Silver Linings PlaybookMovies like Silver Linings Playbook
- Key Features:
- Mental health, Bipolar disorder, Family dynamics, Romantic comedy, Redemption, Second chance, Unconventional relationship, Dance competition, Emotional recovery, Support system, Quirky characters, Dysfunctional family, Finding love, Personal growth
- Tone:
- humorous, earnest, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Romantic comedy fans, Character-driven story lovers, Drama enthusiasts, Relationship-focused viewers
- Emotional Arc:
- Despair → Hope → Acceptance
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.
Silver Linings Playbook
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

Bill is an ailing larger-than-life father being taken care of by his son Sam, who has returned home to care for him. While home, Sam falls for a local woman, Kate. At the same time, Bill starts to fall for her mom, Tina.

Ten years after their divorce, Jane and Jake Adler unite for their son's college graduation and unexpectedly end up sleeping together. But Jake is married, and Jane is embarking on a new romance with her architect. Now, she has to sort out her life—just when she thought she had it all figured out.

A young man returns to his ex-girlfriend and true love to discover the source of her increasing depression. As the young man earnestly tries to help his girlfriend through her troubles, their love begins to bloom.

Young Augusten Burroughs absorbs experiences that could make for a shocking memoir: the son of an alcoholic father and an unstable mother, he's handed off to his mother's therapist, Dr. Finch, and spends his adolescent years as a member of Finch's bizarre extended family.

A supernatural love story that centers on two parents whose life together falls apart after their son dies. The man, now a successful lawyer, and the woman, now married and an author, get a chance at reconciliation ten years later.

Allison's life falls apart following her involvement in a fatal accident. The unlikely relationship she forms with her would-be father-in-law helps her live a life worth living.

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.

After divorcing his ambitious singer wife, a middle-aged man begins a new relationship with a teacher.

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

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

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

Taken aback by his mother's wedding announcement, a young man returns home in an effort to stop her from marrying his old high school gym teacher, a man who made high school hell for generations of students.

After failing to find success as a writer in New York City, Jim slinks back to his family's home in the Midwest to lick his wounds. But his visit is quickly complicated when his angst spreads to his brother, Tim, who promptly decides to drive his car straight into a tree. Under the shadow of his sibling's injurious actions, Jim strikes up an unlikely friendship with Anika, whose centered small-town wisdom gradually rubs off on him.

Andrew returns to his hometown for the funeral of his mother, a journey that reconnects him with past friends. The trip coincides with his decision to stop taking his powerful antidepressants. A chance meeting with Sam - a girl also suffering from various maladies - opens up the possibility of rekindling emotional attachments, confronting his psychologist father, and perhaps beginning a new life.

When perpetually single, aging music industry exec Harry Sanborn, and his latest trophy girlfriend, Marin, arrive at her mother's beach house in the Hamptons, they find that her mother, playwright Erica Barry, also plans to stay for the weekend. Erica is scandalized by the relationship and Harry's sexist ways. But when Harry has a heart attack while there, and the doctor prescribes bedrest, his only option is to stay at the Barry home. Left in the care of Erica and his doctor, a love triangle starts to take shape.

Two years after a Super Bowl win when NFL head coach Sean Payton is suspended, he goes back to his hometown and finds himself reconnecting with his 12-year-old son by coaching his Pop Warner football team.

An acclaimed writer, his ex-wife, and their teenaged children come to terms with the complexities of love in all its forms over the course of one tumultuous year.

A grieving father in a downward spiral stumbles across a box of his recently deceased son's demo tapes and lyrics. Shocked by the discovery of this unknown talent, he forms a band in the hope of finding some catharsis.

The story of the Buckman family and friends, attempting to bring up their children. They suffer/enjoy all the events that occur: estranged relatives, the 'black sheep' of the family, the eccentrics, the skeletons in the closet, and the rebellious teenagers.

Kate and Charlie like to have a good time. Their marriage thrives on a shared fondness for music, laughter… and getting smashed. When Kate’s partying spirals into hard-core asocial behavior, compromising her job as an elementary schoolteacher, something’s got to give. But change isn’t exactly a cakewalk. Sobriety means she will have to confront the lies she’s been spinning at work, her troubling relationship with her mother, and the nature of her bond with Charlie.

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.

Aspiring New York City artist John Hollar returns to his Middle America hometown on the eve of his mother’s brain surgery. Joined by his girlfriend, eight months pregnant with their first child, John is forced to navigate the crazy world he left behind.

Have you ever sat by the phone wondering why he said he would call, but didn't, or you can't figure out why she doesn't want to sleep with you anymore, or why your relationship just isn't going to the next level... they're just not that into you. Gigi just wants a man who says he'll call—and does—while Alex advises her to stop waiting by the phone. Beth wants a proposal after years of a committed relationship with her boyfriend, Neil, who sees nothing wrong with the status quo. Janine's not sure if she can trust her husband, Ben, who can't quite trust himself around Anna. Anna can't decide between the sexy married guy, or her straightforward, no-sparks standby, Conor, who can't get over the fact that he can't have her. And Mary, who's found an entire network of loving, supportive men, just needs to find one who's straight.

In 1950s Pittsburgh, a frustrated African-American father struggles with the constraints of poverty, racism, and his own inner demons as he tries to raise a family.

An acclaimed college hoops coach is demoted to a junior varsity team after a public meltdown.

Jack always lands on his feet. He lands on his feet when he marries the beautiful Sarah. He lands on his feet when he buys a luxurious new home. However, when Sarah goes into labour, he takes a tumble down the stairs and lands on his head. When he comes around he discovers he is the proud father of a baby girl, but deficient in the spouse department to the tune of 1.

Brad and Kate have made something of an art form out of avoiding their families during the holidays, but this year their foolproof plan is about go bust -- big time. Stuck at the city airport after all departing flights are canceled, the couple is embarrassed to see their ruse exposed to the world by an overzealous television reporter. Now, Brad and Kate are left with precious little choice other than to swallow their pride and suffer the rounds.

Since his wife's death, Andrew Blake is depressed. In an ultimate impetus, he leaves London to go back to France, in the house he met her. This journey through happy days memories won't go as planned.

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.

Story of the relationships between two sons and their father, who moves the family to California and becomes a tv horror show host after the death of his wife.

Joel Barish, heartbroken that his girlfriend underwent a procedure to erase him from her memory, decides to do the same. However, as he watches his memories of her fade away, he realises that he still loves her, and may be too late to correct his mistake.

Phillip is a wealthy quadriplegic who needs a caretaker to help him with his day-to-day routine in his New York penthouse. He decides to hire Dell, a struggling parolee who's trying to reconnect with his ex and his young son. Despite coming from two different worlds, an unlikely friendship starts to blossom.

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.”

An Oscar-winning writer in a slump leaves Hollywood to teach screenwriting at a college on the East Coast, where he falls for a single mom taking classes there.

Will Henry is a newly single graphic novelist balancing being a parent to his young twin daughters and teaching a classroom full of college students, all the while trying to navigate the rich complexities of new love and letting go of the woman who left him.

A former sports star who's fallen on hard times starts coaching his son's soccer team in an attempt to get his life together.

Ollie Trinke is a young, suave music publicist who seems to have it all, with a new wife and a baby on the way. But life deals him a bum hand when he's suddenly faced with single fatherhood, a defunct career and having to move in with his father. To bounce back, it takes a new love and the courage instilled in him by his daughter.

Famous and wealthy funnyman George Simmons doesn't give much thought to how he treats people until a doctor delivers stunning health news, forcing George to reevaluate his priorities with a little help from aspiring stand-up comic Ira.

When her husband suddenly dumps her, longtime dedicated housewife Deanna turns regret into re-set by going back to college... landing in the same class and school as her daughter, who's not entirely sold on the idea. Plunging headlong into the campus experience, the increasingly outspoken Deanna – now Dee Rock – embraces freedom, fun, and frat boys on her own terms, finding her true self in a senior year no one ever expected.

A newly reunited father and son grapple with new beginnings after tragedy, but can they manage to fill the void left by a beloved wife and mother?

Three married couples undergoing therapy are summoned by their female psychologist to a meeting. The psychologist won’t be attending the reunion herself, but she will give to them instructions about what they must do. Thus, to the sound of a horn (literally), the six protagonists will gradually air their dirty laundry concerning their relationships and bring up issues like taking care of the kids, the different home tasks, money, jealousy and sex, until it all leads to a most unexpected and equally shocking end.

On the brink of losing her childhood home, Maddie discovers an intriguing job listing: wealthy helicopter parents looking for someone to “date” their introverted 19-year-old son, Percy, before he leaves for college. To her surprise, Maddie soon discovers the awkward Percy is no sure thing.

While visiting his hometown during Christmas, a man comes face-to-face with his old high school crush whom he was best friends with – a woman whose rejection of him turned him into a ferocious womanizer.

After thirty years of marriage, a middle-aged couple attends an intense, week-long counseling session to work on their relationship.

Following a breakdown and suicide attempt, an aging actor becomes involved with a much younger woman but soon finds that it's difficult to keep pace with her.

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.

Upon discovering her husband's infidelity, Sandy leaves the suburbs and moves into the city. There, she befriends Aram, a guy whose wife only married him so she could get a green card. Sandy hires Aram to be her nanny, and it isn't long until Aram and Sandy find out they get along wonderfully and start to date. But is their relationship real or is it, in fact, just a rebound for both of them?

A story of two famous actors who used to be a couple. They reunite after the son's death and receive a letter asking them to visit five places at Death Valley, which will make the son reappear.

A neurotic, twice-divorced sci-fi writer moves back in with his mother to solve his personal problems.

Aurora, a finicky woman, is in search of true love while her daughter faces marital issues. Together, they help each other deal with problems and find reasons to live a joyful life.

Loving but irresponsible dad Daniel Hillard, estranged from his exasperated spouse, is crushed by a court order allowing only weekly visits with his kids. When Daniel learns his ex needs a housekeeper, he gets the job -- disguised as a British nanny. Soon he becomes not only his children's best pal but the kind of parent he should have been from the start.

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.

When a woman's first love suddenly reenters her life, her relationship with a charming, but abusive neurosurgeon is upended, and she realizes she must learn to rely on her own strength to make an impossible choice for her future.

With John's social life at a standstill and his ex-wife about to get remarried, a down on his luck divorcée finally meets the woman of his dreams, only to discover she has another man in her life - her son. Before long, the two are locked in a battle of wits for the woman they both love-and it appears only one man can be left standing when it's over.

After his older brother passes away, Lee Chandler is forced to return home to care for his 16-year-old nephew. There he is compelled to deal with a tragic past that separated him from his family and the community where he was born and raised.

Greg Focker is ready to marry his girlfriend, Pam, but before he pops the question, he must win over her formidable father, humorless former CIA agent Jack Byrnes, at the wedding of Pam's sister. As Greg bends over backward to make a good impression, his visit to the Byrnes home turns into a hilarious series of disasters, and everything that can go wrong does, all under Jack's critical, hawklike gaze.

Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children, is a renowned linguistics professor who starts to forget words. When she receives a devastating diagnosis, Alice and her family find their bonds tested.

As he copes with the death of his fiancee along with her parents, a young man must figure out what he wants out of life.

A failed New York playwright stages a suicide in an attempt to win back her ex, only to wind up in the custody of her gambling-addict mother.

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.

After the death of his mother, a young boy calls a radio station in an attempt to set his father up on a date. Talking about his father’s loneliness soon leads to a meeting with a young female journalist, who has flown to Seattle to write a story about the boy and his father.

Michelle and Allen, who have reached the point in their relationship where they are considering next steps, decide to invite their parents to finally meet and to offer some understanding of why marriage works. Except the parents already know each other quite well, which leads to some very distinct opinions about the value of marriage.

Phil Weston has been unathletic his entire life. In college he failed at every sport that he tried out for. It looks like his 10-year old son, Sam, is following in his footsteps. But when Phil's hyper-competitive dad benches Sam, Phil decides to transfer his son to a new team which needs a coach. Phil steps in to be the temporary coach and immediately begins to butt heads with his dad over this new competition in their lives.

A widowed father has to deal with two complex issues: while he is searching for "Miss Right," his son, who is in his 20s and gay, is searching for "Mr. Right."

Hard-to-crack ex-CIA man Jack Byrnes and his wife Dina head for the warmer climes of Florida to meet the parents of their son-in-law-to-be, Greg Focker. Unlike their happily matched offspring, the future in-laws find themselves in a situation of opposites that definitely do not attract.

Eight months after the death of his wife, Frank Goode looks forward to a reunion with his four adult children. When all of them cancel their visits at the last minute, Frank, against the advice of his doctor, sets out on a road trip to reconnect with his offspring. As he visits each one in turn, Frank finds that his children's lives are not quite as picture-perfect as they've made them out to be.

The story of Bea Johnson from birth to graduation as she navigates life with an intellectually disabled parent and an extended family who can't quite agree on the best way to help.

Retreating from life after a tragedy, a man questions the universe by writing to Love, Time and Death. Receiving unexpected answers, he begins to see how these things interlock and how even loss can reveal moments of meaning and beauty.

Father, author and relationship expert, Matthew Taylor is on a whirlwind book tour promoting his new best seller, The Bounce Back. He's got it all figured out until he meets the acerbic Kristin Peralta, a talk show circuit therapist who's convinced he's nothing but a charlatan. Matthew's life is turned upside down when he inadvertently falls for Kristin and has to face painful truth of his past relationship.

Abe is a man who is in his thirties and who lives with his parents. He works regretfully for his father while pursuing his hobby of collecting toys. Aware that his family doesn't think highly of him, he tries to spark a relationship with Miranda, who recently moved back home after a failed literary/academic career. Miranda agrees to marry Abe out of desperation, but things go awry.

When the wife of sports-writer Joe Warr dies of cancer, he takes on the responsibility of raising their 6-year-old son, and his teenage son from a previous marriage. As Joe rejects the counsel of his mother-in-law and other parents, he develops his own philosophies on parenting.

While struggling with his dual identity, Arthur Fleck not only stumbles upon true love, but also finds the music that's always been inside him.

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.

While dining out with friends, Sy suggests the difficulty of separating comedy from tragedy. To illustrate his point, he tells his guests two parallel stories about Melinda ; both versions have the same basic elements, but one take on her state of affairs leans toward levity, while the other is full of anguish. Each story involves Melinda coping with a recent divorce through substance abuse while beginning a romantic relationship with a close friend's husband.

A very gentle middle-aged man is married, but when he falls in love with another woman, he decides that to divorce his wife would humiliate her too much – so instead he decides to kill her.

A group of U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq struggle to integrate back into family and civilian life, while living with the memory of a war that threatens to destroy them long after they've left the battlefield.

An Ivy League professor returns home, where his pot-growing twin brother has concocted a plan to take down a local drug lord.

Overachieving actress Rebecca must come to grips with her failing marriage to stay-at-home dad Tom. While Rebecca's slacker brother Tobey can't seem to commit to his aspiring-novelist girlfriend, Elaine. As both relationships spin out of control, the two couples embark on a quest to rediscover the magic and romance of falling in love in New York.

Drew Baylor is fired after causing his shoe company to lose hundreds of millions of dollars. To make matters worse, he's also dumped by his girlfriend. On the verge of ending it all, Drew gets a new lease on life when he returns to his family's small Kentucky hometown after his father dies. Along the way, he meets a flight attendant with whom he falls in love.

A successful lawyer returns to his hometown for his mother's funeral only to discover that his estranged father, the town's judge, is suspected of murder.

A couple's relationship is tested when uninvited guests arrive at their home, disrupting their tranquil existence.

Following an unexpected tragedy, child psychologist Malcolm Crowe meets a nine year old boy named Cole Sear, who is hiding a dark secret.

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.

Buddy Amaral, a successful and self-absorbed Los Angeles advertising executive, switches airline tickets with a stranger just before boarding a long-delayed flight so that he might enjoy an overnight fling with a pretty Dallas businesswoman. When the plane goes down, killing all aboard, Buddy's guilt soon turns into an alcohol problem. As part of his 12-step program, Buddy seeks atonement and decides to seek out the woman he thinks he's left a widow.

After his father is killed in a car crash, Jack travels home to Colorado to help nurse his mother (who was injured in the crash) back to health. There, he uncovers long buried secrets and lies within his family, his friends, and his very identity.

A bride's divorced parents find their old feelings for each other during the wedding reception and over the course of the next few days upsetting the newlywed's honeymoon.

When he suddenly finds himself without his long-standing blue-collar job, Larry Crowne enrolls at his local college to start over. There, he becomes part of an eclectic community of students and develops a crush on his teacher.

When a young African-American woman brings her fiancé home to meet her parents, she's neglected to mention one tiny detail – he's white.

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.

When their best friends announce that they're separating, a professor and his wife discover the faults in their own marriage.

A happy newlywed marriage counselor's views on wedded bliss get thrown for a loop when she finds out her parents are getting divorced.

Middle-aged and divorced, Wilson finds himself lonely, smug, and obsessed with his past.

Peter and Emma thought they were on the precipice of life’s biggest moments – marriage, kids, and houses in the suburbs – until their respective partners dumped them. Horrified to learn that the loves of their lives have already moved on, Peter and Emma hatch a hilarious plan to win back their exes with unexpected results.

Having seen the double murder of his parents, autistic youth Tim Warden is sent to therapy with controversial therapist Dr. Jake Rainer. Jake tries to probe the silent child about what he saw, but he gets more details about the Wardens' household dynamics from Tim's teenage sister, Sylvie. As he spends more time with the siblings, Jake learns that the Wardens' marriage was not as perfect as it seemed, and he uncovers other new details that might help solve the crime.

Jack and Caroline are a couple making a decent living when Jack suddenly loses his job. They agree that he should stay at home and look after the house while Caroline works. It's just that he's never done it before, and really doesn't have a clue...

An English teacher and struggling single mother has her life disrupted when the father who abandoned her as a child comes back into her life.

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.

Filmmaker Nicky offers to track down the son that Mamie gave up for adoption nearly two decades before. Meanwhile, Mamie's stepbrother (and the father of her child), Charley, along with his boyfriend, Gil, try to find out what became of the sperm Gil donated to a lesbian couple. Finally, singer Jude becomes entangled in a love triangle with androgynous drummer Otis and his conservative father.
