Best movies like Story of Jen
Last updated March 2024
Looking for movies like Story of Jen? Offer your knowledge to guide others to films and tv shows you've already viewed that might appeal to them too. Support expanding the assembly of people recommending videos to one another. We encourage your participation!
Plot Summary:
A man commits suicide leaving a disturbing note. His wife and his daughter try to cope with it when the step-brother of the deceased visits them.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 153
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: Canada, France
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, psychological, suspense, bleak, realistic
Best tv shows and movies like Story of Jen (2008):
Similar in 82%
Cold Lunch (2008)
Plot Summary:
Bird droppings on a work shirt lead to extreme unintended consequences.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Norway
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, tense, sentimental, suspense
Similar in 88%
Pluto (2012)
Plot Summary:
is a story about elite high school seniors, the top 1%, who are prepared to go to extremes to get into prestigious universities. A student who has ranked number one at an esteemed school dies in a remote mountain. Finding out why and the ultimate impact of his death make up the bulk of this thriller’s elaborate narrative, whose shocking conclusion could lead us to comment, “We’ve seen a devil.” Despite a structure that freely weaves together past and present, and a cast of appealing actors including Lee David, Gung Jun and Kim Kkot-bi, the most remarkable thing about the film is the theme itself. It touches on and raises the critical issue of the demands of Korea’s education system, which are becoming more extreme and competitive by the day.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 670
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: South Korea
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful, twisted, bleak, non-linear
Similar in 85%
Shell (2012)
Plot Summary:
Abandoned by her mother when she was a child, Shell has stayed to take care of her dying father but now feels trapped within the beautiful but desolate landscape that surrounds her. With only her routine of running the decaying petrol station, taking care of her father, and spending afternoons in her bedroom with a local mechanic, life is passing Shell by with every passing truck that rattles her walls. One day a salesman stops to re-fuel and offers Shell a taste of the outside world that takes her closer than ever to the edge of the road and her desire to escape.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: touching, psychological, atmospheric, serious, stylized, uplifting, realistic
Similar in 89%
Wetlands (2011)
Plot Summary:
On a dairy farm in the Eastern Townships, in the middle of a drought and while the land is parching, a drama will disrupt the life of the Santerre family. Confronted to each other they will have to learn to forgive.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 560
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, captivating, avant garde, bleak, gloomy
Similar in 88%
The Nightmare Nanny (2013)
Plot Summary:
Stay-home mom Annie is reluctant to return to work, until she finds Amber, the perfect nanny for her 3-year-old daughter Jenny. But as Annie's young daughter grows closer and closer to Amber, Annie begins to feel like she's being pushed out of her own life. When Jenny suddenly vanishes one day,Annie's search for her missing daughter leads her to the terrifying truth about the dark past of the woman she trusted with her child.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 484
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: serious, enigmatic, captivating, tense, suspense, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 82%
Dance with the One (2010)
Plot Summary:
Nate's little brother and hippie dad depend on him for literally everything, but the well-meaning, small time pot dealer Nate wants nothing more than to run away with Nikki, the love of his life, and get out of Texas.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 24
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: realistic, tense, captivating, suspense, exciting, rough, serious, suspenseful, independent film
Similar in 81%
Sorority Surrogate (2014)
Plot Summary:
A surrogate mother faces an uncertain future when the couple who hires her dies in an accident.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 327
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Canada
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: captivating, suspense, psychological, tense, mind bending, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 77%
Without a Trace (1983)
Plot Summary:
Based on the case of young New Yorker Etan Patz, who disappeared in the early 1980s, this film casts Kate Nelligan as the distraught mother who lashes out at the police (in the person of a relentless detective played by Judd Hirsch), who make her and her husband suspects, even as she hounds them to find her child and drives away her husband (David Dukes) and friends (including Stockard Channing) with her intensity and single-mindedness. Squandered on a Hollywood ending that doesn't square with the real case: Etan Patz was never found.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: serious, suspenseful, psychological, sincere, realistic, bleak, detective, crime drama
Similar in 90%
The Promised Life (2002)
Plot Summary:
Sylvie is a hooker whose illegitimate daughter commits a crime. She and her daughter flee to find Sylvie's first love in the countryside. The daughter is trying to get to know her unwilling mother. Along the way, the two meet a male fugitive and bond with each other.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 756
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, serious, rough, bleak, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 85%
Headwinds (2011)
Plot Summary:
Sarah tells Paul that she wants out of their marriage; the next day she disappears. A year later and Paul along with their children return to his childhood town to start anew after the loss of his wife and their mother.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: France, Belgium
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, touching, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 82%
The Son (2002)
Plot Summary:
A joinery instructor at a rehab center refuses to take a new teen as his apprentice, but then begins to follow the boy through the hallways and streets.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: Belgium, France
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: psychological, bleak, meditative, compassionate, atmospheric, sincere, spiritual, art house, christian film, suspense
Similar in 82%
Sebbe (2010)
Plot Summary:
Duct tape, electrical cables, trigger, explosives. Sebbe never planned to build a bomb. It just happened. Sebbe is 15 years old and lives with his mother in an apartment that is too narrow. He does his best. He never strikes back. Sebbe loves his mother because he knows nothing else. In the junkyard the dream is alive, and in the hands of Sebbe, dead objects come to life. Here he has the power to create. Here he is free - but alone. His isolation grows as his world shrinks, until one day he is completely isolated with no other than his mother. And when she falls, everything falls.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 79 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, captivating, realistic, tense, mind bending, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 85%
Mile Zero (2001)
Plot Summary:
Mile Zero is a story about a father with a remarkable capacity to love.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 118
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspense, gloomy
Similar in 86%
Reviving Ophelia (2010)
Plot Summary:
The difficulties two sisters face raising their teenage daughters.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: realistic, captivating, psychological, sentimental, serious
Similar in 82%
Hidden Diary (2009)
Plot Summary:
In the 1950s, Louise left her husband when their children were still little. She was never heard from again. Her daughter Martine stayed in the small seaside town, where she became a doctor. Martine's daughter, Audrey, a thirty-year-old independent woman, returns to visit her parents. By chance, she finds a notebook that belonged to her grandmother, a diary that may at last explain her departure. Will it reveal the things left unsaid, that have altered the relationships within the heart of the family ever since? In it, will Audrey find answers to the questions that she is asking herself about her own future?.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 549
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Canada
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: sincere, atmospheric, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 78%
The Cruel Embrace (1987)
Plot Summary:
Nicole (Marianne Basler) gives birth to a mentally challenged boy after she is gang-raped by American soldiers at the close of World War II in this grim dramatic tragedy. Young Ludo is hidden in the attic of the family home and continues to yearn for his mother's affection. Nicole enters into a loveless marriage with an older man who agrees to adopt Ludo, but her deteriorating mental health leads her to sloth and alcoholism. Ludo is sent off to an asylum, but escapes and takes up residence on a deserted beach in an old tanker that has run aground. This feature won the grand prize at the 1987 Barcelona Film Festival.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 181
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, France
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: psychological, touching, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 86%
Crackie (2009)
Plot Summary:
Life on the Rock never seemed easy, but for Mitsy it is especially rough. The teenager has been abandoned by her mother, a particularly unfit parent prone to both the bottle and the sex trade. She is left to be brought up by her mercurial grandmother Bride, who is well-meaning but oppressively suffocating. Mitsy's dreams for the future hinge on her desire to be a hairdresser, but her current emotional well-being revolves around a wee dog named Sparky, an unwanted canine misfit to whom she becomes hopelessly attached. After Bride agrees to let Mitsy take the dog in as a pet, the teen tries desperately to create a happy, safe place for Sparky to thrive.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 175
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 84%
Missing at 17 (2013)
Plot Summary:
A woman tries to save her adopted daughter from a criminal, with help from the girl's biological mother.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 509
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: emotional, serious, realistic, suspenseful, tense, captivating
Similar in 85%
Becoming Redwood (2012)
Plot Summary:
A quirky coming of age story about an 11-year-old boy named Redwood who dreams that if he can beat Jack Nicklaus at the 1975 Master's of golf he'll reunite his parents.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 184
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, sincere, gloomy
Similar in 78%
The Third Side of the River (2014)
Plot Summary:
Tensions rise when a doctor (Daniel Veronese) pressures his teenage son to follow in his footsteps.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 250
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, psychological, tense, serious
Similar in 75%
Curling (2010)
Plot Summary:
Set in a rural Quebec village in the dead of winter, Jean-François, a single father works at a deserted bowling alley at night and in a rundown motel during the day. His daughter, Julyvonne never leaves their home. Jean-François isolates her in fear that contact with the outside world will scar her the way it has him.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 908
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: sincere, atmospheric, realistic, serious, slow cinema, aesthetic, gloomy
Similar in 89%
Rebounce (2011)
Plot Summary:
REBOUNCE is a colorful, tough and powerful film featuring Frederikke Dahl Hansen in the leading role. She plays opposite Anne Sofie Espersen and Dar Salim, and despite being only 16 years old she portrays toughness, charm, and vulnerability admirably. REBOUNCE is an intense drama. Louise's mother is just out of prison and in the eyes of a teenager she's cool, tough and enchanting. To win her love, Louise follows her lead and enters a world of partying, drugs, fast cash and men. Meanwhile, everyone seems to forget that she is just a teenager.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 330
Genere: Drama
Country: Denmark
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: realistic, rough, captivating, emotional, psychological, tense, serious
Similar in 87%
Everything Is Fine (2008)
Plot Summary:
Josh is an ordinary teen living in an ordinary suburb. One morning he finds his friend's dead body. Next, he discovers that three more friends also have killed themselves, leaving him out of their pact. As the sole survivor, Josh becomes more and more detached from the world around him. It is a modern portrait of today's teens: invincible yet fragile, clear-thinking yet confused.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: psychological, emotional, realistic, touching, erotic, sincere, bleak, serious, gloomy
Similar in 75%
Sex & the Single Mom (2003)
Plot Summary:
Jess Gradwell and her teenage daughter boast a superclose relationship. When it comes to sex, however, Mom won't stand for anything less than premarital celibacy. So she gets a pretty healthy dose of her own medicine when she winds up getting pregnant from a brief encounter with a newly single doctor! This new situation poses a major challenge to the mother-daughter dynamic. Tune in to see if Jess and her daughter can rise to the occasion.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 571
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, sexual, sexy
Similar in 90%
Wild Iris (2001)
Plot Summary:
A woman and her teenage son move back in with her mother to work together in the family bridal business.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 481
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, realistic, talky
Similar in 85%
Amy & Isabelle (2001)
Plot Summary:
In 1971, in the small town of Shirley Falls, in Maine, the odd and lonely secretary Isabelle Goodrow raises her teenager daughter Amy alone. She has only two friends in her job among her gossiper colleagues. When her overprotected daughter is seduced by her mathematic teacher Peter Robertson, the world of Isabelle falls apart. She becomes lost and loses her confidence on Amy, spoiling their relationship. Their bond gets tied again when Isabelle discloses her inner secrets from the past to Amy.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 472
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, sexual, sexy
Similar in 86%
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 88%
The Untouchable (2006)
Plot Summary:
After learning from her mother that her father lives in India, a young woman goes there to meet him for the first time.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 334
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, realistic, psychological, sentimental, sincere, serious
Similar in 77%
Drunkboat (2010)
Plot Summary:
After twenty years of broken bottles and empty hallways, Mort Gleason witnesses his nephew Moo being beaten while in a drunken stupor. The short contact with family brings Mort back to what are left of his senses and he returns to the last home he remembers in Chicago. His sister Eileen lives in their family home now with her sixteen year old son, Abe. Her older son Moo, the now missing nephew, helped spark Mort's return to his family. Three, four, five weeks pass as Mort waits outside his home and makes a tenuous re-entry into family life. Abe dreams of a sailboat and distant horizons. He saves money and sees an advertisement for the Kathy II. He and his friend calculate a way to buy the vessel from two unscrupulous rogues who make ends meet wholesaling liquor and operating a sometime boatyard.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 703
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, realistic, sad
Similar in 86%
Absence (2014)
Plot Summary:
A daily, familiar, sexual and emotional drama. Based on the character Serginho, the plot is based around various aspects of this "no longer a boy, not yet a man". We follow his day to day: the recently acquired role of man of the house, taking care of his mother and younger brother; is work at the market; his friendship with Mudinho and Silvinha; and his confusing relationship, between sex and affection, with professor Ney. The film is a tapestry of the life moments of a boy in transition.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 177
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil, Chile, France
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, bleak