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Movies like The Beaver

Key Features:
Mental illness, Depression, Family dysfunction, Estrangement, Identity crisis, Divorce, Teenage angst, Mental breakdown, Self-discovery, Father-son relationship
Tone:
serious, dramatic, restrained
Target Audience:
Indie film enthusiasts, Viewers interested in psychological dramas, Those who appreciate character-driven stories, Fans of films exploring mental health
Emotional Arc:
Despair → Acceptance

The Beaver

2011-05-05
The Beaver Poster - Find Similar Movies

Suffering from a severe case of depression, toy company CEO Walter Black begins using a beaver hand puppet to help him open up to his family. With his father seemingly going insane, adolescent son Porter pushes for his parents to get a divorce.

Genres
Drama
Cast
Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, Jennifer Lawrence, Anton Yelchin, Zachary Booth, Riley Thomas Stewart, Kelly Coffield Park, Cherry Jones, Jeff Corbett, Baylen Thomas
Crew
Jodie Foster, Kyle Killen
Rating
6.4(900 votes)
The BeaverThe Beaver
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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.



Adult Life Skills
6.2

Anna is stuck: she’s approaching 30 and has just moved back to her rural home-town, and into a shed in her mother’s backyard. She spends her time working a menial job at a local boating center and hides in the depths of her imagination, making movies with her thumbs. Irritated by her childish behavior, Anna's mother insists that she move out of her shed and on with her life. When a troubled young boy starts hanging around, the two form an unlikely bond. Through their strange yet mutually beneficial friendship, Anna slowly begins to confront her perpetual state of arrested development.



The Tracey Fragments

Tracey Berkowitz, 15, a self-described normal girl, loses her 9-year old brother, Sonny. In flashbacks and fragments, we meet her overbearing parents and the sweet, clueless Sonny. We watch Tracey navigate high school, friendless, picked on and teased. She develops a thing for Billy Zero, a new student, imagining he's her boyfriend. We see the day she loses Sonny and we watch her try to find him.



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.



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.



Possum
Possum(2018)
6.177

A disgraced children's puppeteer returns to his childhood home and is forced to confront his wicked stepfather and the secrets that have tortured him his entire life.



Julien Donkey-Boy

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



Wakefield
Wakefield(2017)
6.134

A man's nervous breakdown causes him to leave his wife and live in his attic for several months.



The Whale
The Whale(2022)
7.794

A reclusive English teacher suffering from severe obesity attempts to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter for one last chance at redemption.



Leave It to Beaver
5.335

The Cleavers are an all-American family living in Ohio – wise father Ward, loving mother June, teenage son Wally, and 8-year-old Theodore, better known as 'Beaver'. Beaver hopes to get a bike as a gift from his father and to please him tries out for his school football team and he makes it, only to be embarrassed. The bike he gets is quickly stolen. Meanwhile, Wally is trying to help his friend Eddie Haskell to get the heart of pretty classmate Karen, but Karen seems to like Wally more, and that leads to tensions between the friends.



The Babadook
6.527

A single mother, plagued by the violent death of her husband, battles with her son's fear of a monster lurking in the house, but soon discovers a sinister presence all around her.



Toni Erdmann
7

Convinced that his daughter has forgotten how to laugh, a father shows up unannounced while she's living abroad and bombards her with outrageous jokes.



Being John Malkovich
7.411

One day at work, unsuccessful puppeteer Craig finds a portal into the head of actor John Malkovich. The portal soon becomes a passion for anybody who enters its mad and controlling world of overtaking another human body.



The Crisis
6.9

Victor is a legal advisor who finds himself abandoned by his wife and fired the same day. He tries to seek comfort from different friends and family members, but everyone he meets is concerned with their own problems. His morale begins to falter when he realizes that no one cares about him.



Pooka!
Pooka!(2018)
5.9

A struggling actor gets a holiday season job as a Christmas character in a plush suit to promote the hottest toy of the year, Pooka; he slowly develops two personalities—one when he's in the suit and one that's outside it.



Nancy
Nancy(2018)
5.845

Nancy becomes increasingly convinced she was kidnapped as a child. When she meets a couple whose daughter went missing thirty years ago, reasonable doubts give way to willful belief.



Elephant Song
7.1

A psychiatrist is drawn into a complex mind game when he questions a disturbed patient about the disappearance of a colleague.



Infinitely Polar Bear
6.631

A manic-depressive mess of a father tries to win back his wife by attempting to take full responsibility of their two young, spirited daughters, who don't make the overwhelming task any easier.



K-PAX
K-PAX(2001)
7.212

Prot is a patient at a mental hospital who claims to be from a far away planet. His psychiatrist tries to help him, only to begin to doubt his own explanations.



Tony
Tony(2010)
5.883

Unemployed and unemployable, Tony is a sympathetic recluse with severe social problems, an addiction to VHS action films and a horrible moustache. Occasionally he snaps and murder is the result…



The Clown
The Clown(2011)
7.2

The life of the owners of Circus Esperança, Puro Sangue e Pangaré, father and son, who plays two clowns. At a certain point, Pangaré starts showing tiredness and sadness for being an unhappy clown.



Tusk
Tusk(2014)
5.514

When his best friend and podcast co-host goes missing in the backwoods of Canada, a young guy joins forces with his friend's girlfriend to search for him.



Melancholia
7.2

Two sisters find their already strained relationship challenged as a mysterious new planet threatens to collide with Earth.



Jonathan
Jonathan(2018)
5.871

Jonathan is a young man with a strange condition that only his brother understands. But when he begins to yearn for a different life, their unique bond becomes increasingly tested.



Bo Burnham: Inside

Stuck in COVID-19 lockdown, US comedian and musician Bo Burnham attempts to stay sane and happy by writing, shooting and performing a one-man comedy special.



The Humbling
5.1

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.



Helen
Helen(2009)
6.5

On the outside, Helen has it all – a loving family and a successful career – but when her suppressed mental illness resurfaces, the world crumbles around her. Crippled by depression, Helen finds solace through her friendship with Mathilda, a kindred spirit struggling with bipolar disorder.



Wolf
Wolf(2021)
5.253

Jacob, a man who believes he is a wolf trapped in a human body, is sent to a clinic by his family where he is forced to undergo increasingly extreme forms of "curative" therapies at the hands of The Zookeeper. Jacob’s only solace is the enigmatic Wildcat, with whom he roams the hospital in the dead of night. The two form an improbable friendship that develops into infatuation.



Running with Scissors

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.



The Family
7.371

Anna happily lives with her husband, their two boys, and Simon, 6 years-old, who was placed with her by the Social Care services when he was only 18 months. When Simon’s father decides that he is ready to take his son back with him, the family’s balance is at stake. Anna is torn apart: how could she possibly let go a of child who has always called her ‘Mom’?



The Exorcism
5.003

A troubled actor begins to unravel while shooting a supernatural horror film, leading his estranged daughter to wonder if he's slipping back into his past addictions or if there's something more sinister at play.



House of Cards
6.2

When Ruth Matthews's husband is killed in a fall at an archaeological dig, her daughter Sally handles her father's death in a very odd manner. As Sally's condition worsens, Ruth takes her to see Jake, an expert in childhood autism. Jake attempts to bring Sally out of her mental disarray through traditional therapy methods, but Ruth takes a different route. She risks her own sanity by attempting to enter her daughter's mind and make sense of the seemingly bizarre things that Sally does, including building a wondrous house of cards



The River
The River(1997)
6.7

A young man develops severe neck pain after swimming in a polluted river for a movie shoot, but nobody can provide him any relief.



The Hotel New Hampshire

Over the course of several years beginning in the 1950s, a man and his oddball family run hotels in New England and Vienna, as unexpected events change their lives forever.



Ken Park
Ken Park(2003)
6.012

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.



Boogeyman
Boogeyman(2005)
5

Every culture has one – the horrible monster fueling young children's nightmares. But for Tim, the Boogeyman still lives in his memories as a creature that devoured his father 16 years ago. Is the Boogeyman real, or did Tim make it up to explain why his father abandoned his family?



David and Lisa
7.2

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 Sense of Wonder

Louise, a widow with two children, almost crushes a stranger with her car. She takes care of him, even if he's not really wounded. It turns out that he has mental disorders and that they can help each other much more than they thought.



Exit Plan
Exit Plan(2019)
6.076

Insurance broker Max's life is about one thing - keeping his walnut brain tumour in check. He eats properly, exercises and lives properly, but all of this self-consciousness makes him more and more depressed. When he realises that his beloved wife plans to leave him, he decides to take his own life.



The Butcher Boy
6.8

Francie and Joe live the usual playful, fantasy filled childhoods of normal boys. However, with a violent, alcoholic father and a manic depressive, suicidal mother the pressure on Francie to grow up are immense. When Francie's world turns to madness, he tries to counter it with further insanity, with dire consequences.



Prozac Nation
6.3

When talented young writer Elizabeth Wurtzel earns a scholarship to Harvard, she sees it as her chance to escape the pressures of her working-class background and concentrate on her true talent. But what starts out so promising leads to self-destructive behavior and paralyzing depression that reflects an entire generation's struggle to navigate the effects of divorce, drugs, sex, and high expectations.



Braid
Braid(2019)
5.7

Two drug dealers on the lam seek refuge inside their mentally unstable friend’s mansion. But in order to stay, they have to participate in her elaborate, and increasingly dangerous, game of permanent make-believe.



Faults
Faults(2014)
6.667

Claire is under the grip of a mysterious new cult called Faults. Desperate to be reunited with their daughter, Claire's parents recruit one of the world's foremost experts on mind control, Ansel Roth.



Bee Season
5.01

Wife and mother Miriam begins a downward emotional spiral as her husband avoids their collapsing marriage by immersing himself in his 11-year-old daughter's quest to become a spelling-bee champion.



Nell
Nell(1994)
6.554

In a remote woodland cabin, a small town doctor discovers Nell — a beautiful young hermit woman with many secrets.



Memoir of a Snail
8.062

Forcibly separated from her twin brother when they are orphaned, a melancholic misfit learns how to find confidence within herself amid the clutter of misfortunes and everyday life.



Anomalisa
Anomalisa(2015)
7.105

An inspirational speaker becomes reinvigorated after meeting a lively woman who shakes up his mundane existence.



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 Dentist
5.532

Dr. Alan Feinstone has everything: a beautiful wife and a successful career in dentistry. However, when he discovers his wife's affair, he realizes that behind every clean, white surface lies the stench of decay.



Rudderless
7.17

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.



Munchausen
6.732

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



Unsane
Unsane(2018)
6.249

A woman is involuntarily committed to a mental institution where she is confronted by her greatest fear.



Mr. Brooks
6.9

A psychological thriller about a man who is sometimes controlled by his murder-and-mayhem-loving alter ego.



Blood
Blood(2023)
6.413

Jess, a newly separated mother and nurse, moves into her old family farmhouse with Tyler, her teenage daughter, and Owen, her eight-year-old son. One night, the family dog senses something in the woods and runs off to find it. He returns a couple of days later and attacks Owen, savagely biting him before Jess is able to intervene. Owen is rushed to the hospital. His condition worsens, and no one can figure out why... until Jess discovers a disturbing cure...



Beau Is Afraid
6.719

Following the sudden death of his mother, a mild-mannered but anxiety-ridden man confronts his darkest fears as he embarks on an epic odyssey back home.



The Nightmare
6.37

After a massive party one evening, 17-year-old Tina begins experiencing nightmares in which she is haunted by an unusual creature.



The Strange Thing About the Johnsons

A father gets trapped in a one-sided incestuous relationship with his abusive son.



August: Osage County

An intense look at the lives of the strong-willed daughters of the Weston family, whose paths have diverged until a family crisis brings them back to the Midwest house they grew up in, and to the dysfunctional mother who raised them.



Family
Family(2018)
6.5

Kate Stone is career-focused with a brash attitude that keeps relationships at an arm's length. When her estranged brother calls asking her to baby-sit her tween niece Maddie, Kate reluctantly agrees to help. But baby-sitting overnight unexpectedly turns into a week, and Kate's life spins into chaos. As Maddie reveals stories of being bullied and of wanting to run away and be a Juggalo, the two form a unique bond.



Scars
Scars(2005)
7.6

The story of a dysfunctional couple, whose problems will inevitably deteriorate their marriage and their son's life.



A Mouthful of Air
6.506

Julie is a new mom and children's book author, who escapes into the bright Crayola-colored world of her creation in order to leave behind the darkness caused by her post-partum depression.



Father & Sons
5.5

Joseph and his two sons, Joachim and Ivan, form a close-knit family but fail to see that each one is losing control of his life. Joachim is supposed to be studying psychiatry but spends most of his time daydreaming about his ex-girlfriend, Ivan cannot fit in at school despite being very smart, and Joseph has secretly quit his job as a doctor and is trying to become a writer. While there is plenty of affection at home, all three are also, clumsily, searching for love...



Molly
Molly(1999)
4.07

Molly McKay is a profoundly autistic twenty-something woman who has lived in an institution from a young age following her parents' death in a car accident. When the institution must close due to budget cuts, Molly is left in the care of her neurotypical, older brother, Buck McKay, an advertising executive and perennial bachelor. Buck forces her to undergo an experimental medical treatment, with unexpectedly drastic results.



The Father
8.1

A man refuses all assistance from his daughter as he ages and, as he tries to make sense of his changing circumstances, he begins to doubt his loved ones, his own mind and even the fabric of his reality.



Dev.D
Dev.D(2009)
6.96

The son of a wealthy businessman finds solace in drugs and alcohol when he breaks up with his childhood love.



The Moustache
6.1

One day, on a whim, Marc decides to shave off the moustache he's worn all of his adult life. He waits patiently for his wife's reaction, but neither she nor his friends seem to notice. Stranger still, when he finally tells them, they all insist he never had a moustache. Is Marc going mad? Is he the victim of some elaborate conspiracy? Or has something in the world's order gone terribly awry?



The Cell
The Cell(2000)
6.3

A psychotherapist journeys inside a comatose serial killer in the hopes of saving his latest victim.



Fences
Fences(2016)
6.872

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.



The Man Who Haunted Himself

Executive Harold Pelham suffers a serious accident after which he faces the shadow of death. When, against all odds, he miraculously recovers, he discovers that his life does not belong to him anymore.



The Speech
6.316

Meet Adrien! He's 35. He's stuck in a mid-life crisis. He's neurotic and hypochondriac. Tonight he's stuck in an endless family dinner and his girlfriend is not answering his texts. On top of that, his dumb brother-in-law asks him to prepare a speech for his wedding. Could it get even worse?



Mother
Mother(1996)
6.8

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



John and the Hole
5.3

While exploring the neighboring woods, 13-year-old John discovers an unfinished bunker — a deep hole in the ground. Seemingly without provocation, he drugs his affluent parents and older sister and drags their unconscious bodies into the bunker, where he holds them captive. As they anxiously wait for John to free them from the hole, the boy returns home, where he can finally do what he wants.



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.



Jack the Bear
6.371

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.



The Pumpkin Eater
6.627

Jo, the mother of seven children, divorces her second husband in order to marry Jake, a successful but promiscuous screenwriter. Though they are physically and emotionally compatible, they are slowly torn apart.



Colossal
Colossal(2017)
6.281

A woman discovers that severe catastrophic events are somehow connected to the mental breakdown from which she's suffering.



The Canal
The Canal(2014)
5.75

A man who suspects his wife is cheating on him begins having nightmarish visions of an evil presence that he believes inhabits his house.



The Monkey
6

When twin brothers find a mysterious wind-up monkey, a series of outrageous deaths tear their family apart. Twenty-five years later, the monkey begins a new killing spree forcing the estranged brothers to confront the cursed toy.



The Hand
The Hand(1981)
5.9

Jon Lansdale is a comic book artist who loses his right hand in a car accident. The hand was not found at the scene of the accident, but it soon returns by itself to follow Jon around, and murder those who anger him.



The Double
6.5

An awkward office drone becomes increasingly unhinged after a charismatic and confident look-alike takes a job at his workplace and seduces the woman he desires.



We Need to Talk About Kevin

After her son Kevin commits a horrific act, troubled mother Eva reflects on her complicated relationship with her disturbed son as he grew from a toddler into a teenager.



The Wave
The Wave(2019)
6.025

A man on the verge of a promotion takes a mysterious hallucinogenic drug that begins to tear down his reality and expose his life for what it really is.



The Road Within
6.9

A young man with Tourette's Syndrome embarks on a road trip with his recently-deceased mother's ashes.



The Lion
The Lion(2020)
5.367

A psychiatric hospital patient pretends to be crazy. In charge of caring for this patient, a caregiver will begin to doubt the mental state of his "protégé".



Imaginary Heroes
6.5

Matt Travis is good-looking, popular, and his school's best competitive swimmer, so everyone is shocked when he inexplicably commits suicide. As the following year unfolds, each member of his family struggles to recover from the tragedy with mixed results.



The Falls
The Falls(2021)
6.613

After having to quarantine together during COVID-19, a mother and daughter are forced to confront their personal obstacles and relationship tensions.



Kabluey
Kabluey(2007)
6

Leslie is left with few options when her husband is sent back to war in the Middle East. A modest amount of help arrives in the form of his brother, Salman, who is less than prepared to care for the couple's two preadolescent boys. When Leslie still can't make ends meet on her own, Salman is forced to find employment, but, with minimal qualifications, his only option is to become a mascot for a digital company by donning a bulbous blue costume.



Stutterer
Stutterer(2015)
7.4

A lonely typographer with a cruel speech impediment but an eloquent inner voice must face his greatest fear.



The Toy
The Toy(1976)
6.908

When Francois, a journalist, tours a big store for an article, he is chosen by the son of the newspaper's owner, Rambal-Cochet, as his new toy. Needing money and unwilling to quit his job, Francois agrees to this ridiculous assignment. Gradually befriending the spoiled boy, he induces him to play at making a newspaper, unveiling publicly the tyrannical way of life of the father. The powerful emotional climax we experience with the child astonishes both men.



White Frog
5.8

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



My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done

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



Slipstream
4.9

Aging screenwriter Felix Bonhoeffer has lived his life in two states of existence: in reality and his own interior world. While working on a murder mystery script, and unaware that his brain is on the verge of implosion, Felix is baffled when his characters start to appear in his life, and vice versa.



Phoebe in Wonderland
7.198

The fantastical tale of a little girl who won't - or can't - follow the rules. Confounded by her clashes with the rule-obsessed world around her, Phoebe seeks enlightenment from her unconventional drama teacher, even as her brilliant but anguished mother looks to Phoebe herself for inspiration.



The Master
7.112

Freddie, a volatile, heavy-drinking veteran who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, finds some semblance of a family when he stumbles onto the ship of Lancaster Dodd, the charismatic leader of a new "religion" he forms after World War II.



Jesus' Son
6.264

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



Edward Scissorhands
7.719

A small suburban town receives a visit from a castaway unfinished science experiment named Edward.



A Different Man
6.9

Aspiring actor Edward undergoes a radical medical procedure to drastically transform his appearance. But his new dream face quickly turns into a nightmare, as he loses out on the role he was born to play and becomes obsessed with reclaiming what was lost.



The Hospital
6.559

Dr. Bock, the chief of medicine at a Manhattan hospital, is suicidal after the collapse of his personal life. When an intern is found dead in a hospital bed, it appears to Bock to be a case of unforgivable malpractice. Hours later, another doctor, who happens to be responsible for another case of malpractice, is found dead. Despondent, Bock finds himself drawn to Barbara, the daughter of a comatose missionary.



Carnage
Carnage(2011)
7.172

Two pairs of parents hold a cordial meeting after their sons are involved in a fight, though as their time together progresses, increasingly childish behavior throws the discussion into chaos.

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