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Movies like The Squid and the Whale

Key Features:
Divorce, Family drama, Coming-of-age, Sibling relationship, Dysfunctional family, Intellectualism, Brooklyn, 1980s, Family separation, Independent film, Character study
Tone:
serious, dramatic, restrained
Target Audience:
Indie film enthusiasts, Drama lovers, People interested in family dynamics, Those who appreciate character-driven stories
Emotional Arc:
Discomfort → Sadness → Acceptance

The Squid and the Whale

2005-10-05
The Squid and the Whale Poster - Find Similar Movies

Based on the true childhood experiences of Noah Baumbach and his brother, The Squid and the Whale tells the touching story of two young boys dealing with their parents' divorce in Brooklyn in the 1980s.

Genres
Comedy, Drama
Cast
Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline, William Baldwin, Halley Feiffer, Anna Paquin, David Benger, Molly Barton, Bo Berkman
Crew
Noah Baumbach, Noah Baumbach
Rating
6.947(1036 votes)
The Squid and the WhaleThe Squid and the Whale
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Manchester by the Sea

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



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.



The Whales of August

Two aged sisters reflect on life and the past during a late summer day in Maine.



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.



The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)

An estranged family gathers together in New York for an event celebrating the artistic work of their father.



Beach Rats
6.051

On the outskirts of Brooklyn, Frankie, an aimless teenager, suffocates under the oppressive glare cast by his family and a toxic group of delinquent friends. Struggling with his own identity, Frankie begins to scour hookup sites for older men.



The Skeleton Twins
6.6

Estranged twins Maggie and Milo coincidentally cheat death on the same day, prompting them to reunite and confront the reasons their lives went so wrong. As the twins' reunion reinvigorates them, they realize the key to fixing their lives may just lie in repairing their relationship.



Marriage Story
7.7

A stage director and an actress struggle through a grueling, coast-to-coast divorce that pushes them to their personal extremes.



The Prince of Tides

A troubled Southern man talks to his suicidal sister's psychiatrist about their family history and falls in love with her (and New York City) in the process.



The Door in the Floor

The lives of Ted and Marion Cole are thrown into disarray when their two adolescent sons die in a car wreck. Marion withdraws from Ted and Ruth, the couple's daughter. Ted, a well-known writer, hires as his assistant a student named Eddie, who looks oddly similar to one of the Coles' dead sons. The couple separate, and Marion begins an affair with Eddie, while Ted has a dalliance with his neighbor Evelyn.



The Cement Garden
6.7

After the death of her husband, the mother of Julie, Jack, Sue and Tom begins to suffer from a mysterious illness. Aware that she is going to have to go into hospital she opens a bank account for the children, so that they can be financially self-sufficient and will be able to avoid being taken into care by the authorities. Unfortunately she also dies and Julie and Jack (the older, teenage children) decide to hide her body in the basement so that they can have free reign of their household. Soon Tom has taken to dressing as a girl whilst Sue has become increasingly reticent, confiding only to her diary, meanwhile Jack and Julie sense an attraction developing for each other. However Julie's new beau, Derek, threatens to unearth the many dark secrets within this family as he becomes increasingly suspicious of Jack.



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.



Birds of America
5.4

A regular guy struggles with a repressive home and professional life, as well as making amends for the trouble his free-spirited brother and sister cause about town.



Free Willy: Escape from Pirate's Cove

After young Kirra leaves her Australian home to summer with her grandfather in South Africa, she soon discovers a baby orca stranded in the lagoon near her grandfather’s rundown seaside amusement park. She names the lonely whale Willy--and embarks on a great quest to lead the little guy back to his anxious pod.



Mozart and the Whale

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



Lymelife
Lymelife(2008)
6.1

A coming of age dramedy where infidelity, real estate, and Lyme disease have two families falling apart on Long Island in the early eighties. Scott, 15, is at the point in his life when he finds out that the most important people around him, his father, his mother, and his brother, are not exactly who he thought they were. They are flawed and they are human.



Mermaids
Mermaids(1990)
6.7

Fifteen-year-old Charlotte Flax is tired of her wacky mom moving their family to a different town any time she feels it is necessary. When they move to a small Massachusetts town and Mrs. Flax begins dating a shopkeeper, Charlotte and her 9-year-old sister, Kate, hope that they can finally settle down. But when Charlotte's attraction to an older man gets in the way, the family must learn to accept each other for who they truly are.



The Family Fang
5.8

A brother and sister return to their family home in search of their world famous parents who have disappeared.



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 Savages
6.875

A sister and brother face the realities of familial responsibility as they begin to care for their ailing father.



Brighton Beach Memoirs

Eugene, a young teenage Jewish boy, recalls his memoirs of his time as an adolescent youth. He lives with his parents, his aunt, two cousins, and his brother, Stanley, whom he looks up to and admires. He goes through the hardships of puberty, sexual fantasy, and living the life of a poor boy in a crowded house.



#Blue_Whale
6.3

Rebellious schoolgirl Dana grieves for her younger sister, a once-happy kid who suddenly stepped in front of a train. Desperate to learn what happened, she explores her sister's online history, discovering a sinister social-media game.



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.



Rust and Bone
7.159

Put in charge of his young son, Ali leaves Belgium for Antibes to live with his sister and her husband as a family. Ali's bond with Stephanie, a killer whale trainer, grows deeper after Stephanie suffers a horrible accident.



The Flamingo Kid

Brooklyn teenager Jeffrey Willis, thoroughly unhappy with his modest homestead, embraces the other-world aspects of his summer job at the posh Flamingo Club. He spurns his father in favor of the patronage of smooth-talking Phil Brody and is seduced by the ample bikini charms of club member Carla Samson. But thanks to a couple of late-summer hard lessons, the teen eventually realizes that family should always come first.



Margarita with a Straw

A rebellious young woman with cerebral palsy leaves India to study in New York. On her journey of self-discovery, she unexpectedly falls in love.



Submarine
Submarine(2011)
7.365

15-year-old deep-thinking Welsh schoolboy Oliver Tate struggles to initiate and maintain a relationship with Jordana, his devilish, dark-haired classmate at their Swansea high school. As his parents' marriage begins to fall apart, similar problems arise in his relationship with Jordana.



Greenberg
Greenberg(2010)
5.869

Roger Greenberg, a failed musician now making a living as a carpenter in New York, returns to Los Angeles to house-sit for his brother. He's stranded there—since he doesn't drive—until his brother's assistant, Florence, comes to his rescue. She's as much a lost soul as he is, and the pair form a significant connection—giving Roger a much-needed reason to be happy.



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.



Deep
Deep(2017)
6.027

In 2100, when humanity has abandoned the earth, a colony of extravagant creatures still thrives in the deepest abyss of the ocean.



Storytelling
6.5

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



Life Itself
7.198

As a young New York couple goes from college romance to marriage and the birth of their first child, the unexpected twists of their journey create reverberations that echo over continents and through lifetimes.



Paper Man
Paper Man(2009)
6.31

A coming-of-middle-age comedy that chronicles the unlikely friendship between failed author Richard Dunne and a Long Island teen who teaches him a thing or two about growing up, all under the disapproving eye of his long-suffering wife and his imaginary Superhero friend.



Big Fish
Big Fish(2003)
7.752

Throughout his life Edward Bloom has always been a man of big appetites, enormous passions and tall tales. In his later years, he remains a huge mystery to his son, William. Now, to get to know the real man, Will begins piecing together a true picture of his father from flashbacks of his amazing adventures.



People, Places, Things

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



Anemone
Anemone(2025)
6.3

Middle-aged Jem sets out from his suburban home on a journey into the woods, where he reconnects with his estranged hermit brother Ray. Bonded by a mysterious, complicated past, the men share a fraught, if occasionally tender relationship—one that was forever altered by shattering events decades earlier.



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.



Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken

Ruby Gillman, a sweet and awkward high school student, discovers she's a direct descendant of the warrior kraken queens. The kraken are sworn to protect the oceans of the world against the vain, power-hungry mermaids. Destined to inherit the throne from her commanding grandmother, Ruby must use her newfound powers to protect those she loves most.



Tiny Furniture
5.641

After graduating from film school, Aura returns to New York to live with her photographer mother, Siri, and her sister, Nadine, who has just finished high school. Aura is directionless and wonders where to go next in her career and her life. She takes a job in a restaurant and tries unsuccessfully to develop relationships with men, including Keith, a chef where she works, and cult Internet star Jed.



City Island
6.941

The Rizzos, a family who doesn't share their habits, aspirations, and careers with one another, find their delicate web of lies disturbed by the arrival of a young ex-con brought home by Vince, the patriarch of the family, who is a corrections officer in real life, and a hopeful actor in private.



Le Divorce
4.9

While visiting her sister in Paris, a young woman finds romance and learns her brother-in-law is a philanderer.



The Fabelmans
7.577

Growing up in post-World War II era Arizona, young Sammy Fabelman aspires to become a filmmaker as he reaches adolescence, but soon discovers a shattering family secret and explores how the power of films can help him see the truth.



Fish Tank
Fish Tank(2009)
6.9

Fifteen-year-old Mia is in a constant state of war with her family and the world around her. When she meets her party-girl mother’s charming new boyfriend Connor, she is amazed to find he returns her attention, and believes he might help her start to make sense of her life.



Under the Boardwalk
7.299

Two crabs embark on an epic journey to get home after a storm sweeps them away. Their courage soon unites their families, paving the way for great summers to come.



The Son's Room
7.1

A psychoanalyst and his family go through profound emotional trauma when their son dies in a scuba diving accident.



Melinda and Melinda
6.178

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



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.



Kicking and Screaming

After college graduation, Grover's girlfriend Jane tells him she's moving to Prague to study writing. Grover declines to accompany her, deciding instead to move in with several friends, all of whom can't quite work up the inertia to escape their university's pull. Nobody wants to make any big decisions that would radically alter his life, yet none of them wants to end up like Chet, the professional student who tends bar and is in his tenth year of university studies.



Our Idiot Brother
6.148

Everybody has one—the sibling who is always just a little bit behind the curve when it comes to getting his life together. For sisters Liz, Miranda and Natalie, that person is their perennially upbeat brother, Ned. But as each of their lives begins to unravel, Ned's family comes to realise that Ned isn't such an idiot after all.



We the Animals
6.4

Manny, Joel and Jonah tear their way through childhood and push against the volatile love of their parents. As Manny and Joel grow into versions of their father and Ma dreams of escape, Jonah, the youngest, embraces an imagined world all his own.



The Tit and the Moon

A child does not stand the idea of having a new brother and dreams about drinking milk from the breasts of his mother again. The child asks the moon to bring him a tit only for him.



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.



Free Willy
6.181

When maladjusted orphan Jesse vandalizes a theme park, he is placed with foster parents and must work at the park to make amends. There he meets Willy, a young Orca whale who has been separated from his family. Sensing kinship, they form a bond and, with the help of kindly whale trainer Rae Lindley, develop a routine of tricks. However, greedy park owner Dial soon catches wind of the duo and makes plans to profit from them.



The Hummingbird
6.874

Everyone in Marco's life seems constantly restless, from his brilliant but unhappily married parents to his own wife Marina, or even Luisa, the real love of his life, a girl he met during a fateful summer in the '70s and always stayed in touch with. Tragedy and fate seem to haunt him, yet he somehow manages never to get ensnared in the chaos—like his namesake, “the hummingbird”, he focuses all his energy at standing still.



Into the Blue 2: The Reef

When they're hired to recover the lost treasure of Columbus, married scuba divers Sebastian and Dani think they've hit the jackpot. But as they get closer to the fortune, the couple begins to suspect their employers have their own agenda. Hitting upon the real plan, the two come to the chilling realization that they may be expendable and that there's much more than riches at stake.



The Oranges
5.506

A man's affair with his friend's much-younger daughter throws two neighboring families into turmoil.



Abe
Abe(2020)
6.929

A 12-year-old boy from Brooklyn tries to unite his half-Israeli and half-Palestinian family through cooking.



Two by Two: Overboard!

Two misfit castaways struggle to reunite an unorthodox family, out-run a volcano, and negotiate a peace deal on a creaking Ark.



Aftersun
Aftersun(2022)
7.674

Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories fill the gaps between camcorder footages as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the troubled man she didn't.



Waves
Waves(2024)
7.451

At the end of the 1960s, when the air is filled with rock-and-roll and student rebellions are changing the world, the older of two brothers joins a prestigious newsroom of the public radio broadcaster. Not long after, he finds himself in the middle of a dangerous conflict between journalists and the secret service.



A River Runs Through It

The Maclean brothers, Paul and Norman, live a relatively idyllic life in rural Montana, spending much of their time fly fishing. The sons of a minister, the boys eventually part company when Norman moves east to attend college, leaving his rebellious brother to find trouble back home. When Norman finally returns, the siblings resume their fishing outings, and assess where they've been and where they're going.



Lullaby
Lullaby(2014)
6.1

Estranged from his family, Jonathan (Hedlund) discovers his father has decided to take himself off life support in forty-eight hours’ time. During this intensely condensed period, a lifetime of drama plays out. Robert (Jenkins) fights a zero sum game to reclaim all that his illness stole from his family. A debate rages on patients’ rights and what it truly means to be free. Jonathan reconciles with his father, reconnects with his mother (Archer), sister (Brown-Findlay), and his love (Adams) and reclaims his voice through two unlikely catalysts – a young, wise-beyond-her-years patient (Barden) and a no-nonsense nurse (Hudson). Through this intensely life affirming prism, an unexpected and powerful journey of love, laughter, and forgiveness unfolds.



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.



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.



Weekends
Weekends(2017)
7.031

Set in 1980s Toronto, a young boy shuffles between the homes of his recently divorced parents.



If Lucy Fell
5.3

Joe and Lucy are roommates and best friends. Lucy, whose love life is embarrassingly dull, convinces Joe, who is infatuated with a neighbor he's never met, that if they don't have stable romances within a month, they must jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.



Kramer vs. Kramer
7.564

Ted Kramer is a career man for whom his work comes before his family. His wife Joanna cannot take this anymore, so she decides to leave him. Ted is now faced with the tasks of housekeeping and taking care of himself and their young son Billy.



Dil Dhadakne Do
6.824

On a cruise to celebrate their parents' 30th wedding anniversary, a brother and sister deal with the impact of family considerations on their romantic lives.



12 and Holding
6.8

Three close knit 12-year-olds - introverted Jacob, precocious Malee and vulnerable Leonard - start down the path of self-discovery and begin to distinguish their own voices from those of their parents.



See You In Valhalla
5.262

After the bizarre death of her brother, Johana Burwood must return home after four years, to face her strange siblings, her out of touch father and her very touchy past.



Pieces of April
6.5

Quirky and rebellious April Burns lives with her boyfriend in a low-rent New York City apartment miles away from her emotionally distant family. But when she discovers that her mother has a fatal form of breast cancer, she invites the clan to her place for Thanksgiving. While her father struggles to drive her family into the city, April -- an inexperienced cook -- runs into kitchen trouble and must ask a neighbor for help.



Adult Beginners
5.4

A young, hipster entrepreneur crashes and burns on the eve of his company’s big launch. With his entire life in disarray, he leaves Manhattan to move in with his estranged pregnant sister, brother-in-law and three year-old nephew in the suburbs — only to become their manny. Faced with real responsibility, he may finally have to grow up — but not without some bad behavior first.



Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen

After moving to New Jersey, Lola bags a coveted role in a school play, which earns her the wrath of Carla, the most popular girl in school, who will do anything to ruin Lola's life.



Brother and Sister
4.844

Alice and Louis are brother and sister. She is an actress; he was a teacher and poet. For more than 20 years, Alice has hated her brother. In all this time they haven’t seen one another. The death of their parents brings the siblings face to face.



Pauline at the Beach

Marion is about to divorce from her husband and takes her 15-year-old niece, Pauline, on a vacation to Granville. There, she meets an old love...



The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them

A New York couple's relationship is tested after the loss of their child. This film is the wide-released combination of the original two :him and :her volumes that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.



From Prada to Nada
5.436

Two spoiled Beverly Hills sisters who have been left penniless after their father's sudden death are forced to move in with their estranged aunt in East Los Angeles.



City by the Sea
5.8

Vincent LaMarca is a dedicated and well-respected New York City police detective who has gone to great lengths to distance himself from his past, but then makes the terrible discovery that his own son has fallen into a life of crime.



Shame
Shame(2011)
6.9

Brandon, a thirty-something man living in New York, eludes intimacy with women but feeds his deepest desires with a compulsive addiction to sex. When his younger sister temporarily moves into his apartment, stirring up bitter memories of their shared painful past, Brandon's life, like his fragile mind, gets out of control.



Couch Potatoes
5.2

Giorgio and Tito, father and son. A successful journalist and a lazy teenager apparently impossible to understand. Giorgio's dream is to take Tito to the Nasca Hill in Liguria, but Tito prefers to spend his entire day with his group of friends, eating, talking about nothing and playing video games. Until one day when he suddenly informs his father that he would join him in this trip. After a series of accidents and misunderstandings, at the end, somehow father and son will find the way to communicate … or at least they will try.



The Brothers McMullen
5.995

Deals with the lives of the three Irish Catholic McMullen brothers from Long Island, New York, over three months, as they grapple with basic ideas and values — love, sex, marriage, religion and family — in the 1990s.



Little Fish
7.072

A couple fights to hold their relationship together as a memory loss virus spreads and threatens to erase the history of their love and courtship.



Dark Water
5.7

Dahlia Williams and her daughter Cecelia move into a rundown apartment on New York's Roosevelt Island. Dahlia is in the midst of divorce proceedings, and the apartment, though near an excellent school for her daughter, is all she can afford. From the time she arrives, there are mysterious occurrences—and there is a constant drip from the ceiling in her daughter's bedroom…



The Deep End of the Ocean

A three-year-old boy disappears during his mother's high school reunion. Nine years later, by chance, he turns up in the town in which the family has just relocated.



Diving
Diving(2017)
6.098

A restless photographer leaves her family to "find herself" and takes up deep-sea diving.



Uncertainty
5.486

Every choice has a consequence. But what if the flip of a coin could trigger two separate but parallel destinies? Bobby and Kate are a young New York couple at a crossroads whose lives are about to take very different directions. A seemingly ordinary July 4th is cleaved in two by the flip of a coin. One path leads them to gentle discoveries about family, loss and each other on a visit to Brooklyn, and the other plunges them into an urban nightmare of pursuit, suspense and murder in Manhattan.



Bloomington
6.503

A former child actress attends college in search of independence and ends up becoming romantically involved with a female professor. Their relationship thrives until an opportunity to return to acting forces her to make life-altering decisions.



Hearts in Atlantis
6.8

A widowed mother and her son change when a mysterious stranger enters their lives.



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.



Wilson
Wilson(2017)
6

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



Dan in Real Life
6.568

Advice columnist Dan Burns is an expert on relationships, but somehow struggles to succeed as a brother, a son and a single parent to three precocious daughters. Things get even more complicated when Dan finds out that the woman he falls in love with is actually his brother's new girlfriend.



The Hollars
6.297

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



The Tribes of Palos Verdes

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



Titanic
Titanic(1953)
6.6

Unhappily married, Julia Sturges decides to go to America with her two children on the Titanic. Her husband, Richard also arranges passage on the luxury liner so as to have custody of their two children. All this fades to insignificance once the ship hits an iceberg.



Mother
Mother(1996)
6.8

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



Feed
Feed(2017)
6.9

Olivia and Matthew Grey, 18-year-old twins born into a world of privilege and high expectations. There are almost no boundaries between them - even their dreams are connected.



The Spiderwick Chronicles

Upon moving into the run-down Spiderwick Estate with their mother, twin brothers Jared and Simon Grace, along with their sister Mallory, find themselves pulled into an alternate world full of faeries and other creatures.



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.



The World According to Garp

A struggling young writer finds his life and work dominated by his unfaithful wife and his radical feminist mother, whose best-selling manifesto turns her into a cultural icon.

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