20 best movies like The Squid and the Whale (2005)

The film tells a story of a divorced couple trying to raise their young son. The story follows the boy for twelve years, from first grade at age 6 through 12th grade at age 17-18, and examines his relationship with his parents as he grows.

An acclaimed writer, his ex-wife, and their teenaged children come to terms with the complexities of love in all its forms over the course of one tumultuous year.

Intersecting stories with different moms collide on Mother's Day.

A clinically depressed teenager gets a new start after he checks himself into an adult psychiatric ward.

Set in New York City in the sweltering summer, The Wackness tells the story of a troubled teenage drug dealer, who trades pot for therapy sessions with a drug-addled psychiatrist. Things get more complicated when he falls for one of his classmates, who just happens to be the doctors daughter. This is a coming-of-age story about sex, drugs, music and what it takes to be a man.

Greg is coasting through senior year of high school as anonymously as possible, avoiding social interactions like the plague while secretly making spirited, bizarre films with Earl, his only friend. But both his anonymity and friendship threaten to unravel when his mother forces him to befriend a classmate with leukemia.

A sweeping multigenerational story set against the backdrop of the raw, roaring New York City of the late 1980s; adoption, teen pregnancy, drugs, hardcore punk rock, the unbridled optimism and reckless stupidity of the young—and old—are all major elements in this heart-aching tale of the son of diehard hippies and his strange odyssey through the extremes of late 20th century youth culture.

Self-described misanthrope Elle Reid has her protective bubble burst when her 18-year-old granddaughter, Sage, shows up needing help. The two of them go on a day-long journey that causes Elle to come to terms with her past and Sage to confront her future.

When Pete and Ellie decide to start a family, they stumble into the world of foster care adoption. They hope to take in one small child but when they meet three siblings, including a rebellious 15 year old girl, they find themselves speeding from zero to three kids overnight.

A strong, human tale about a boy growing up with an alcoholic father, but also an energetic story about teenage lust, pain and passion – about liberation and redemption.

Malcolm is carefully surviving life in a tough neighborhood in Los Angeles while juggling college applications, academic interviews, and the SAT. A chance invitation to an underground party leads him into an adventure that could allow him to go from being a geek, to being dope, to ultimately being himself.

After 11-year-old Zachary Cowan strikes his classmate across the face with a stick after an argument, the victim's parents invite Zachary's parents to their Brooklyn apartment to deal with the incident in a civilized manner.

Tracy, a lonely college freshman in New York, is rescued from her solitude by her soon-to-be stepsister Brooke, an adventurous gal about town who entangles her in alluringly mad schemes. Mistress America is a comedy about dream-chasing, score-settling, makeshift families, and cat-stealing.

Between two Thanksgivings, Hannah's husband falls in love with her sister Lee, while her hypochondriac ex-husband rekindles his relationship with her sister Holly.

From Spike Lee comes this vibrant semi-autobiographical portrait of a school-teacher, her stubborn jazz-musician husband and their five kids living in '70s Brooklyn.

Waxing nostalgic about the bittersweet passage from childhood to puberty in this tender coming-of-age tale, four childhood girlfriends -- Teeny, Chrissy, Samantha and Roberta -- recall the magical summer of 1970. During their walk down memory lane, they reconcile experiences with boys, secrets, bullies and more.

Awkward teenager Charlie Bartlett has trouble fitting in at a new high school. Charlie needs some friends fast, and decides that the best way to find them is to appoint himself the resident psychiatrist. He becomes one of the most popular guys in school by doling out advice and, occasionally, medication, to the student body.

A divorced writer from the Midwest returns to her hometown to reconnect with an old flame, who's now married with a family.

New York, 1937. A teenager hired to star in Orson Welles' production of Julius Caesar becomes attracted to a career-driven production assistant.

Bright young student Raymond Aibelli is forced to sidetrack an important medical internship because his mother, Susan, is recovering from a broken leg. When he isn't tasked with the most mundane aspects of Susan's recuperation, Raymond finds distraction in a neighborhood girl, Toni Peck. But, as Susan begins relying on her son for both physical and emotional needs, Raymond starts developing disturbing and unwanted new yearnings.

Based on the novel by Truman Capote, this often-witty coming-of-age drama looks at a young man growing up with an unusual family in the Deep South in the 1940s.

A coming-of-middle-age comedy that chronicles the unlikely friendship between failed author Richard Dunne and a Long Island teen who teaches him a thing or two about growing up, all under the disapproving eye of his long-suffering wife and his imaginary Superhero friend.

A vulnerable teenager with a deep perception of the world and no idea how to live in it.

The feature film debut by artist Miranda July about a various comic situations and plots that intertwine. One story line is about a father who is ending his marriage and the other story is of a video artist (possibly autobiographical of Miranda July, also played by her) who is desperately trying to get her work in a modern art museum. The film won Caméra d'Or at Cannes.

Hal, a 15-year-old high-school student with a minor yet socially alienating (and painful) disability: he stutters uncontrollably. Determined to work through the problem, Hal opts for an extreme route he joins the school debating team, which sends him on a headfirst plunge into breakneck speech competitions and offers a much-needed boost toward correcting the problem.

Maggie's plan to have a baby on her own is derailed when she falls in love with John, a married man, destroying his volatile marriage to the brilliant and impossible Georgette. But one daughter and three years later, Maggie is out of love and in a quandary: what do you do when you suspect your man and his ex wife are actually perfect for each other?

A teenager pretends to be dying from cancer as a way to cope with the realities of his daily existence and his father's terminal illness.

At her husband's funeral, Pearl (Shirley MacLaine), Jewish mother of two divorced and antagonistic daughters, meets an old Italian friend (Marcello Mastroianni) of her husband, whose advice years previously had stopped the husband leaving home. For 23 years he, now a widower, has secretly loved Pearl...

In New York City, a husband and wife butt heads with the granddaughters of the elderly woman who lives in the apartment the couple owns.

Estranged twins Maggie and Milo coincidentally cheat death on the same day, prompting them to reunite and confront the reasons their lives went so wrong. As the twins' reunion reinvigorates them, they realize the key to fixing their lives may just lie in repairing their relationship.

Jonathan Ames, a young Brooklyn writer, is feeling lost. He's just gone through a painful break-up, thanks in part to his drinking, can't write his second novel, and carouses too much with his magazine editor. Rather than face reality, Jonathan turns instead to his fantasies — moonlighting as a private detective — because he wants to be a hero and a man of action.

Over the course of his summer break, a teenager comes into his own thanks in part to the friendship he strikes up with one of the park's managers.

Na'ama is seventeen. She lives in a sleepy suburbia. She is bored. With detached parents and a rebellious older sister, her life at home is a mess. It all changes when a new girl appears at school. She's introduced to a world of drugs, lesbians and sex. She's thrilled. Her life, at last, becomes exciting. Is it going to last? "Barash" is a coming of age story, planted in the heart of Israeli society, about a young woman who struggles to find her self-identity in an environment that has different ideas about sex, drugs and love.

A police officer faces a personal meltdown following a divorce and the death of his mother.

An immature, newly unemployed comic must navigate the murky waters of adulthood after her fling with a graduate student results in an unplanned pregnancy.

A bullied teen experiences a turning point summer in which he learns to stand up for himself.

When Juli meets Bryce in the second grade, she knows it's true love. After spending six years trying to convince Bryce the same, she's ready to give up - until he starts to reconsider.

What happens when a generation's ultimate anti-authoritarians — punk rockers — become society's ultimate authorities — dad's? With a large chorus of Punk Rock's leading men — Blink-182's Mark Hoppus, Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea, Rise Against's Tim McIlrath — The Other F Word follows Jim Lindberg, 20-year veteran of skate punk band, Pennywise, on his hysterical and moving journey from belting his band's anthem, 'Fuck Authority', to embracing his ultimately pivotal authoritarian role in mid-life, fatherhood.

In New York, a struggling actress and a successful writer sing about their failed marriage from two perspectives.

A sister and brother face the realities of familial responsibility as they begin to care for their ailing father.

Divorced and demoralised, Amy Minsky’s prospects look bleak when she is condemned to move back in with her parents at the age of 35. Everyone wants to help but, as her patience level with advice is plummeting, a bold teenage boy enters her life, igniting her last bit of self-esteem.

In 1979 Santa Barbara, California, Dorothea Fields is a determined single mother in her mid-50s who is raising her adolescent son, Jamie, at a moment brimming with cultural change and rebellion. Dorothea enlists the help of two younger women – Abbie, a free-spirited punk artist living as a boarder in the Fields' home and Julie, a savvy and provocative teenage neighbour – to help with Jamie's upbringing.

A broken family finds their relationships to one another changed by a new arrival in the household.

A young woman is forced to reflect on her first relationship when she inadvertently moves into her ex boyfriend's apartment building.

The continuing adventures of the Portokalos family. A follow-up to the 2002 comedy, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding."

When a beautiful first-grade teacher arrives at a prep school, she soon attracts the attention of an ambitious teenager named Max, who quickly falls in love with her. Max turns to the father of two of his schoolmates for advice on how to woo the teacher. However, the situation soon gets complicated when Max's new friend becomes involved with her, setting the two pals against one another in a war for her attention.

Thirteen-year-old Kayla endures the tidal wave of contemporary suburban adolescence as she makes her way through the last week of middle school — the end of her thus far disastrous eighth grade year — before she begins high school.

A Serious Man is the story of an ordinary man's search for clarity in a universe where Jefferson Airplane is on the radio and F-Troop is on TV. It is 1967, and Larry Gopnik, a physics professor at a quiet Midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith that she is leaving him. She has fallen in love with one of his more pompous acquaintances Sy Ableman.

Beautiful aspiring rock star Jude is stuck in a rut - relegated to recording commercial jingles and lost in a series of one night stands. When she is evicted from her Brooklyn apartment, she is forced to move into the Hamptons home of her wealthy - and selfish - father Paul Lombard, an over-the-hill, Sinatra-esque crooner angling for a musical comeback.

After leaving his wife and his job to find happiness, Anders begins a clumsy, heartbreaking quest to reassemble the pieces of his fractured life.