Best movies like Only When I Laugh
It'll make you laugh...'til you cry.
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Only When I Laugh Starring Marsha Mason, Kristy McNichol, James Coco, Joan Hackett, and more. If you liked Only When I Laugh then you may also like: 28 Days, The Four Seasons, The Year of Getting to Know Us, I Ought to Be in Pictures, One Christmas 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 boozy Broadway actress comes out of a 12-week cure to face the problems of her best friends as well as her needy daughter. She tries to balance the terrors of returning to work with the demands of all around her with humor and insight, while staying off the booze.
Only When I Laugh
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The Four Seasons
Three middle-aged wealthy couples take vacations together in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Along the way we are treated to mid-life, marital, parental and other crises.
The Year of Getting to Know Us
A commitment-phobic man reunites with his estranged, ailing father and comes to terms with his own childhood.
I Ought to Be in Pictures
Grandmother has nothing to say when Libby tells her that she is off to LA to look up Dad, a Hollywood screenwriter. Grandmother has been in a New York cemetery for six years and Dad has been out of Libby's life for 16 of her 19 years. Libby arrives in LA on a Tuesday and phones Dad the one night that Stephanie, who does Jane Fonda's hair, stays over. Stephanie is there the next morning when Libby decides she needs to tell her story face-to-face.
One Christmas
Based on Truman Capote's bittersweet tale of a young boy's adventures with the father he's never known in New Orleans in the 1930s..
Just Between Friends
Holly and Sandy strike up an instant friendship; they don't know however that they have more in common than they'd like. When tragedy strikes, their relationship is tested.
Betsy's Wedding
Offbeat fashion student Betsy Hopper and her straight-laced investment-banker fiancé Jake Lovell just want an intimate little wedding reception, but Betsy's father Eddie, a Long Island construction contractor, feels so threatened by Jake's rich WASP parents that he blows the ceremony up into a bank-breaking showpiece, sending his wife Lola into a financial panic.
Crimes of the Heart
Three sisters try to come to grips with the meaning of their mother's suicide.
Moonlight and Valentino
A young widow still grieving over the death of her husband finds herself being comforted by a local housepainter.
Lost in Yonkers
In the summer of 1942 two young boys are sent to stay with their stern grandmother Kurnitz and their childlike aunt Bella in Yonkers, New York.
Lovers and Other Strangers
Mike Vecchio and Susan Henderson are preparing for their upcoming wedding. However, they seem to be the only two people at the wedding that are happy. Mike's brother Richie and his wife Joan are going through a divorce, which is upsetting his overly devout Catholic mother Beatrice. Also, Susan's father is carrying on an affair and her sex starved older sister Wilma is going through her troubles with her husband Johnny. All this is going on while Mike's best friend Jerry is trying to bed the maid of honor, Susan's cousin Brenda.
The Glass Menagerie
A son longs to escape from his stifling home, where his genteel mother worries about the future prospects of his lame, shy sister.
A Delicate Balance
In their nice Connecticut home, Agnes and Tobias have grown used to the imperfection and fragility of their marriage. Quietly nursing their grief over the death of their son, they get by well enough together. Agnes' boozy sister wanders in and out, and they allow anxiety-stricken friends to move into an upstairs room. But, when their daughter, Julia, shows up announcing her fourth divorce, long-repressed emotions come to the surface.
Disappearing Acts
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.
The Homecoming
In a dreary North London flat, the site of perpetual psychological warfare, a philosophy professor visits his family after a nine-year absence and introduces the four men - father, uncle and two brothers - to his wife.
It Runs in the Family
This is the story of a dysfunctional New York family, and their attempts to reconcile
Long Day's Journey Into Night
Over the course of one day in August 1912, the family of retired actor James Tyrone grapples with the morphine addiction of his wife Mary, the illness of their youngest son Edmund and the alcoholism and debauchery of their older son Jamie. As day turns into night, guilt, anger, despair, and regret threaten to destroy the family.
Max Dugan Returns
An English teacher and struggling single mother has her life disrupted when the father who abandoned her as a child comes back into her life.
Postcards from the Edge
Substance-addicted Hollywood actress, Suzanne Vale is on the skids. After a spell at a detox centre her film company insists as a condition of continuing to employ her that she live with her mother, herself once a star and now a champion drinker. Such a set-up is bad news for Suzanne who has struggled for years to get out of her mother's shadow, and who still treats her like a child. Despite these and other problems, Suzanne begins to see the funny side of her situation, and also realises that not only do daughters have mothers—mothers do too.
Steel Magnolias
In an updated contemporary version of the beloved stage play and 1989 film, "Steel Magnolias" chronicles the lives and friendship of six women in Louisiana. Supporting each other through their triumphs and tragedies, they congregate at Truvy’s beauty shop to ponder the mysteries of life and death, husbands and children - and hair and nails - all the important topics that truly unite and celebrate women.
The Secret Laughter of Women
Oscar-winner Colin Firth stars in this heart-warming cross-cultural romantic comedy set in the idyllic South of France. Nimi, a beautiful Nigerian single mother to son Sammy, is under pressure from her family to find a suitable husband and who better than the local Reverend? After making friends with Matthew, a British comic-book writer and one of his heros, Sammy has other ideas. He successfully plots to get them together but they've still a few obsticles to overcome. (from Amazon)
September
After a suicide attempt, Lane has moved into her country house to recuperate. Her best friend, Stephanie, has come to join her for the summer. Lane's mother, Diane, has recently arrived with her husband Lloyd, Lane's stepfather. Lane is close to two neighbors: Peter, and Howard. Howard is in love with Lane, Lane is in love with Peter, and Peter is in love with Stephanie.
Stuart Saves His Family
A self-help advocate struggles to put his dysfunctional family in its place.
Treading Water
Casey has rejected her privileged upbringing and restores old boats for a living. She lives a cozy life with her beautiful social worker girlfriend Alex until her stuffy family demands that she come home for Christmas – without Alex. Casey is a longshorewoman who seems to have everything she wants; she and her girlfriend Alex are very much in love. But there’s nothing like the holidays to bring out the drama of the average family. Casey lives just across the bay from her upper crust New England family. The proximity seems no accident: Casey can’t quite let go, despite her family’s judgmental and inescapable hold on her otherwise independent and unconventional life. When the family reunites for Christmas, the unwrapping of presents takes a back seat to the unraveling of emotions.
Where Hope Grows
Calvin Campbell is a former professional baseball player sent to an early retirement due to his panic attacks at the plate. Even though he had all the talent for the big leagues, he struggles with the curveballs life has thrown him. Today, he mindlessly sleepwalks through his days and the challenge of raising his teenager daughter. His life is in a slow downward spiral when it is suddenly awakened and invigorated by the most unlikely person – Produce, a young-man with Down syndrome who works at the local grocery store.
Duane Hopwood
A down-on-his-luck divorced father struggles to get his life and family back together before it's too late.
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.
All You Need
When her parents announce their divorce, Beth begins to uncover the hidden truths behind all of the rest of her families lives. Seeing that so many people struggle with keeping things in order, she seeks to take a more active role in her own life, making important changes for a better future.
Doing Time on Maple Drive
Yale scholar Matt Carter introduces his wealthy fiancée, Allison, to his family, and initially everything goes smoothly. However, it isn't long before Allison learns that Matt has lied to her about his relatives to mask their failures and dysfunctions. His brother, Tim, flunked out of school and developed a drinking problem, and Matt struggles to keep his own troubling secret from his less than tolerant parents.
Author! Author!
A broadway playwright is burning the candle at both ends. He is dealing with pressure from a production nearing premiere, a wife who is leaving him, and 5 children 4 of which belong to her.
Mind the Gap
Five seemingly unrelated people decide to take huge risks in their personal lives in an effort to find happiness.
In Celebration
In a Yorkshire mining town, three educated brothers return to their blue-collar home to celebrate the 40th wedding anniversary of their parents, but dark secrets come to the fore.
In Memory of My Father
The youngest son of a legendary Hollywood producer, a Robert Evans type, accepts a bribe from his father to document his death.
The Autumn Heart
When a school bus driving woman (Tyne Daly) has a heart attack, she makes one request of her three daughters (Ally Sheedy, Marla Sucharetza, Marceline Hugo) - she wants them to find their long lost brother, who was taken away by their father (Jack Davidson) 16 years ago. What they discover is that while they have struggled, their father has become a wealthy man and their brother is in school at Harvard.
You Can Thank Me Later
In this Canadian comedy-drama, Shirley Cooperberg heads a Montreal Jewish family. During her husband's operation, her brood arrives at the hospital -- failed writer Eli, neurotic Susan, and successful theatrical producer Edward. An onslaught of one-liners find targets amid sibling rivalries and angst-ridden animosities.
Sister, Sister
Heated confrontations and revelations result when a divorcee returns with her young son to the home of her two sisters.
A Place for Annie
Baby Annie is HIV positive and has been left in the clinic by her drug addicted mother. To prevent that she's deported to a home where they'd just wait for her to die, nurse Susan takes charge of Annie at her home. Two years later she plans too adopt her -- but suddenly Annie's mother reappears and demands her back. And under the law, Susan, as foster-mother, has no claim to the child.
Booky & the Secret Santa
Booky does everything she can to make an enjoyable Christmas, for her family, during the depression as her father is out of work.
Last of the Red Hot Lovers
A middle aged restaurateur begins to feel the desire to roam and realizes that one day each week, his mother's apartment will be empty all afternoon. He makes several attempts at seduction, only to learn that it is much more complicated and difficult than he could have imagined.
Two-Bit Waltz
Suspension from school, the loss of a friend, a broken heart and lack of inspiration lead to Maude's downfall in this romp through teenage error. Your teenage years are never easy… but for Maude, things couldn't be worse. Within one week, she is suspended from school, stranded by her best friend, dumped by the boy she loved and inherits an enormous amount of money with the passing of her grandmother– only to be claimed under one condition: Maude must prove by age 18 that she knows exactly what to do with her life. But with her 18th birthday rapidly approaching, Maude must dive into a world of self-discovery or else lose the inheritance.
God Said, 'Ha!'
Julia Sweeney tells the viewers the monologue about the hard time in her life when her brother fought with cancer and she was also diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.
Brooklyn Lobster
Giorgio's Lobster Farm has been a tradition in Brooklyn for over 65 years. Manned by an eccentric crew and serving the best seafood in the state
28 Days
After getting into a car accident while drunk on the day of her sister's wedding, Gwen Cummings is given a choice between prison or a rehab center. She chooses rehab, but is extremely resistant to taking part in any of the treatment programs they have to offer, refusing to admit that she has an alcohol addiction.