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Movies like The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

Key Features:
Coming-of-age, Summer romance, Criminal underworld, Sexual awakening, Father-son relationship, Literary adaptation, Existentialism, Secrets, Moral ambiguity, Charismatic protagonist
Tone:
earnest, witty, dramatic
Target Audience:
Literary adaptation fans, Indie film enthusiasts, Coming-of-age viewers, Character-driven stories
Emotional Arc:
Intrigue → Confusion → Acceptance

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

2008-01-20
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh Poster - Find Similar Movies

Based on Michael Chabon's novel, the film chronicles the defining summer of a recent college graduate who crosses his gangster father and explores love, sexuality, and the enigmas surrounding his life and his city.

Genres
Adventure, Comedy, Drama
Cast
Jon Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Sienna Miller, Mena Suvari, Omid Abtahi, Nick Nolte, Keith Michael Gregory, Ali Reed, James A. Harper, Don Wadsworth
Crew
Rawson Marshall Thurber, Rawson Marshall Thurber
Rating
4.102(52 votes)
The Mysteries of PittsburghThe Mysteries of Pittsburgh
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Wonder Boys
6.8

Grady is a 50-ish English professor who hasn't had a thing published in years—not since he wrote his award winning 'Great American Novel' 7 years ago. This weekend proves even worse than he could imagine as he finds himself reeling from one misadventure to another in the company of a new wonder boy author.



Natural Selection
5.3

Tyler is a young man who is desperately seeking direction from a world that seems to have abandoned him. Searching for answers he looks to his new friend Indrid who appears to have it all figured out.



A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon

A recent high school graduate is faced with two options, either go to a business school where his father wants him to go to, or get a full time job. However he decides to defy his father and go to Hawaii. Trouble is he has no money. Along the way he comes to understand his parents and eventually bonds with his father.



Jasper Jones
6.4

Fourteen-year-old Charlie's life changes when Jasper takes his help to dispose of the body of his girlfriend, Laura. He decides to look for the murderer and falls in love with Laura's younger sister.



Most Likely to Murder
5.549

Billy, once the coolest kid in high school, comes back to his hometown 15 years later to find he’s no longer cool and the girl he still has feelings for now dates the former class outcast. Billy becomes obsessed with proving the outcast is a murderer.



Outside Providence
5.8

In this coming-of-age comedy, Tim Dunphy is leading a go-nowhere existence, spending his days smoking pot and hanging out with his best friend, Drugs Delaney. But Tim's lazy days of getting high are jettisoned after a brush with the law convinces his blue-collar dad to send him to a Connecticut prep school. The one saving grace of the new school is Jane, a fellow student Tim falls for immediately.



Summer '03
5.8

16-year-old Jamie Winkle and her extended family are left reeling after her calculating grandmother unveils an array of secrets on her deathbed. As her family deals with her grandmother's surprising dying messages, Jamie sets out to make the most of her summer and explores her sexuality.



The Rules of Attraction

The incredibly spoiled and overprivileged students of Camden College are a backdrop for an unusual love triangle between a drug dealer, a virgin and a bisexual classmate.



Almost Friends
6.3

A man in his mid-20s, still living at home with his mother and stepfather, puts all his eggs in one basket: the girl who works at his local coffee shop. The problem is, she has a serious boyfriend. As they become closer, the line between friendship and intimacy is blurred, and the situation forces both to examine where they are in their lives.



That Night
6.3

A coming-of-age story about an eleven-year-old girl who idolizes her troubled sixteen-year-old neighbor.



Boys and Girls
5.943

Ryan and Jennifer are opposites who definitely do not attract. At least that's what they always believed. When they met as twelve-year-olds, they disliked one another. When they met again as teenagers, they loathed each other. But when they meet in college, the uptight Ryan and the free-spirited Jennifer find that their differences bind them together and a rare friendship develops.



The Narrows
5.76

A 19 year old Brooklyn boy who is torn between two worlds when his photography portfolio wins him a partial scholarship to NYU. He must figure out how to balance his Italian neighborhood roots with the expansive, sophisticated world on the other side of the East River. Based on Tim McLoughlin's novel "Heart of the Old Country".



Life During Wartime

Friends, family, and lovers struggle to find love, forgiveness, and meaning in an almost war-torn world riddled with comedy and pathos.



The Paper Chase
6.8

A first-year law student struggles with balancing his coursework and his relationship with the daughter of a stern professor.



Spinning Man
5.593

Evan Birch is a family man and esteemed professor at a distinguished university. When a female student goes missing, police Detective Malloy has reason to be suspicious when crucial evidence makes Evan the prime suspect in her disappearance.



Mulligans
Mulligans(2008)
6.188

When Tyler Davidson brings his college buddy Chase home for the summer holidays a secret is revealed that threatens to tear his perfect family apart.



Finding Forrester
7.116

Gus Van Sant tells the story of a young African American man named Jamal who confronts his talents while living on the streets of the Bronx. He accidentally runs into an old writer named Forrester who discovers his passion for writing. With help from his new mentor Jamal receives a scholarship to a private school.



The United States of Leland

A withdrawn young man, Leland Fitzgerald is imprisoned for the murder of a mentally disabled boy, who also happened to be the brother of his girlfriend, Becky. As the community struggles to deal with the killing, Pearl Madison, a teacher at the prison, decides to write about Leland's case. Meanwhile, others affected by the murder, including Becky and her sister, Julie, must contend with their own problems.



Q & A
Q & A(1990)
5.8

A young district attorney seeking to prove a case against a corrupt police detective encounters a former lover and her new protector, a crime boss who refuses to help him.



Father of the Year
5.415

Two college grads return to their hometown, where a hypothetical question -- whose dad would win in a fight? -- leads to mass mayhem.



American Fiction
7.283

A novelist fed up with the establishment profiting from "Black" entertainment uses a pen name to write a book that propels him into the heart of hypocrisy and the madness he claims to disdain.



The To Do List
5.8

Feeling pressured to become more sexually experienced before she goes to college, Brandy Klark makes a list of things to accomplish before hitting campus in the fall.



Young Adult
5.8

A divorced writer from the Midwest returns to her hometown to reconnect with an old flame, who's now married with a family.



PCU
PCU(1994)
6

Nervous high school senior Tom Lawrence visits Port Chester University, where he gets a taste of politically correct college life when he's guided by fraternity wild man Droz and his housemates at The Pit. But Droz and his pals have rivals in nasty preppy Rand McPherson and the school's steely president. With their house threatened with expulsion, Droz and company decide to throw a raging party where the various factions will collide.



The Kid Detective
6.621

A once-celebrated kid detective, now 31, continues to solve the same trivial mysteries between hangovers and bouts of self-pity. Until a naive client brings him his first 'adult' case, to find out who brutally murdered her boyfriend.



Nobel Son
Nobel Son(2007)
6

Soon after his insufferably arrogant father wins the Nobel Prize for chemistry, Barkley Michaelson is kidnapped by Thaddeus James, a young genius who claims to be Barkley's illegitimate half-brother. Motivated not so much by money as revenge, Thaddeus tries to convince Barkley to help him carry out a multimillion-dollar extortion plot against their patriarch.



Big Time Adolescence
7.186

A seemingly bright and mostly innocent 16-year-old named Mo attempts to navigate high school under the guidance of his best friend Zeke, an unmotivated-yet-charismatic college dropout. Although Zeke genuinely cares about Mo, things start to go awry as he teaches Mo nontraditional life lessons in drug dealing, partying, and dating. Meanwhile, Mo’s well-meaning dad tries to step in and take back the reins of his son’s upbringing.



Freshman Father
6.7

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



American Animals
6.7

Lexington, Kentucky, 2004. Four young men attempt to execute one of the most audacious art heists in the history of the United States.



Satisfaction
5.1

When a young rock group called The Mystery gets its first gig at a club, it's an opportunity to see what life is all about. Fresh out of high school, the rockers are hired by an exclusive beach resort thanks to a faded '60s songwriter. There, they meet with romance and adventure. But street-smart lead singer Jennie Lee faces a dilemma: pursue her budding career or finish high school.



Made in America
5.5

A young black woman discovers that her father was a sperm donor, and if that wasn't bad enough, he's white.



Paper Towns
6.2

Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge, he follows. After their all-nighter ends and a new day breaks, Quentin arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Quentin soon learns that there are clues, and they're for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer Quentin gets, the less he sees of the girl he thought he knew.



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.



Una
Una(2017)
6.058

When a young woman unexpectedly arrives at an older man's workplace, looking for answers, the secrets of the past threaten to unravel his new life.



Wilson
Wilson(2017)
6

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



Terri
Terri(2011)
6.325

Terri, a pajama-clad, disaffected high school student learns how to engage the world with the help of Mr. Fitzgerald, his assistant principal.



Hurlyburly
5.476

A group of actors and their casting agents try to find a direction in their lives whilst coming to terms with their personal problems and relationship conflicts.



Nancy Drew
6.072

Intrepid teenage private eye Nancy Drew heads to Tinseltown with her father to investigate the unsolved murder of a movie star in this old-fashioned whodunit based on Carolyn Keene's popular series of books for young adults. But can the small-town girl cut through the Hollywood hype to solve the case?



Blindspotting
7.341

Collin must make it through his final three days of probation for a chance at a new beginning. He and his troublemaking childhood best friend, Miles, work as movers, and when Collin witnesses a police shooting, the two men’s friendship is tested as they grapple with identity and their changed realities in the rapidly-gentrifying neighborhood they grew up in.



Mysterious Skin
7.7

A teenage hustler and a young man obsessed with alien abductions cross paths, together discovering a horrible, liberating truth.



Mystery Team
6.2

A group of former Encyclopedia Brown-style child-detectives struggle to solve an adult mystery.



The Last Summer
6

Standing on the precipice of adulthood, a group of friends navigate new relationships, while reexamining others, during their final summer before college.



Liberal Arts
6.45

Newly single, 35, and uninspired by his job, Jesse Fisher worries that his best days are behind him. But no matter how much he buries his head in a book, life keeps pulling Jesse back. When his favorite college professor invites him to campus to speak at his retirement dinner, Jesse jumps at the chance.



The Clovehitch Killer
6.406

A picture-perfect family is torn apart after Tyler finds a cache of disturbing images in his father's possession. He begins to suspect that the man he trusts most in the world may be responsible for the murder of 13 women ten years prior.



The Son of No One
5.1

A rookie cop is assigned to the 118 Precinct in the same district where he grew up. The Precinct Captain starts receiving letters about two unsolved murders that happened many years ago in the housing projects when the rookie cop was just a kid. These letters bring back bad memories and old secrets that begin to threaten his career and break up his family.



Tenure
Tenure(2010)
5.532

Despite his outstanding intellect, associate professor Charlie Thurber is a chronic underachiever and has never received university tenure. Aided by his nutty best friend, Charlie launches a final effort to make the grade at Gray College. But a beautiful new teacher whose ascending star threatens to eclipse him shakes up Charlie's plans.



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.



Brick
Brick(2006)
6.8

A teenage loner pushes his way into the underworld of a high school crime ring to investigate the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend.



L.I.E.
L.I.E.(2001)
6.8

With his mother dead and his father busy at work, Howie feels adrift in his New York suburb. He and his friend Gary spend their time burglarizing their neighbors' homes — until they make the mistake of robbing the house of Big John, a macho former Marine who is also an unrepentant pedophile. He propositions Howie, who declines, but the two eventually develop an unlikely and dangerous friendship.



Simple Men
6.698

Two diametrically opposite brothers set off on a journey to reunite with their estranged father but when their motorcycle breaks down while passing through a small town, they become entangled in local life.



Miss Stevens
6.496

Stuck at a crossroads in her personal life, it falls on high school English teacher Miss Stevens to chaperone three of her students — Billy, Margot and Sam — on a weekend trip to a drama competition.



Juno
Juno(2007)
7.1

Faced with an unplanned pregnancy, sixteen year old high-schooler, Juno MacGuff, makes an unusual decision regarding her unborn child.



Dope
Dope(2015)
7.061

Malcolm is carefully surviving life in a tough neighborhood in Los Angeles while juggling college applications, academic interviews, and the SAT. A chance invitation to an underground party leads him into an adventure that could allow him to go from being a geek, to being dope, to ultimately being himself.



The Graduate
7.6

A disillusioned college graduate finds himself torn between his older lover and her daughter.



Cha Cha Real Smooth
7.105

Fresh out of college and stuck at his New Jersey home without a clear path forward, 22-year-old Andrew begins working as a party starter for bar/bat mitzvahs—where he strikes up a unique friendship with a young mom and her teenage daughter.



The Craigslist Killer
5.106

Based on a true story. Philip Markoff, a charismatic and popular med student at Boston University, leads a double life as a brutal and cruel sexual deviant who abuses prostitutes he finds via Craigslist.



Falcon Lake
6.9

A shy teenager on a summer vacation experiences the joy and pain of young adulthood when he forges an unlikely bond with an older girl.



Match
Match(2014)
5.861

A Seattle couple travel to New York to interview colorful former dancer Tobi for research on a dissertation about dance. But soon, common niceties and social graces erode when the questions turn personal and the true nature of the interview is called into question.



Shadows in the Sun
6.218

An aspiring young writer tracks a literary titan suffering from writers block to his refuge in rural Italy and learns about life and love from the irascible genius and his daughters.



Hairbrained
5.4

A fourteen-year-old genius gets rejected by Harvard and ends up at a much lower ranked school where he makes friends with a mature student.



The Village
6.5

When a willful young man tries to venture beyond his sequestered Pennsylvania hamlet, his actions set off a chain of chilling incidents that will alter the community forever.



Geography Club
6.2

A coming-of-age movie that tells a story unfolding in every high school around the country -- a story of kids hiding their true identities in plain sight, even as they feverishly pursue their hearts' desires.



November Criminals
5.3

When Addison investigates the murder of his friend Kevin with the help of Phoebe, they discover that the truth is darker than they had ever imagined.



Homicide
Homicide(1991)
6.2

A Jewish homicide detective investigates a seemingly minor murder and falls in with a Zionist group as a result.



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.



The Driftless Area
5.1

Pierre Hunter, a bartender with unyielding optimism, returns to his tiny hometown after his parents' death. When he falls for the enigmatic Stella, Pierre is unknowingly pulled into a cat-and-mouse game that involves a duffel bag full of cash, a haphazard yet determined criminal, and a mystery that will determine all of their fates. A contemporary fable about the ways we struggle to control time and fate in a possibly predetermined universe.



Bixler High Private Eye

Teenage detective Xander DeWitt is the new kid at Bixler Valley High, and he's there to unravel the biggest mystery of his life- the truth about his missing father. But in order to crack this case, Xander must learn to work with a partner- fearless investigative reporter Kenzie Messina.



Asphalt City
6.183

A young paramedic is paired with a seasoned partner on the night shift in New York revealing a city in crisis. Discovering the chaos firsthand, he is tested with the ethical ambiguity that can be the difference between life and death.



Akron
Akron(2015)
7.2

Benny, a college freshman at the University of Akron, Ohio meets and falls for fellow freshman Christopher at a football game. With the support of their families and friends they embark on a new relationship. But a tragic event in the past involving their mothers soon comes to light and threatens to tear them apart.



Small Crimes
5.383

A disgraced former cop, fresh off a six-year prison sentence for attempted murder, returns home looking for redemption but winds up trapped in the mess he left behind.



My Salinger Year
6.3

A college grad takes a clerical job working for the literary agent of the renowned, reclusive writer J.D. Salinger.



Ovosodo
Ovosodo(1997)
7.2

From childhood to fatherhood, Piero learns things the hard way while growing up in a working-class neighborhood of Livorno.



Monster
Monster(2021)
6.4

The story of Steve Harmon, a 17-year-old honor student whose world comes crashing down around him when he is charged with felony murder.



Serenity
Serenity(2019)
5.4

The quiet life of Baker Dill, a fishing boat captain who lives on the isolated Plymouth Island, where he spends his days obsessed with capturing an elusive tuna while fighting his personal demons, is interrupted when someone from his past comes to him searching for help.



Sex, Party and Lies

A youth group is preparing for what will be the summer of their life, including secrets, lies, sex, confusion, evenings and holidays.



Class
Class(1983)
6

Naive Midwestern prep student Jonathan bonds with his more worldly roommate, Skip, who takes the small-town boy under his wing. At Skip's urging, the inexperienced Jonathan is emboldened to seek out older women in the cocktail lounges of nearby Chicago, where he meets and beds the alluring Ellen, who unfortunately turns out to be Skip's mother. The division between the friends is further deepened when a cheating scandal engulfs the school.



Brad's Status
6.256

Although Brad has a satisfying career, a sweet wife and a comfortable life in suburban Sacramento, things aren't quite what he imagined during his college glory days. When he accompanies his musical prodigy son on a university tour, he can't help comparing his life with those of his four best college friends who seemingly have more wealthy and glamorous lives. But when circumstances force him to reconnect with his former friends, Brad begins to question whether he has really failed or if their lives are actually more flawed than they appear.



Albatross
Albatross(2011)
5.996

Beth, a bookish teenager, befriends Emilia, an aspiring novelist who has just arrived in town. Emilia soon begins an affair with Beth's father that threatens to have devastating consequences.



Don McKay
Don McKay(2009)
4.9

Everything appears off-kilter when a man returns to his hometown after 25 years to visit his former lover.



Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You

Precocious yet sensitive teenager James has a deep perception of the world but no idea how to live in it. Finding no help from his divorced parents nor his older memoir-writing sister, he decides to reject the beliefs adults try to push on him, starting with the college career that is looming over his last summer in New York, and embarks instead on a search for wisdom through nontraditional means...



Labor Day
Labor Day(2013)
7

Two strangers are drawn together under incredible circumstances. What starts as an unforeseen encounter over a long holiday weekend soon becomes a second chance love story.



Young Adam
5.811

A young drifter working on a river barge disrupts his employers' lives while hiding the fact that he knows more about a dead woman found in the river than he admits.



Admission
Admission(2013)
5.6

Straitlaced Princeton University admissions officer Portia Nathan is caught off-guard when she makes a recruiting visit to an alternative high school overseen by her former classmate, the freewheeling John Pressman. Pressman has surmised that Jeremiah, his gifted yet very unconventional student, might well be the son that Portia secretly gave up for adoption many years ago.



The Gift
The Gift(2015)
6.7

Simon and Robyn are a young married couple whose life is going as planned until a chance run-in with Simon's high school acquaintance sends their world into a tailspin.



Restless
Restless(2011)
6.506

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



The Vanishing of Sidney Hall

Over the course of 12 years, and three stages of life, Sidney Hall falls in love, writes the book of a generation and then disappears without a trace.



The Case of Hana & Alice

A Japanese girl struggling to fit in at her new school teams up with a reclusive neighbor to find out what happened to an upperclassman who disappeared under mysterious circumstances.



Storytelling
6.5

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



Mikey and Nicky
6.8

Nick is desperate, holed up in a cheap hotel, suffering from an ulcer and convinced that a local mob boss wants him killed. Desperate and terrified, he calls Mikey, his friend since childhood and a fellow gangster. So begins a long night…



Tom and Huck
5.243

A mischievous young boy, Tom Sawyer, witnesses a murder by the deadly Injun Joe. Tom becomes friends with Huckleberry Finn, a boy with no future and no family. Tom has to choose between honoring a friendship or honoring an oath because the town alcoholic is accused of the murder. Tom and Huck go through several adventures trying to retrieve evidence.



The Young Kieslowski

Grand romantic gestures need not apply in this comedic tale of star-crossed young love. Instead, freshman Brian Kieslowski displays endless reserves of bumbling awkwardness as he goes home with a girl for the first time... and then learns that he got her pregnant... with twins... all while she's going through a rather inconvenient Christianity phase. Could it be that being the good guy and doing what's right are two very different things?



The River King
5.7

Abel Grey is sent to investigate the death of a boy from an exclusive local school, who is found floating in the river. Fearing scandal, the school insists it was suicide. But after discovering from the boy's girlfriend, Carlin, that he was being badly bullied, Abel suspects that a dangerous schoolboy initiation has gone horribly wrong and he secretly solicits the help of a sympathetic teacher, Betsy. He is warned off the investigation by his boss, as the school is a generous benefactor to the Police benevolent fund. Abel, however, cannot let the case go, not only because his own brother committed suicide years before, but also it seems that the spirit of the dead boy is leaving them clues as to what really happened that night.



Biloxi Blues
6.237

A Jewish teenager sets three goals: lose his virginity, become a writer, and survive World War II.



Inherent Vice
6.537

In Los Angeles at the turn of the 1970s, drug-fueled detective Larry "Doc" Sportello investigates the disappearance of an ex-girlfriend.



Simon Birch
6.8

Simon Birch and Joe Wenteworth are boys who have a reputation for being oddballs. Joe never knew his father, and his mother, Rebecca, is keeping her lips sealed no matter how much he protests. Simon, meanwhile, is an 11-year-old dwarf whose outsize personality belies his small stature. Indeed, he often assails the local reverend with thorny theological questions and joins Joe on his quest to find his biological father.



No Hard Feelings
6.699

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.



Riddle
Riddle(2013)
4.5

Holly & Nathan Teller live in a small town in Pennsylvania. Holly is on the cheerleading team and has a close relationship with her younger brother Nathan, who is subjected to bullying at school. Nathan is taken for a car ride one day by the bullies, whose intent about what they are going to do with Nathan is not clear. He gives them the slip, but disappears and is still missing after three years.



Son in Law
6

Country girl Rebecca has spent most of her life on a farm in South Dakota, and, when she goes away to college in Los Angeles, Rebecca immediately feels out of place in the daunting urban setting. She is befriended by a savvy party animal named Crawl, who convinces the ambivalent Rebecca to stay in the city. When Thanksgiving break rolls around, Rebecca, no longer an innocent farm girl, invites Crawl back to South Dakota, where he pretends to be her fiancé.



Parents
Parents(1989)
5.88

Michael is a young boy living in a typical 1950s suburbanite home... except for his bizarre and horrific nightmares, and continued unease around his parents. Young Michael begins to suspect his parents are cooking more than just hamburgers on the grill outside, but has trouble explaining his fears to his new-found friend Sheila, or the school's social worker.

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