SquattersMovies like Squatters
- Key Features:
- Homelessness, Wealthy family, Class conflict, Home invasion, Social commentary, Privilege, Desperation, Young love, Moral ambiguity
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic, cynical
- Target Audience:
- Indie film enthusiasts, Viewers interested in social issues, Drama lovers, Fans of character-driven stories
- Emotional Arc:
- Invasion → Confrontation → Disillusionment
Squatters

A wealthy couple from the Pacific Palisades discovers homeless young lovers have moved into their home.
Squatters
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.

A couple works hard to renovate their dream house and become landlords to pay for it. Unfortunately one of their tenants has plans of his own.

Two dysfunctional couples rent a modern luxury desert home for the weekend hoping to sort out their messed-up lives. Just as they are about to settle in for a fun night, a neighbor turns up at their front door saying she has car trouble. But soon they discover the person they let into their home may have nefarious intents.

Beverly Hills couple Barbara and Dave Whiteman find their lives altered by the arrival of a vagrant who tries to drown himself in their swimming pool.

Rattled by sudden unemployment, a Manhattan couple surveys alternative living options, ultimately deciding to experiment with living on a rural commune where free love rules.

When an uncompromising idealist and rich, arrogant heir cross paths, their contrasting beliefs begin to shift when they fall for each other.

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

A group of young slackers spend most of their time hanging out in front of a Munich apartment building. When a Greek immigrant named Jorgos moves in, however, their aimless lives are shaken up. Soon, new tensions arise both within the group and with Jorgos.

A sudden tragedy hits a wealthy middle-class family from North-East Italy. Tensions, hidden secrets and small hypocrisies emerge.

In 1976, a lower-middle-class teenager struggles to cope living with her neurotic family of nomads on the outskirts of Beverly Hills.

A small-time conman has his loyalties torn between his estranged mother and his new girlfriend, both of whom are high-stakes grifters with their own angles to play.

When an uptight young man and his fiancée move into his libertine mother's house, the resulting clash of life attitudes shakes everyone up.

A newly engaged couple finds the home of their dreams and it quickly becomes a nightmare when the previous owner's friend continues squatting in their guest house. It leads to a turf war that ultimately ruins their house, their marriage and their lives.

Two lovers are stuck in stale relationships due to lean finances. But when one is duped into thinking he's suddenly rich, he takes very drastic action.

Forced to give up his dreams of art school, Zach works dead-end jobs to support his sister and her son. Questioning his life, he paints, surfs and hangs out with his best friend, Gabe. When Gabe's older brother returns home for the summer, Zach suddenly finds himself drawn into a relationship he didn't expect.

An uptight insurance man and his film-censor wife become a kinky couple's landlords.

Miso lives from day to day by housekeeping. Cigarettes and whiskey are the two things that get her through the day. As cigarette prices and rent start to rise, Miso decides to give up her house for cigarettes and whiskey, leading her to couch surf with old friends while reconsidering her place in life.

An act of civil disobedience turns into a standoff with police when homeless people in Cincinnati take over the public library to seek shelter from the bitter cold.

A young married couple becomes stranded at an isolated motel and find hidden video cameras in their room. They realize that unless they escape, they'll be the next victims of a snuff film.

Downtrodden writer Henry and distressed goddess Wanda aren't exactly husband and wife: they're wedded to their bar stools. But, they like each other's company—and Barfly captures their giddy, gin-soaked attempts to make a go of life on the skids.

The lives of several individuals intertwine as they go about their lives in their own unique ways, engaging in acts which society as a whole might find disturbing in a desperate search for human connection.

Bruno Stroszek is released from prison and warned to stop drinking. He has few skills and fewer expectations: with a glockenspiel and an accordion, he ekes out a living as a street musician. He befriends Eva, a prostitute down on her luck and they join his neighbor, Scheitz, an elderly eccentric, when he leaves Germany to live in Wisconsin.

Passions reignite and hidden secrets revealed when a graphic designer in Los Angeles reconnects with an ex-lover he hasn’t seen or heard from in 15 years. Over the course of a weekend at a vacation house in the desert, they must determine whether or not they have a future together.

Ian begins a relationship with Drew's daughter, who works in the financial sector. The couple gets involved in a tragic accident that will change their lives forever. At the same time, the accident has a major impact on both their families who, despite the class difference, cross paths.

A young couple purchase their new home to start a life together, only to find out the elderly couple next door have other plans for them.

Couple Andrea and Giulia, an outwardly successful couple, are having problems in the bedroom. When Giulia invites Max, an old friend from high school, to stay in the family home with their teenage son, some new attitudes begin to form.

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.

Evicted from his squat and suddenly alone on the streets, George is a man without a home. Struggling with his demons and desperately trying to connect with the daughter he abandoned, he navigates the system, hustling for change and somewhere safe and quiet to gather his thoughts. But the streets are relentless and soon, George finds himself teetering on the edge, alone and abandoned.

A depressed man moves back in with his parents following a recent heartbreak and finds himself with two women.

A pair of working-class brothers flee their Reno Motel after getting involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident.

A portrait of the myth of maternity around the story of Pepa and her daughter, who are evicted from their home and forced to wander for a place to live with no support network.

When his girlfriend leaves for New York City on a 3-month-long internship, a strongly opinionated Berkeley arthouse movie theater manager begins exploring life as a bachelor.

Julia, a real estate agent, finds an enormous amount of money hidden in a dead man's apartment, a stroke of luck that will force her to face the wrath of the very peculiar inhabitants of the community, who will stop at nothing to get their hands on the money.

In New York City, a husband and wife butt heads with the granddaughters of the elderly woman who lives in the apartment the couple owns.

On Manhattan's gilded Upper East Side, a young gay painter is torn between an obsession with his infamous best friend and a promising new romance with an older foreign pianist.

Years into a benevolent alien occupation, mankind is still adjusting to its new overlords. Their technology initially held promise for global prosperity, but rendered most human jobs – and steady income – obsolete. When two teenagers discover the aliens are fascinated with human love and will pay for access to it, they decide to livestream their romance to make extra cash for their families.

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

Behrani, an Iranian immigrant buys a California bungalow, thinking he can fix it up, sell it again, and make enough money to send his son to college. However, the house is the legal property of former drug addict Kathy. After losing the house in an unfair legal dispute with the county, she is left with nowhere to go. Wanting her house back, she hires a lawyer and befriends a police officer. Neither Kathy nor Behrani have broken the law, so they find themselves involved in a difficult moral dilemma.

Oona, a recent graduate in anthropology, has returned to her dead mother’s seaside cottage in southern England to prepare it for sale. Her arrival disturbs Mani, a wary vagrant who has been squatting on the property.

Fox, a former circus performer, wins the lottery of DM 500,000 and can now have the life and things that he has always wanted. He enters an abusive relationship with wealthy industrialist Eugen in an attempt to climb the social ladder. His desperation for love and affection soon spirals into tragedy.

Construction worker Oreste and young fiancee Adelaide meet Nello, a cook in a pizzeria. This love triangle often goes to communist rallies, and enjoys the filthy beaches of Ostia. Will the hostile environment pave a way to jealousy?

A successful gay male escort describes in a series of confessions his tangled romantic relationships with his two roommates and an older, enigmatic male client.

Restless and unhappy, two couples get caught up in infidelity and deception. Barry is a sullen businessman married to Mary, a writer who is unsatisfied with their relationship. Mary begins an affair with Jerry, a smug theater professor and husband of her friend, Terri, who is also a writer. Adding to the adulterous mix are Cary, a callous doctor, and Cheri, an art-gallery assistant.

A business man buys a house, but he has a hard time trying to get rid of its previous tenant, a dirty bum.

A strange disease kills off some of the richest and most influential people on the planet. First it was the billionaires, then the multi-millionaires and so on progressively... Then it threatens to strike anyone with any sort of fortune. With the whole world panicking, people try to flood the market with assets the world no longer wants.

A group of tenants facing eviction due to a city renovation unite to fight back, but as they clash with the landlord and his ruthless attorney, they each transform into the opposite of who they once were.

King is a young man, but he's already a veteran of life on the streets of Los Angeles. The de facto leader of a group of teenage runaways, King acts as a mentor to troubled kids such as gay hustler Little J and junkie Greg. When Heather, a beautiful girl from Chicago, starts hanging out with King and his crew, it changes the dynamic of the gang. However, it seems as though nothing will alter their dangerous lifestyle.

Hannah and Tahir fall in love while homeless on the streets of New York. Shelter explores how they got there, and as we learn about their pasts we realize they need each other to build a future.

Con artist Gwen moves into Newton's empty home without his knowledge and begins setting up house, posing as his new wife.

Middle-aged suburban husband Richard abruptly tells his wife, Maria, that he wants a divorce. As Richard takes up with a younger woman, Maria enjoys a night on the town with her friends and meets a younger man. As the couple and those around them confront a seemingly futile search for what they've lost -- love, excitement, passion -- this classic American independent film explores themes of aging and alienation.

A rich businessman makes a bet he can survive on the streets of a rough Los Angeles neighborhood for 30 days completely penniless. During his stay he discovers another side of life and falls in love with a homeless woman.

Two competitive friends, fueled by literary aspirations and youthful exuberance, endure the pangs of love, depression and burgeoning careers.

Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, a married couple buckles under the pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about their past.

After being evicted from their Manhattan apartment, a couple buy what looks like the home of their dreams—only to find themselves saddled with a bank-account-draining nightmare. Struggling to keep their relationship together as their rambling mansion falls to pieces around them, the two watch in hilarious horror as everything—including the kitchen sink—disappears into the Money Pit.

A love story between a poor man and a rich girl. The rich girl's father tries to prevent their marriage and he declares a war against the poor boy's family.

After 39 years together, Ben and George finally tie the knot, but George loses his job as a result, and the newlyweds must sell their New York apartment and live apart, relying on friends and family to make ends meet.

A collection of intersecting short stories set in early 1980s Los Angeles, depicts a week in the lives of an assortment of socially alienated, mainly well-off characters who numb their sense of emptiness with casual sex, violence, and drugs.

Married couple Jack and Terry Linden are experiencing a difficult period in their relationship. When Jack decides to step outside the marriage, he becomes involved with Edith, who happens to be the wife of his best friend and colleague, Hank Evans. Learning of their partners' infidelity, Terry and Hank engage in their own extramarital affair together. Now, both marriages and friendships are on the brink of collapse.

Two couples on an oceanside getaway grow suspicious that the host of their seemingly perfect rental house may be spying on them. Before long, what should have been a celebratory weekend trip turns into something far more sinister.

On a Tokyo dump’s shantytown edge, interwoven vignettes follow residents scraping by: a boy who “drives” an imaginary trolley, a homeless father and son designing a dream house, a young woman brutalized at home, drunks, schemers, and saints of small kindnesses. Kurosawa crafts a ragged mosaic of hardship, fantasy, and flickers of grace that keep people moving forward.

After moving to Palm Springs, a young married couple puts their love to the test when they discover that their neighbors are swingers.

Kathryn, a struggling actress and unfulfilled housewife, becomes friendly with her new gardener, Ben. He gives her the attention and sensitivity she craves; however, he is not who he seems.

Teenager David Clemens develops a hysterical fear that he will die if he comes into physical contact with another person. Perturbed, David's overbearing mother places him in a home for mentally disturbed young people, but David remains withdrawn from the other patients and his psychiatrist. Over time, however, David grows interested in 15-year-old Lisa, who suffers from multiple personalities – one who can only speak in rhyme, and the other, a mute.

The destinies of two families are irrevocably tied together after a cyclist is hit off the road by a jeep in the night before Christmas Eve.

Léo, a 22-year-old homeless sex worker searches for genuine love on the streets of Strasbourg.

Following the death of her wealthy husband, American widow Kathryn West migrates to Italy and takes up a reclusive existence in a luxurious villa. After quickly succumbing to the charms of a local man, she lets him move into the villa and the two are later joined by his sister, which soon leads to complications.

The survival instincts of a road-tripping family are put to the test when they have no other choice but to stay the night at a remote homestead.

A young couple moves to a quaint southern town. Soon their perfect getaway turns out to become a living hell when dark secrets and lethal passions spiral out of control.

A couple receives an indecent proposal from their younger, more daring neighbors.

Ruth and Harry decide to take a romantic backpacking trip through the Pacific Northwest, but amongst the beautiful scenery, Ruth makes an unexpected discovery that sets her off on a strange, frightening new path. The couple aren't alone in the woods, and they might not be the same when they come out...if they come out.

12-year-old Bailey lives with her single dad Bug and brother Hunter in a squat in North Kent. Bug doesn’t have much time for his kids, and Bailey, who is approaching puberty, seeks attention and adventure elsewhere.

Depressed and jaded after being dumped by her married boyfriend, aging beauty Minnie Moore wonders if she'll ever find love. After shaggy-haired parking lot attendant Seymour Moskowitz comes to her defense from an angry and rebuffed blind date, he falls hopelessly in love with her despite their myriad differences. Minnie reluctantly agrees to a date with Moskowitz, and, slowly but surely, an unlikely romance blossoms between the two.

Mexican beauty Camilla hopes to rise above her station by marrying a wealthy American. That is complicated by meeting Arturo Bandini, a first-generation Italian hoping to land a writing career and a blue-eyed blonde on his arm.

An enigmatic vagrant cons himself into the home life of an arrogant upper-class family, turning their lives into a psychological nightmare in the process.

A bombastic, womanizing art dealer and his painter friend go to a seventeenth-century villa on the Riviera for a relaxing summer getaway. But their idyll is disturbed by the presence of the bohemian Haydée, accused of being a “collector” of men.

A young social climber wins the heart of a beautiful heiress but his former girlfriend's pregnancy stands in the way of his ambition.

A drama set at a Swiss ski resort and centered on a boy who supports his sister by stealing from wealthy guests.

Desperate to break free from the poverty of his homeland, Elias boards a ramshackle people-smuggling trawler to France. But when the boat is raided by police, Elias leaps into the ocean, eventually finding himself washed up on a Mediterranean beach resort called Eden. So begins Elias odyssesy across Western Europe to Paris, where wondrous promise, helpful new friends and perilous dangers await him every step of the way.

When a young couple buys their dream home, they have no idea what the sweet little old lady upstairs is going to put them through!

In 1950s Mexico City, William Lee, an American ex-pat in his late forties, leads a solitary life amidst a small American community. However, the arrival in town of Eugene Allerton, a young student, stirs William into finally establishing a meaningful connection with someone.

When the situation at her idyllic Palos Verdes home turns volatile, young Medina attempts to surf her way to happiness.

Twenty-something Richard travels to Thailand and finds himself in possession of a strange map. Rumours state that it leads to a solitary beach paradise, a tropical bliss - excited and intrigued, he sets out to find it.

Left broke and homeless by his wealthy parents' divorce, a young man moves in with an old friend and finally meets the woman of his dreams -- only to discover she's already dating his friend.

Lupita and Toña work as housemaids at the Ruíz Palacio’s house, an aristocratic Mexican family. For a long time they have been mistreated and poorly paid. They’re now fed up with the abuse and lack of respect they get from their employers.

Eliza D'Amico thinks her marriage to Louis is going great until she finds a mysterious love note to her husband. Concerned, she goes to her mother for advice. Eliza, her parents, her sister Jo, and Jo's boyfriend all pile into the station wagon and go to the city to confront Louis with the letter. On the way, the five explore their relations with each other and meet many interesting people.

Two wealthy businessmen are about to get away with $5 million in ill-gotten money until their plans are revealed by an uninvited house guest.

Aviva is thirteen, awkward and sensitive. Her mother Joyce is warm and loving, as is her father, Steve, a regular guy who does have a fierce temper from time to time. The film revolves around her family, friends and neighbors.

All unemployed, Ki-taek's family takes peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident.

Carol White, a Los Angeles housewife in the late 1980s, comes down with a debilitating illness with no clear diagnosis.

An ambitious young accountant schemes to wed a wealthy factory owner's daughter, despite falling in love with a married older woman.

A young woman, Janice, is living with her restrictive and conservative parents, who lead a dull working-class life and consider their daughter to be “misbehaving” whenever she’s trying to find her own way in life.

Mabel Longhetti, desperate and lonely, is married to a Los Angeles municipal construction worker, Nick. Increasingly unstable, especially in the company of others, she craves happiness, but her extremely volatile behavior convinces Nick that she poses a danger to their family and decides to commit her to an institution for six months. Alone with a trio of kids to raise on his own, he awaits her return, which holds more than a few surprises.

Anthropology student Daria, who's helping a property developer build a village in the Los Angeles desert, and dropout Mark, who's wanted by the authorities for allegedly killing a policeman during a student riot, accidentally encounter each other in Death Valley and soon begin an unrestrained romance.

A small town pickpocket whose friends have moved on to higher trades finds himself bitter and unable to adapt.

The discovery of an illicit love affair leads two young Angelenos on a violent, sexually charged tour through the dark side of human nature.

A wealthy Los Angeles teen and her superficial friends wants to break out of suburbia and experience Southern California's "gangsta" lifestyle. But problems arise when the preppies get in over their heads and provoke the wrath of a violent Latino gang. Suddenly, their role-playing seems a little too real.

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.”

A local activist and a budding young mayor clash over the best path forward for their impoverished suburb.

