Imaginary HeroesMovies like Imaginary Heroes
- Key Features:
- Family drama, Grief, Suicide, Dysfunctional family, Coming-of-age, Secrets, Suburban life, Sibling rivalry, Emotional repression
- Tone:
- serious, restrained, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Drama enthusiasts, Independent film viewers, Viewers interested in family dynamics
- Emotional Arc:
- Loss → Grief → Acceptance
Imaginary Heroes

Matt Travis is good-looking, popular, and his school's best competitive swimmer, so everyone is shocked when he inexplicably commits suicide. As the following year unfolds, each member of his family struggles to recover from the tragedy with mixed results.
Imaginary Heroes
Beth, Calvin, and their son Conrad are living in the aftermath of the death of the other son. Conrad is overcome by grief and misplaced guilt to the extent of a suicide attempt. He is in therapy. Beth had always preferred his brother and is having difficulty being supportive to Conrad. Calvin is trapped between the two trying to hold the family together.

A son finds an escape from his turbulent marriage with his slightly dysfunctional and quirky parents who are hiding a young boy from the authorities.

Chronicling the troubled existence of Duncan Mudge, a 14-year-old misfit who—while vying for the attention of his vacant father—struggles to fill the void brought on by his mother's sudden death.

A successful lawyer, with a new wife and infant, agrees to care for his teenage son from a previous marriage after his ex-wife becomes concerned about the boy's wayward behavior.

Bob Parr has given up his superhero days to log in time as an insurance adjuster and raise his three children with his formerly heroic wife in suburbia. But when he receives a mysterious assignment, it's time to get back into costume.

Holly & Nathan Teller live in a small town in Pennsylvania. Holly is on the cheerleading team and has a close relationship with her younger brother Nathan, who is subjected to bullying at school. Nathan is taken for a car ride one day by the bullies, whose intent about what they are going to do with Nathan is not clear. He gives them the slip, but disappears and is still missing after three years.

Ken Park focuses on several teenagers and their tormented home lives. Shawn seems to be the most conventional. Tate is brimming with psychotic rage; Claude is habitually harassed by his brutish father and coddled, rather uncomfortably, by his enormously pregnant mother. Peaches looks after her devoutly religious father, but yearns for freedom. They're all rather tight, or so they claim.

Follows the fate of Lyle, a violent adolescent who, in lieu of prison, is placed in a juvenile mental institution, where he encounters a group of equally troubled teens. This motley crew—abused, sexually confused, violent, and yet hanging on by their grit and anger—becomes Lyle's last lifeline as he fights to find meaning in a world that seems to defy understanding.

The suicide of a former high-school bully puts the boy's father on a quest for answers.

A dying 15-year-old boy draws stories of an invincible superhero as he struggles with his mortality.

When Jessica moves back into her childhood home with her family, her youngest stepdaughter Alice develops an eerie attachment to a stuffed bear named Chauncey she finds in the basement. Alice starts playing games with Chauncey that begin playful and become increasingly sinister. As Alice’s behavior becomes more and more concerning, Jessica intervenes only to realize Chauncey is much more than the stuffed toy bear she believed him to be.

A mother, unable to confront the heartbreak of her son leaving for college, delays his departure by making him sick. Unfortunately, she goes too far.

Bobby Griffith was his mother's favorite son, the perfect all-American boy growing up under deeply religious influences in Walnut Creek, California. Bobby was also gay. Struggling with a conflict no one knew of, much less understood, Bobby finally came out to his family.

The story of a widower and his two sons, focusing on their complex and sometimes difficult relationships.

A couple is going through marital troubles made worse when a previously unknown grandson shows up.

12-year-old Conor encounters an ancient tree monster who proceeds to help him cope with his mother's terminal illness and being bullied in school.

A peculiar neighbor offers hope to a recent widow who is struggling to raise a teenager who is unpredictable and, sometimes, violent.

These intertwining stories about romance and separation follow a firefighter who can't find the right time to propose, a shy theme park worker who falls for an artist, an estranged mother and son, and a man seeking to regain his lost love.

When Vincent finds himself a victim of outing in his high school, he must accept to live with the drastic changes it provokes, and redefine his relationships with his friends and family.

A teenager pretends to be dying from cancer as a way to cope with the realities of his daily existence and his father's terminal illness.

The son of a Vietnam War Veteran must deal with neighborhood bullies as well as his dad's post-traumatic stress disorder while growing up in the deep south in the 1970's.

Ned is in the throes of a mid-life crisis. His work as a writer on an outrageous, semi-pornographic TV show is less than satisfying. His fifteen year old son has just told him he is gay and his eleven year old is afraid of, well pretty much everything. When his wife, Jeannie, moves her sick and embittered father from Detroit into their home in NY, it puts added stress on an already strained marriage. And when a sexy female co-worker puts the moves on Ned, the temptation sends him spiraling.

A son in denial of a serious illness. A mother facing the unbearable. And between them a doctor fighting to do his job and bring them to acceptance. The three of them have one year and four seasons to come together and understand what it means to die while living.

The adventures of an upper-class suburban family abruptly confronted with the younger brother's discovery of his homosexuality, the elder sister's suicide attempt and sadomasochist tendencies, and the intrusion of a very free-spirited maid and her husband. And it all started with the arrival in the family of an innocent looking rat.

On the night of Oct. 2, 2005, Hart and Dana Perry's 15-year-old son Evan jumped to his death from his New York City bedroom window. This moving film is the story, told by his filmmaker parents and others who knew him, of Evan’s life and death, and his life-long struggle with bipolar disorder. It delves into the complexity of Evan's disease, sharing his family's journey through the maze of mental illness. In showing how one family deals with generations of loss and grief, the film defies the stigma related to mental illness and suicide and tells a human story that touches everyone.

Friends, family, and lovers struggle to find love, forgiveness, and meaning in an almost war-torn world riddled with comedy and pathos.

A 16-year-old girl visits her gay half-brother and ends up seducing his boyfriend, thus wreaking havoc on all of their lives.

There are dysfunctional families... and then there are the Conways. After a family tragedy, 15-year-old Billy Conway has become the de facto glue between his bitter mom, distant brother, and stoic dad. But when Billy starts to act out, everything changes for him and his family

Simon Birch and Joe Wenteworth are boys who have a reputation for being oddballs. Joe never knew his father, and his mother, Rebecca, is keeping her lips sealed no matter how much he protests. Simon, meanwhile, is an 11-year-old dwarf whose outsize personality belies his small stature. Indeed, he often assails the local reverend with thorny theological questions and joins Joe on his quest to find his biological father.

The prodigal son of a family in turmoil returns home to his French rural home to reconnect with his family and make sense of their dysfunctions.

A young French Canadian, one of five boys in a conservative family in the 1960s and 1970s, struggles to reconcile his emerging identity with his father's values.

A novelist fed up with the establishment profiting from "Black" entertainment uses a pen name to write a book that propels him into the heart of hypocrisy and the madness he claims to disdain.

Tim, a shy 16-year-old athlete with a natural gift for running, is dealing with the loss of his mother, as well as his sexuality. After a personal video is posted to social media, Tim's private life is about to explode into the public eye.

A controlling father’s attempts to ensure that his two children succeed in high school backfire after his son experiences a career-ending sports injury. Their familial bonds are eventually placed under severe strain by an unexpected tragedy.

Recently orphaned, a young boy is taken in by his godmother who is shocked to realize that she can see the boy's imaginary friend: a flamboyant, French magician named Bogus.

A married couple on the verge of separation are leveled by the news their 18-year-old son committed a mass-shooting at his college, then took his own life.

Story of a neglected teen with mild Asperger’s syndrome whose life is changed forever when tragedy hits his family.

Gabrielle is a "statue" for tourists, much to the chagrin of her teenage son. Elsa is in angry at the world and desperate to become pregnant. Mao is a chronically depressed video game designer who drowns his melancholy in alcohol and psychoanalysis. They are brother and sisters but do not hang out. Ever. Their parents Pierre and Claudine, separated for a long time, have really done nothing to strengthen the bonds of the family - yet, at their grandfather's funeral, they are going to have to meet, and together answer the question: "What to do with grandma?"

A troubled college freshman resurrects his imaginary friend to help him cope with a violent trauma.

Half brothers Raymond and Ray reunite when their estranged father dies—and discover that his final wish was for them to dig his grave. Together, they process who they've become as men, both because of their father and in spite of him.

Two outsiders, both shaped by the circumstances that have brought them together, forge a deep and lasting love.

As a huge electrical storm sweeps towards Texas, lineman Beau Ginner is haunted by memories of his brother's death by lightning years earlier. Since that tragic day, he has raised his niece Bailey and risen to foreman of a lineman team. However, there is friction when Bailey's on-off boyfriend Duncan joins the crew, while another new recruit is hiding PTSD symptoms. Beau and his team are soon putting their lives at risk in a race to replace miles of power cables to keep the electrical grid running before the deadly lightning storm strikes. Based on a true story; this film is a tribute to the heroes who risk it all to keep us safe.

Evelyn and her oblivious son Ziggy seek out replacements for each other. As Evelyn tries to parent an unassuming teenager at her shelter, Ziggy fumbles through his pursuit of a brilliant young woman at school.

A young boy stays with his aunt and uncle, and befriends his cousin who's the same age. But his cousin begins showing increasing signs of psychotic behavior.

After discovering she can see everyone's imaginary friends, a girl embarks on a magical adventure to reconnect forgotten imaginary friends with their kids.

In a suburban community, moms and dads, one after the other, mysteriously feel the irresistible impulse to attack and kill their own offspring.

Valentin D is a hot designer architect who claims to be an orphan because he is too ashamed to admit he is the son of working-class scrap metal merchants from the north of France.

On the outskirts of Brooklyn, Frankie, an aimless teenager, suffocates under the oppressive glare cast by his family and a toxic group of delinquent friends. Struggling with his own identity, Frankie begins to scour hookup sites for older men.

Though no one can see him, Hollow Face lurks in the corners, desperately desiring love but only knowing how to spread fear and hate. He creeps into the life of John Farrow after Farrow’s beloved 13-year-old daughter Mia is assaulted in their home. The line between the real and the imaginary blurs as fissures start to open within the family unit. It seems that no security measure can keep Hollow Face out.

When Nora witnesses Abel being bullied by other kids, she rushes to protect him by warning their father. But Abel forces her to remain silent. Caught in a conflict of loyalty, Nora will ultimately try to find her place, torn between children's and adult's worlds.

During the events of May 1968 in France, different worldviews of conflicting relatives collide in their family estate.

A journey deep into an uncharted and treacherous land, where fantastical creatures await the legendary Clades—a family of explorers whose differences threaten to topple their latest, and by far most crucial, mission.

A hard-working lawyer, attached to his cell phone, can't find the time to communicate with his family. An estranged couple uses the internet as a means to escape from their lifeless marriage. A widowed ex-cop struggles to raise a mischievous son who cyber-bullies a classmate. An ambitious journalist sees a career-making story in a teen that performs on an adult-only site. They are strangers, neighbors and colleagues and their stories collide as ordinary people struggling to connect in today's wired world.

A picture-perfect family is torn apart after Tyler finds a cache of disturbing images in his father's possession. He begins to suspect that the man he trusts most in the world may be responsible for the murder of 13 women ten years prior.

A teenager transitions from female to male, and his family must come to terms with that fact.

Evan Hansen, a high schooler with social anxiety, unintentionally gets caught up in a lie after the family of a classmate who committed suicide mistakes one of Hansen’s letters for their son’s suicide note.

David loves his wife, Gillian. Unfortunately, she died two years ago. David deals with his grief by continuing his romance with Gillian during walks with her "ghost" on the beach at night. While David lives in the past, other family problems crop up in the present in the real world....

Teenagers Rose and Bennett were in love, and then a car crash claimed Bennett's life. He left behind a grieving mother, father and younger brother, and Rose was left all alone. She has no family to turn to for support, so when she finds out she's pregnant, she winds up at the Brewer's door. She needs their help, and although they can't quite admit it, they each need her so they can begin to heal.

After an outburst at school involving her son, a concerned single mother demands answers, triggering a sequence of deepening suspicion and turmoil.

College and high school serve as the backdrop for two stories about dysfunction and personal turmoil.

Teenagers living in small-town Oregon take a boat trip for a birthday celebration. When they get an idea to play a mean trick on the town bully, it suddenly goes too far. Soon they're forced to deal with the unexpected consequences of their actions.

Sophia, a new high school student, tries to make friends with Barbara, who tells her that “she kills giants,” protecting this way her hometown and its inhabitants, who do not understand her strange behavior.

The Munns, father John and sons Chris and Tim, recede to the woods of rural Georgia. Their life together is forever changed with the arrival of Uncle Deel, though the tragedy that follows forces troubled Chris to become a man.

After false reports of his demise put him and his work on the map, an artist decides to continue the charade by posing as his own brother. Soon, a reporter enters his life and has a profound effect on him.

An unsettling look at reality television, where a disturbing game show has its contestants ending their lives for the public's enjoyment.

An everyday conversation between Marta and her mother turns into a tragic race against the clock when Marta receives a phone call from Iván, her six-year-old son, who is on holiday in France with his father.

David, a struggling comedy writer fresh off from breaking up with his boyfriend, moves from New York City to Sacramento to help his sick mother. Living with his conservative father and much-younger sisters for the first time in ten years, he feels like a stranger in his childhood home. As his mother’s health declines, David frantically tries to extract meaning from this horrible experience and convince everyone (including himself) that he's "doing okay.”

Fourteen-year-old Charlie's life changes when Jasper takes his help to dispose of the body of his girlfriend, Laura. He decides to look for the murderer and falls in love with Laura's younger sister.

Grief-stricken after the loss of her child, Vanessa takes refuge at a lake house only to be met with an aberration of herself from a parallel universe and realizes the multiverse gates hold the key to releasing her grief or trapping her forever.

While on a trip to Thailand, a successful American businessman tries to radically change his life. Back in New York, his wife and daughter find their relationship with their live-in Filipino maid changing around them. At the same time, in the Philippines, the maid's family struggles to deal with her absence.

A seductive teen becomes vindictive when her boyfriend tries to end the relationship.

Troy and his young transgender son Joe are on the run from his conservative mother in the Montana wilderness, with a detective in hot pursuit.

Frank, a single man raising his child prodigy niece Mary, is drawn into a custody battle with his mother.

When a gloomy, God-fearing island community is rocked by the assault of an infant, a psychiatrist is called in to examine Dorothy Mills, the teenager accused of the crime. Despite the villagers' hostility to her inquiry, she soon comes to suspect that Dorothy suffers from multiple personality disorder...

The semi-autobiographical story centers on the complexities of love and commitment in a family torn apart when faced with an unexpected tragedy.

A writer must face the sudden death of his father, but after the burial, the latter reappears to him. He will have to learn to live with this facetious companion, but difficult to explain the situation to his family, because he is the only one who can see him. This disturbing presence will create an earthquake in the family.

A psychiatrist faces his past, present and future when he finds himself involved in the treatment of a young man recently released from prison for a murder committed when the boy was just 11 years old.

Two 13-year-old boys spend an idyllic summer together, but their connection is put to the test when they become the subject of speculation at school.

Brad has committed murder and barricaded himself inside his house. With the help of his friends and neighbours, the cops piece together the strange tale of how this nice young man arrived at such a dark place.

A young boy has lost his mother and is losing touch with his father and the world around him. Then he meets Hesher who manages to make his life even more chaotic.

It's not easy being a teenager and Mike, a sixteen-year-old, has it espcially hard. He lives in the sticks with his mother, a non-stop nagger, in Faintville, a Canadian timber industry town. He has no father, no friends, not even a favorite meal. Basically, his sole wish is simply to vanish from the face of the earth. One day, Mike writes his own obituary and shoots himself. To his great disappointment he wakes up the in the local hospital. During a routine examination, the doctors discover a plum-sized tumor in his brain. Mike can scarcely believe his luck and keeps the illness to himself to avoid undergoing surgery that would save him. Staring death directly in the eyes, however, changes Mike's point of view and he re-evaluates his opinion of both enchanting and crazy Miranda. Somebody seems to understand him after all.

On an average day, Greg's life is filled with family, love and a rambunctious little dog - but despite all of this, Greg has a secret. Today is different, though. With some help from his precocious pup, and a little bit of magic, Greg might learn that he has nothing to hide.

Husband does not understand his wife? Conflict with children? Do you want to be heard and stood in your place? Be afraid of your desires. In this family, everything changed places, including grandmother.

Undiagnosed, untreated and generally untethered schizophrenic Julien lives with his pregnant younger sister Pearl, anorexic would-be wrestler brother Chris, sympathetic grandmother, and severely depressed German father.

An upper middle-class French family celebrates a birthday in a restaurant. In one evening and during one meal, family history, tensions, collective and separate grudges, delights, and memories both clash and coalesce.

Having been gone for three years, closeted advertising executive Adrian returns to his Texas hometown and struggles to reveal his dire circumstances to his conservative family.

Nathan, 16, lives alone with his father Stephane. A newcomer in high school, he is invited to a party and falls in love with Louis, a boy in his class. They find themselves out of sight and kiss each other, but someone takes a picture of them. Soon, the photo is published on Facebook and a storm overtakes their lives as they face bullying and rejection.

A coming of age dramedy where infidelity, real estate, and Lyme disease have two families falling apart on Long Island in the early eighties. Scott, 15, is at the point in his life when he finds out that the most important people around him, his father, his mother, and his brother, are not exactly who he thought they were. They are flawed and they are human.

A nurse, a paramedic, a gymnast and her coach offer a service for hire wherein they stand in for dead people by appointment, hired by relatives, friends or colleagues of the deceased, to assist with the grieving process.

A group of young mutants--humans with a genetic variation that gives them superpowers and makes them feared by the population at large--begin training at a school for heroes. Their studies are interrupted when they must rescue one of their number from a mad scientist who can enter others' dreams.

Alex, an intersexed 15-year-old, is living as a girl, but she and her family begin to wonder whether she's emotionally a boy when another teenager's sexual advances bring the issue to a head. As Alex faces a final decision regarding her gender, she meets both hostility and compassion.

When a wife becomes the breadwinner of her family after her husband loses his job, adultery becomes part of her life.

When a teenager suddenly disappears without a trace, the case is assigned to an alcoholic police officer who maintains a complicated relationship with his own troubled teenage son, suspected of drug trafficking.

The strange comedy film of two close brothers; one, Wilbur, who wants to kill himself, and the other, Harbour, who tries to prevent this. When their father dies leaving them his bookstore they meet a woman who makes their lives a bit better yet with a bit more trouble as well.

Dispatched from his basement room on an errand for his mother, slacker Jeff might discover his destiny (finally) when he spends the day with his brother as he tracks his possibly adulterous wife.

The teenage son of two fathers makes a documentary film about his parents but is surprised when a real-life plot twist occurs in his family.



