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Movies like Nowhere Special

Key Features:
Terminal illness, Father-son relationship, Adoption, Single father, Loss, Grief, Parental love, Emotional drama, Social realism, Finding family, Sacrifice, Mortality
Tone:
serious, restrained, dramatic
Target Audience:
Drama viewers, Fans of independent film, Those interested in family stories, Viewers who appreciate emotional narratives
Emotional Arc:
Love → Desperation → Acceptance

Nowhere Special

2020-09-10
Nowhere Special Poster - Find Similar Movies

John, a 35-year-old window cleaner, has dedicated his life to bringing up his 4-year-old son, Michael, after the child's mother left them soon after giving birth. When John is given only a few months left to live, he attempts to find a new, perfect family for Michael, determined to shield him from the terrible reality of the situation.

Genres
Drama
Cast
James Norton, Daniel Lamont, Eileen O, Valerie O, Stella McCusker, Carol Moore, Valene Kane, Keith McErlean, Laura Hughes, Éva Morris
Crew
Uberto Pasolini, Uberto Pasolini
Rating
7.211(201 votes)
Nowhere SpecialNowhere Special
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Still Life
7.496

A council case worker looks for the relatives of those found dead and alone.



An Irish Goodbye
6.672

In rural Northern Ireland, following the untimely death of their mother, a young man with Down syndrome and his estranged brother discover her unfulfilled bucket list.



Misunderstood
7.521

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



Swan Song
Swan Song(2021)
7.141

In the near future, Cameron Turner is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Presented with an experimental solution to shield his wife and son from grief, he grapples with altering their fate in this thought-provoking exploration of love, loss, and sacrifice.



Ocean Heaven
7.6

The story of a father's tireless love for his autistic son. A terminally ill father's attempt to teach his autistic son the necessary life skills to survive on his own before he passes away. It is also a poignant tribute to the infinite love that parents have for their children and their unending desire to take care and look after them to their best abilities, no matter the struggle, no matter the effort.



Somewhere
Somewhere(2010)
6.073

After withdrawing to the Chateau Marmont, a passionless Hollywood actor reexamines his life when his eleven-year-old daughter surprises him with a visit.



Mamma Roma
7.9

After years spent working as a prostitute in her Italian village, middle-aged Mamma Roma has saved enough money to buy herself a fruit stand so that she can have a respectable middle-class life and reestablish contact with the 16-year-old son she abandoned when he was an infant. But her former pimp threatens to expose her sordid past, and her troubled son seems destined to fall into a life of crime and violence.



Born for You
7.238

Alba has Down's Syndrome and was left in the hospital when she was born. Thirty families rejected her before the court decided to entrust her to Luca: a Catholic — and gay — single man.



Midnight Special
6.3

A father and son go on the run after the dad learns his child possesses special powers.



I Am Self-Sufficient

Michele Apicella lives in Rome, in an apartment paid for by his father. Abandoned by his wife and his son Andrea, he occupies his time acting in an experimental theater company under the artistic direction of his friend Fabio.



Nowhere Boy
7.2

A rebellious teenager, future Beatle John Lennon lives with his Aunt Mimi in working-class mid-1950s Liverpool, England. Mimi's husband suddenly dies, and John spies his mother Julia at the funeral. Despite Mimi's misgivings, John intends to have a real relationship with his mother. Julia introduces him to popular music and the banjo and, though a family conflict looms, young John is inspired to form his own band.



Transfusion
6.065

Ryan Logan, a former Special Forces operative, is battling to cope with life after the loss of his wife. He is thrusted into the criminal underworld to keep his only son from being taken from him.



Everybody's Fine
7.22

Matteo Scuro is a retired Sicilian bureaucrat, a widower with five children, all of whom live on the mainland and hold responsible jobs. He decides to surprise each with a visit and finds none as he imagined.



Only You
Only You(2019)
6.607

A madly-in-love young couple's relationship begins to suffer when they struggle to conceive a child.



Central Station
8.1

An emotional journey of a former school teacher, who writes letters for illiterate people, and a young boy, whose mother has just died, as they search for the father he never knew.



Everything's Gonna Be Alright

Bruno Salvati is a director of little success, fresh from the separation from his wife Anna with whom he had two children, the twenty-year-old Adele and the seventeen-year-old Tito. Following a sudden illness, Bruno is diagnosed with a disease that requires the intervention of a donor. All his family relationships are called into question, including that with his father Umberto, the custodian of a secret that will force Bruno to embark on a journey in search of someone who can help him.



The Son's Room
7.1

A psychoanalyst and his family go through profound emotional trauma when their son dies in a scuba diving accident.



My Life Without Me
6.069

A fatally ill mother with only two months to live creates a list of things she wants to do before she dies without telling her family of her illness.



Made in Italy
6

A bohemian artist travels from London to Italy with his estranged son to sell the house they inherited from his late wife.



Is Anybody There?
6.3

A young boy who lives in an old folks' home strikes up a friendship with a retired magician.



Evelyn
Evelyn(2002)
6.357

Desmond Doyle is devastated when his wife abandons their family on the day after Christmas. His unemployment, and the fact that there is no woman in the house to care for the children—Evelyn, Dermot and Maurice—make it clear to the authorities this is an untenable situation. The Catholic Church and the Irish courts decide to put the Doyle children into Church-run orphanages.



Theorem
Theorem(1968)
7

A wealthy Italian household is turned upside down when a handsome stranger arrives, seduces every family member and then disappears. Each has an epiphany of sorts, but none can figure out who the seductive visitor was or why he came.



Special
Special(2006)
6.318

A lonely metermaid has a psychotic reaction to his medication and becomes convinced he's a superhero. A very select group of people in life are truly gifted. Special is a movie about everyone else.



Too Neapolitan
6.3

When Debora's ex-husband, a popular neomelodic singer, loses his life in a stage dive, she worries that her 11-year-old son Ciro may be showing symptoms of depression. Taken to a child psychologist, shy Tommaso, Ciro eventually confesses to him that it's not his father's death that has got him down, it's love for his classmate, the cute Ludovica. The two make a deal: Tommaso will help Ciro to win the affections of Ludovica, while Ciro will give Tommaso a hand at having a chance with his mother.



Little Boy
7.2

An eight-year-old boy is willing to do whatever it takes to end World War II so he can bring his father home. The story reveals the indescribable love a father has for his little boy and the love a son has for his father.



John Q
John Q(2002)
7.1

John Quincy Archibald is a father and husband whose son is diagnosed with an enlarged heart and then finds out he cannot receive a transplant because HMO insurance will not cover it. Therefore, he decides to take a hospital full of patients hostage until the hospital puts his son's name on the donor's list.



Monolith
Monolith(2016)
5.334

A mother and her son plan a surprise visit to Los Angeles to see her husband/his father. Halfway there they get into a terrible accident in the middle of nowhere and now must fight to survive.



A Kid
A Kid(2016)
7

Matthieu is a 33 year old Parisian who finds out that the father he never knew has died and decides to go to his funeral in order to meet his two siblings in Quebec. But once in Montréal, he realizes that nobody is aware of his existence or even interested in it. He is alone, in hostile territory…



Pigsty
Pigsty(1969)
7.1

Two dramatic stories. In an undetermined past, a young cannibal (who killed his own father) is condemned to be torn to pieces by some wild beasts. In the second story, Julian, the young son of a post-war German industrialist, is on the way to lie down with his farm's pigs, because he doesn't like human relationships.



Nowhere
Nowhere(1997)
6.8

In Los Angeles, a colorful assortment of bohemians try to make sense of their intersecting lives. The moody Dark Smith, his bisexual girlfriend, her lesbian lover and their shy gay friend plan on attending the wildest party of the year. But they'll only make it if they can survive the drug trips, suicides, trysts, mutilations and alien abductions that occur as one surreal day unfolds.



Private Life
6.9

Richard and Rachel, a couple in the throes of infertility, try to maintain their marriage as they descend deeper and deeper into the insular world of assisted reproduction and domestic adoption.



True Mothers
7.3

After suffering through a long and unsuccessful series of fertility treatments, Satoko and her husband Kiyokazu make the decision to adopt a child. Six years after adopting a boy they named Asato, Satoko has quit her job to concentrate fully on her husband and son. The family lives a peaceful existence until the arrival of a stranger.



Sometimes Always Never

Alan is a stylish tailor with moves as sharp as his suits. He has spent years searching tirelessly for his missing son Michael who stormed out over a game of Scrabble. With a body to identify and his family torn apart, Alan must repair the relationship with his youngest son and solve the mystery of an online player who he thinks could be Michael, so he can finally move on and reunite his family.



The Father Who Moves Mountains

Mircea, former Intelligence officer, finds out that his son from has gone missing in the mountains. He travels there to find him. After days of searches, Mircea put his own rescue team together, leading to conflict with the local squad.



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.



Restless
Restless(2011)
6.506

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



Martin (Hache)
7.4

19-year-old Argentine Martin has a nearly fatal drug overdose. After that, his mother sends him to Madrid, where his film director father (also Martin) lives with his new, much younger lover, Alicia, and bisexual actor friend, Dante.



Familia
Familia(2024)
6.961

Luigi has lived with his mother and little brother since their abusive father Franco left when he was 10. Now a young man brimming with rage, he joins a far-right gang in search of belonging, but Franco's return poisons everything.



St. Vincent
7.1

A young boy whose parents just divorced finds an unlikely friend and mentor in the misanthropic, bawdy, hedonistic, war veteran who lives next door.



Cinema Paradiso
8.4

A filmmaker recalls his childhood, when he fell in love with the movies at his village's theater and formed a deep friendship with the theater's projectionist.



Nothing
Nothing(2003)
5.806

The film tells the story of two good friends who live together, Andrew, an agoraphobic travel agent who works from his home, and Dave, a loser who works in an office where he is treated with contempt. Just when it seems things can't get any worse for the two, the entire world outside of their house disappears and is replaced with an endless white void.



Philomena
Philomena(2013)
7.3

A woman searches for her adult son, who was taken away from her decades ago when she was forced to live in a convent.



A Little Something Extra

To escape the police, a father and his son are forced to find refuge in a summer camp for young adults with mental disabilities, taking on the role of an educator and a boarder. The beginning of troubles and a wonderful human experience that will change them forever.



Jim's Story
6.833

Aymeric runs into Florence, a former coworker, one evening in Saint-Claude in the Haut-Jura. She is six months pregnant and single. When she gives birth to Jim, Aymeric is there. They spend happy years together until Christophe, Jim's biological father, shows up... It could be the start of a melodrama, it's also the start of an odyssey into fatherhood.



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.



The Time It Takes
7.148

A devoted father working in film shares a magical bond with his daughter, but as she enters adolescence and falls into addiction, he takes her to Paris in a final effort to save her and their fading connection.



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.



Martian Child
6.7

A recently-widowed science fiction writer considers whether to adopt a hyper-imaginative 6-year-old abandoned and socially-rejected boy who says he's really from Mars.



Running on Empty
7.4

The Popes are a family who haven't been able to use their real identity for years. In the late sixties, the parents set a weapons lab afire in an effort to hinder the government's Vietnam war campaign. Ever since then, the Popes have been on the run with the authorities never far behind. Their survival is threatened when their eldest son falls in love with a girl, and announces his wish to live his life on his own terms.



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.



Marty
Marty(1955)
7.4

Marty, a butcher who lives in the Bronx with his mother is unmarried at 34. Good-natured but socially awkward he faces constant badgering from family and friends to get married but has reluctantly resigned himself to bachelorhood. Marty meets Clara, an unattractive school teacher, realising their emotional connection, he promises to call but family and friends try to convince him not to.



L'immensità
6.338

Clara and Felice struggle to raise their three children in 1970s Rome. The eldest, Andrew, is transgender and yearns for another life where he gets to live as the boy he knows himself to be. Clara instinctively strives to protect her son by escaping into their imaginations to defuse family tensions.



Peut-être
5.286

Arthur is invited to a New Year's Eve party to celebrate the year 2000. His girlfriend Lucie would like a baby from him but he refuses. Through the ceiling of the toilets, he discovers a passage leading to this futurist Paris. There, he meets an old man Ako who affirms he is his son and that he wants to exist. Otherwise he will vanish into the air. Arthur is still hesitant because his life is an unfulfilled one: a has a little lucrative job, is uncertain about his future and things are getting out of hand when Ako discovers the passage and interferes in the party.



Like Father, Like Son
7.688

Ryota Nonomiya is a successful businessman driven by money. He learns that his biological son was switched with another child after birth. He must make a life-changing decision and choose his true son or the boy he raised as his own.



Fantozzi Still Suffers

After a hard day at work and a condominium-board meeting, accountant Ugo Fantozzi goes on a trip with his family. Unfortunately, he will face a nasty surprise upon his return.



Mother
Mother(2017)
6.913

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.



On the Fringe
6.7

A day in the life of Azucena, who is running out of time to keep herself and her family from being evicted; Rafael, a lawyer who sets out to reunite a mother with her daughter; and Teodora, a sick old woman who searches for her long-lost son before it is too late.



Love Story
6.8

Harvard Law student Oliver Barrett IV and music student Jennifer Cavilleri share a chemistry they cannot deny - and a love they cannot ignore. Despite their opposite backgrounds, the young couple put their hearts on the line for each other. When they marry, Oliver's wealthy father threatens to disown him. Jenny tries to reconcile the Barrett men, but to no avail.



City by the Sea
5.8

Vincent LaMarca is a dedicated and well-respected New York City police detective who has gone to great lengths to distance himself from his past, but then makes the terrible discovery that his own son has fallen into a life of crime.



The Specials
7.8

For twenty years, Bruno and Malik have lived in a different world—the world of autistic children and teens. In charge of two separate nonprofit organizations (The Hatch & The Shelter), they train young people from underprivileged areas to be caregivers for extreme cases that have been refused by all other institutions. It’s an exceptional partnership, outside of traditional settings, for some quite extraordinary characters.



Fantozzi in Heaven
5.8

One by one, with a sweet but inexorable rate, Ugo's colleagues, go to a better life. When Ugo is attending at one of the innumerable funerals, he and the priest remain involved in an accident. The doctor says that Ugo as only one week left to live



Intrepido: A Lonely Hero

A meek middle-aged man takes on every conceivable temporary job in order to feel useful and keep his dignity—until something shakes his inexhaustible optimism.



The Etruscan Smile
6.316

Rory MacNeil, a rugged old Scotsman, reluctantly leaves his beloved isolated Hebridean island and travels to San Francisco to seek medical treatment. Moving in with his estranged son, Rory sees his life transformed through a newly found bond with his baby grandson.



Knox Goes Away
6.939

A contract killer, after being diagnosed with a fast-moving form of dementia, is presented with the opportunity to redeem himself by saving the life of his estranged adult son. But to do so, he must race against the police closing in on him as well as the ticking clock of his own rapidly deteriorating mind.



Birth/Rebirth
6.333

A single mother and a childless morgue technician are bound together by their relationship to a little girl they have reanimated from the dead.



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.



Two Is a Family
7.7

A man without attachments or responsibilities suddenly finds himself with an abandoned baby and leaves for London to try and find the mother. Eight years later after he and his daughter become inseparable Gloria's mother reappears.



Balancing Act
6.682

Giulio suddenly finds himself having to change his life when his wife, after discovering his betrayal, asks for a separation and, suddenly, the reality around him is no longer the same. Forty years old and father of two children, Giulio is forced by circumstances to say goodbye to family and economic well-being and to study new solutions in order to stay afloat and not drown in a new poverty made of double rents and double bills to pay, solitary lunches in fourth-rate restaurants, children's wishes not to be ignored and creditors to hide from.



Giovanna's Father
6.9

Michele Casali is a middle-class professor in Fascist Italy who teaches at the same high school attended by his only daughter, Giovanna. A shy and sensitive girl, her insecurities are only magnified by Michele's overprotectiveness—reaching a point of no return.



All About Ah-Long
7.2

Ah-Long, a father living a low-class lifestyle, while trying to raise his son, Porky. The strong bond between father and son is tested when a chance encounter from Ah-Long's ex-girlfriend changes the course of their lives.



A Shine of Rainbows

An orphaned boy named Tomás is adopted by Maire O’Donnell to live on a whimsical Irish isle filled with new friends, secret caves and a lost baby pup seal stranded on the coast. But when Maire's reluctant husband Alec refuses to accept Tomás as his own son, the boy drifts down a fateful path of adventure and self-discovery, illuminating how rainbows can shine around - and within - us all.



Nicostratos the Pelican

After his wife died a man refuses to go out and doesn't want to talk to his only son. Life has no meaning for him. One day his son finds a baby pelican and decides to leave the bird at home. Pelican helps the boy find his father again and revive him back to life ...



The Baby
The Baby(2023)
6.222

Joseph learns that his son and his companion have just perished in an accident. They were expecting a child via a surrogate mother in Belgium. What will become of their future baby? Is Joseph the legitimate grandfather? Carried by the promise of this birth which will prolong the existence of his son, the sexagenarian goes to meet the young Flemish woman with a fierce and indomitable character.



Naples to New York
7.2

In the immediate post-war period, amidst the rubble of a poverty-ridden Naples, two kids, Carmine and Celestina, try to survive as best they can by helping each other out. One night, they secretly board a ship bound for New York to reach Celestina’s sister, who emigrated to America several years earlier. The two children join the many Italian emigrants seeking a new life in America and arrive in an unknown metropolis, which, after several misadventures, they will learn to call home.



All or Nothing
7

Penny works at a supermarket and Phil is a gentle taxi-driver. Penny’s love for Phil has run dry and they lead joyless lives with their two children, Rachel, a cleaner, and Rory, who is unemployed and aggressive.



Nobody
Nobody(2021)
7.9

Hutch Mansell, a suburban dad, overlooked husband, nothing neighbor — a "nobody." When two thieves break into his home one night, Hutch's unknown long-simmering rage is ignited and propels him on a brutal path that will uncover dark secrets he fought to leave behind.



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.



Cowboys
Cowboys(2020)
6.23

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.



Ricky
Ricky(2009)
5.8

When Katie meets Paco, they fall in love. From this an extraordinary child is born; Ricky, who quickly develops into something wonderful and not so normal.



Le Notti Bianche
7.4

A middle-aged man meets a young woman who is waiting on a canal bridge for her lover's return.



Journey to Italy
7.287

Married for eight years with no children, Brits Katherine and Alex Joyce are driving to Italy, their ultimate destination just outside of Naples to sell the villa they have just inherited from his uncle, the villa where they will be staying during their time there. On the drive, they come to the realization that this trip marks the first time that they have truly been alone together, and as such don't really know one another in the true sense.



Magical Girl
7.349

The father of a terminally ill girl is determined to grant his daughter's last wish, a ridiculously expensive collectors' costume from a Japanese TV series. The request will drive him into a journey within his city's dark underbelly.



The Hawks and the Sparrows

A man and his son take an allegorical stroll through life with a talking bird that spouts social and political philosophy.



It's All About Karma
5.764

Giacomo befriends a con man, believing that he is the reincarnation of his dead father.



Our Life
Our Life(2010)
6.5

Claudio is a construction worker living in the outskirts of Rome. He's happily married and his wife is pregnant with their third child. However, a dramatic event comes to upset this simple and happy life.



Jesus' Son
6.264

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



Living
Living(2022)
6.965

London, 1953. Mr. Williams, a veteran civil servant, is an important cog within the city's bureaucracy as it struggles to rebuild in the aftermath of World War II. Buried under paperwork at the office and lonely at home, his life has long felt empty and meaningless. Then a devastating medical diagnosis forces him to take stock, and to try and grasp some fulfilment before it passes permanently beyond reach.



The Deep End
6.2

With her husband Jack perpetually away at work, Margaret Hall raises her children virtually alone. Her teenage son is testing the waters of the adult world, and early one morning she wakes to find the dead body of his gay lover on the beach of their rural lakeside home. What would you do? What is rational and what do you do to protect your child? How far do you go and when do you stop?



The Only Living Boy in New York

When a young man learns that his overbearing father is having an affair, he tries to stop it, only to be seduced by the older woman as well.



Dove osano le cicogne

A couple is desperately looking to conceive a child and moves to Spain to get the help of a renowned doctor. Their plans change after they meet an apparently perfect girl that volunteers to carry on the pregnancy in their place.



Every Blessed Day
6.825

Guido and Antonia are a young couple with opposed characters and backgrounds. He works a night job as a doorman, while she works all day in a car rental service. This is the story of what happens when they decide to have a child.



A Single Man
7.3

Set in Los Angeles in 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, is the story of a British college professor who dwells on the past and cannot see his future. We follow him through a single day, where a series of events and encounters ultimately lead him to decide if there is a meaning to life after the death of his long time partner, Jim.



In America
7.17

A family of Irish immigrants adjusts to life on the mean streets of Hell's Kitchen while also grieving the death of a child.



Couch Potatoes
5.2

Giorgio and Tito, father and son. A successful journalist and a lazy teenager apparently impossible to understand. Giorgio's dream is to take Tito to the Nasca Hill in Liguria, but Tito prefers to spend his entire day with his group of friends, eating, talking about nothing and playing video games. Until one day when he suddenly informs his father that he would join him in this trip. After a series of accidents and misunderstandings, at the end, somehow father and son will find the way to communicate … or at least they will try.



Quiet Chaos
6.454

Pietro is a successful businessman with a wife and a daughter. One day he helps his brother save two women from drowning at the beach. When he returns home he finds that his wife has died. Now Pietro has to take care of his daughter, Claudia. When he drives her to school soon after, he decides to wait for her all day in front of the school, and soon that's what he does every day.



The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them

A New York couple's relationship is tested after the loss of their child. This film is the wide-released combination of the original two :him and :her volumes that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.



A Copenhagen Love Story

After author Mia finds love with single father Emil, their happiness is put to the test as they undergo fertility treatments to have kids of their own.



Lucca's World
7.314

Determined to help her son, who has cerebral palsy, Bárbara takes her family to India for an experimental treatment.



Old Men in New Cars: In China They Eat Dogs II

The last wish of the dying "Monk" is for his foster child, Harald, to find his real son, Ludvig. But the latter is currently in a Swedish prison cell...

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