Thunder RoadMovies like Thunder Road
- Key Features:
- Grief, Mental breakdown, Dysfunctional family, Single parent, Small town setting, Police officer, Existential crisis, Character study, Dark comedy, Divorce, Custody battle
- Tone:
- serious, humorous, gritty
- Target Audience:
- Fans of character-driven stories, Viewers interested in dark comedies, Audiences who appreciate indie films, Those who enjoy films about grief and loss
- Emotional Arc:
- Grief → Despair → Acceptance
Thunder Road

Jimmy Arnaud eulogizes his mother.
Thunder Road
A police officer faces a personal meltdown following a divorce and the death of his mother.

A dachshund passes from oddball owner to oddball owner, whose radically dysfunctional lives are all impacted by the pooch.

The story of a young mother who loses her husband in Afghanistan and struggles to raise their young daughter in his absence.

A peculiar neighbor offers hope to a recent widow who is struggling to raise a teenager who is unpredictable and, sometimes, violent.

A mentally disabled man gets help from a sociopath when he tries to reunite with his dying father, who years earlier disowned him.

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

Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.

Faced with the decision of a lifetime, Arvilla Holden enlists her two best friends and sets off in a vintage '66 Bonneville convertible to deliver her late husband's ashes to Santa Barbara.

A boy deals with the loss of his mother by creating a relationship with a dangerous monster.

Aymeric runs into Florence, a former coworker, one evening in Saint-Claude in the Haut-Jura. She is six months pregnant and single. When she gives birth to Jim, Aymeric is there. They spend happy years together until Christophe, Jim's biological father, shows up... It could be the start of a melodrama, it's also the start of an odyssey into fatherhood.

Margherita, a director in the middle of an existential crisis, has to deal with the inevitable and still unacceptable loss of her mother.

Set in the Mojave Desert, the film follows a broken-down comedian playing clubs across the Southwest, working his way to Los Angeles to meet his estranged daughter.

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

A chaotic family is on a road trip across a rugged landscape. In the back seat, Dad has a broken leg, Mom tries to laugh when she's not holding back tears, and the youngest keeps exploding into car karaoke. Only the older brother is quiet.

An army ranger and his dog embark on a road trip along the Pacific Coast Highway to attend a friend's funeral.

After losing her mother in a car accident that leaves her with a broken arm, 4-year-old Ponette struggles with anguish and fear. Left by her father with a caring aunt and her children, Ponette grieves, secretly hoping her mother will somehow come back. Confused by the religious explanations provided by adults, and challenged by the cruel taunts of a few children at school, little Ponette must make her way through her emotional turmoil.

A young soldier who was thought to be killed in Vietnam returns home and exhibits disturbing behavior, much to the confusion of his family.

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

James White is a troubled twentysomething trying to stay afloat in a frenzied New York City. As he retreats further into a hedonistic lifestyle, his mother's battle with a serious illness faces a series of setbacks that force him to assume more responsibility. With the pressure on him mounting, James must find new reserves of strength or risk imploding completely.

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

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

The loss of their young daughter threatens to destroy the love and faith of two married musicians.

A deeply disturbed and epileptic young man benignly decides to murder other members of his dysfunctional family for altruistic reasons.

After losing her daughter in an accident, Carmen loses all incentive to keep going, until she receives an unexpected letter from the adoption agency: her daughter was finally granted the Vietnamese girl she had asked for adoption and whose name is Thi Mai.

Everything goes for the best in Fanny's life without stories ... until she discovers that her beloved son, Arthur, nine, is the scapegoat of three boys at his school. Fanny will not leave her son alone in front of these little executioners: she will give these dirty kids the change of their room. Thunderstorms and playground traps, now it will be "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth!"

After a family tragedy, Chuck Wilson hopes to start a new life in Ashland Falls with his wife Maria and little sister Elizabeth, but he quickly discovers that the town has a dark history of being haunted by a ghostly woman who drives residents to suicide.

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.

Following the death of their friend, two girls in their late twenties embark on a road trip to spread his ashes. Seph and Alex take turns driving. Dan is in the glove compartment, in tupperware, decreasing in volume as the trip progresses.

Nola grew up living on a van with her father, Clint; two nomads against the world. When tragedy strikes, Nola must confront the reality of life on the road alone, learning to own her grief, her past and her new destination.

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.

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.

After failing to find success as a writer in New York City, Jim slinks back to his family's home in the Midwest to lick his wounds. But his visit is quickly complicated when his angst spreads to his brother, Tim, who promptly decides to drive his car straight into a tree. Under the shadow of his sibling's injurious actions, Jim strikes up an unlikely friendship with Anika, whose centered small-town wisdom gradually rubs off on him.

Jackie is a CCTV operator. One day, a man shows his face on her monitor, a man she hoped never to see again. Now she has no choice and is compelled to confront him.

In a suburban community, moms and dads, one after the other, mysteriously feel the irresistible impulse to attack and kill their own offspring.

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.

A young boy has lost his mother and is losing touch with his father and the world around him. Then he meets Hesher who manages to make his life even more chaotic.

Pressured by his late mother's ghost to return home to the family he abandoned, a former addict grabs a bag of pills and a sack of marijuana and hits the road to Shreveport.

Terror grips a small mountain town as bodies are discovered after each full moon. Losing sleep, raising a teenage daughter, and caring for his ailing father, officer Marshall struggles to remind himself there's no such thing as werewolves.

Prompted by the death of his father and the grief of his mother, a man recalls the story of how they met in flashback.

A black comedy that follows three generations of a family, who come together for the funeral of the patriarch - unveiling a litany of family secrets and covert relationships.

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

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

When motocross and heavy metal obsessed, 13-year-old Jacob's delinquent behavior forces CPS to place his little brother Wes with his aunt, Jacob and his emotionally absent father must finally take responsibility for their actions and each other in order to bring Wes home.

A new girl in a quiet town, Tess tries to manage her psychosis while adjusting to her new life with her mom. After stumbling upon the shrine of Lucy, a hit and run victim, Tess finds herself overwhelmed by hallucinations of the dead girl and starts to question her sanity again. When the spirit possesses Tess’s mind and soul, mother and daughter are at a loss for where to turn next for salvation: religion or medicine? Both institutions have failed them to date but faith leads them to the house of Sarah, Lucy’s mother, who has been despondent since the accident. All together with time working against them, Sarah is desperate to believe that Lucy is still alive in Tess but neither parent wants to give up on their daughter. Now that she understands what is happening to her, ultimately Tess must decide whether she wants to keep fighting or succumb to her affliction.

After having visions of a member of her support group who killed herself, a woman who also suffers with chronic pain seeks out the widower of the suicide.

Recently widowed mom Brenda fights to protect her family during a harrowing road trip when a murder and a missing bag of cash plunge them into danger.

A divorced teacher suddenly becomes jealous of everyone, including her daughter, friends and neighbors.

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.

A son in denial of a serious illness. A mother facing the unbearable. And between them a doctor fighting to do his job and bring them to acceptance. The three of them have one year and four seasons to come together and understand what it means to die while living.

A troubled family must face facts when tragedy strikes their son's desolate military post.

A young, lonely woman is consumed by her deepest and darkest desires after tragedy strikes her quiet country life.

An everyday conversation between Marta and her mother turns into a tragic race against the clock when Marta receives a phone call from Iván, her six-year-old son, who is on holiday in France with his father.

After the death of his wife and father, Kudret, who has always lived by the book, decides to go on a road trip to save a girl.

Monk steps out of retirement as his stepdaughter's wedding turns tragic when her fiancé dies in a bungee jumping accident.

When his husband unexpectedly dies, Marc's world shatters, sending him and his two best friends on a soul-searching trip to Paris that reveals some hard truths they each needed to face.

Barbara O’Brien, an Irish Catholic mother, has her life turned upside-down when her son, a freshman in college, is involved in a tragic hazing incident. Taking justice into her own hands, she travels across the country recording mothers who have lost sons to hazing in an effort to prove the university’s liability. When she is confronted by corruption and cover ups, she seeks revenge on the one person she finds truly responsible, proving that hell hath no fury like a mother scorned.

A desperate father tries to return home to his pregnant wife after a mysterious apocalyptic event turns everything to chaos.

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

Irene, a workaholic, is forced to re-evaluate her priorities after the suicide of her two best friends.

Life for a happy couple is turned upside down after their young son dies in an accident.

In a small New Mexico town, teenager Hilary gets into a fender bender and innocently exchanges her personal information with the other driver, a terrifying and bizarre serial killer who stalks the country’s endless miles of roads and streets with his old rusty car, hungrily searching for his next unsuspecting victim.

At the end of WWII, Jimmy Picard, a Native American Blackfoot who fought in France, suffers from unexplainable symptoms and is admitted to a military hospital. When doctors suspect schizophrenia, an eccentric psychoanalyst takes up the case and starts a conversation with the veteran.

Lord Donald and Lady Nancy reside in the magnificent but run-down Longleigh House with James, their mentally disabled adult son. Nancy has fallen seriously ill and Donald is preparing to sell the house to raise enough money to pay for an operation. He arranges for the family nurse, Mary, to take care of Nancy while he leaves to tend to the sale. However, James wants to prove to his father that he can look after his mother on his own and decides to lock Mary out of the house. It isn't long before James starts mixing his mother's pills and forgetting to take his own medication, and as the stress of looking after his mother increases, so too does the severity of his own condition.

Two old friends reconnect at their friend's funeral, and decide to exact revenge on the widower who wronged all three of them decades earlier.

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.

A fatal plane crash changes the lives of Roman and Jake forever. Roman loses his wife and daughter in the accident, while Jake loses his mind—as he happens to be the air traffic controller who failed to avert the nightmare. Rage and revenge engulfs Roman and Jake finds himself swamped with guilt and regret.

Upon learning that their mother has been lying to them for years about their allegedly deceased father, two fraternal twin brothers hit the road in order to find him.

A family loaded with quirky, colorful characters piles into an old van and road trips to California for little Olive to compete in a beauty pageant.

An engaged Hollywood agent receives a mysterious letter for an anonymous sexual encounter and becomes ensnared in a sinister world of lying, infidelity, and digital data.

David, a struggling comedy writer fresh off from breaking up with his boyfriend, moves from New York City to Sacramento to help his sick mother. Living with his conservative father and much-younger sisters for the first time in ten years, he feels like a stranger in his childhood home. As his mother’s health declines, David frantically tries to extract meaning from this horrible experience and convince everyone (including himself) that he's "doing okay.”

Climbing aboard their mammoth recreational vehicle for a cross-country road trip to the Colorado Rockies, the Munro family – led by dysfunctional patriarch, Bob – prepares for the adventure of a lifetime. But spending two weeks together in one seriously small space has a way of cramping their style.

Hoping to bring his family closer together and to recreate his childhood vacation for his own kids, a grown up Rusty Griswold takes his wife and their two sons on a cross-country road trip to the coolest theme park in America, Walley World. Needless to say, things don't go quite as planned.

Avinash, a dejected soul stuck in a dead-end job shares a strange relationship with his father. He holds him responsible for crushing his dreams. However, he is left pondering upon this longstanding hatred when he hears of his father’s untimely demise.

A busy attorney, worried that his anorexic daughter Olga, who is still grieving her recently deceased mother, might try to harm herself, sends her to see a psychiatrist who's dealing with her own loss in an unusual way.

Dane ‘Marbles’ Marbeck can see ghosts, thanks to a homemade drug: his late father’s neurological medication mixed with marijuana. Officer Jayson Tagg, a wannabe super-cop on the trail of a serial killer, ends up murdered. So when Marbles’ mum plans to sell the family farm, and the only way of buying the house off her is taking the money offered by Tagg in exchange for his help, Marbles accepts. The unlikely duo of stoner medium and ghost cop struggle to reconcile their differences while they navigate their way through ghouls, perverts, a mysterious hooded figure, and an unexpected shot at love. It becomes clear the only way Marbles and Tagg will solve the case with their souls intact is to confront their deepest regrets and overcome their prejudices.

Two parents enter a race against time when they receive a distressing late-night phone call from their daughter after she caused a tragic car accident.

There are dysfunctional families... and then there are the Conways. After a family tragedy, 15-year-old Billy Conway has become the de facto glue between his bitter mom, distant brother, and stoic dad. But when Billy starts to act out, everything changes for him and his family

A man who is being driven crazy by the noise in New York City decides to take vigilante action against it.

A widowed new dad copes with doubts, fears, heartache and dirty diapers as he sets out to raise his daughter on his own. Inspired by a true story.

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.

Jack Gladney, professor of Hitler studies at The-College-on-the-Hill, husband to Babette, and father to four children/stepchildren, is torn asunder by a chemical spill from a rail car that releases an "Airborne Toxic Event" forcing Jack to confront his biggest fear - his own mortality.

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 distraught mother suspects her teenage son is a psychopath who may shoot up his high school, but when he outsmarts the mental healthcare system she is forced to take matters into her own hands.

Merit, a U.S. Army veteran suffering from PTSD, is repeatedly tortured by visions of her deceased friend and company buddy Zoe. After her Afghanistan service in 2016, she attends group therapy until Dale, her grandfather and former Lieutenant Colonel, is recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Merit steps up to his aide, and discovers more about herself and her family, while also gaining the courage to put her metaphorical demons to rest.

A black comedy about a farmer who tries to bring home the body of his friend, who died far from their town.

A caring mother loses her sanity, setting off a chain of events resulting in tragedy and murder. The story of Casey Pollack unfolds from two very different perspectives when one night in the woods culminates in absolute terror.

One man's quiet suburban life takes a sickening lurch for the worse when a young couple move into the deserted house next door. From the word go it is obvious these are not the quiet professional types who *should* be living in such a nice street. As more and more unbelievable events unfold, our hero starts to question his own sanity... and those of his family.

A writer must face the sudden death of his father, but after the burial, the latter reappears to him. He will have to learn to live with this facetious companion, but difficult to explain the situation to his family, because he is the only one who can see him. This disturbing presence will create an earthquake in the family.

A guy has to move out in a day, completely unprepared, and drive his mum to the airport. Completely stressed out, he calls his friends for help. Short notice however results in all his friends making it with an agenda of their own.

In 1973, when Frank Bledsoe and his 18-year-old niece Beth take a road trip from Manhattan to Creekville, South Carolina for the family patriarch's funeral, they're unexpectedly joined by Frank's lover Walid.

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.

The suicide of a former high-school bully puts the boy's father on a quest for answers.

Mama Cora, who is almost eighty years old, has three sons and a daughter. She lives with one of them, who has serious financial problems. The family meets one day to celebrate an anniversary meal, and that is when the problem arises: which of them will take care of her?

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.

When a woman visits a Chinese doctor, she discovers her pain is due to pent-up rage, and the only cure is to fully express herself, whatever may come.

After a Vietnamese woman dies in a car crash in Saigon, her brother-in-law and her young son transport her body back to the former’s hometown in rural Vietnam, where they plan to give her a funeral.



