meets a woman with whom he falls in love. But Parkinson’s Disease threatens their relationship.
Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway show a goofy kind of chemistry that works well for this story about how love could serve as another kind of drug that humans take—or not take—through the course of their lives.
Expect scenes on the introduction of Viagra in the market—as the film is based on the book written by a Viagra salesman.
7. In Good Company (2004)
When a middle-aged advertising executive finds himself working for a new boss who’s almost half his age, adjustments come hard. It’s even harder when this young boss takes an interest in his daughter.
Dennis Quaid exemplifies the conflicts older professionals in movies like The Intern feel about encountering younger coworkers and superiors in these ever-changing modern times. Topher Grace plays the young man who represents others like him in his generation: successful at work, but lonely in their personal lives.
Scarlet Johansson also appears here as the daughter to add more conflict and obstacles in this humorous yet heartwarming plot.
8. Why Him (2016)
A stern yet loving father balances his disdain for his college-age daughter’s tech millionaire hipster of a boyfriend and dealing with his flailing business.
Bryan Cranston’s stoic and scowling approach to the father role gives good comedic results to James Franco’s eccentric tech genius character. The elder’s troubled business also shows how tech is also eliminating the need for businesses thought to withstand the test of time, such as the father’s printing company.
Movies like The Intern and Why Him initially present intergenerational differences to spark conflict, but could also present a dramatic resolution that may narrow the generational gap.
9. Legally Blonde (2001)
A ditzy-looking sorority girl reinvents herself as a serious law student to hopefully win back her ex. But what she wins, instead, is a new career path as a future lawyer.
Reese Witherspoon brought Elle Woods to life perfectly, a character who showed the world that looks, interests, and a good fashion sense shouldn’t hinder one’s chance to become a serious professional and to be seen as a competent one.
Box-office wins of movies like The Intern and Legally Blonde show how they struck a chord with people who aren’t readily accepted for their skills—and the underdog will prevail.
10. Once Upon A Time in Hollywood (2019)
In a fast-moving Hollywood, a 1960s action star grapples with industry changes and feels his way to becoming a has-been. His loyal stunt double remains on his side as a friend.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt hit it off as the actor and stunt double tandem navigating the current tides of Hollywood as the 1970s roll out. It’s a perfect fit for these real-life aging A-listers in Quentin Tarantino’s ode to the golden age of Hollywood.
As with other Tarantino films, expect other controversial subplots here, like the Sharon Tate murder and a Bruce Lee appearance that angered Lee’s daughter.