The Squid and the Whale
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.
Movies Like The Squid and the Whale
Similar in style, tone, and themes — find your next watch.
Landline
2017★ 6.1
A teenager living with her sister and parents in Manhattan during the 1990s discovers that her father is having an affair.
Igby Goes Down
2002★ 6.6
Igby Slocumb, a rebellious and sarcastic 17-year-old boy, is at war with the stifling world of old money privilege he was born into. With a schizophrenic father, a self-absorbed, distant mother, and a shark-like young Republican big brother, Igby figures there must be a better life out there -- and sets about finding it.
Psycho Therapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer
2025★ 6.9
A struggling writer in the midst of a divorce befriends a retired serial killer who incidentally becomes his marriage counselor by day, and killing counselor for his next book by night.
Crooklyn
1994★ 6.8
From Spike Lee comes this vibrant semi-autobiographical portrait of a school-teacher, her stubborn jazz-musician husband and their five kids living in '70s Brooklyn.
Somewhere in Queens
2023★ 6.3
Leo and Angela Russo live a simple life in Queens, surrounded by their overbearing Italian-American family. When their son finds success on his high school basketball team, Leo tears the family apart trying to make it happen.
Match
2014★ 5.8
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.
Brighton Beach Memoirs
1986★ 6.6
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.
The Friend
2025★ 6.7
New York City writer Iris finds her comfortable, solitary life thrown into disarray after her closest friend and mentor bequeaths her a Great Dane named Apollo. The huge dog immediately creates practical problems for Iris, from furniture destruction to eviction notices, as well as more existential ones. Yet as Iris finds herself unexpectedly bonding with Apollo, she begins to come to terms with her past, and her own creative inner life.
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
2002★ 6.1
In a sleepy Louisiana parish, a group of lifelong friends stage a rather unorthodox intervention to help a young playwright unravel the truth about her complicated mother and let go of her painful past.
SubUrbia
1997★ 6.2
A group of suburban teenagers try to support each other through the difficult task of becoming adults.
The Joneses
2010★ 6.2
A seemingly perfect family moves into a suburban neighborhood, but when it comes to the truth as to why they're living there, they don't exactly come clean with their neighbors.
The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)
2017★ 6.5
An estranged family gathers together in New York for an event celebrating the artistic work of their father.
Wildflower
2023★ 7.4
The story of Bea Johnson from birth to graduation as she navigates life with an intellectually disabled parent and an extended family who can't quite agree on the best way to help.
CQ
2001★ 5.9
A young filmmaker in 1960s Paris juggles directing a cheesy sci-fi debacle, directing his own personal art film, coping with his crumbling relationship with his girlfriend, and a new-found infatuation with the sci-fi film's starlet.
The Tender Bar
2021★ 6.6
JR is a fatherless boy growing up in the glow of a bar where the bartender, his Uncle Charlie, is the sharpest and most colorful of an assortment of quirky and demonstrative father figures. As the boy’s determined mother struggles to provide her son with opportunities denied to her — and leave the dilapidated home of her outrageous if begrudgingly supportive father — JR begins to gamely, if not always gracefully, pursue his romantic and professional dreams, with one foot persistently placed in Uncle Charlie’s bar.
Rushmore
1998★ 7.4
When a beautiful first-grade teacher arrives at a prep school, she soon attracts the attention of an ambitious teenager named Max, who quickly falls in love with her. Max turns to the father of two of his schoolmates for advice on how to woo the teacher. However, the situation soon gets complicated when Max's new friend becomes involved with her, setting the two pals against one another in a war for her attention.
Slums of Beverly Hills
1998★ 6.3
In 1976, a lower-middle-class teenager struggles to cope living with her neurotic family of nomads on the outskirts of Beverly Hills.
10,000 Saints
2015★ 6.0
A sweeping multigenerational story set against the backdrop of the raw, roaring New York City of the late 1980s; adoption, teen pregnancy, drugs, hardcore punk rock, the unbridled optimism and reckless stupidity of the young—and old—are all major elements in this heart-aching tale of the son of diehard hippies and his strange odyssey through the extremes of late 20th century youth culture.
Deconstructing Harry
1997★ 7.3
Writer Harry Block draws inspiration from people he knows, and from events that happened to him, sometimes causing these people to become alienated from him as a result.
The Girl on the Train
2016★ 6.4
Rachel Watson, devastated by her recent divorce, spends her daily commute fantasizing about the seemingly perfect couple who live in a house that her train passes every day, until one morning she sees something shocking happen there and becomes entangled in the mystery that unfolds.