Best movies like Portnoy's Complaint
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
The film focuses on the trials and tribulations of Alexander Portnoy, a Jewish man employed as the assistant commissioner of human opportunity for New York City. During a session with his psychoanalyst, he explores his childhood, his relationship with his overbearing mother, his sexual fantasies and desires, his problems with women, and his obsession with his own religion. Via flashbacks, we learn about his affairs with Bubbles Girardi, the daughter of a local hoodlum; Israeli Naomi; and shiksa Mary Jane Reid, whose nickname "Monkey" reflects her remarkable agility at achieving a variety of sexual positions. Mary Jane seemingly is the girl of Portnoy's dreams, but as their relationship deepens and she begins to pressure him into giving her a ring, he shrinks from making a permanent commitment to her. Wikipedia.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 572
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: touching, humorous, realistic, semi serious, sexual, psychotronic, dark comedy, romantic comedy, sexy
Best tv shows and movies like Portnoy's Complaint (1972):
Similar in 84%
Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York (1975)
Plot Summary:
Sheila Levine is a Jewish-American princess and a native of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. An innovative, bright, but painfully introverted individual, she comes to New York City with her mother and father to take an apartment with a nightclub-hopping roommate. Persuaded to go to a nightclub one night, she meets a doctor named Sam Stoneman who is on the hunt for a one-night stand. Sheila develops an intense attraction towards Sam who seemingly is attracted to Sheila's desperately flirtatious roommate. She returns to Harrisburg for a time and comes back to win the heart of Sam only to discover that he has been conned into an engagement with her ex-roommate. Meanwhile, stalwart Sheila quickly climbs the ladder at her job as a "office-singer/typist" for a record company.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 304
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: touching, offbeat, humorous, realistic, semi serious, sexual, sexy
Similar in 76%
Made for Each Other (1971)
Plot Summary:
The pair who created "Lovers and Other Strangers" take on marriage and other impossibilities.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 363
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, humorous, realistic, semi serious, biting, suspense
Similar in 75%
Late Last Night (1999)
Plot Summary:
After a fight with his wife, who's leaving him, Dan's day is getting worse by the minute. He calls an old friend for a night of binge drinking and intoxication. They start a cathartic ride through the city's underbelly.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 620
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: offbeat, humorous, realistic, semi serious, dark comedy
Similar in 77%
Let Go (2011)
Plot Summary:
Walter Dishman, a married and melancholy parole officer, deals with three eccentric ex-convicts who have been placed under his supervision.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 874
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: humorous, cynical, captivating, light, touching, realistic, witty, talky, semi serious, independent film
Similar in 83%
Brighton Beach Memoirs (1986)
Plot Summary:
Eugene, a young teenage Jewish boy, recalls his memoirs of his time as an adolescent youth. He lives with his parents, his aunt, two cousins, and his brother, Stanley, whom he looks up to and admires. He goes through the hardships of puberty, sexual fantasy, and living the life of a poor boy in a crowded house.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: funny, realistic, semi autobiographical, independent film, sentimental, touching, feel good, humorous, semi serious, tense
Similar in 83%
Playing Mona Lisa (2000)
Plot Summary:
A young pianist is looking for love in all the wrong places once her fiancee drops her. Maybe her flame will be rekindled both for the piano and a new love?.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 888
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: feel good, humorous, realistic, sentimental, semi serious, independent film
Similar in 76%
Oh, What a Night (1992)
Plot Summary:
During the summer of 1955, seventeen-year-old Eric Hansen embarks on a journey in his new town, a journey which will change his life forever.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 560
Genere: Comedy
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: semi serious, sentimental, humorous, emotional, independent film, touching, realistic
Similar in 82%
Corporate Affairs (2008)
Plot Summary:
A family man (Meyer) recent promoted to middle management at work immerses himself in a world of questionable personal and professional ethics by a colleague (Scott).
IMDB Rating: 4.0
IMDB Votes: 414
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, semi serious
Similar in 79%
The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker (1971)
Plot Summary:
Director Lawrence Turman's 1971 drama examines a young couple's unhappy marriage.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 174
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: sex comedy, offbeat, humorous, realistic, semi serious, cult film
Similar in 86%
Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You (1970)
Plot Summary:
An American playwright living in Rome consults a quack psychiatrist to combat his fears of balding and save his failing marriage.
IMDB Rating: 4.4
IMDB Votes: 661
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: erotic, sexy, offbeat, humorous, realistic, semi serious, sexual, sex comedy, campy
Similar in 78%
Crazy Eyes (2012)
Plot Summary:
Zack (Haas) is a young, divorced father who starts to develop romantic feelings towards his friend Rebecca (Zima), whom he refers to as "Crazy Eyes". He spends a lot of time at a bar run by his best friend Dan Drake (Busey) and hanging out with Autumn (Raymonde). As he pursues a sexual relationship with Rebecca, Zack grows increasingly aware of the importance of his son's role in his life amidst the failing health of his own father.
IMDB Rating: 4.0
IMDB Votes: 587
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: touching, humorous, feel good, captivating, light, semi serious, independent film
Similar in 80%
Waltzing Anna (2006)
Plot Summary:
Dr. Charlie Keegan is ordered to serve 6 months as the staff doctor at a second rate retirement home or lose his medical licence after accusations of swindling elderly patients. What the doctor expects will be a brief interruption from his lucrative career turns out to be something very different, thanks to the wacky residents and a beautiful nurse.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 197
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, humorous, emotional, realistic, semi serious, offbeat
Similar in 84%
Move (2012)
Plot Summary:
Eleven moving dates, eight friends: Philipp, Wiebke, Jessica, Maria, Swantje, Michael, Thomas, Dina – all in their twenties and mutually lonesome. And always searching: For a new city, a new job, an own apartment, a new, or even an old love. The search is never-ending, and so they repeatedly find themselves at a ritual gathering: someone moving. Boxes are shifted from one side of Berlin to the other, or the length and breadth of Germany, from one abode to the next as one life is exchanged for another. In 3 ZIMMER/KÜCHE/BAD, director Dietrich Brüggemann portrays existences in which relationships, social networks and backdrops are in a constant state of flux; where best friends are the only, and therefore the most valuable constant. Humorous sketches of the self-conception of a generation for whom moving has become the symbol of a life on the go.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy
Country: Germany
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, light, feel good, touching, semi serious, sexual, sexy
Similar in 79%
Beyond Therapy (1987)
Plot Summary:
Manhattanites Bruce and Prudence are each looking for a meaningful romantic relationship and have been encouraged by their psychiatrists to find someone through the personal ads. Their first meeting is disastrous, but they begin to hit it off during their second date. However, Bruce's bisexual, live-in lover does not want to share Bruce and is willing to do whatever it takes to keep him to himself.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: independent film, clever, humorous, realistic, witty, talky, semi serious, biting, sexual, sexy
Similar in 89%
The Discoverers (2012)
Plot Summary:
Washed-up history professor Lewis Birch takes his begrudging teenagers Zoe and Jack on a road trip to a conference in hopes of jumpstarting his career and reconnecting with his kids. But, when Lewis’s estranged father Stanley goes missing on a Lewis and Clark historical reenactment trek, Lewis is forced to make a family detour. The Birch family find themselves on a journey of discovery and connection as they make their own passage west.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 565
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: road movie, humorous, semi serious, light, captivating, touching, realistic, independent film, whimsical
Similar in 89%
Relax... It's Just Sex (1998)
Plot Summary:
A mixed group of individuals - lesbian, gays, and heterosexuals who all frequent a local bar struggle to accept each others lifestyles. However when the two gays are attacked and fight back and ultimately rape one of their attackers, the group becomes strongly divided on their actions.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: touching, melancholic, sincere, sexy, humorous, independent film, sex comedy, realistic, talky, semi serious
Similar in 90%
Daddy Cool (2008)
Plot Summary:
The story about the age gap between a scientist father, Philipe Le Tallec, and his newly discovered teen aged daughter, Eglantine.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 629
Genere: Comedy
Country: France
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: humorous, semi serious, feel good, realistic
Similar in 79%
No Pain, No Gain (2001)
Plot Summary:
David is a teenager who feels he doesn't belong to a life where his family, friends and the girl he loves seem not to understand him.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 267
Genere: Comedy
Country: Spain
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, humorous, emotional, realistic, semi serious
Similar in 84%
Goats (2012)
Plot Summary:
Having a self-absorbed New Age mother and an estranged father means 15-year-old Ellis Whitman has grown up relying on an unconventional guardian: a goat-trekking, marijuana-growing sage called Goat Man. So when Ellis decides to leave the alternative ways of his desert homestead for a stuffy East Coast prep school, major changes are in store. But not in the way you’d think. Though often stoned, the exceedingly smart and capable Ellis effortlessly aces school and excels at track. As the year progresses, it’s his relationships with the adults in his life that test him, challenging his beliefs about responsibility and trustworthiness.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA, Mexico
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: semi serious, humorous, realistic, light, funny, art house, indie film, independent film
Similar in 76%
The Last Married Couple in America (1980)
Plot Summary:
Jeff and Mari Thompson have been married for fifteen years. Although their marriage is not perfect, they are seemingly happy in their married and family life. But all their married friends seem to be getting divorced or separated. These newly single friends try to convince both Jeff and Mari - together and individually - that divorce is the way to go. Even if they do decide to remarry, it will be an inevitability that that marriage too will end in divorce. And divorce can even re-energize the love in an otherwise stale marriage. In light of these assertions by their friends, Jeff and Mari do evaluate their marriage. Their friends also place each of them in potentially compromising positions, despite the fact that they still are married. Will Jeff and Mari's marriage be able to withstand all this outside pressure?.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 722
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: sexy, sex comedy, humorous, realistic, semi serious, sexual
Similar in 88%
Car Babes (2006)
Plot Summary:
A coming of age story about the quirky lives of car salesman.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 322
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: realistic, humorous, semi serious, captivating
Similar in 81%
Goodbye, Columbus (1969)
Plot Summary:
A Jewish man and a jewish woman meet and while attracted to each other find that their worlds are very different. She is the archetypical Jewish-American-Princess, very emotionally involved with her parents world and the world they have created for her while he is much less dependent on his family. They begin an affair which brings more differences to the surface.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: independent film, humorous, witty, sexual, funny, technicolor, weeping, touching, offbeat, realistic
Similar in 88%
Two Tickets to Paradise (2006)
Plot Summary:
Three guys on the verge of forty begin to realize all the best things in their lives happened before they were twenty. A spontaneous road trip adventure gives them a chance to balance the ledger.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 892
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: humorous, semi serious, sentimental, touching, realistic
Similar in 80%
The First Time (1981)
Plot Summary:
A young film student pursues a woman while studying under a bizarre, eccentric film professor.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 160
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: sex comedy, independent film, teen sex comedy, psychotronic, psychological, offbeat, humorous, realistic, experimental, semi serious
Similar in 75%
How to Seduce Difficult Women (2009)
Plot Summary:
Philippe, a French-American writer living in Manhattan, decides to take on ten relationship-challenged men to help them learn the art of seduction.
IMDB Rating: 4.4
IMDB Votes: 298
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: humorous, semi serious, sincere, sexy, realistic, witty, erotic, talky, sex comedy
Similar in 79%
Mutual Appreciation (2005)
Plot Summary:
Alan is a musician who leaves a busted-up band for New York, and a new musical voyage. He tries to stay focused and fends off all manner of distractions, including the attraction to his good friend's girlfriend. Film of the "Mumblecore" genre.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: mumblecore, sincere, touching, humorous, witty, black and white, independent film, romantic, romantic comedy, clever
Similar in 88%
Should've Put a Ring On It (2011)
Plot Summary:
Robin Givens, Miguel Nunez, and Bobby Valentino star in this faith-based romantic drama about Thea Johnson, terribly desperate to be married to her longtime boyfriend Jamar. When he takes too long to propose, she decides to propose to him instead. Thea creates an elaborate proposal, but is thwarted by his reluctance. An obsessed ex-boyfriend, married & single friends, and Thea s father & pastor all take part in the tug of war for her heart.
IMDB Rating: 3.6
IMDB Votes: 92
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, semi serious, sexy, independent film, sexual
Similar in 85%
Neil Simon's The Goodbye Girl (2004)
Plot Summary:
Musical dancer on the way out (at 36) Paula McFadden had it swell with actor Tony DeSanti, but instead of taking her to Hollywood he gets a European movie part. He even sublets their (his) New York apartment to Elliot Garfield, who generously lets her stay, even keeping the master bedroom. Pragmatic pre-teen daughter Lucy soon takes to his charm, but Paula remains determined to hate all actors. Despite the stress of a Broadway Shakespeare lead he must play too queer for Frisco, he's determined to snatch romance from ingratitude.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: feel good, humorous, semi serious, realistic, sexual, sexy, remake of american film, remake of cult film
Similar in 86%
A Beer Tale (2012)
Plot Summary:
A coming of age romantic comedy centered around the lives of twin brothers Luke and Corey Frankenstein in the pivotal months following college graduation. Orphaned at the age of five, the brothers inherited their family brewery and were left in the care of their uncle, a well-meaning but less than ideal paternal figure. Raised on beer, with the assumption they're all grown up, Luke and Corey decide it's time to finish their family beer; a beer their parents started but were never able to finish twenty years ago. But when the idealistic Luke meets a girl whose family shows him the home life he's always wanted, he abandons Corey and their family beer in pursuit of this budding relationship. Corey, however, refuses to go down without a fight, and the ensuing mayhem that follows pits brother against brother and forces the Colorado wild boys to finally grow up and decide what kind of men they really want to be.
IMDB Rating: 4.4
IMDB Votes: 222
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 76 min
Plot tags: humorous, feel good, captivating, light, realistic, semi serious, independent film
Similar in 76%
Box Elder (2008)
Plot Summary:
Box elder bugs are loud, scary looking, and dependent on group swarming. Yet, they're also completely harmless and extremely passive aggressive. Using this metaphor to address a generation that thinks big, talks fast, and threatens to change the world, Box Elder is an unapologetic portrait of a youth movement at odds with its own ambivalence, exposing a generation defined by privilege, potential, and self-induced paralysis. The film follows four best friends through their last years of college. Dependant on their parents financially, and on each other emotionally, they spend their time sleeping in, hanging out, and eating lots of sandwiches. Using break-ups and re-occurring scholastic failures to impose a quarter-life crisis, they take turns postponing responsibility, avoiding accountability, and looking for someone or something to substantiate their lives, all the while hedging their bets and mastering the art of treading water and getting away with it. It's a collegiate love letter.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 323
Genere: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: semi serious, touching, humorous, realistic, witty, mumblecore, independent film, offbeat, teen sex comedy, semi autobiographical