Best movies like Dream House

Urge to Build is a 1981 American short documentary film directed by Roland Hallé about individuals building their own homes. They share the experience and the different phases of construction, providing a background for more human issues: stress, confidence, and control of one's own life. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

A photographer falls for a rich girl and gets mixed up with crooks.

Mabel Longhetti, desperate and lonely, is married to a Los Angeles municipal construction worker, Nick. Increasingly unstable, especially in the company of others, she craves happiness, but her extremely volatile behavior convinces Nick that she poses a danger to their family and decides to commit her to an institution for six months. Alone with a trio of kids to raise on his own, he awaits her return, which holds more than a few surprises.

Hired to helm an Americanized take on a British play, director Lloyd Fellowes does his best to control an eccentric group of stage actors. With a star actress quickly passing her prime, a male lead with no confidence, and a bit actor that's rarely sober, chaos ensues in the lead up to a Broadway premiere.

Sick of suburbia, Natalie and Richard Newman move to rural Vermont, where they expect the unspoiled setting and intrinsic values to rejuvenate their marriage. Natalie wants to start a family; Richard, who has grown children from a first marriage, does not. As a compromise they build a trophy house. The construction of the dreamhouse inevitably leads to a visit from the local tax assessor (lister). Enter George Lyford, a lister and farmer, who over the course of two inspections, develops a flirtation with Natalie, which results in his becoming her handyman. Description above from the Wikipedia article Nosey Parker, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

A construction foreman conducts his workers like a symphony orchestra as they build a skyscraper to Franz Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2."

Newlyweds Nick and Suzanne decide to move to the suburbs to provide a better life for their two kids. But their idea of a dream home is disturbed by a contractor with a bizarre approach to business.

In this film based on a Neil Simon play, newlyweds Corie, a free spirit, and Paul Bratter, an uptight lawyer, share a sixth-floor apartment in Greenwich Village. Soon after their marriage, Corie tries to find a companion for mother, Ethel, who is now alone, and sets up Ethel with neighbor Victor. Inappropriate behavior on a double date causes conflict, and the young couple considers divorce.

The brief life of Jean Michel Basquiat, a world renowned New York street artist struggling with fame, drugs and his identity.

Carl Fredricksen spent his entire life dreaming of exploring the globe and experiencing life to its fullest. But at age 78, life seems to have passed him by, until a twist of fate (and a persistent 8-year old Wilderness Explorer named Russell) gives him a new lease on life.

Zora Banks is a school teacher and aspiring singer hoping to become a successful star while taking a break from heartache. Franklin Swift is a down-on-his-luck construction worker and not-quite divorced father of two hoping to start his own business. The two meet and fall in love and during the course of the stormy relationship, they both come to some startling conclusions about love and each other.

An advertising executive dreams of getting out of the city and building a perfect home in the country, only to find the transition fraught with problems.

Detroit’s story has encapsulated the iconic narrative of America over the last century – the Great Migration of African Americans escaping Jim Crow; the rise of manufacturing and the middle class; the love affair with automobiles; the flowering of the American dream; and now… the collapse of the economy and the fading American mythos.

Niccolo "Mac" Vitelli is the eldest of three brothers in 1950s Queens. Mac is a construction builder, a trade he learned from his late father, and helps put his brothers on the job. When they can no longer take working for Polowski, who does shoddy work and is abusive to his staff, Mac and his brothers set up their own company. Together, Vitelli Brothers Construction builds houses with pride and care. But Mac turns out to be an overbearing workaholic, with obsessive concern about the quality of their work and incredible attention to detail. His intensity and driven ambition precludes a happy family life and begins to drive his brothers away.

After being discharged from the 372nd infantry, on account of a bean shortage, smithy seeks employment. He finds a job on a construction site, where he helps to build a house, and soon causes havoc amongst the other workers. The construction company owner leaves for a week, and tells his secretary to send a letter to Mr. Smith telling him to complete the construction of the house while he (the owner) is away. The letter is accidently sent to Smithy who manages to complete the house. When the owner returns the house is complete, and Smithy is commended until the last support beam is removed...

Nino Culotta is an Italian immigrant, newly arrived in Australia, and attempts to understand the aspirational values and social rituals of everyday urban Australians of the 1950s and '60s.... and assimilate.

Prophetic nightmares precede a family's confrontation with an evil, unseen force.

Entropy is the semi-autobiographical film by director which tells the story of a young director struggling to make a film for a despotic studio while his life falls apart around him. Along the way, he goes on tour with U2 to help them make a music video, gets married in Vegas, and has a conversation with his cat.

World-famous architect Louis Kahn (Exeter Library, Salk Institute, Bangladeshi Capitol Building) had two illegitimate children with two different women outside of his marriage. Son Nathaniel always hoped that someday his father would come and live with him and his mother, but Kahn never left his wife. Instead, Kahn was found dead in a men's room in Penn Station when Nathaniel was only 11.

A movie producer who made a huge flop tries to salvage his career by revamping his film as an erotic production, where its family-friendly star takes her top off.

When a couple sets out to build their dream house, they enlist the services of an uncompromising modernist architect, who proceeds to build HIS dream house instead of theirs.

A carpenter, who was executed in the electric chair, comes back to finish his dream house, now inhabited by a young married couple.

Scott Barnes is an alcoholic turned social worker hellbent on saving a young boy named Tommy from self-destructing when he finds out he has begun selling crack in an organization called YIP, run by Carlos.

After runaway Ben Young is robbed and left on his own, he is taken in by Lil, the head of a Chicago brothel. Acting as a surrogate mother for Ben, who thinks she runs a boardinghouse, Lil gets him a job with Francis Sullivan at the local newspaper. As Ben is exposed to the workings of the big city, he realizes the extent of government corruption and sets out on the daunting task of reforming Chicago politics, finding several allies along the way.

The year is 1979. The man is Mac McPherson (Earl Owensby), a construction worker who is headed toward a new job in Georgia. A tough but good man, McPherson is framed for murder and sentenced to the famous Black Creek Prison Farm, from which there is no escape...

Four troubled, inner city kids get a western-style shot at redemption when a cowboy pastor invites them to his country ranch and offers them a chance to put their lives in perspective. Korina, Rey, Anthony, and Marcus all grew up on the streets. Every decision they make in that volatile environment could affect the rest of their lives. Pastor John Gunn (John Schneider) runs the Power Company Kids' ministry, an organization dedicated to giving at-risk kids the tools they need to build brighter futures. He's convinced that the four teens would benefit from going back to the basics and experiencing the cowboy lifestyle, and with a little help from ranch owners Randy and Heidi Gunn, Pastor Gunn shows the kids that there's much more to life than hustling on the streets. Though reluctant to participate at first, the kids quickly adjust to their new surroundings as their eyes are opened to a whole new world of opportunity.

Against the backdrop of New York and New Orleans, Elliott, Leanne and Jermaine question their ability to dream amidst a crumbling economic climate. Opening in the streets of downtown Manhattan, Elliott (23), living at home after college, is surrounded by incomplete projects, frustrated and in search of purpose. Simultaneously, in New Orleans, Leanne (26), an aspiring model/actress and single mother of four, struggles to pick up the pieces, presenting at times a clash between family and her ambitious career. Plagued by an unforgiving criminal record, Jermaine (22), a New Orleans native, shifts through his home town for what seems like a hopeless attempt at legal employment. After a series of rejections, he resolves to reinvent himself in hopes of successfully starting anew.

Daddy Daughter Trip tells the story of 2nd grader who dreams of a fun-filled spring break vacation her family can’t afford. Against the better judgement of her mom and with only coins in their pockets, her dreamer father decides to take her on a spring break trip anyway.

After getting dumped for the 11th time in a row, Frankie discovers that she has a "loser in love" gene, which predisposes her to chronic failure and rejection for the rest of her life. She decides to embark on a quest to change her romantic future.

A lonely plumber poses as a movie director to meet women, and the writer whose script he's stolen builds on his ruse to get her movie made.

Vicki Meredith, an American ballet student in Paris, falls in love with Randall Williams, another American studying architecture in Paree, and they set up some light housekeeping together until she learns that Randall has forgotten to mention that he has a wife back in the USA. This miffs Vicki to the point where she ups and heads for South America where she meets and falls in love with Philip Fletcher, a construction engineer from America. But he hustles off to build Boulder Dam. They meet again in New York City and discover their separation has made their love even stronger. Then, Randall and his wife show up and sophistication rears its ugly head.

"The World Trade Center: Rise and Fall of an American Icon" discusses the planning, construction, collapse, recovery, and cleanup of the buildings in the aftermath of their destruction by an act of Islamic terrorism.

In God's Country is a modern day story of slavery. Young women ignored by the police and protected by "freedom of religion" are trapped in polygamous communities scattered throughout North America. Judith Joseph is one of them. Despite being raised under the watchful eyes of "God's Keepers" and knowing no other life, Judith realises she cannot watch her sixteen year old daughter succumb to the same fate she was born into. Desperate, with no other resources and no connections, Judith sets her house on fire and escapes with her five children. Alone, on the "outside", Judith is ill equipped to handle the challenges facing her, but she's determined to build a life.

Cowboy Bill sells his prize dogs to pay Janet's way back to New York and, in love with the girl, follows her to Manhattan where he obtains a job as a construction worker.