The Smile ManMovies like The Smile Man
- Key Features:
- Physical disability, Tragedy, Consequences, Psychological impact, Accident, Existentialism, Mortality, Melancholy, Isolation
- Tone:
- serious, restrained
- Target Audience:
- Drama enthusiasts, Independent film viewers, Character-driven stories, Contemplative viewers
- Emotional Arc:
- Despair → Acceptance
The Smile Man

A gentleman deals with the consequences of a car accident, which has left him with a spinal injury that means he has a permanent smile on his face.
The Smile Man
After witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient, Dr. Rose Cotter starts experiencing frightening occurrences that she can't explain.

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.

Unable to face his new reality in a wheelchair, Ángel develops a deadly obsession with the woman who left him and unleashes a sinister revenge plot.

After a wisdom tooth operation, a man decides to let his friend pull out one of the stitches.

During a winter storm, Ursus offers shelter to two orphans, Gwynplaine and Déa; some years later, they are still living together. Gwynplaine has become a famous star, but his success threatens his relationships with Déa and Ursus.

A dark comedy about a murder and its consequences presented in a backwards manner, where death is actually a rebirth. The film starts with an "execution" of the main protagonist and goes back to explore his previous actions and motivations.

When Jane is rejected by life, she spirals into a chaotic, schizophrenic world where love and normality collide with humorous consequences.

A case of mistaken identity forces a Federal agent and a dental supply salesman to team up as they speed through the streets of Detroit to pull off a sting operation and solve the murder of the agent's former partner.

Don Anselmo, a retired old man, decides to buy a motorized disabled stroller since all his pensioner friends own one. His family strongly refuses him to purchase the vehicle, so don Anselmo decides to take extreme measures to achieve his goal…

The story of a man who feels happy only when he is unhappy: addicted to sadness, with such need for pity, that he’s willing to do everything to evoke it from others. This is the life of a man in a world not cruel enough for him.

After a love affair ends badly, a young Parisian named Paul sinks into the same kind of deep depression that led his sister to kill herself. He moves back home with his father and aimless brother Jonathan but refuses to get out of bed.

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.

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.

A fugitive stumbles onto a movie set just when they need a new stunt man, takes the job as a way to hide out and falls for the leading lady while facing off with his manipulative director.

A celebrity journalist, juggling her busy career and personal life, has her life over-turned by a freak car accident.

A cataclysmic event causes a man, who dreams of winning the lottery, to become stranded on an island with his co-workers.

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.

An unhinged office worker who planned to go on a shooting spree at his workplace struggles with his newfound status as a hero after he ends up stopping a shooting spree instead.

A triptych fable following a man without choice who tries to take control of his own life; a policeman who is alarmed that his wife who was missing-at-sea has returned and seems a different person; and a woman determined to find a specific someone with a special ability, who is destined to become a prodigious spiritual leader.

When the quiet and amiable Vann Siegert drifts into town, no one suspects the evil that lies beneath the surface. Despite his easy charm, Vann is merely a reflection of what those he encounters want him to be. Soon, as locals start to disappear, it becomes clear that an eerie subtraction is at work in the sleepy hamlet.

A car magnate watches his personal and professional life hit the skids because of his business and romantic indiscretions.

After an accident, Pierre, a sixty years old grumpy man, ends up stuck on an hospital bed with a cast. While Pierre dreams of silence and solitude with his strong character, the whole world seems to invite himself to his hospital bed. Powerless, he has to support the daily visits of doctors,nurse and hospital staff then his closes including his brother Herve. Visits after visits, funny or touching, Pierre starts to reconsider some people and reexamine his environment. And after all, his stay becomes a second chance ...

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.

Handsome 25-year-old Cesar had it all -- a successful career, expensive cars, a swank bachelor's pad, and an endless string of beautiful and willing women -- until he is thrown into a strange psychological mystery after a car accident scars his face and lands him in prison.

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

A young man released from prison visits the widow of the man he killed drunk-driving and becomes infatuated with his cerebral palsy-stricken daughter.

A group of physically disabled lowlifes plots the the perfect heist, but things go south as each reveals an agenda of their own.

A blind man who regains his vision finds himself becoming metaphorically blinded by his obsession for the superficial.

About to embark on a new world tour, global pop sensation Skye Riley begins experiencing increasingly terrifying and inexplicable events. Overwhelmed by the escalating horrors and the pressures of fame, Skye is forced to face her dark past to regain control of her life before it spirals out of control.

Oliver is a banker and portfolio manager and leads a life in the fast lane, which one day comes to an abrupt end, as he builds a self-inflicted accident on highway with 230 km / h and raced through a guardrail. When he wakes up in the hospital again, he faces a devastating diagnosis: paraplegia. Actually, a rehabilitation stay of several months is planned in the hospital, but Oliver soon falls on his head and ends up in a disabled shared flat with the name "Die Goldfische"

A world-weary college professor is given a life-changing diagnosis and decides to throw all pretense and conventions to the wind and live his life as boldly and freely as possible with a biting sense of humor, a reckless streak and a touch of madness.

A mild-mannered gay dentist and a womanizing bar owner rekindle their unlikely friendship when, upon meeting by chance after a decade apart, the latter turns out to be severely ill.

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

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.

A young student decides to have no more interaction with the world than is needed to minimally sustain life. His increasingly automaton-like behavior is coupled with a strange clarity of insight about the world around him.

At the height of the Great Depression, the showman of a renowned circus leads his troupe through the devastated American landscape, lifting the spirits of audiences along the way. During their travels, they discover a man without limbs at a carnival sideshow. However, after an intriguing encounter with the showman, he becomes driven to hope against everything he has ever believed.

After losing his wife and his memory in a car accident, a single father undergoes an experimental treatment that causes him to question who he really is.

A double amputee attempts to write a letter while her nurse gets in the way. (Note: The Amputee was produced in order to test two different black and white video stocks for the American Film Institute. There are therefore two different versions of the film, each using the same script but shot on different stocks and differing in other incidental ways in terms of performance, sound design and duration. This is Version 1.)

A 40-year-old loser named Isidoro at the request of his brother drives from Italy to mountainous Carpathian village in Ukraine with a coffin of a diseased Ukrainian worker, who died at a construction site in Italy.

After learning that a brain aneurysm will kill him in about 90 minutes, a perpetually unhappy man struggles to come to terms with his fate and make amends with everyone he has ever hurt.

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

After a serious sport accident in a swimming pool, Ben, now an incomplete quadriplegic, arrives in a rehabilitation center. He meets with other handicapped persons (tetraplegics, paraplegics, traumatized crania), all victims of accidents, as well as a handicapped since his early childhood. They go through impotence, despair and resignation, with their daily struggle to learn how to move a finger or to hold a fork. Some of them slowly find a little mobility while others receive the verdict of the handicap for life. Despite everything, hope and friendship help them endure their difficulties.

Akira works as a lawyer. One day, he meets with his former client Rie, who asks Akira to perform a background check on her late husband Daisuke.

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

After losing a family member to a violent crime, a shattered rideshare driver picks up a passenger that forces him to confront his grief.

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.

Quiet Jose woos cafe worker Ana, but she is unaware he has intentions other than the purely romantic.

Three young guys like wine and women. They tested wine with pleasure, but the second they have never been able to taste. Under the guise of a wine tour, the three plans a trip to Spain to finally have sex. Nothing will stop them. Certainly not the fact that the first guy is blind, the second is in a wheelchair and the third is completely paralyzed.

An ordinary man makes an extraordinary discovery when a train accident leaves his fellow passengers dead — and him unscathed. The answer to this mystery could lie with the mysterious Elijah Price, a man who suffers from a disease that renders his bones as fragile as glass.

Mateusz is an intelligent, romantic young man tragically trapped inside his own body, suffering from severe cerebral palsy that makes speech and controlled movement nearly impossible. Born into a loving family, Mateusz’s protected world is shattered when circumstances place him in an institution where he is misunderstood and mistreated. Featuring an astonishing, virtuoso lead performance, Life Feels Good beautifully recounts the true story of one man’s extraordinary efforts to endure in the face of impossible odds.

Following a near-fatal accident, David Chamberlain makes an unprecedented discovery that will not only determine the fate of his family, but of mankind.

A new patient mysteriously appears in a psychiatric ward. He claims to come from another planet to study humans and their behavior. The alien is gentle but criticizes humans for their harsh treatment of each other. The assigned psychiatrist is himself unhappy, and affected by the patient's insight. But he is ordered to treat the patient according to institutional procedure.

A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man being mistreated by his "owner" as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of great intelligence and sensitivity. Based on the true story of Joseph Merrick (called John Merrick in the film), a severely deformed man in 19th century London.

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.

Forty-year-old Andreas arrives in a strange city with no memory of how he got there. He is presented with a job, an apartment - even a wife. But before long, Andreas notices that something is wrong. Andreas makes an attempt to escape the city, but he discovers there's no way out. Andreas meets Hugo, who has found a crack in a wall in his cellar. Beautiful music streams out from the crack. Maybe it leads to "the other side"? A new plan for escape is hatched.

An unlikely friendship between two neighbors becomes an unexpectedly emotional journey when the younger man is diagnosed with terminal cancer.

In a hospital on the outskirts of 1920s Los Angeles, an injured stuntman begins to tell a fellow patient, a little girl with a broken arm, a fantastic story about 5 mythical heroes. Thanks to his fractured state of mind and her vivid imagination, the line between fiction and reality starts to blur as the tale advances.

A man who has a body almost completely covered in tattoos is searching for the woman who cursed him with the "skin illustrations". Each tattoo reveals a bizarre story, which is experienced by staring at the scene depicted. When the illustrated man meets a fellow tramp on the road a strange voyage begins.

In a strange world where people share numerous deformities, the same problem we all face challenges each of them: to find someone who accepts you as you are. Sometimes, that means finding yourself first.

After the funeral of one of their own, a criminal family decides to embark on an emotionally unnerving journey in an attempt to exact bloody revenge.

After a violent car crash, Marilyn must take care of her man, who suffers from severe head trauma.

Overwhelmed by grief following the death of his wife, Donnelly shares a train carriage home with a troubled young man identified only as the 'Kid'. As the Kid becomes more agitated and foul-mouthed, the journey takes on a violent and dangerous hue – for the bereaved Donnelly and for other hapless passengers on the train. Academy Award Winner: Best Live Action Short Film – 2005

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

A woman grows increasingly fascinated with her body after suffering a disfiguring accident.

When his only friend dies, a man born with dwarfism moves to rural New Jersey to live a life of solitude, only to meet a chatty hot dog vendor and a woman dealing with her own personal loss.

A criminal psychologist loses his arm in a car crash, and becomes one of three patients to have their missing limbs replaced by those belonging to an executed serial killer. One of them dies violently, and disturbing occurrences start happening to the surviving two.

A mentally unhinged factory worker must decide whether to listen to his talking cat and become a killer, or follow his dog's advice to keep striving for normalcy.

When the son of an American man and a Japanese women is killed, the man transforms into Tetsuo.

In the aftermath of a car crash, a man discovers his dreams are tied to a stranger's sleepwalking.

David, an orderly at a hospital, tells his horrific story of being kidnapped and forced to play a vile game of survival.

Jocelyn is a selfish and misogynist businessman. He tries to seduce a young pretty woman by pretending to be handicapped, till the day he meets her sister, who is also in a wheelchair.

The story revolves around Alain, a busy businessman who is always in a rush. In his life, there is no room for spare time or family. But one day, he suffers a stroke, which makes him lose his grasp of language and use one word in place of another.

A love story between two savants with Asperger's syndrome, a kind of autism, whose conditions sabotage their budding relationship.

Randolph Bradley is perfectly content fading into the background, but when his coworker Benson snaps and goes on a violent killing spree, he’s forced to face his fears and confront his troubled past in order to find a way to survive.

The Accident Man is back, and this time he must best the top assassins in the world to protect the ungrateful son of a mafia boss, save the life of his only friend and rekindle his relationship with his maniacal father figure.

When Max, who is recovering from a traumatic accident, takes a job as a nighttime security guard, he begins to see visions of a young mysterious woman in the store's mirror.

After fun-loving metalhead Jacek is disfigured in an accident at work, he becomes the first person in Poland to receive a face transplant. This leads to his status as a media spectacle and martyr, all while battling ensuing identity issues as a consequence.

A man takes up residence with a mysterious marquis and is soon persuaded to enter into an asylum for preventative therapy. Things are not what they seem, and the marquis may be even more sinister than what the young man might have predicted.

Cecilie and Joachim are about to get married when a freak car accident leaves Joachim disabled, throwing their lives into a spin. The driver of the other car, Marie, and her family don’t get off lightly, either. Her husband Niels works in the hospital where he meets Cecilie and falls madly in love with her.

Mark, a hitman haunted by his past as a corrupt Miami cop and the death of his wife and son, prepares for his next killing. Gradually he becomes fascinated by the beautiful prostitute who lives in the next apartment and they embark on a passionate affair. Their dreams of a life together are complicated by her pimp being a drugs baron; before they can escape he must die, but things are never that simple...

A human body gradually reconstructs itself as its various component parts crowd themselves into a small room and eventually, after much experimentation, sort out which part goes where.

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.

The local disability support group visits an involuntary member, not realizing that it will bring them to a critical mass.

A man wakes up one morning with an annoying ringing sound in his ears. A note on the fridge says: "Your friend Luigi has died. P.S. I took the car". The problem is that he does not even remember who this guy Luigi is. This is just the beginning of a tragicomic day during which he will be plunged into the folly of the world. One of those days that changes your life forever.

In several unrelated stories, the consequences of putting one's foot down – or failing to do so – are explored.

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

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.

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

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?

Dumped by his girlfriend and finding himself stranded on different couches at friends’ places, Guido tries to transform his drift into an opportunity for a new beginning.

When his young son is killed in a hit and run accident, Charles Thenier resolves to hunt down and murder the killer. By chance, Thenier makes the acquaintance of an actress, Helène Lanson, who was in the car at the time of the accident. He then meets Helène’s brother-in-law, Paul Decourt, a truly horrible individual.

Georges has Down syndrome, living at a mental-institution, Harry is a busy businessman, giving lectures for young aspiring salesmen. He is successful in his business life, but his social life is a disaster since his wife left him and took their two children with her. This weekend his children came by train to meet him, but Harry, working as always, forgot to pick them up. Neither his wife or his children want to see him again and he is driving around on the country roads, anguished and angry. He almost runs over Georges, on the run from the institution since everybody else went home with their parents except him, whose mother is dead. Harry tries to get rid of Georges but he won't leave his new friend. Eventually a special friendship forms between the two of them, a friendship which makes Harry a different person.

A drama focused on the friendship between a high-functioning autistic woman and a man who is traumatized after a fatal car accident.

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.

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

The life of a woman is transformed after she is diagnosed with a terminal disease, fired from her job and abandoned by her boyfriend. Given two months to live, she throws caution to the wind to pursue her dreams.



