Best movies like Everything Is Illuminated

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A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Everything Is Illuminated Starring Elijah Wood, Eugene Hutz, Boris Leskin, Jana Hrabětova, and more. If you liked Everything Is Illuminated then you may also like: Unstrung Heroes, Voyage of the Damned, The Way, The World According to Garp, On the Road 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.

A young Jewish American man endeavors—with the help of eccentric, distant relatives—to find the woman who saved his grandfather during World War II—in a Ukrainian village which was ultimately razed by the Nazis.

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Unstrung Heroes

Steven Lidz, unhappy with his home life since his mother became sick, moves in with his two eccentric uncles. As Steven grows closer to his uncles, he learns how to cope with his emotions and to value his own uniqueness.

Voyage of the Damned

A luxury liner carries Jewish refugees from Hitler's Germany in a desperate fight for survival.

The Way

When his son dies while hiking the famed Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route in the Pyrenees, Tom flies to France to claim the remains. Looking for insights into his estranged child’s life, he decides to complete the 500-mile mountain trek to Spain. Tom soon joins up with other travelers and realizes they’re all searching for something.

The World According to Garp

A struggling young writer finds his life and work dominated by his unfaithful wife and his radical feminist mother, whose best-selling manifesto turns her into a cultural icon.

On the Road

Dean and Sal are the portrait of the Beat Generation. Their search for "It" results in a fast paced, energetic roller coaster ride with highs and lows throughout the U.S.

The Road Within

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

Running with Scissors

Young Augusten Burroughs absorbs experiences that could make for a shocking memoir: the son of an alcoholic father and an unstable mother, he's handed off to his mother's therapist, Dr. Finch, and spends his adolescent years as a member of Finch's bizarre extended family.

About Schmidt

A recently retired man embarks on a journey to his estranged daughter's wedding, only to discover more about himself and life than he ever expected.

The Accidental Tourist

After the death of his son, travel writer Macon Leary seems to be sleep walking through life. Macon's wife is having similar problems. They separate, and Macon meets a strange, outgoing woman who brings him 'back down to earth', but his wife soon thinks their marriage is still worth another try.

Arizona Dream

An Innuit hunter races his sled home with a fresh-caught halibut. This fish pervades the entire film, in real and imaginary form. Meanwhile, Axel tags fish in New York as a naturalist's gofer. He's happy there, but a messenger arrives to bring him to Arizona for his uncle's wedding. It's a ruse to get Axel into the family business. In Arizona, Axel meets two odd women: vivacious, needy, and plagued by neuroses and familial discord. He gets romantically involved with one, while the other, rich but depressed, plays accordion tunes to a gaggle of pet turtles

Away We Go

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.

Broken Flowers

As the devoutly single Don Johnston is dumped by his latest girlfriend, he receives an anonymous pink letter informing him that he has a son who may be looking for him.

Up

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.

Cold Fever

A Japanese businessman travels to Iceland and has a series of misadventures while venturing to a remote area to perform a traditional burial ritual where his parents died several years back.

Committed

After her husband, Carl, suddenly leaves, Joline travels from New York to Texas to track him down. Although Joline tries to remain upbeat, she is discouraged when she discovers that Carl already has a new girlfriend, the lovely Carmen. Familiarizing herself with Carl's new home and friends, Joline gets company in the form of her brother, Jay. Will Joline win Carl back, or are there other romantic possibilities on her horizon?

Paper Moon

During the Great Depression, a con man finds himself saddled with a young girl—who may or may not be his daughter—and the two forge an unlikely partnership.

Driving Miss Daisy

The story of an old Jewish widow named Daisy Werthan and her relationship with her black chauffeur, Hoke. From an initial mere work relationship grew in 25 years a strong friendship between the two very different characters in a time when those types of relationships where shunned.

Dandelion

In a small town of rolling fields and endless skies, isolated 16 year old Mason lives in a world where families exist in fragmented silence and love seems to have gone missing. Then Mason meets Danny, a sensitive and troubled girl, and their tender bond is soon tested after a fatal accident and a series of complications takes Mason away for something he didn't do.

The Man in the Glass Booth

Arthur Goldman is a rich Jewish industrialist, living in luxury in a Manhattan high-rise. He banters with his assistant Charlie, often shocking Charlie with his outrageousness and irreverence about aspects of Jewish life. Nonetheless, Charlie is astonished when, one day, Israeli secret agents burst in and arrest Goldman for being not a Jewish businessman but a Nazi war criminal. Whisked to Israel for trial, Goldman forces his accusers to face not only his presumed guilt--but their own.

The Man Who Cried

A young refugee travels from Russia to America in search of her lost father and falls in love with a gypsy horseman.

Diamonds

Mystery about an ex-prizefighter who embarks on a journey to find 13 missing diamonds

Enemies, a Love Story

A ghostwriter finds himself romantically involved with his current wife, a married woman and his long-vanished wife.

6.7 / 10 1985 Comedy Drama
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Fandango

Five college buddies from the University of Texas circa 1971 embark on a final road trip odyssey across the Mexican border before facing up to uncertain futures, in Vietnam and otherwise.

Garden State

Andrew returns to his hometown for the funeral of his mother, a journey that reconnects him with past friends. The trip coincides with his decision to stop taking his powerful antidepressants. A chance meeting with Sam - a girl also suffering from various maladies - opens up the possibility of rekindling emotional attachments, confronting his psychologist father, and perhaps beginning a new life.

Pieces of April

Quirky and rebellious April Burns lives with her boyfriend in a low-rent New York City apartment miles away from her emotionally distant family. But when she discovers that her mother has a fatal form of breast cancer, she invites the clan to her place for Thanksgiving. While her father struggles to drive her family into the city, April -- an inexperienced cook -- runs into kitchen trouble and must ask a neighbor for help.

Madeline

Horrified at the prospect of her beloved school being sold, a young French girl named Madeline uses her wit and craftiness to attempt to save it, making an unlikely new friend in the process.

Housekeeping

In the Pacific Northwest during the 1950s, two young sisters whose mother has abandoned them wind up living with their Aunt Sylvie, whose views of the world and its conventions don't quite live up to most people's expectations.

Liberty Heights

This semi-autobiographical film by Barry Levinson follows various members of the Kurtzman clan, a Jewish family living in suburban Baltimore during the 1950s. As teenaged Ben completes high school, he falls for Sylvia, a black classmate, creating inevitable tensions. Meanwhile, Ben's brother, Van, attends college and becomes smitten with a mysterious woman while their father tries to maintain his burlesque business.

Gerontophilia

Lake is in a straight relationship with Desiree but finds himself becoming attracted to men at the pool. When he cannot control his desires any longer, he starts working at an adult home and begins a relationship with a much, much older man.

The Education of Little Tree

Little Tree is an 8-year-old Cherokee boy, who, during the time of the depression, loses his parents and starts to live with his Indian grandma and grandpa and learn the wisdom of the Cherokee way of life.

Ida

Anna, a young novitiate in 1960s Poland, is on the verge of taking her vows when she discovers a family secret dating back to the years of the German occupation.

Land of Plenty

After living abroad, Lana returns to the United States, and finds that her uncle is a reclusive vagabond with psychic wounds from the Vietnam War.

Left Luggage

While escaping from Nazis during the WWII, a Jewish man dug suitcases full of things dear to his heart in the ground two. The war deprived him of his family, and afterwards he endlessly turns over the soil of Antwerp to find the suitcases, which makes him look obsessed. He keeps checking old maps and keeps digging, trying to find, in fact, those he lost. His daughter Chaya is a beautiful modern girl looking for a part-time job. She finds a place as a nanny in the strictly observant Chassidic family with many children, although her secular manners clearly fly in the face of many commandments. One of the reasons she is accepted is that mother of the family is absolutely overburdened by the household, so she stays despite the resistance of the father, normally - an indisputable authority in the family. She develops a special bond with the youngest of the boys, four-year old Simcha, so far incapable of speaking.

The Motorcycle Diaries

Based on the journals of Che Guevara, leader of the Cuban Revolution. In his memoirs, Guevara recounts adventures he and best friend Alberto Granado had while crossing South America by motorcycle in the early 1950s.

Smoke Signals

Young Native American man Thomas is a nerd in his reservation, wearing oversize glasses and telling everyone stories no-one wants to hear. His parents died in a fire in 1976, and Thomas was saved by Arnold. Arnold soon left his family, and Victor hasn't seen his father for 10 years. When Victor hears Arnold has died, Thomas offers him funding for the trip to get Arnold's remains.

The Station Agent

When his only friend dies, a man born with dwarfism moves to rural New Jersey to live a life of solitude, only to meet a chatty hot dog vendor and a woman dealing with her own personal loss.

Stranger Than Paradise

A Hungarian immigrant, his friend, and his cousin go on an unpredictable adventure across America.

Tumbleweeds

Whenever trouble strikes in one of her relationships, single mother Mary Jo Walker and her daughter, Ava, pack up and move to another city, a routine Ava is tiring of. This time, they are helped on their move to San Diego by trucker Jack Ranson. While Ava settles in, getting a leading part in the school play, Jack starts dating Mary Jo but soon reveals himself to be controlling and aggressive. Mary Jo prepares to flee again, angering Ava.

Honkytonk Man

During the Great Depression, a young boy leaves his family's Oklahoma farm to travel with his country musician uncle who is trying out for the Grand Ole Opry.

Paper Boys

A ragtag bunch of teenage door to door salesmen wreak havoc and spread the news of their coming of age in this summer before they begin their college lives. It centers around Sean, a sexually confused and drug afflicted teen who just can't seem to shake off his dysfunctional family history. Paper Boys is an adventure into the psychology of sales as a metaphor for life as these young "Glengarry Glen Ross" wannabes terrorize a suburban neighborhood near everyone!

Roommates

An elderly, yet young-at-heart man, moves in with his grandson, and both their lives turn upside-down.

With Honors

Convinced he'll graduate with honors because of his thesis paper, a stuffy Harvard student finds his paper being held hostage by a homeless man, who might be the guy to school the young man in life.

The Chosen

In a 1940s New York, two Jewish teenage boys are determined to remain friends despite the deep differences between their two families.

Around the Bend

A tale of four generations of men, all of whom have had their offspring at a young age: a great-grandfather, a grandfather, a father in his twenties and a son who is about 7 years old. When the oldest member passes away, the trio heads out on the road together in the Southwest to search out an old family secret that connects to their past.

Eat a Bowl of Tea

An American-Chinese man brings over his wife from China to America, but the challenges of making a living and adjusting to a new life, plus the attentions of a gambler threaten their marriage.

The Darjeeling Limited

Three American brothers who have not spoken to each other in a year set off on a train voyage across India with a plan to find themselves and bond with each other -- to become brothers again like they used to be. Their "spiritual quest", however, veers rapidly off-course (due to events involving over-the-counter pain killers, Indian cough syrup, and pepper spray).

Goin' Down the Road

Two friends travel from Nova Scotia to Toronto in hope of finding a better life.

Full Grown Men

A man stuck in the reveries of his youth tracks down the boyhood friend he once tormented, only to find that simpler times were more complicated than he thought.

A Texas Funeral

It's 1968 and the Whit clan are reuniting for the burial of Grandpa Sparta (Martin Sheen). But Sparta still has some secrets to reveal to his family and wisdom to impart to his grandson, in this whimsical comedy from the writer of The Bourne Identity.

Friendship!

A young man from East Germany travels to San Francisco to search for his father, who fled 12 years ago. Together with his best friend, he starts the journey from New York with no money and the only word they ever learned in english-lessons: "friendship".

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