20 best movies like Whatever Works (2009)

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.

When Jack and Sally announce that they're splitting up, this comes as a shock to their best friends Gabe and Judy. Maybe mostly because they also are drifting apart and are now being made aware of it. So while Jack and Sally try to go on and meet new people, the marriage of Gabe and Judy gets more and more strained, and they begin to find themselves being attracted to other people.

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.

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

A recent college graduate sets out to win back the girl of his dreams.

On a small town college campus, a philosophy professor in existential crisis gives his life new purpose when he enters into a relationship with his student.

A career driven professional from Manhattan is wooed by a young painter, who also happens to be the son of her psychoanalyst.

A photographer takes up newsreel shooting to impress a secretary.

Henry Graham lives the life of a playboy. When his lawyer tells him one day that his lifestyle has consumed all his funds, he needs an idea to avoid climbing down the social ladder.

After spending eight months in a mental institution, a former teacher moves back in with his parents and tries to reconcile with his ex-wife.

THE EXTRA MAN is a sophisticated and moving comedy from filmmakers Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini. THE EXTRA MAN follows Louis Ives (Paul Dano), a lonely dreamer who fancies himself the hero of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. When a deeply embarrassing incident forces him to leave his job at an exclusive Princeton prep school, Louis heads to New York City to make a fresh start. He quickly finds a 9 to 5 job at an environmental magazine, where he encounters an entrancing, green-obsessed co-worker Mary (Katie Holmes).

The story of a young man who arrives in Hollywood during the 1930s hoping to work in the film industry, falls in love, and finds himself swept up in the vibrant café society that defined the spirit of the age.

The young Harold lives in his own world of suicide-attempts and funeral visits to avoid the misery of his current family and home environment. Harold meets an 80-year-old woman named Maude who also lives in her own world yet one in which she is having the time of her life. When the two opposites meet they realize that their differences don’t matter and they become best friends and love each other.

Two air traffic controllers who thrive on living dangerously compete to outdo each other on several levels.

New York City is full of lonely hearts seeking the right match, and what Alice, Robin, Lucy, Meg, Tom and David all have in common is the need to learn how to be single in a world filled with ever-evolving definitions of love.

Set in the 1920s French Riviera, a master magician is commissioned to try and expose a psychic as a fraud.

A man watches his life unravel after he is left by his blind girlfriend.

The life you love may be your own.... The wife of a much older man finds herself attracted to their neighbour's son, who is closer to her age.

A sex therapist goes through puberty after the successful removal of a benign tumor resting against his pituitary gland. He experiences all the changes and effects of puberty over a three-week period.

Grieving after the death of her young son Joseph, novelist Betty Fisher enters a dark depression. Hoping to bring her out of it, her mother Margot arranges to kidnap another child, Jose, to replace the son Betty lost. Although she knows it's wrong, Betty accepts Jose as her new son. Meanwhile, Jose's mother Carole is looking for her son with the help of her boyfriend Francois and some of his criminal cohorts.

Christian is a Copenhagen wine seller on the brink of bankruptcy. Equally unsuccessful in just about every other aspect of life, it has been 17months since his wife Anna left him. Anna works as a soccer agent in Buenos Aires and now lives a life of luxury with Argentina's top player Juan Diaz. Then one day Christian and their 16-year-old son Oscar get on a plane to Buenos Aires. Christian arrives under the pretense of wanting to sign the divorce papers, but in truth, he wants to try to win Anna back.

Charles Whitley travels from 1903 to 2020 where he meets Megan Turner, a tour guide at his historic mansion, and experiences a 21st Century Christmas.

A week in the life of a bus driver and poet named Paterson, and his supportive wife Laura.

Set in France during the mid-1970s, Vanessa, a former dancer, and her husband Roland, an American writer, travel the country together. They seem to be growing apart, but when they linger in one quiet, seaside town they begin to draw close to some of its more vibrant inhabitants, such as a local bar/café-keeper and a hotel owner.

In the near future, due to a breakthrough scientific discovery by Dr. Thomas Harbor, there is now definitive proof of an afterlife. While countless people have chosen suicide to reset their existence, others try to decide what it all means. Among them is Dr. Harbor's son Will, who has arrived at his father's isolated compound with a mysterious young woman named Isla. There, they discover the strange acolytes who help Dr. Harbor with his experiments.

After saving each other from jumping off a bridge, Henry Bell and Karen Knightly plot to avenge the people who drove them to suicide. Henry will ruin the life of the woman who married Karen's boyfriend, while Karen will work as a secretary for the man who took Henry's job. Whether revenge will be sweet – or bittersweet – is anyone's guess.

An English auctioneer proposes to the daughter of a mafia kingpin, only to realize that certain "favors" would be asked of him.

As an asteroid nears Earth, a man finds himself alone after his wife leaves in a panic. He decides to take a road trip to reunite with his high school sweetheart. Accompanying him is a neighbor who inadvertently puts a wrench in his plan.

When he suddenly finds himself without his long-standing blue-collar job, Larry Crowne enrolls at his local college to start over. There, he becomes part of an eclectic community of students and develops a crush on his teacher.

How important is the truth when falling in love? Bella is a Manhattan café waitress, about to turn 35, stuck in a long-term affair going nowhere. Paul is a widower, facing old age alone. Bella's mother sets her up with Bruno, a novelist/cabbie who likes to bed-hop and whose ex-wife expects their two children to stay with him for awhile. While Bruno learns some maturity from his young daughter, Paul answers a personals ad placed by a "widow, 60." The two couples - along with one of Paul's older pals and a Jungian stripper - sort out how to initiate a relationship these days, what to do when someone you like disappoints you, and when to tell the truth.

After being thrown away from home, pregnant high school dropout Maria meets Matthew, a highly educated and extremely moody electronics repairman. The two begin an unusual romance built on their sense of mutual admiration and trust.

Jewish Jack-the-lad David seriously fancies smart, rich Anglo-Saxon Carrie as soon as he first offends her in a Boston bar. They run into each other again and though she still says she finds him appalling he works on it and they are soon together. His even more reprehensible best mate and her blousy best friend watch bemused as the two fall deeply in love and then apparently as fatally out again

Two young women and their friends spend spare time at an exclusive nightclub in 1980s New York.

Extremely shy Lars finds it impossible to make friends or socialize. His brother and sister-in-law worry about him, so when he announces that he has a girlfriend he met on the Internet, they are overjoyed. But Lars' new lady is a life-size plastic woman. On the advice of a doctor, his family and the rest of the community go along with his delusion.

After his mistress runs over a young teen, a Wall Street hotshot sees his life unravel in the spotlight, and attracting the interest of a down and out reporter.

A man with a "doormat" personality tries standing up for himself for a change in this comedy. Mild mannered tax accountant Elliot Sherman is what he calls a "Baxter": the kind of calm, unexciting fellow who "wears sock garters" and "enjoys raking leaves." Loved by bosses and parents, Elliot is a perfectly nice guy. And that's his problem.

Jerry Falk, an aspiring writer in New York, falls in love at first sight with a free-spirited young woman named Amanda He has heard the phrase that life is like "anything else," but soon he finds that life with the unpredictable Amanda isn't like anything else at all.

A ghostwriter finds himself romantically involved with his current wife, a married woman and his long-vanished wife.

Jim McAllister, a well-liked high school government teacher, can't help but notice that successful student Tracy Flick uses less than ethical tactics to get what she wants. When Tracy runs for school president, Jim feels that she will be a poor influence on the student body and convinces Paul, a dim-witted but popular student athlete, to run against Tracy. When she becomes aware of Jim's secret involvement in the race, a bitter feud is sparked.

Urban horticulturalist Brontë Mitchell has her eye on a gorgeous apartment, but the building's board will rent it only to a married couple. Georges Fauré, a waiter from France whose visa is expiring, needs to marry an American woman to stay in the country. Their marriage of convenience turns into a burden when they must live together to allay the suspicions of the immigration service, as the polar opposites grate on each other's nerves.

As a parting shot, fired reporter Ann Mitchell prints a fake letter from unemployed "John Doe," who threatens suicide in protest of social ills. The paper is forced to rehire Ann and hires John Willoughby to impersonate "Doe." Ann and her bosses cynically milk the story for all it's worth, until the made-up "John Doe" philosophy starts a whole political movement.

Overachieving actress, Rebecca (Moore), must come to grips with her failing marriage to stay-at-home dad, Tom (Duchovny). While Rebecca's slacker brother, Tobey (Billy Crudup), can't seem to commit to his aspiring-novelist girlfriend, Elaine (Maggie Gyllenhaal). As both relationships spin out of control, the two couples embark on a quest to rediscover the magic and romance of falling in love in New York.

When Will decides to tell his daughter the story of how he met her mother, he discovers that a second look at the past might also give him a second chance at the future.

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

In this film based on a Neil Simon play, newlyweds Corie, a free spirit, and Paul Bratter, an uptight lawyer, share a sixth-floor apartment in Greenwich Village. Soon after their marriage, Corie tries to find a companion for mother, Ethel, who is now alone, and sets up Ethel with neighbor Victor. Inappropriate behavior on a double date causes conflict, and the young couple considers divorce.

Aspiring architect Tom Thompson is told by mysterious Ruth Abernathy that his best friend, "Bill," has taken his own life. Except that Tom has never met Bill and neither have his incredulous friends. So when Tom foolishly agrees to give the eulogy at Bill's funeral, it sets him on a collision course with Ruth -- who is revealed to be Bill's oversexed mother -- and Julie DeMarco, the longtime crush Tom hasn't seen since they were teens.

A very personal story that is both funny and poignant, TORCH SONG TRILOGY chronicles a New Yorker's search for love, respect and tradition in a world that seems not especially made for him.

Ten years after their divorce, Jane and Jake Adler unite for their son's college graduation and unexpectedly end up sleeping together. But Jake is married, and Jane is embarking on a new romance with her architect. Now, she has to sort out her life – just when she thought she had it all figured out.

Gary Starke is one of the best ticket scalpers in New York City. His girlfriend, Linda, doesn't approve of his criminal lifestyle, though, and dumps him when she gets the opportunity to study cooking in Paris. Gary realizes that he has to give up scalping if he has any chance of winning her back. But before he does, he wants to cash out on one last big score. He gets his chance when the pope announces he'll be performing Easter Mass at Yankee Stadium.

A woman on the brink of a marriage proposal is told by a friend that she should date other men before spending the rest of her life with her boyfriend.