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Movies like Life as a House

Key Features:
Terminal illness, Father-son relationship, Dysfunctional family, Coming-of-age, Redemption, Suburban life, Personal growth, Reconciliation, Family drama, Estrangement, Acceptance, Second chance
Tone:
serious, dramatic, earnest
Target Audience:
Drama lovers, Family drama enthusiasts, Independent film viewers, Character-driven movie fans
Emotional Arc:
Despair → Connection → Acceptance

Life as a House

2001-10-25
Life as a House Poster - Find Similar Movies

When a man is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he takes custody of his misanthropic teenage son, for whom quality time means getting high, engaging in small-time prostitution, and avoiding his father.

Genres
Drama
Cast
Kevin Kline, Hayden Christensen, Kristin Scott Thomas, Jena Malone, Mary Steenburgen, Ian Somerhalder, Jamey Sheridan, Scott Bakula, Sandra Nelson, Sam Robards
Crew
Irwin Winkler, Mark Andrus
Rating
7.1(433 votes)
Life as a HouseLife as a House
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My Life
My Life(1993)
6.691

It seems that Bob Jones has everything a man could want, namely a fulfilling job and a beautiful, pregnant wife, Gail. But Bob's life is turned upside-down when he is diagnosed with cancer and given four months to live -- not even enough time to see his first child's birth. To cleanse himself of demons in his remaining days, Bob makes a video diary, hoping to pass along some wisdom to his future child. Along the way, he discovers a lot about himself.



99 Homes
99 Homes(2015)
6.8

After his family is evicted from their home, proud and desperate construction worker Dennis Nash tries to win his home back by striking a deal with the devil and working for Rick Carver, the corrupt real estate broker who evicted him.



Harry & Son
5.78

Widower Harry Keach is a construction worker who was raised to appreciate the importance of working for a living. He takes a dim view of his sensitive son Howard's lackadaisical lifestyle and has a strained relationship with his daughter Nina as he does not approve of her husband. When Harry is fired from his job, his life changes drastically as he is made to focus on the relationships around him.



House Broken
5.09

In order to enjoy his retirement, a father takes drastic measures to get his twentysomething, slacker sons to move out and fend for themselves.



Dad
Dad(1989)
6.385

A busy executive learns during a meeting that his mother may be dying and rushes home to her side. He ends up being his father's caretaker and becomes closer to him than ever before. Estranged from his own son, the executive comes to realize what has been missing in his own life.



50/50
50/50(2011)
7.177

Inspired by a true story, a comedy centered on a 27-year-old guy who learns of his cancer diagnosis and his subsequent struggle to beat the disease.



Falling
Falling(2020)
6.468

John Peterson lives with his partner Eric and their adopted daughter in Southern California. When he is visited by his aging father Willis from Los Angeles who is searching for a place to retire, their two very different worlds collide.



Fathers and Daughters

A Pulitzer-winning writer grapples with being a widower and father after a mental breakdown, while, 27 years later, his grown daughter struggles to forge connections of her own.



The Guitar
5.5

The life of a woman is transformed after she is diagnosed with a terminal disease, fired from her job and abandoned by her boyfriend. Given two months to live, she throws caution to the wind to pursue her dreams.



One True Thing
6.5

A career woman reassesses her parents' lives after she is forced to care for her cancer-stricken mother.



Our Friend
7.1

After learning that his terminally ill wife has six months to live, a man welcomes the support of his best friend who moves into their home to help out.



Jeff, Who Lives at Home

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.



Beautiful Boy
7.6

After he and his first wife separate, journalist David Sheff struggles to help their teenage son, who goes from experimenting with drugs to becoming devastatingly addicted to methamphetamine.



This Boy's Life
7.1

When a son and mother move to Seattle in hopes for a better life, the mother meets a seemingly polite man. Things go south when the man turns out to be abusive, endangering their lives. As the mother struggles to maintain hope in an impossible situation, the son has plans to escape.



Lymelife
Lymelife(2008)
6.1

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.



The Keys to the House
6.457

Meeting his handicapped son for the first time, a young father attempts to forge a relationship with the teenager.



Here
Here(2024)
6.543

An odyssey through time and memory, centered on a place in New Jersey where—from wilderness, and then, later, from a home—love, loss, struggle, hope and legacy play out between couples and families over generations.



Same Kind of Different as Me

International art dealer Ron Hall must befriend a dangerous homeless man in order to save his struggling marriage to his wife, a woman whose dreams will lead all three of them on the journey of their lives.



Norman
Norman(2010)
6.115

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.



In the Land of Women
5.871

After a bad breakup with his girlfriend leaves him heartbroken, Carter Webb moves to Michigan to take care of his ailing grandmother. Once there, he gets mixed up in the lives of the mother and daughters who live across the street.



The House of Tomorrow
6.838

The film tells futurist, architect, and inventor R. Buckminster Fuller's incredible story through two teens hoping to get laid, become punk gods, and survive high school.



Letters to God
6.863

A young boy fighting cancer writes letters to God, touching lives in his neighborhood and inspiring hope among everyone he comes in contact. An unsuspecting substitute postman, with a troubled life of his own, becomes entangled in the boy's journey and his family by reading the letters. They inspire him to seek a better life for himself and his own son he's lost through his alcohol addiction.



The Bachelors
7.065

After the early death of his wife, a mourning father moves with his teenage son across the country for a private school teaching job. Their lives begin to transform due to two unique women, who help them embrace life and love again



Daddy's Home
6.293

The story of a mild-mannered radio executive who strives to become the best stepdad ever to his wife's two children, but complications ensue when their freewheeling, freeloading real father arrives, forcing stepdad to compete for the affection of the kids.



Friendship
6.5

Suburban dad Craig falls hard for his charismatic new neighbor Austin, and his attempts to make an adult male friend threatens to ruin both of their lives.



Jesus' Son
6.264

A young man turns from drug addiction and petty crime to a life redeemed by a discovery of compassion.



Being Flynn
6.159

Working in a Boston homeless shelter, Nick Flynn re-encounters his father, a con man and self-proclaimed poet. Sensing trouble in his own life, Nick wrestles with the notion of reaching out yet again to his dad.



The Confirmation
6.405

A divorced father reconnects with his son when they track down a stolen toolbox over the course of a weekend.



Like Dandelion Dust
6.88

A compelling drama that explores the different meanings of being a parent through the gritty, realistic lives of a struggling family, and a privileged family. Their lives intersect, intertwine and collide, all for the love of a little boy. This film bravely exposes the humanity in each character reminding us that we each have the potential to be the best and worst versions of ourselves at any time.



Magnolia
Magnolia(1999)
7.726

On one random day in the San Fernando Valley, a dying father, a young wife, a male caretaker, a famous lost son, a police officer in love, a boy genius, an ex-boy genius, a game show host and an estranged daughter will each become part of a dazzling multiplicity of plots, but one story.



Goodrich
Goodrich(2024)
6.315

Andy Goodrich's life is upended when his wife enters a rehab program, leaving him on his own with their young kids. Goodrich leans on his daughter from his first marriage, Grace, as he ultimately evolves into the father Grace never had.



Fatherhood
7.508

A widowed new dad copes with doubts, fears, heartache and dirty diapers as he sets out to raise his daughter on his own. Inspired by a true story.



Herself
Herself(2020)
6.7

Struggling to provide her daughters with a safe, happy home, Sandra decides to build one - from scratch. Using all her ingenuity to make her ambitious dream a reality, Sandra draws together a community to lend a helping hand to build her house and ultimately recover her own sense of self.



Home Again
6.112

Life for a single mom in Los Angeles takes an unexpected turn when she allows three young guys to move in with her.



The Life of Chuck
7.347

In this extraordinary story of an ordinary man, Charles 'Chuck' Krantz experiences the wonder of love, the heartbreak of loss, and the multitudes contained in all of us.



Quality Time
6.3

You can’t choose your family – which is why Conrad limits his visits with his parents to an absolute minimum. When venomous, irritable Carl injures himself seriously in a fall, his reluctant son Conrad and the butt-of-all-jokes Jonas has no choice but to move back into his old childhood room. Three generations under one roof: a chance for reconciliation – or a total disaster?



Smoke
Smoke(1995)
7.2

Writer Paul Benjamin is nearly hit by a bus when he leaves Auggie Wren's smoke shop. Stranger Rashid Cole saves his life, and soon middle-aged Paul tells homeless Rashid that he wouldn't mind a short-term housemate. Still grieving over his wife's murder, Paul is moved by both Rashid's quest to reconnect with his father and Auggie's discovery that a woman who might be his daughter is about to give birth.



Rabbit Hole
6.665

Life for a happy couple is turned upside down after their young son dies in an accident.



Man of the House
5.36

Ben Archer is not happy. His mother, Sandy, has just met a man, and it looks like things are pretty serious. Driven by a fear of abandonment, Ben tries anything and everything to ruin the "love bubble" which surrounds his mom. However, after Ben and Jack's experiences in the Indian Guides, the two become much closer.



Other People
6.347

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.”



Captain Fantastic
7.9

Deep in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, a father devoted to raising his six kids with a rigorous physical and intellectual education is forced to leave his paradise and enter the world, beginning a journey that challenges his idea of what it means to be a parent.



James White
6.574

James White is a troubled twentysomething trying to stay afloat in a frenzied New York City. As he retreats further into a hedonistic lifestyle, his mother's battle with a serious illness faces a series of setbacks that force him to assume more responsibility. With the pressure on him mounting, James must find new reserves of strength or risk imploding completely.



House
House(1985)
6.2

Roger Cobb, a divorced horror novelist coming to terms with the disappearance of his young son, inherits an old mansion home to malevolent supernatural residents.



Shrink
Shrink(2009)
6.186

Unable to cope with a recent personal tragedy, LA's top celebrity shrink turns into a pothead with no concern for his appearance and a creeping sense of his inability to help his patients.



The Hero
The Hero(2017)
6.123

Lee, a former Western film icon, is living a comfortable existence lending his golden voice to advertisements and smoking weed. After receiving a lifetime achievement award and unexpected news, Lee reexamines his past, while a chance meeting with a sardonic comic has him looking to the future.



Boyhood
Boyhood(2014)
7.491

The film tells a story of a divorced couple trying to raise their young son. The story follows the boy for twelve years, from first grade at age 6 through 12th grade at age 17-18, and examines his relationship with his parents as he grows.



Suncoast
Suncoast(2024)
6.723

While caring for her brother along with her audacious mother, a teenager strikes up an unlikely friendship with an eccentric activist who is protesting one of the most landmark medical cases of all time.



Room
Room(2015)
7.998

Held captive for 7 years in an enclosed space, a woman and her young son finally gain their freedom, allowing the boy to experience the outside world for the first time.



When You Finish Saving the World

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.



Breezy
Breezy(1973)
6.8

A free-spirited young woman, Breezy, hitches a ride with an aging real estate salesman, Frank. Sensing that she just wants to use him he tries to have nothing to do with her. She's not that easy to shake, however, and over time a bond forms between them.



Anand
Anand(1971)
7

Dr. Bhaskar Bannerjee struggles with his patients' suffering and the darkness and poverty he confronts daily. He treats cancer patient Anand who upon learning of his impending death determines to use the time he has left to the absolute fullest.



Life As We Know It
6.903

After a disastrous first date for caterer Holly and network sports director Messer, all they have in common is a dislike for each other and their love for their goddaughter Sophie. But when they suddenly become all Sophie has in this world, Holly and Messer must set their differences aside. Juggling careers and social calendars, they'll have to find common ground while living under the same roof.



Peaceful
Peaceful(2021)
7.1

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 Tree of Life
6.735

The impressionistic story of a Texas family in the 1950s. The film follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father. Jack finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith.



Clean and Sober
6.3

Hotshot real estate salesman Daryl has a bad cocaine habit. After embezzling his company's money, he wakes up next to a girl who overdosed. To hide from the police, he checks into a rehabilitation program guaranteeing anonymity. Under the mentorship of counselor Craig, Daryl accepts that he has a substance abuse problem. As he falls in love with fellow patient Charlie, Daryl begins committing to a newly sober life.



Things We Lost in the Fire

A recent widow invites her husband's troubled best friend to live with her and her two children. As he gradually turns his life around, he helps the family cope and confront their loss.



Mass
Mass(2021)
7.4

Two couples meet for a painful and raw conversation in the aftermath of a violent tragedy.



Everything Must Go
6.167

When an alcoholic relapses, causing him to lose his wife and his job, he holds a yard sale on his front lawn in an attempt to start over. A new neighbor might be the key to his return to form.



Kelly & Cal
6.2

Punk-rocker turned suburban mom, Kelly, is nostalgic for a life she can no longer have and uncertain of a future she doesn’t yet fit in. Seventeen-year-old Cal is frustrated at his lack of control over the hand he's been dealt. When the two strike up an unlikely friendship, it's the perfect spark needed to thrust them both back to life.



Boundaries
5.6

Single mom Laura, along with her awkward 14 year-old son Henry is forced to drive Jack, her estranged, care-free pot dealing father across country after he's kicked out of yet another nursing home.



Ordinary Love
6.794

An extraordinary look at the lives of a middle-aged couple in the midst of the wife's breast cancer diagnosis.



Bigger Than Life
7.2

A friendly, successful suburban teacher and father grows dangerously addicted to cortisone, resulting in his transformation into a household despot.



Freshman Father
6.7

When high school sweethearts John and Kathy find out Kathy is pregnant, they decide to get married and move to Cambridge so John can fulfill his scholarship to Harvard. But faced with the harsh reality of their situation, Kathy leaves John behind, compelling him to rent a room from Dorothy, a psychic who encourages him as he struggles to balance school and fatherhood.



Bye Bye Love
5.9

With varying degrees of success, recently divorced friends Dave, Vic and Donny are trying to move on with their lives. Vic feels vilified by his ex-wife's parents, while Donny has a shaky bond with his teen daughter, Emma. Dave, meanwhile, has an enviable problem -- he has more dates than he can handle. As they confront their post-marital challenges, the men take solace in one another's plights.



How to Be a Man
6.333

When former comedian Mark McCarthy is faced with a rare form of cancer, he hires a young, impressionable cameraman to document his crude and comical lessons on what it means to be a man for his unborn son.



Mommy
Mommy(2014)
8.2

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



Mother and Child
6.589

The lives of three women have a commonality: adoption. Karen is a physical therapist who regrets that, as a teenager, she gave up her daughter for adoption. Elizabeth was an adopted child and is now a successful lawyer, but her personal life lacks warmth. Lucy and her husband have failed to conceive and now hope to adopt a baby to make their family complete.



A Dog's Purpose
7.639

A dog goes on quest to discover his purpose in life over the course of several lifetimes with multiple owners.



And So It Goes
6

Nobody likes self-centered realtor Oren Little, and he prefers it that way. He's deliberately mean to anyone who crosses his path and wants nothing more than to sell one final house and retire. His life turns upside-down when his estranged son drops off a granddaughter he never knew existed. Suddenly left in charge of her and with no idea how to take care of a child, he pawns the girl off on his neighbor, Leah -- but he eventually learns how to open his heart.



Fierce People
6.1

A massage therapist looking to overcome her addictions and reconnect with her son, whose father is an anthropologist in South America studying the Yanomani people, moves in with a wealthy ex-client in New Jersey.



A Man Called Otto
7.756

When a lively young family moves in next door, grumpy widower Otto Anderson meets his match in a quick-witted, pregnant woman named Marisol, leading to an unlikely friendship that turns his world upside down.



House of D
6.3

In the present, artist Tom Warshaw recalls his traumatic coming of age. As a 13-year-old growing up in New York City in 1973, Tom hangs out with Pappass, a mentally disabled man. With Tom's mother battling depression after the death of her husband, the young boy is left to his own devices. When Tom develops a crush on schoolmate Melissa, Pappass feels abandoned and begins behaving erratically.



Silver Linings Playbook

After losing his job and wife, and spending time in an institution, a former teacher winds up living with his parents. He wants to rebuild his life and reconcile with his wife, but his father would be happy if he shared his obsession with the Philadelphia Eagles. Things get complicated when he meets Tiffany Maxwell who offers to help him reconnect with his wife if he will do something very important for her in exchange.



The Kentuckian
5.726

A frontiersman and his son fight to build a new home in Texas.



Joe
Joe(2014)
6.5

The rough-hewn boss of a lumber crew courts trouble when he steps in to protect the youngest member of his team from an abusive father.



Nomadland
Nomadland(2021)
7.2

A woman in her sixties embarks on a journey through the western United States after losing everything in the Great Recession, living as a van-dwelling modern-day nomad.



Better Living Through Chemistry

A straight-laced pharmacist's uneventful life spirals out of control when he starts an affair with a trophy wife customer who takes him on a joyride involving sex, drugs and possibly murder.



Being Charlie
6.1

Charlie is a troublesome 18-year-old who breaks out of a youth drug treatment clinic, but when he returns home to Los Angeles, he's given an intervention by his parents and forced to go to an adult rehab. There, he meets a beautiful but troubled girl, Eva, and is forced to battle with drugs, elusive love and divided parents.



Nebraska
Nebraska(2013)
7.449

An aging, booze-addled father takes a trip from Montana to Nebraska with his estranged son in order to claim what he believes to be a million-dollar sweepstakes prize.



Burning Man
5.9

Tom is a British chef in a Bondi restaurant who seems to have decided there are no longer any rules he needs to obey. Whatever Tom is up to, his actions seem to be tolerated by those around him. As Tom descends into darkness, fragments of a different story begin to emerge. All the women in his world are trying in their own, very different ways to help put him back together.



Honey Boy
Honey Boy(2019)
7.045

The story of a child star attempting to mend his relationship with his law-breaking, alcohol-abusing father over the course of a decade, loosely based on Shia LaBeouf’s life.



SubUrbia
SubUrbia(1997)
6.2

A group of suburban teenagers try to support each other through the difficult task of becoming adults.



School of Life
6.396

At Fallbrook Middle School, the annual student-elected Teacher of the Year award is held. And every year for the last 43 years Norman Warner or most fondly called Stormin' Norman Warner has won the award. Now that he has died, the burden of carrying the legacy falls into the hands of Matt Warner, the son of the late Norman Warner who has always lived in the shadow of his father.



Prisoner's Daughter
6.143

Released from prison with terminal cancer, Max tries to reconnect with his estranged daughter and the grandson he’s never known. When his daughter’s abusive, drug-addicted ex-husband reappears, Max’s violent past comes back to haunt them all.



Lullaby
Lullaby(2014)
6.1

Estranged from his family, Jonathan (Hedlund) discovers his father has decided to take himself off life support in forty-eight hours’ time. During this intensely condensed period, a lifetime of drama plays out. Robert (Jenkins) fights a zero sum game to reclaim all that his illness stole from his family. A debate rages on patients’ rights and what it truly means to be free. Jonathan reconciles with his father, reconnects with his mother (Archer), sister (Brown-Findlay), and his love (Adams) and reclaims his voice through two unlikely catalysts – a young, wise-beyond-her-years patient (Barden) and a no-nonsense nurse (Hudson). Through this intensely life affirming prism, an unexpected and powerful journey of love, laughter, and forgiveness unfolds.



The Fault in Our Stars

Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a patient named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.



Ideal Home
6.398

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



The Son
The Son(2022)
6.716

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.



Paris, Texas
8.093

A man wanders out of the desert not knowing who he is. His brother finds him, and helps to pull his memory back of the life he led before he walked out on his family and disappeared four years earlier.



Love Life
Love Life(2022)
7.2

Taeko and her husband, Jirō, are living a peaceful existence with her young son, Keita, when a tragic accident brings the boy's long-lost father, Park, back into her life. To cope with the pain and guilt, Taeko throws herself into helping this deaf and homeless man.



Life or Something Like It

A reporter Lanie Kerrigan interviews a psychic homeless man for a fluff piece about a football game's score. Instead he tells her that her life has no meaning and is going to end in just a few days, which sparks her to action, trying to change the pattern of her life...



Paddleton
Paddleton(2019)
6.986

An unlikely friendship between two neighbors becomes an unexpectedly emotional journey when the younger man is diagnosed with terminal cancer.



The Last Word
6.6

A retired businesswoman – who tries to control everything around her – decides to write her own obituary. A young journalist takes up the task of finding out the truth, and the result is a life-altering friendship.



Demolition
6.8

An emotionally desperate investment banker finds hope through a woman he meets.



A Better Life
7.1

A gardener in East L.A. struggles to keep his son away from gangs and immigration agents while traveling across town to perform landscaping work for the city's wealthy landowners.



Along the Ridge
7.02

A young father and his two children struggle to find harmony after his wife leaves them for another man.



Chronic
Chronic(2015)
5.732

David is a nurse who works with terminally ill patients. Dedicated to his profession, he develops strong relationships with the people he cares for. But outside of work, it's a different story altogether.



Smart House
5.9

Ben Cooper and his family are struggling to get a grip on household chores, school and work. So when Ben sees that a Smart House is being given away, he enters the competition as often as he can, until they eventually win the house (named Pat). After moving in, Pat's personality radically begins to change, turning the Coopers against her.



End of Sentence
6.2

Newly widowed Frank Fogle embarks on a journey to Ireland to scatter his late wife’s ashes. His estranged son, Sean, recently released from prison, agrees to join only when his father promises that they’ll never see each other again following the trip. After revelations surface about an old flame of Frank’s wife and a charming hitchhiker with plans of her own intervenes, father and son find themselves drawn together in unexpected ways.

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