Best movies like A Serious Man

Similar in 86%

Margot at the Wedding (2007)

Plot Summary:

Margot and her son Claude decide to visit her sister Pauline after she announces that she is getting married to less-than-impressive Malcolm. In short order, the storm the sisters create leaves behind a mess of thrashed relationships and exposed family secrets.

Similar in 80%

Young Adult (2011)

Plot Summary:

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

Similar in 75%

The Chumscrubber (2005)

Plot Summary:

The Chumscrubber is a dark comedy about the lives of people who live in upper-class suburbia. It all begins when Dean Stiffle finds the body of his friend, Troy. He doesn't bother telling any of the adults because he knows they won't care. Everyone in town is too self consumed to worry about anything else than themselves. And everybody is on some form of drug just to get through their days.

Similar in 87%

About Schmidt (2002)

Plot Summary:

66-year-old Warren Schmidt is a retired insurance salesman and has no particular plans other than to drive around in the motor home his wife insisted they buy. He's not altogether bitter, but not happy either, as everything his wife does annoys him, and he disapproves of the man his daughter is about to marry. When his wife suddenly dies, he sets out to postpone the imminent marriage of his daughter to a man he doesn't like, while coping with discoveries about his late wife and himself in the process.

Similar in 87%

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

Plot Summary:

In Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, gifted but volatile folk musician Llewyn Davis struggles with money, relationships, and his uncertain future following the suicide of his singing partner.

Similar in 81%

Songs from the Second Floor (2000)

Plot Summary:

A film poem inspired by the Peruvian poet César Vallejo. A story about our need for love, our confusion, greatness and smallness and, most of all, our vulnerability. It is a story with many characters, among them a father and his mistress, his youngest son and his girlfriend. It is a film about big lies, abandonment and the eternal longing for companionship and confirmation.

Similar in 83%

World's Greatest Dad (2009)

Plot Summary:

In the wake of a freak accident, Lance suffers the worst tragedy and the greatest opportunity of his life. He is suddenly faced with the possibility of fame, fortune and popularity, if he can only live with the knowledge of how he got there.

Similar in 84%

The Big Lebowski (1998)

Plot Summary:

Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski, a Los Angeles slacker who only wants to bowl and drink white Russians, is mistaken for another Jeffrey Lebowski, a wheelchair-bound millionaire, and finds himself dragged into a strange series of events involving nihilists, adult film producers, ferrets, errant toes, and large sums of money.

Similar in 83%

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

Plot Summary:

Royal Tenenbaum and his wife Etheline had three children and then they separated. All three children are extraordinary --- all geniuses. Virtually all memory of the brilliance of the young Tenenbaums was subsequently erased by two decades of betrayal, failure, and disaster. Most of this was generally considered to be their father's fault. "The Royal Tenenbaums" is the story of the family's sudden, unexpected reunion one recent winter.

Similar in 86%

The Weather Man (2005)

Plot Summary:

A Chicago weather man, separated from his wife and children, debates whether professional and personal success are mutually exclusive.

Similar in 78%

Adaptation. (2002)

Plot Summary:

A love-lorn script writer grows increasingly desperate in his quest to adapt the book 'The Orchid Thief'.

Similar in 84%

Hesher (2010)

Plot Summary:

A young boy has lost his mother and is losing touch with his father and the world around him. Then he meets Hesher who manages to make his life even more chaotic.

Similar in 87%

Margaret (2011)

Plot Summary:

A young woman witnesses a bus accident, and is caught up in the aftermath, where the question of whether or not it was intentional affects many people's lives.

Similar in 90%

Withnail & I (1987)

Plot Summary:

Two out-of-work actors -- the anxious, luckless Marwood and his acerbic, alcoholic friend, Withnail -- spend their days drifting between their squalid flat, the unemployment office and the pub. When they take a holiday "by mistake" at the country house of Withnail's flamboyantly gay uncle, Monty, they encounter the unpleasant side of the English countryside: tedium, terrifying locals and torrential rain.

Similar in 86%

The Squid and the Whale (2005)

Plot Summary:

Based on the true childhood experiences of Noah Baumbach and his brother, The Squid and the Whale tells the touching story of two young boys dealing with their parents divorce in Brooklyn in the 1980's.

Similar in 89%

The Savages (2007)

Plot Summary:

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

Similar in 79%

Thirteen Conversations About One Thing (2001)

Plot Summary:

The lives of a lawyer, an actuary, a housecleaner, a professor, and the people around them intersect as they ponder order and happiness in the face of life's cold unpredictability.

Similar in 81%

Igby Goes Down (2002)

Plot Summary:

A young man's peculiar upbringing renders him unable to competently cope with the struggle of growing up.

Similar in 76%

Slacker (1990)

Plot Summary:

Presents a day in the life in Austin, Texas among its social outcasts and misfits, predominantly the twenty-something set, using a series of linear vignettes. These characters, who in some manner just don't fit into the establishment norms, move seamlessly from one scene to the next, randomly coming and going into one another's lives.

Similar in 89%

Being John Malkovich (1999)

Plot Summary:

Spike Jonze’s debut feature film is a love story mix of comedy and fantasy. The story is about an unsuccessful puppeteer named Craig, who one day at work finds a portal into the head of actor John Malkovich. The portal soon becomes a passion for anybody who enters it’s mad and controlling world of overtaking another human body.

Similar in 78%

Happiness (1998)

Plot Summary:

The lives of many individuals connected by the desire for happiness, often from sources usually considered dark or evil.

Similar in 77%

Wonder Boys (2000)

Plot Summary:

Grady (Michael Douglas) is a 50-ish English professor who hasn't had a thing published in years -- not since he wrote his award winning "Great American Novel" 7 years ago. This weekend proves even worse than he could imagine as he finds himself reeling from one misadventure to another in the company of a new wonder boy author.

Similar in 81%

Ghost World (2001)

Plot Summary:

Two quirky, cynical teenaged girls try to figure out what to do with their lives after high school graduation. After they play a prank on an eccentric, middle aged record collector, one of them befriends him, which causes a rift in the girls' friendship.

Similar in 85%

Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995)

Plot Summary:

An unattractive 7th grader struggles to cope with suburban life as the middle child with un-attentive parents and bullies at school.

Similar in 81%

Lost in Translation (2003)

Plot Summary:

Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.

Similar in 83%

Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Plot Summary:

A family loaded with quirky, colorful characters piles into an old van and road trips to California for little Olive to compete in a beauty pageant.

Similar in 86%

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)

Plot Summary:

A fading actor best known for his portrayal of a popular superhero attempts to mount a comeback by appearing in a Broadway play. As opening night approaches, his attempts to become more altruistic, rebuild his career, and reconnect with friends and family prove more difficult than expected.

Similar in 83%

Synecdoche, New York (2008)

Plot Summary:

A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.

Similar in 75%

American Beauty (1999)

Plot Summary:

Lester Burnham, a depressed suburban father in a mid-life crisis, decides to turn his hectic life around after developing an infatuation with his daughter's attractive friend.

Similar in 77%

The Truman Show (1998)

Plot Summary:

Truman Burbank is the star of "The Truman Show", a 24-hour-a-day "reality" TV show that broadcasts every aspect of his life -- live and in color -- without his knowledge. His entire life has been an unending soap opera for consumption by the rest of the world. And everyone he knows -- including his wife and his best friend -- is really an actor, paid to be part of his life.