Best movies like Julien Donkey-Boy
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A portrait of the effects of schizophrenia on family life is the central focus.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: disturbing, art house, experimental, surreal, controversial, psychological, talky, intellectual, depressing, independent film
Best tv shows and movies like Julien Donkey-Boy (1999):
Similar in 81%
The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle (2009)
Plot Summary:
After he loses his high-paying job, Dory takes a gig as a night janitor in order to pay rent. Alone late at night inside a market research firm, he soon discovers the company is experimenting on their other janitors.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 993
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: not serious, humorous, talky, light, feel good, cult classic, offbeat, independent film, experimental, dark comedy
Similar in 82%
Choke (2008)
Plot Summary:
A sex-addicted con-man pays for his mother's hospital bills by playing on the sympathies of those who rescue him from choking to death.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 33000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, sexual, melancholic, depressing, cynical, satirical, clever, erotic, intellectual, thought provoking
Similar in 85%
A Zed & Two Noughts (1985)
Plot Summary:
Oliver Deuce, a successful doctor, is shattered when his wife is killed in a freak car accident involving a car being driven by Alba Bewick colliding with a very large rare bird. His twin brother Oswald is researching how carcasses decay at the local zoo. Alba survives the accident although she loses one leg, and her sinister physician eventually removes the other 'because it looked so sad all alone'. Oswald and Oliver become involved in a menage a trois with Alba, and uncover very dubious trafficking in zoo property. But ultimately their only goal is to try and understand their mortal condition.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK, Netherlands
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: surreal, disturbing, dark comedy, mind bending, erotic, black comedy, clever, witty, talky, controversial
Similar in 85%
Careful (1992)
Plot Summary:
In the remote Alpine village of Tolzbad at the turn of the century, people talk quietly and restrain their movements lest avalanches come and kill them. This atmosphere lends itself to repressed emotions - shown through the parallel stories of butler student Johann lusting after his mother (an old flame of the mysterious Count Knotkers) and Klara's attraction to her father (who lusts after his other daughter), leading to duels and suicidal plunges galore. All this is shot in the style of an early German sound film, complete with intertitles, deliberately crackly soundtrack and 'hand-tinted' colour effects.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Horror, Romance
Country: Canada
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: surreal, cult classic, atmospheric, experimental, disturbing, stylized, mindfuck, avant garde, mind bending, psychedelic
Similar in 88%
Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970)
Plot Summary:
The inhabitants of an institution in a remote country rebel against their keepers. Their acts of rebellion are by turns humorous, boring and alarming. An allegory on the problematic nature of fully liberating the human spirit, as both commendable and disturbing elements of our nature come forward. The film shows how justifiable revolt may be empowering, but may also turn to chaos and depravity. The allegory is developed in part by the fact that the film is cast entirely with dwarfs.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: black and white, cult classic, surreal, disturbing, art house, black comedy, atmospheric, experimental, dark comedy, mind bending
Similar in 83%
Winter Passing (2005)
Plot Summary:
Actress Reese Holden has been offered a small fortune by a book editor if she can secure for publication the love letters that her father, a reclusive novelist, wrote to her mother, who has since passed away. Returning to Michigan, Reese finds that an ex-grad student and a would-be musician have moved in with her father, who cares more about his new friends than he does about his own health and well-being.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, serious, realistic, heartbreaking, cult classic, psychological, clever, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 77%
Bad Boy Bubby (1993)
Plot Summary:
Bad Boy Bubby is just that: a bad boy. So bad, in fact, that his mother has kept him locked in their house for his entire thirty years, convincing him that the air outside is poisonous. After a visit from his estranged father, circumstances force Bubby into the waiting world, a place which is just as unusual to him as he is to the world.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 15000
Genere: Comedy, Crime, Drama
Country: Australia, Italy
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: disturbing, surreal, psychological, dark comedy, black comedy, art house, dark, cerebral, cult classic, mindfuck
Similar in 86%
Forgiving the Franklins (2006)
Plot Summary:
A conservative, God fearing Southern family is spiritually changed by an auto accident, but who they become puts them at odds with the highly conservative values around them.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 320
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, semi serious, feel good, entertaining, talky
Similar in 76%
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.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 22000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: talky, depressing, melancholic, stylized, humorous, tragicomedy, semi serious, cult classic, biting, deep
Similar in 82%
Barry Munday (2010)
Plot Summary:
Barry Munday, a libido-driven wage slave who spends all his time either ogling, fantasizing about or trying to pick up women, wakes up in hospital after a freak attack only to find that his testicles have been removed.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: humorous, semi serious, offbeat, psychological, light, captivating, sentimental, tragicomedy, realistic, independent film
Similar in 90%
Life During Wartime (2009)
Plot Summary:
Friends, family, and lovers struggle to find love, forgiveness, and meaning in an almost war-torn world riddled with comedy and pathos. Follows Solondz's film Happiness (1998).
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: disturbing, dark comedy, psychological, independent film, melancholic, talky, stylized, black comedy, humorous, psychedelic
Similar in 88%
Palindromes (2004)
Plot Summary:
Aviva is thirteen, awkward and sensitive. Her mother Joyce is warm and loving, as is her father, Steve, a regular guy who does have a fierce temper from time to time. The film revolves around her family, friends and neighbors.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 13000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: bleak, psychological, disturbing, surreal, controversial, cynical, humorous, art house, independent film, dark comedy
Similar in 87%
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.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 20000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: surreal, atmospheric, black comedy, philosophical, art house, disturbing, talky, depressing, melancholic, meditative
Similar in 90%
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.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 309000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, funny, humorous, talky, cult classic, indie film, visual, comedy drama, melancholic, artsy
Similar in 76%
Welcome to Me (2014)
Plot Summary:
A year in the life of Alice Klieg, a woman with Borderline Personality Disorder who wins Mega-millions, quits her meds and buys her own talk show.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 19000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: humorous, black comedy, disturbing, surreal, talky, independent film, semi serious, realistic, dark comedy, psychological thriller
Similar in 77%
Adaptation. (2002)
Plot Summary:
A love-lorn script writer grows increasingly desperate in his quest to adapt the book 'The Orchid Thief'.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 200000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: absurd, philosophical, psychological, satirical, black comedy, mind bending, dark comedy, postmodern, surreal, mindfuck
Similar in 77%
Benny & Joon (1993)
Plot Summary:
A mentally ill young woman finds her love in an eccentric man who models himself after Buster Keaton.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 61000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: touching, melancholic, sweet, cult classic, feel good, compassionate, offbeat, realistic, humorous, romantic
Similar in 88%
Gummo (1997)
Plot Summary:
Solomon and Tummler are two teenagers killing time in Xenia, Ohio, a small town that has never recovered from the tornado that ravaged the community in the 1970s.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 38000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: disturbing, surreal, dark comedy, experimental, independent film, art house, bleak, psychedelic, offbeat, erotic
Similar in 80%
The Acid House (1998)
Plot Summary:
THE ACID HOUSE is a surreal triptych adapted by "Trainspotting" author Irvine Welsh from his acclaimed collection of short stories. Combining a vicious sense of humor with hard-talking drama, the film reaches into the hearts and minds of the chemical generation, casting a dark and unholy light into the hidden corners of the human psyche. Directed by Paul McGuigan, the film dramatises three stories from the book: 1- The Granton Star Cause, 2- A Soft Touch & 3- The Acid House.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: surreal, psychedelic, mind bending, dark comedy, disturbing, humorous, absurd, independent film, clever, controversial
Similar in 89%
A Serious Man (2009)
Plot Summary:
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.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 148000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK, France, USA
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, black comedy, philosophical, ironic, intellectual, cynical, meditative, talky, cult classic, bleak
Similar in 78%
Daddy and Them (2001)
Plot Summary:
When an uncle is charged with murder, the event reverberates throughout a poor Arkansas family, including a struggling musician and his wife, her mother, her sister, and his father.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: touching, semi serious, realistic, independent film, psychological, humorous
Similar in 82%
Beautiful Ohio (2006)
Plot Summary:
An entire family comes of age during the early 1970s.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 530
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: sentimental, clever, serious, realistic, offbeat, independent film
Similar in 79%
Running with Scissors (2006)
Plot Summary:
Young Augusten Burroughs absorbs experiences that could make for a shocking memoir: the son of an alcoholic father and an unstable mother, he's handed off to his mother's therapist, Dr. Finch, and spends his adolescent years as a member of Finch's bizarre extended family.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 23000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: disturbing, stylized, intense, touching, realistic, talky, humorous, tragicomedy, psychological, cult classic
Similar in 78%
Buffalo '66 (1998)
Plot Summary:
Billy is released after five years in prison. In the next moment, he kidnaps teenage student Layla and visits his parents with her, pretending she is his girlfriend and they will soon marry.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 59000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: black comedy, psychological, dark comedy, art house, cult classic, tense, touching, humorous, depressing, melancholic
Similar in 78%
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.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 23000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: independent film, philosophical, surreal, satirical, absurd, art house, cerebral, cult classic, entirely dialogue, experimental
Similar in 82%
Rocket Science (2007)
Plot Summary:
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.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: clever, sincere, psychological, sentimental, touching, teen, indie film, realistic, funny, feel good
Similar in 75%
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.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 37000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, disturbing, realistic, depressing, black comedy, brutal, controversial, cult classic, teen, talky
Similar in 76%
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.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 508000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: road movie, feel good, funny, melancholic, independent film, emotional, black comedy, dark comedy, sweet, humorous
Similar in 88%
Trainspotting (1996)
Plot Summary:
Renton, deeply immersed in the Edinburgh drug scene, tries to clean up and get out, despite the allure of the drugs and influence of friends.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 715000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, disturbing, psychedelic, black comedy, captivating, cult classic, stylized, controversial, depressing, clever
Similar in 77%
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.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 657000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: surreal, psychological, dark comedy, black comedy, psychedelic, independent film, clever, intellectual, atmospheric, enigmatic