Best movies like Breathing Lessons

Two college students share a ride home for the holidays. When they break down on a deserted stretch of road, they're preyed upon by the ghosts of people who have died there.

After precipitating the death of a tenant with whom he has been feuding, Squire Fairfield brings the dead man's young daughter to live in Wyvern Manor. Alice grows up thinking the squire is her kind benefactor, and falls in love with one of his two sons.

Henry Soames owns a rural diner, and has befriended Willard Freud and Callie Wells. One day Willard and Callie get the news that Callie is pregnant, and Willard splits. Henry takes in Callie, and helps her through the pregnancy. They fall in love and get married. All is going well until Willard is back from the road and wants the baby.

When James admits to his mother that he is gay it strains her liberal attitude. A San Diego businesswoman, Audrey believes she is a modern, open-minded mother, but the news sends her reeling. However, the real shock comes when James asks her to travel to Arkansas and inform his lover's estranged mom, Luanne, that her son has AIDS. As Audrey and Luanne learn to put aside their prejudice toward each other, they soon discover how to share their thoughts, hopes and fears for their sons.

The adventures of married couple Henry and Nancy Clark, vexed by misfortune while in New York City for Henry's job interview.

Set in early 1900s France, a widow renews a former romantic interest until it is discovered that he has had a past fling with one of her new employees, a nanny. This sets the two women into many well-mannered accusations and conversations, but no modern brawling, and puts him in the middle or possibly on the outside.

Sunny Holiday, a middle-aged country singer with dreams of stardom, walks out on his wife and child and hits the road with his manager in a desperate search for fame and fortune... and to get far away from the past he's left behind.

Verona and Burt have moved to Colorado to be close to Burt's parents but, with Veronica expecting their first child, Burt's parents decide to move to Belgium, now leaving them in a place they hate and without a support structure in place. They set off on a whirlwind tour of of disparate locations where they have friends or relatives, sampling not only different cities and climates but also different families. Along the way they realize that the journey is less about discovering where they want to live and more about figuring out what type of parents they want to be.

When his SUV breaks down on a remote Southwestern road, Jeff Taylor lets his wife, Amy, hitch a ride with a trucker to get help. When she doesn't return, Jeff fixes his SUV and tracks down the trucker -- who tells the police he's never seen Amy. Johnathan Mostow's tense thriller then follows Jeff's desperate search for his wife, which eventually uncovers a small town's murderous secret.

Sylvie and Maggie are strangers living on opposite coasts, leading very similar lives with husbands that travel for work too much and daughters about to leave the nest. But when their daughters befriend each other on a college tour, they soon discover a shocking secret that threatens to tear both families apart.

Three girlhood friends now at college share first loves, first kisses and first betrayals. At the center of it all is the best-looking boy on campus. Can a self-conscious dreamer hook the biggest fish in the pond?

Three friends get together and bury a box making a pact to open it at midnight at their high school graduation. In the little town in Georgia that they live in, things soon change. One is little miss perfect, one is an engaged prom queen, and the other is a pregnant outcast. The night of graduation, they open the box and they strike up a conversation. All of a sudden, one brings up the topic of her going to Los Angeles for a record contract audition. They all decide to go together and they leave. With a little money, they set out on the road with a guy named Ben. When one of them tells the other a rumor that he might be a homicidal maniac they are all scared of him. When they reach LA, Lucy falls in love with Ben and against her father's wishes, she stays and she goes to the audition.

Meg, Pippa, and Hillary are sisters who grew up in Sorrento, a small seaside town in Australia. Meg, who has lived in England for 10 years has just written a criticially acclaimed novel which she claims is entirely fictional. The book causes a stir in Sorrento and in her family when it is supected that the book is not as fictional as she claims.

A mother (in her Minivan) stops at nothing to recover her kidnapped son.

While driving through the New Mexico Desert during a rainy night, the college students Jim Halsey and his girlfriend Grace Andrews give a ride to the hitchhiker John Ryder. While in their car, the stranger proves to be a psychopath threatening the young couple with a knife, but Jim succeeds to throw him out of the car on the road. On the next morning, the young couple sees John in another car.

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.

Driving to a music festival in Ireland, a young couple gets trapped in a country maze on their way to a remote hotel, where an unidentifiable sinister force torments them.

All but abandoned by her family in a London retirement hotel, an elderly woman strikes up a curious friendship with a young writer.

Dorian and Angus chase down their womanizing stepfather with a helicopter, frightening him to death. In his effort to cover their tracks, Dorian begins investigating his stepfather's mistress, Sally. She works at a fast-food drive-through, she's pregnant and Dorian quickly falls in love with her. Unfortunately, his scheming mother wants Sally dead. And Sally isn't sure she wants Dorian to be her child's father and also his brother.

Self-described misanthrope Elle Reid has her protective bubble burst when her 18-year-old granddaughter, Sage, shows up needing help. The two of them go on a day-long journey that causes Elle to come to terms with her past and Sage to confront her future.

Darly, a waitress with a past that's weighing her down, decides to drive to Alaska to try and come to terms with her unfortunate history. Along the way, she meets Marianne, an impulsive young woman leaving an abusive relationship. The two hit the road together and keep driving north, bonding over the hardships that they have endured and meeting a number of eccentric characters as they get closer to their destination.

After being released from a psychiatric institution, a man tries to redeem himself in the eyes of his now-ex wife from the events that led up to his incarceration.

Blanche Dubois goes to visit her pregnant sister and husband Stanley in New Orleans. Stanley doesn't like her, and starts pushing her for information on some property he know was left to the sisters. He discovers she has mortgaged the place and spent all the money, and wants to find out all he can about her. Even more friction develops between the two while they are in the apartment together...

In New York City, Thom is broke and jobless, illegally working as a taxi driver. Claire is a successful business-woman, but personally she's in shambles - then comes the phone call that her estranged father is in the hospital. Not knowing what to do, Claire hops in Thom's cab and orders him to just drive and so he does. They find themselves in Pennsylvania and Claire makes the rash decision to drive across the country to California. On the road, there are many detours as the obstacles and secrets force them to learn about themselves and each other.

Rita, a middle aged New York City homemaker, finds herself in an emotional crisis which forces her to re-examine her life, as well as her relationships with her mother, her eye doctor husband, her alienated daughter and estranged son.

Grace is excited for the summer so she can start a business with her friends, but things take an unexpected turn when her mom announces a trip to Paris. There, Grace must learn to get along with her French cousin, Sylvie, and she finds unexpected inspiration for her business. Then, Grace finds out her grandparents bakery, that inspired her to start a business, is closing. Can she and her friends find a way to save it?

Alfred is 64. He's lost touch with his family and a threat to his health makes him realise he wants to make amends. The more he tries to do right, the more he does wrong, and as his past comes back to haunt him, he is forced to face up to what his life means to him. Rounding Up Donkeys is the second film in Sigma and Zentropa's three feature film concept 'Advance Party'.

Two parents fall in love over the course of a single day while playing hooky from their children's college tour.

When Dot's granddaughter puts her into a nursing home, Stella stages a breakout, and takes Dot to Canada so they can get married. They pick up a hitchhiker along the way.

Finding his only escape in music, Gil Blackwell (Josh Hamilton) decides to leave his monotonous business life in Boston when his cousin dies in a car accident. Gil ignores his father's disapproval and takes the family's antique truck for the promised land of California, but on the way a chance encounter reunites him with an old college flame, Genevieve (Fried Green Tomatoes' Mary Stuart Masterson), who joins his journey.

An amnesiac wanders the streets of Manhattan, trying to solve the mystery of who he is.

The Ryries have suffered a loss: the death of a baby just fifty-seven hours after his birth. Without words to express their grief, the parents, John and Ricky, try to return to their previous lives. The couple's children, ten-year-old Biscuit and thirteen-year-old Paul, responding to the unnamed tensions around them, begin to act out in exquisitely idiosyncratic ways. But as the family members scatter into private, isolating grief, an unexpected visitor arrives, and they find themselves growing more alert to the hurt, humor, warmth, and burdens of others—to the grief that is part of every human life but that also carries within it the power to draw us together.

When Sarah Cain, a self-involved big-city newspaper columnist, travels to Pennsylvania for the funeral of her Amish sister, she soon discovers that she is the legal guardian of her five Amish nieces and nephews. Rather than choose to move to Lancaster County to finish raising them there herself, or let them be separated by the foster care system, Sarah decides to take them with her back to Portland where she believes she can make a new life for them. However, she soon realizes that the modern world has forced them to compromise who they are, and that she has moved them there for all the wrong reasons - a motive which is soon exposed - because secrets can really never be kept secret. In order to find her own redemption, she knows she must make a choice to give them back their lives in Amish Country. And whether she remains part of their lives will have a lot to do with how much she has grown to love them.

Thirty-something Elizabeth must decide whether to salvage her disappointing relationship with Drew. Meanwhile, Bea, a worrisome teenager, reconnects with her introverted childhood friend, Andy, at their high school prom. Past and present collide as two couples explore love over the course of one night at a hotel.

Old college chums get together for a weekend reunion that is bound to open old wounds and perhaps heal them. New romances find a spark while old ones rekindle.

A cantankerous widower (Garner) who is virtually living the life of a recluse is forced to rejoin his community when his Godchild (Skaggs) gets in trouble and a childhood friend (Cobbs), a black tenant farmer, refuses to belatedly accept a Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery in World War II.

A young couple faces the realities of life with their child who is diagnosed with AIDS.

After experiencing several stressful situations within a short time — including the failure of the family business and the loss of her mother — Janet Broderick becomes ill. Falling into a deep sleep, she dreams of returning to her hometown, taking her children with her to meet her deceased loved ones. Perhaps, during a Christmas reunion with her beloved family, she will find the answer to coping with her troubles.

A young man, Pat, visits the clan of gypsy-like grifters (Irish Travellers) in rural North Carolina from whom he is descended. He is at first rejected, but cousin Bokky takes him on as an apprentice. Pat learns the game while Bokky falls in love and desires a different life. Written by Jeff Hole

Fly-on-the-wall treatment of an ordinary day in the life of a prisoner in Stalin's Gulag. Closely adapted from Solzhenitsyn's classic novel based on his own experiences. Shot entirely on location in northern Norway

Diane is a struggling single mom in LA. Just when things are at their worst, but she will have to live in small town USA for a year and take care of a dog for a year before the house is hers.

While looking for paradise, a cab driver suddenly falls in love.

After the death of his father, a former football star reunites with the family that he abandoned years earlier.

Two college friends, now in their thirties, admire each others' lives and feel trapped in their own. Wes, tied to a demanding career and responsibilities to family, extends a work trip to drag his dispirited artist friend Luke to find Luke's "one that got away."

Karen Cooper wants to domineer her family and believes she's its pillar. In fact she does everything wrong. Thus she messes up all their lives and futures, rather then help her loved-ones.

Travis McGee is a world-weary private eye trying to help boat skipper friend Van Harder salvage his reputation that sank when his boat ran aground, resulting in a death that might have been faked.

This story tells those self-denials of an honest man what necessary to reach his object of life.

A man in the final stages of AIDS is cared for by his sister and mother and grandmother.

Etta Berter is a doctor's wife in 1905 who has been unable to have children. The couple has one adopted daughter but she has always wanted more children. Julie Harris's character is the family's cook and close companion to their daughter. Her granddaughter is the family's maid. When a visiting friend of Etta's arrives for a visit both she and the maid are attracted to him. When he seems to prefer the younger woman (the maid) the other woman is very jealous and when the maid becomes pregnant by him the older woman vows to make that child her own.

First in a series of anthology films dealing with Christians who put their lives on the line to help rescue Jews from the Holocaust. In the first of two short films, "Mamusha," as the Nazis invade her country, a Polish Catholic housekeeper takes under her wing the youngster in the Jewish family for whom she is employed, and shepherds him through WWII in hopes of ultimately getting him repatriated to Palestine. In "Woman on a Bicycle," an unmarried French woman is pressed into service by the church to distribute underground communication pamphlets for the Resistance and ultimately ends up helping the church shelter 19 Jews.