Best movies like Rocket Gibraltar
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A man's family comes for his 77th birthday and while he loves all of his children and their children, he and his children don't exactly connect. However, he connects with his grandchildren. And he tells them what he wants for his birthday and they do what they can to give it to him.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: touching, sentimental, humorous, realistic, witty, semi serious, atmospheric, thought provoking, clever, enigmatic
Best tv shows and movies like Rocket Gibraltar (1988):
Similar in 86%
In His Father's Shoes (1997)
Plot Summary:
A fortyish cancer-stricken, emaciated Frank Crosby and his fifteen-year-old son Clay, who is the healthful, youthful image of his father, are spending an afternoon enjoying the atmosphere of Venice Beach. They enter Oddities, a store where the gypsy woman owner gives them a pair of special wingtip shoes. Later that night in the hospital where Frank lay dying, he shares with Clay his memory of a postcard image: a golf course where people are playing and are leisurely sipping tea. Frank dies and leaves behind a distraught family: Clay, his little sister Maggie, and their mother Janice. Clay wistfully goes to his father's closet and finds the wingtips from earlier in the day. Putting them on, he is transported back in time and becomes his father as a child. He discovers he can travel back and forth in time just by putting on or taking off the shoes. Clay learns a great deal about his father's early years and is eager to learn more.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 283
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, offbeat, feel good, humorous, semi serious
Similar in 76%
Calm at Sunset (1996)
Plot Summary:
The struggle between a father and son at odds over the youths career choice. The 18 years old James Pfeiffer quits college and decides to become a fisherman like his father. Margaret and Russell are very upset with their son's decision. They had a lot of hopes for him, finishing law school and, like his older brother Joseph, make a decent living on shore rather than an uncertain and dangerous career at sea. But James dreams of having his own boat and is determined to persevere.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 131
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 78%
A Hobo's Christmas (1987)
Plot Summary:
A hobo played by Barnard Hughes decides it's time to go home. Drifting from place to place, Hughes finds himself in his hometown of Salt Lake City at Christmas time. Here he hopes to close old wounds and be reunited with his unforgiving son played by Gerald McRaney, and get to know the grandchildren he has never met. McRaney, still resenting the fact that Hughes ran out on his family 25 years earlier, gives his father only one day with his grandkids; after that, he's expected to leave and never come back. All the while Hughes' friends warn him that his son and the past are memories that are best left alone, and should leave, but he has to find out for himself.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 431
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, feel good, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 86%
Sarah, Plain and Tall: Winter's End (1999)
Plot Summary:
The third installment of the Sarah trilogy provides a glorious and touching story of a family drawn together by adversity. On a cold winter day a stranger shows up at the farm. He is slow to reveal his identity. When they find out he is Jacobs father, John Witting, thought long ago dead, hard questions about the past are difficult to get answered.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 89%
Noel (2004)
Plot Summary:
Christmas Eve in New York, and the lonely divorced publisher, Rose Collins, needs a miracle to improve the health of her mother, interned in a hospital with Alzheimers. She feels sorry for another patient and meets his visitor. Meanwhile, Nina Vasquez breaks her engagement with her beloved fiancé Mike due to his suffocating jealousy, but misses him. Mike is stalked by a stranger, bartender Artie Venzuela. The poor Jules arranges to spend Christmas Eve in the hospital, where he spent the best Christmas of his life when he was a teenager. The lives of some of these characters cross with others along the night.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: touching, humorous, emotional, sentimental, sincere, realistic, semi serious, independent film, gloomy, iconic
Similar in 81%
For Ellen (2012)
Plot Summary:
After an overnight long-distance drive, Joby has a special meeting—with lawyers and his ex-wife. A struggling musician with the prerequisite tattoos, slimy hair, goatee, and his head firmly floating in the clouds, Joby hasn’t been around to be a dad. Now is his last chance to fight for shared custody of his daughter, Ellen.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: touching, captivating, realistic, serious, independent film, road movie
Similar in 85%
Admissions (2004)
Plot Summary:
A gifted high-school student flubs her college admissions interviews for the most unexpected reasons in this independent coming-of-age drama. Cynical, world-weary Evie is more interested in taking care of her family than getting into the Ivy League institutions for which she seems destined. Dad Harry spends all his time building model trains in the basement, while workaholic mom Martha depends on Evie to take care of her other daughter, developmentally challenged Emily. When she's not busy reading poetry to her sister Emily, Evie hangs out with James (Fran Kranz), the sensitive boy next door, whose romantic overtures prove too confusing to acknowledge. College also seems too daunting, so Evie deliberately blows one university interview after another in the hopes of staying at home as her sister's keeper. Meanwhile, Evie begins passing off her own poems as Emily's, fuelling the belief that her brain-damaged sister is actually a literary savant.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 334
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, independent film, crying
Similar in 77%
The Fitzgerald Family Christmas (2012)
Plot Summary:
The siblings of the Fitzgerald family must decide if the dad who abandoned them 20 years ago can come home for Christmas. Can the big Irish clan get past their grievances to be a family again?.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, realistic, independent film
Similar in 85%
Go Toward the Light (1988)
Plot Summary:
A young couple faces the realities of life with their child who is diagnosed with AIDS.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 572
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 80%
Twister (1989)
Plot Summary:
An oddball family on a Kansas farm are trapped in their farmhouse by an impending storm. The patriarch of the clan is a retired soda pop tycoon. He is currently dating a children's TV evangelist. Also living at the farm is his layabout daughter and her precocious 8 year old daughter, his would-be artist son, the son's fiancée, and the black maid. Also thrown into the mix is the daughter's ex-husband, a ne-er-do-well who is seeking to get back in his ex-wife's good graces.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: sad, independent film, offbeat, humorous, realistic, witty, contemplative, semi serious, exciting, light
Similar in 76%
Hidden in America (1996)
Plot Summary:
Story of a man Bill Januson whose pride in being the head of his family won't let him accept help from his sick daughters doctor. He has to prove to his kids that even with the death of his wife and the loss of his job that they can and will survive. After hitting brick wall after brick wall comes a glimmer of hope.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 538
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: crying, sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, disturbing, gloomy
Similar in 83%
The Gathering (1977)
Plot Summary:
When Adam Thornton learns that he only has a little time left, he decides that he wants to make peace with his family. Only problem is that most of his family are not exactly fond of him because he walked out on his wife and of his stubborn nature and he hasn't spoken to his youngest son after having an argument with him which he was in the wrong but only realize after his son left and has not been heard from since. But he goes to her to help him find him. But when his doctor says that it won't be good for him to travel, she suggests that they invite them all for Christmas. While most of them come, Adam's attempt at reconciliation won't be easy.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 790
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, vintage
Similar in 86%
Last Weekend (2014)
Plot Summary:
When an affluent matriarch gathers her dysfunctional family for a holiday at their Northern California lake house, her carefully constructed weekend begins to come apart at the seams, leading her to question her own role in the family.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, semi serious, sincere, captivating, independent film, queer cinema
Similar in 82%
Annie's Point (2005)
Plot Summary:
Annie (Bette White) wants to disperse her husband's ashes at a locale in California that they had named Annie's Point. Annie needs a bypass immediately and she wants to send out the ashes on her 50th wedding anniversary.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 365
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, humorous, semi serious, realistic
Similar in 85%
Memories of Me (1988)
Plot Summary:
After a heart attack, Abbie Polin (Crystal), a New York doctor, goes to Los Angeles to see his father, Abe (King), who works in Hollywood as the "king of the extras." Their relationship has been strained for several years. This was the first movie directed by Henry Winkler, and much of it was filmed inside the MGM Studios in Culver City, California, only a few miles from Hollywood. Lisa, the romantic interest in Abbie's life, also comes for a visit and bonds with Abe, who gets along famously with everyone but his son. Abe begins having memory loss and eventually is diagnosed with a brain aneurysm. He and his son grow closer in time and, before it's too late, Abbie tries to get Abe a speaking role in a film.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: independent film, sentimental, touching, humorous, emotional, realistic, semi serious
Similar in 88%
Off the Black (2006)
Plot Summary:
An aging, disillusioned alcoholic (Nick Nolte) gets a younger friend (Trevor Morgan) and wants him to pose as his son at a school reunion.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: sentimental, serious, touching, realistic
Similar in 77%
This Is My Life (1992)
Plot Summary:
Single mom Dottie Ingels sells cosmetics in a department store, but she dreams of being a comedian. When she inherits some money, she takes the chance and moves with her two children Erica and Opel to New York to perform in small bars. Soon her agent Arnold Moss makes her famous, but while she travels all over USA, her children stay home lonely.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, humorous, realistic, semi serious
Similar in 90%
Candles on Bay Street (2006)
Plot Summary:
DeeDee returns to her hometown with her 11 year old son, Trooper, 13 years after she ran off with her boyfriend. Her childhood best friend, Sam, is now married and he and his wife, Lydia, are the town's veterinarians. Lydia is a little wary about DeeDee after Sam tells her that they were best friends growing up and DeeDee was his first crush. But DeeDee and Trooper find their way into many hearts of the townspeople with their sweet helpfulness and friendships. DeeDee sets up a candle making business in town square and invites many of the ladies of the town to weekly candle making parties, and through these parties she and Lydia become good friends. One evening after dinner with Lydia and Sam, DeeDee tells Sam she's very sick and she doesn't have much longer to live and she needs his help to find a good family in town to adopt Trooper. Sam later tells Lydia everything and they decide to adopt Trooper themselves if/when something happens to DeeDee.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 79%
Around the Bend (2004)
Plot Summary:
A tale of four generations of men, all of whom have had their offspring at a young age: a great-grandfather, a grandfather, a father in his twenties and a son who is about 7 years old. When the oldest member passes away, the trio heads out on the road together in the Southwest to search out an old family secret that connects to their past.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, road movie, emotional, semi serious, humorous, family saga, realistic, crying, funny
Similar in 81%
A Child Is Waiting (1963)
Plot Summary:
Dr. Matthew Clark is the head of a state institution for mentally retarded children. Jean Hansen, a former music teacher anxious to give her life some meaning, joins the staff of the hospital. Jean, who tries to shelter the children with her love, suspiciously regards Clark's stern training methods. She becomes emotionally involved with 12-year-old Reuben Widdicombe, who has been abandoned by his divorced parents.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: sincere, uplifting, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, intellectual, social, sad, sentimental
Similar in 76%
Imaginary Crimes (1994)
Plot Summary:
A recently widowed, small-time hustler struggles to raise his two teenage daughters on his own and still make a dishonest living in 1950s Indiana.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, sad, sentimental, sincere, realistic, depressing, contemplative, semi serious, sexy
Similar in 77%
On Golden Pond (1981)
Plot Summary:
For Norman and Ethel Thayer, this summer on golden pond is filled with conflict and resolution. When their daughter Chelsea arrives, the family is forced to renew the bonds of love and overcome the generational friction that has existed for years. Norman must find his way through his anger and fear of growing old, while Chelsea struggles to rebuild their relationship. Ethel's consistent support of her "Knight in shining armor" is inspirational in its simplicity. This is a movie to ponder and always keep in your heart.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 34000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: inspirational, sentimental, touching, emotional, realistic, witty, feel good, colorful, captivating, contemplative
Similar in 84%
What Girls Learn (2001)
Plot Summary:
Two teenage girls must come to terms with their stepfather when their mother is struck by illness.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 340
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: touching, sentimental, sincere, emotional, serious, realistic, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 80%
Of Boys and Men (2008)
Plot Summary:
Robert Townsend stars as the patriarch of a family devastated when his wife is killed in a senseless auto accident. Reeling with grief, each family member must find courage and vision to carry on, ultimately eager to do the mother proud.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 192
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: realistic, psychological, sentimental, captivating, touching, serious, independent film
Similar in 81%
Red Doors (2005)
Plot Summary:
The Wongs struggle to cope with life, love, and family dysfunction in the suburbs of New York.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, realistic, contemplative, independent film
Similar in 89%
Alpha Male (2006)
Plot Summary:
Drama about a family torn apart after the death of its patriarch. Haunted by their father's death, Jack and Elyssa have a fraught relationship with their remarried mother even now they have come of age.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 345
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, UK
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: emotional, touching, realistic, contemplative, psychological, sentimental, sincere, serious
Similar in 75%
Marvin's Room (1996)
Plot Summary:
A leukemia patient attempts to end a 20-year feud with her sister to get her bone marrow.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 30000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, sentimental, sincere, realistic, semi serious, sad, talky, compassionate, epic
Similar in 77%
Jack (2004)
Plot Summary:
Jack, in full puberty, not only has to deal with his parents' divorce, but also feels his world is falling apart when his dad tells him he is living with a man. He slowly comes to terms with his own feelings when the girl he has a crush on turn out to have a gay dad as well and his best friend's parents end up not having the perfect marriage Jack thought they had.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 576
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: sentimental, humorous, realistic, sincere, touching, emotional, semi serious, melancholic, clever, queer cinema
Similar in 78%
Whatever (1998)
Plot Summary:
In the early 1980s, Anna, a New Jersey teenager faces her impending adulthood, dreaming of a life as a successful New York artist. When she gets caught up in the carefree sport of pre-AIDS sex and drugs, Anna's future becomes less certain.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, USA
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: realistic, independent film, sentimental, touching, humorous, gloomy, semi serious, erotic, sexy, feel good
Similar in 89%
Just a Dream (2002)
Plot Summary:
Film crew arrives in a small town in Nevada desert. Ends up changing the life of a 12-year-old kid and a friend of his, a movie lover.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 367
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: feel good, humorous, semi serious, sentimental, touching, realistic