Best movies like Arcadia

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Arcadia Starring Ryan Simpkins, John Hawkes, Kendall Toole, Ty Simpkins, and more. If you liked Arcadia then you may also like: The Way Way Back, The Winter Guest, Radiator, Johnson Family Vacation, Josh and S.A.M. and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

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Greta's dad Tom is moving the family cross-country in a dented station wagon, promising a California paradise to his kids. All that's missing is Mom.

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The Way Way Back

Shy 14-year-old Duncan goes on summer vacation with his mother, her overbearing boyfriend, and her boyfriend's daughter. Having a rough time fitting in, Duncan finds an unexpected friend in Owen, manager of the Water Wizz water park.

The Winter Guest

It's winter in a small Scottish village near the sea, and multiple lives intersect in a day. Frances has just lost her husband to an early death, so her mother, Elspeth, travels to Frances' house to reconnect with her daughter and grandson, Alex. Meanwhile, old women Chloe and Lily go to a funeral, youngsters Sam and Tom cut class, and Alex gets a crush on tomboy Nita.

Radiator

A moving, blackly comic drama about the strains in coping with ageing parents.

Johnson Family Vacation

Nate Johnson, a Los Angeles man estranged from his wife and three children, decides to reconnect with his family by taking them with him on a road trip to Missouri for a big family reunion.

Josh and S.A.M.

Josh and Sam are two brothers facing change, their mother is about to marry a French accountant and the kids are sent to go live with their father in Florida. Meanwhile, Josh tells Sam that he is a "S.A.M." that is going to be sent to Africa to fight in a war and that Canada is a safe haven for any S.A.M. unwilling to fight. Will Josh & S.A.M. make it to Canada or will they wish they should have never left home?

Accidents Happen

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

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

After her husband dies, Alice and her son, Tommy, leave their small New Mexico town for California, where Alice hopes to make a new life for herself as a singer. Money problems force them to settle in Arizona instead, where Alice takes a job as waitress in a small diner.

American Flyers

When Dr. Marcus Sommers realizes that he and his troubled, estranged brother David may be prone a fatal brain disease that runs in their family, he decides to make peace with his sibling, and invites him on a trip to the Rockies. There, the brothers bond over their shared enthusiasm for cycling and decide to enter a grueling bike race through the mountains. However, Marcus' health soon begins to fail, and David must compete without his brother at his side.

An American Rhapsody

A Hungarian family forced to flee the Communist country for the United States, must leave a young daughter behind. Six years later the family arranges to bring the absent daughter to the United States where she has trouble adjusting. The daughter then decides to travel to Budapest to discover her identity.

Mom, Dad and Her

Sydney is a troubled teen heading for trouble. After being caught shoplifting and a case of alcohol poisoning, Sydney's desperate single mother sends her off to the country to live with her father, Ben, and his new pregnant wife, Emma. Sydney misses her boyfriend, her city life and doesn't get on with her dad or stepmom. Slowly she starts to settle in as she makes friends with Jess, a local girl whose mother died of cancer. Sydney makes a couple of mistakes but after her grandfather's death the extended family start to heal.

7.9 / 10 1995 Drama Family
suggested by: user8841310driw

The Cure

Erik, a loner, finds a friend in Dexter, an eleven-year-old boy with AIDS. They vow to find a cure for AIDS together and save Dexter's life in an eventful summer.

Everybody's Fine

Eight months after the death of his wife, Frank Goode looks forward to a reunion with his four adult children. When all of them cancel their visits at the last minute, Frank, against the advice of his doctor, sets out on a road trip to reconnect with his offspring. As he visits each one in turn, Frank finds that his children's lives are not quite as picture-perfect as they've made them out to be.

Easy Rider: The Ride Back

In this revisionist drama, the film delves into the family lineage of Wyatt Williams, the character made famous by Peter Fonda in the original Easy Rider Movie. Centering around the Williams family, and their internal family struggles throughout the eras of the 40's to present day, as they struggle to connect with one another through the only way they know how. Their love of motorcycles and the freedom of the ride.

Father Hood

Deadbeat dad kidnaps his kids from the bus to an abusive foster home and they go on a run. The cops are after them, they bicker constantly and his idea of a way out is grim, yet this dangerous ride might just turn them into a family.

Slums of Beverly Hills

In 1976, a lower-middle-class teenager struggles to cope living with her neurotic family of nomads on the outskirts of Beverly Hills.

Sleepwalking

When her boyfriend is arrested for marijuana possession, Joleen Reedy and her 11-year-old daughter, Tara, take refuge with Joleen's aimless brother, James. Joleen soon runs off with a truck driver, and James is unable to meet his responsibilities. After Child Protective Services takes possession of Tara, James abducts her from a foster home, and the two travel from California to Utah, where his abusive father lives.

Girl in Progress

As single mom Grace juggles work, bills, and her affair with a married doctor, her daughter, Ansiedad, plots a shortcut to adulthood after finding inspiration in the coming-of-age stories she's reading for school.

Grown Up Movie Star

The story of Ruby, 13, determined to grow up fast after her mother runs away to become a movie star, leaving Ruby with her hopelessly rural father.

Heavy

Victor is a cook who works in a greasy bar/restaurant owned by his mother, Dolly. It's just the two of them, a waitress named Delores, and a heavy drinking regular, Leo. But things change when Callie, a beautiful college drop-out, shows up as a new waitress and steals Victor's heart. But Victor is too shy to do anything about it, and too self-consciously overweight to dream of winning Callie away.

Independence Day

Mary Ann Taylor loves the comforts of her hometown in Mercury, Texas. She has a steady job as a waitress in her father's diner, yet she can't help but feel unfulfilled by a life of pouring coffee and grilling hamburgers. Mary Ann's real passion is photography, but pursuing her dream of becoming a photographer means leaving Mercury behind.

The Parent Trap II

Two best friends plot to get their single parents together to stop one of them from moving to New York.

Transamerica

Bree is about to get a sex reassignment surgery that will finally allow her to actually be what she’s already been in her mind for a long time: a transitioned woman. Yet before this happens she suddenly runs into her son who ends up coming for the trip across the United States.

Two Weeks

In this bittersweet comedy, four adult siblings gather at their dying mother's house in North Carolina for what they expect to be a quick, last goodbye. Instead, they find themselves trapped — together — for two weeks.

Table for Five

J.P. Tannen (Jon Voight) wants a second chance to be a father to his children ... but someone else has taken his place. Determined not to just be a friendly 'uncle' in their lives, he gets permission from his ex-wife Kathleen (Millie Perkins) and her new husband (Richard Crenna) to take the kids on a Mediterranean cruise. On the journey he comes to realise it's not that easy and, feeling overwhelmed, begins to doubt his abilities until a tragedy back home forces him to become the father he always hoped to be.

Four Sheets to the Wind

After his father's untimely suicide, Cufe leaves his home in a Native American reservation in search of a more fulfilling life.

5.6 / 10 2012 Drama
suggested by: ShadowyScallop

For Ellen

After an overnight long-distance drive, Joby has a special meeting—with lawyers and his ex-wife. A struggling musician with the prerequisite tattoos, slimy hair, goatee, and his head firmly floating in the clouds, Joby hasn’t been around to be a dad. Now is his last chance to fight for shared custody of his daughter, Ellen.

Innocents

A traveling cellist gets involved with two disturbed sisters on their way to Seattle to tell their mom that their dad has just passed away. On the way, the two kill a judge and a few others unknown to the cellist. Eventually he gets pinned for the crimes and is forced to defend himself.

Falling Angels

The wickedly funny story of three sisters' coming of age in a wildly dysfunctional family, set against the backdrop of the 60's, free love, the Cold War, LSD and the dawn of feminism. Affectionately dubbed "Little Women on acid", this is a story about the destructive effects of secrecy and the bonds of duty between parents and their children.

Soft Fruit

For the first time in 15 years, all four siblings in a family show up to care for their dying mother, who is only given a couple of weeks to live. One comes from America with her two children. A divorced sister also comes with her child and sneaks off regularly to meet a mystery man who may be her ex-husband. The third & youngest daughter is an unmarried nurse aware of her ticking biological clock. The only son chases after his grumpy father who seems to not care a whit about his wife's circumstances. The four are also faced my their mother's dreams to accomplish a few things before she dies - to visit a beach she had visited in the past, to see her youngest married, and to visit Paris. She also wants to be embalmed and be honored with a 21 gun salute. Thus the whole group has to set off in the quest to fulfill their mother's wishes.

Mommy Is at the Hairdresser's

in the summer of 1966, in Beloeil, Québec, where a young girl named Élise is enjoying summer vacation. Summer 1966. It's time to enjoy the summer holiday, total freedom. Suddenly her mother leaves her family to pursue her journalism career in London. Her urge to leave is triggered when she coincidentally listens in on a conversation between her husband and his male lover. Her brother Coco seeks solace in the garage, building a super racing car. Her youngest brother Benoît throws himself into his own inner world. The father seems absolutely knocked out by the situation. Élise decides to take control of her family, in an eloquent attempt to save them. With the assistance of flourishing nature around her, she stands on the threshold of an incomparable summer.

6.2 / 10 2008 Drama
suggested by: trailblazer

Trucker

Loner Diane Ford is a truck driver with an 11-year-old son, Peter, whom she never sees, and that's fine with her. But, when Peter's father, Len, falls ill, he asks Diane to take care of their son for a while. Eventually, Diane reluctantly agrees, but she quickly realizes that caring for a child interferes with her independent lifestyle - and Peter isn't all that thrilled with the arrangement, either.

5.8 / 10 2014 Thriller Drama
suggested by: user97o5tmkww2

Hellion

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.

Black Irish

In South Boston, where Irish roots run deep and Catholic tradition reigns, two brothers face similar hardships but lead far different lives. While older brother Terry descends into drugs and crime, 16-year-old Cole vies to make the state baseball championships - but must struggle to withstand his brother's destructive influence.

Pontiac Moon

An absent-minded-professor father and his son take off in an old Pontiac to bond during a symbolic road trip through the Western U.S. This while his wife tries to overcome her neuroses to save the family.

Touching Home

The true story about a father struggling to make amends with his twin sons as they pursue their dreams of professional baseball.

6.5 / 10 2006 Drama
suggested by: user442owhvlklb

Canvas

A woman's schizophrenia affects her relationships with her husband and son.

The Overbrook Brothers

Road movie about two brothers who drive to Texas to find out the truth behind their parents.

A Home of Our Own

The story is located in Los Angeles in the sixties. An energetic widow, Frances Lacey, with her six children try to make a dream of theirs come true: to have a home of their own. Therefore they leave Los Angeles and head for the countryside, while facing all kinds of difficulties during their journey.

Seven Alone

A fictionalized account of the real-life adventure of the Sager family. Travelling with a wagon train from Missouri to Oregon, things are going well for the Sagers, until father Sager dies from blood poisoning following an Indian attack, and mother Sager dies soon afterward from pneumonia. The leaders of the wagon train decide to send the children back, but the oldest, John (who had been described by all the adults as lazy and worthless), decides to lead his siblings through the wilderness to complete the journey their parents started.

The Little Kidnappers

Loosely based on a '50's movie of the same name, it tells the story of two young orphan boys who travel by themselves from the Old country to join their father's family in Canada. There they encounter their stern disciplinarian grandfather who has alienated himself from some of his neighbors. There is particularly no love lost between the grandfather and his Dutch neighbors, who he generalizes as being responsible for his son's death in the Boor War. A side product of this animosity is that it is keeping apart the boy's aunt and her Dutch doctor suitor. The two boys change everything though when they find a young baby on the beach...

Free Ride

A single mom in the 1970s raises her two daughters and becomes involved in illegal drug trade to make a better life.

6.1 / 10 2012 Drama
suggested by: lighthearted

Future Weather

Abandoned by her dreamer single mom, a teenage loner becomes obsessed with ecological disaster, forcing her and her grandmother, a functioning alcoholic, to rethink their futures.

7.7 / 10 2001 Drama TV Movie
suggested by: user17lvt31o0i

What Girls Learn

Two teenage girls must come to terms with their stepfather when their mother is struck by illness.

A Bag of Hammers

Two misfit best friends incapable of growing up, whose direction is tested by an abandoned child, worn beyond his years; together they invent the family they've always needed.

6.0 / 10 2011 Drama
suggested by: CosmicCat

The Dynamiter

All fourteen-year-old Robbie Hendrick ever wanted was a family. Yet as another Mississippi summer begins, his wayward mother has run off again fearing a breakdown and he's left to burn the days caring for his half brother, Fess. As the deep days and nights pass without her return and with older brother Lucas dangerously in their lives again, Robbie must face the fact that his dream of a family may only be a dream and he might just lose the only family he's ever had: Fess.

Marine Life

Marine Life revolves around the choatic family life of June, a middle-aged lounge singer and mother. Aging and twice divorced, lounge singer June Nordstrom tries to cope with her fading beauty, her troubled offspring, her waning career and her young lover, who begins seeing a woman his age behind June's back.

Dad's Home

When a widower loses his job, he must become a full-time housekeeper and stay-at-home dad. He gains a new perspective as he gets to know his two kids better and struggles with the household chores, but faces losing it all when he gets a job offer in another city.

5.1 / 10 2010 Drama
suggested by: user772px3faybd

Drunkboat

After twenty years of broken bottles and empty hallways, Mort Gleason witnesses his nephew Moo being beaten while in a drunken stupor. The short contact with family brings Mort back to what are left of his senses and he returns to the last home he remembers in Chicago. His sister Eileen lives in their family home now with her sixteen year old son, Abe. Her older son Moo, the now missing nephew, helped spark Mort's return to his family. Three, four, five weeks pass as Mort waits outside his home and makes a tenuous re-entry into family life. Abe dreams of a sailboat and distant horizons. He saves money and sees an advertisement for the Kathy II. He and his friend calculate a way to buy the vessel from two unscrupulous rogues who make ends meet wholesaling liquor and operating a sometime boatyard.

The King and Queen of Moonlight Bay

A college girl decides to get to know her estranged father before she begins her education, but his life turns out to be nothing that she expected.

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