Best movies like The Debut
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Filipino-American high school student Ben (Dante Mercado) works in a comic book shop to earn money to pay his way into Cal Arts. His father, a postman, is determined that his son--who has won a pre-med scholarship to UCLA--will become a doctor. The eighteenth birthday party of Ben's sister, Rose, sets off a comedic and touching series of events and family struggles that will in turn determine young Ben's future. This fresh independent production from Gene Cajayon presents a lighthearted and warm coming-of-age tale filtered through the eyes of an American subculture rarely seen on film.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 686
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: humorous, semi serious, touching, realistic, witty, independent film
Best tv shows and movies like The Debut (2000):
Similar in 84%
Good Fences (2003)
Plot Summary:
Set in the 1970s, Tom Spader is an attorney who is determined to end what he has dubbed "the colored man's losing streak." When his winning of a high-profile case thrusts him into the limelight, he decides to moves his wife and their two kids out of their mixed lower-middle-class town and into the posh enclave of Greenwich, Connecticut.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 876
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, witty, semi serious, black comedy, biting, suspense
Similar in 88%
Growing Op (2008)
Plot Summary:
The story of a teenage boy coming of age in a suburban grow-operation, where every day is paradise or fresh hell. But it's always a trip. Sheltered all his life and home-schooled by loving parents who are also committed criminals, Quinn Dawson yearns to experience the normalcy of the suburban world which surrounds him.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: humorous, semi serious, light, sincere, mystical, mystic, offbeat, realistic, witty
Similar in 88%
Weakness (2010)
Plot Summary:
About a suburban high school teacher who loses his wife and his moorings during a summer break.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 213
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, semi serious, touching, light, feel good, sexual
Similar in 81%
The Battle of Shaker Heights (2003)
Plot Summary:
A quirky teen with a penchant for war reenactments, Kelly Ernswiler obsesses over military tactics with his buddy Bart. The school bully is one of Kelly's regular headaches, and he also has to deal with a frustrating situation at home, where his father is a recovering drug addict. Kelly's life gets even more complicated when he falls for Tabby, Bart's pretty and soon-to-be-wed older sister.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 79 min
Plot tags: intense, touching, humorous, realistic, semi serious, inspirational, feel good, epic, scenic, light
Similar in 81%
Mama's Boy (2007)
Plot Summary:
A twenty-nine year-old slacker who lives with his mom realizes his sweet set-up is threatened when she hears wedding bells with her self-help guru beau.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: humorous, semi serious, realistic, light
Similar in 76%
Remember the Daze (2007)
Plot Summary:
During the summer of 1999, a group of teenagers, through interconnected narratives, live through their last day of high school and prepare for the future. Holly, once the new girl in school, does whatever it takes to remain popular. Dawn, who is secretly a lesbian, battles drugs. Tori is the valedictorian of her class, but, on the eve of graduation, she decides to experiment with drugs for the first time.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: feel good, humorous, semi serious, touching, realistic, funny, teen, psychotronic, independent film, weird
Similar in 88%
Defying Gravity (2008)
Plot Summary:
Cassandra, a mute runaway girl, takes refuge in the cemetery in which her mother is laid to rest. She is watched over by Jorge, the cemetery caretaker, an illegal alien who is committed to the restoration of a classic '60 cadillac hearse. Shore is a dynamic, handsome, and brilliant young man who also happens to be homeless. After almost hitting Cassandra in his dilapidated VW bus, he becomes fascinated by the gothic cemetery waif and attempts to befriend her. A sequence of events results in Cass getting lost. Jorge and Shore flee the cemetery in a stolen hearse to find Cassandra before her abusive step-father does. All paths lead to Yermo - the site of a roadside diner and a feisty but compassionate transvestite waitress named Lola.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 152
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: touching, humorous, realistic, semi serious, offbeat, independent film, campy
Similar in 87%
Highball (1997)
Plot Summary:
A newly-married couple tries to build their social life.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 915
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: independent film, clever, humorous, realistic, witty, talky, cynical, semi serious
Similar in 79%
Foreign Letters (2012)
Plot Summary:
A bittersweet coming-of-age film, Foreign Letters is itself a love letter to the unshakeable bond between friends. Set in the pre-email era of the 1980s, young Ellie, newly arrived to the US from Israel, anxiously waits for letters from her best friend back home. Suffering from homesickness, language difficulties and rejection at school, life brightens when she meets Thuy, a Vietnamese refugee her age. As the two bond and become inseparable, they eventually hurt each other, and Ellie must find a way to restore their trust. Based on director Ela Thier's personal immigration experience, Foreign Letters is a film about poverty, prejudice, shame, and the healing power of friendship.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 273
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, realistic
Similar in 87%
Caterina in the Big City (2003)
Plot Summary:
When her father, Giancarlo is transferred to Rome from the small country town of Montalto Di Castro, Caterina, a 12 years old girl, will discover her new classmates, a totally new world, an ambient extremely divided politically.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, semi serious, humorous
Similar in 87%
Raising Genius (2004)
Plot Summary:
The film is about a boy who locks himself in the bathroom to work out math equations on the shower wall. The boy has obsessive compulsive parents. The boy is obsessed with a cheerleader named Lacy, who lives across the street from.
IMDB Rating: 4.0
IMDB Votes: 467
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: psychological, humorous, realistic, semi serious, independent film, offbeat, dark comedy, teen comedy, cult film
Similar in 77%
Marine Life (2000)
Plot Summary:
Marine Life revolves around the choatic family life of June, a middle-aged lounge singer and mother. Aging and twice divorced, lounge singer June Nordstrom tries to cope with her fading beauty, her troubled offspring, her waning career and her young lover, who begins seeing a woman his age behind June's back.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 159
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: realistic, touching, humorous, emotional, semi serious, captivating, independent film
Similar in 84%
Stuart Saves His Family (1995)
Plot Summary:
Stuart Smalley, the Saturday Night Live character, comes to the big screen. Stuart, the disciple of the 12 step program, is challenged by lifes injustices.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Germany, USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: humorous, satirical, talky, not serious, realistic, touching, skit, clever, offbeat, witty
Similar in 90%
Diggers (2006)
Plot Summary:
Diggers is a coming-of-age story directed by Katherine Dieckmann. It portrays four working-class friends who grow up in The Hamptons, on the South Shore of Long Island, New York, as clam diggers in 1976. Their fathers were clam diggers as well as their grandfathers before them. They must cope with and learn to face the changing times in both their personal lives and their neighborhood.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: humorous, touching, realistic, witty, semi serious, period piece, independent film, biting, suspense
Similar in 90%
Bruno (2000)
Plot Summary:
The story of a unique young boy genius, Bruno, whose expression of his own individuality leads his family and community along an emotional journey.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, emotional, semi serious, sentimental, humorous, inspirational, motivational, independent film, flamboyance
Similar in 88%
Two-Bit Waltz (2014)
Plot Summary:
Suspension from school, the loss of a friend, a broken heart and lack of inspiration lead to Maude's downfall in this romp through teenage error. Your teenage years are never easy… but for Maude, things couldn't be worse. Within one week, she is suspended from school, stranded by her best friend, dumped by the boy she loved and inherits an enormous amount of money with the passing of her grandmother– only to be claimed under one condition: Maude must prove by age 18 that she knows exactly what to do with her life. But with her 18th birthday rapidly approaching, Maude must dive into a world of self-discovery or else lose the inheritance.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 455
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 81 min
Plot tags: semi serious, sentimental, humorous, realistic, witty, stylized, clever, offbeat, independent film
Similar in 89%
Rolling Family (2004)
Plot Summary:
A wedding invite from an estranged sibiling inspires a grandmother to assemble her family and embark on a roadtrip in a broken down caravan.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, Spain, UK
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: road movie, touching, semi serious, feel good, humorous, realistic, offbeat
Similar in 82%
The Year of Getting to Know Us (2008)
Plot Summary:
A commitment-phobic man reunites with his estranged, ailing father and comes to terms with his own childhood.
IMDB Rating: 4.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: touching, humorous, realistic, semi serious, offbeat, independent film
Similar in 82%
West Is West (2010)
Plot Summary:
Comedy sequel to "East is East". Manchester, North of England, 1975. The now much diminished, but still claustrophobic and dysfunctional, Khan family continues to struggle for survival. Sajid, the youngest Khan, the runt of the litter, is deep in pubescent crisis under heavy assault both from his father's tyrannical insistence on Pakistani tradition, and from the fierce bullies in the schoolyard. So, in a last, desperate attempt to 'sort him out', his father decides to pack him off to Mrs Khan No 1 and family in the Punjab, the wife and daughters he had abandoned 35 years earlier. It is not long before Ella Khan (Mrs Khan No2) with a small entourage from Salford, England, swiftly follows to sort out the mess, past and present.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: touching, feel good, humorous, witty, sentimental, semi serious, realistic
Similar in 82%
Fat Girls (2006)
Plot Summary:
Fat Girls is an original off-beat comedy feature. It focuses on Rodney Miller, not your typical Texas high school student...he is a theater lover and his ultimate dream is to be on Broadway. Awkward and shy, he doesn't have many people to talk to in his small Texas town that understand him. He ends up finding what he was looking for in his theater teacher, Mr. Cox.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 583
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: humorous, witty, semi serious, clever, realistic, sexual, crying, freeze frame, sexy, cult film
Similar in 82%
A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon (1988)
Plot Summary:
A recent high school graduate is faced with two options, either go to a business school where his father wants him to go to, or get a full time job. However he decides to defy his father and go to Hawaii. Trouble is he has no money. Along the way he comes to understand his parents and eventually bonds with his father.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: sentimental, humorous, semi serious, touching, entertaining, sex comedy, realistic, erotic, romantic, sexy
Similar in 78%
Acne (2008)
Plot Summary:
At the age of 13, Rafael Bregman has already lost his virginity, but has never kissed a girl. With his pimple-riddled face, his dysfunctional family, and a lowered self-esteem, getting this much anticipated first kiss proves trickier than expected. It's now time for Rafa to build up some self confidence and attract the attention of his class mate, Nicole.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 464
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Uruguay, Argentina, Spain, Mexico, USA
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: humorous, semi serious, psychological, captivating, sex comedy, touching, realistic, sexual, sexy
Similar in 90%
Cheeky Girls (2008)
Plot Summary:
Three teen-aged girlfriends navigate multiple love triangles.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 595
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Germany
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, humorous, semi serious, sexual, sexy
Similar in 85%
Kick'n Rush (2003)
Plot Summary:
The story revolves around Jakob, Bo and Mikkel - three friends who spend their days lusting over unattainable women and engaging in a variety of illegal activities (i.e. they'll rent a movie and then break into a house to watch it). After he's assigned to work with Mathilde on a school project, Jakob finds himself falling for the girl - despite the fact that Mikkel has been secretly lusting after her for years.
IMDB Rating: 4.6
IMDB Votes: 502
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Denmark
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: realistic, humorous, semi serious
Similar in 87%
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 79%
Watching TV with the Red Chinese (2012)
Plot Summary:
In New York City in 1980, Dexter Mitchell plays half-willing big brother to his neighbors, a trio of exchange students from the People's Republic of China.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 112
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: touching, humorous, realistic, semi serious, offbeat, non-linear, independent film
Similar in 89%
Walkaway (2010)
Plot Summary:
Walkaway, a light-comedy drama, mocks the clutches of social obligations on young Indian professionals settled in New York City.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 813
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: touching, feel good, humorous, realistic, semi serious, independent film
Similar in 76%
Everybody's Doing It (2002)
Plot Summary:
Angela and Travis consider having sex for the first time just as their high school starts up an abstinence education program. Making matters worse, a "good girl" collects abstinence pledges from students and blows the whistle on Angela and Travis.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 293
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, semi serious, captivating
Similar in 86%
Winter Break (2003)
Plot Summary:
Viscerally experience a "year off" in Aspen, Colorado with a group of recent college grads who have elected to defer graduate school and career opportunities to ski, snow-board, climb, party, fall in love and basically live life to its absolute fullest out in this spectacular mountain town.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: humorous, semi serious, realistic, independent film
Similar in 86%
Rockford (1999)
Plot Summary:
The movie chronicles the arrival of a (Hindu) student to a strict all-boys Christian boarding school in India and his assimilation into the school. The change is quite dramatic to the protagonist and there are a lot of events that would look extremely abusive to the viewer.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: India
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: light, social, humorous, realistic, semi serious, sexual, sexy