Best movies like Paul Auster: What If

An aspiring Jewish actor moves out of his parents' Brooklyn apartment to seek his fortune in the bohemian life of Greenwich Village in 1953.

Leonard Junger, an aspiring television writer, tries to find a cheap apartment for his estranged wife and daughter so that they can be a family again. During his quest, he encounters mystery and murder.

The Popes are a family who haven't been able to use their real identity for years. In the late sixties, the parents set a weapons lab afire in an effort to hinder the government's Vietnam war campaign. Ever since then, the Popes have been on the run with the authorities never far behind.

In 1915, Atlantic City is a sleepy seaside resort, but Brad Taylor, son of a small hotel and vaudeville house proprietor, has big plans: he thinks it can be "the playground of the world." Brad's wheeling and dealing proves remarkably successful in attracting big enterprises and big shows, but brings him little success in personal relationships. Full of nostalgic songs and acts, some with the original artists. Reissued in 1950 as "Atlantic City Honeymoon".

A young stage hopeful is murdered and suspicion falls on her mentor, a Broadway producer.

Auggie runs a small tobacco shop in Brooklyn, New York. The whole neighborhood comes to visit him to buy cigarettes and have some small talk. During the movie Lou Reed tries to explain why he has to have a cut on his health insurance bill if he keeps smoking and Madonna acts as a Singing Telegram.

When Harry Levine, an aging, unsuccessful Greenwich Village writer is fired from his job as restaurant doorman, he calls on friend and mentor Jake, ostensibly to collect a long-standing debt.

A young writer begins an affair with an older woman from France whose open marriage to a diplomat dictates that they can meet only between the hours of 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Henry Perkins, a mild-mannered accountant, accidentally trades briefcases with another man, to find out that there's a million dollars inside. Henry tells his unsuspecting wife of their new-found fortune, but she doesn't embrace it as well as he does. Soon they're joined by their best friends, a cop on the take, a cop on the hunt, and the dreaded Mr. Big, who has come to claim his money.

A guardian angel has 24 hours to convince a soul that life on Earth is worth the effort.

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

Every Little Step follows the plight of real-life dancers as they struggle through auditions for the Broadway revival of "A Chorus Line" and also investigates the history of the show and the creative minds behind the original and current incarnations.

When Duffy Bergman, a New York cartoonist, meets Meg Lloyd, a gourmet chef, he discovers the love of his life and they marry -- yet love alone isn't enough to make them happy. Meg decides she wants to have a baby, a goal that initially makes Duffy frantic, but soon becomes his most important desire as well. When they are unable to have a baby, Meg begins concentrating on her career and the two slowly drift apart -- eventually separating. Later, when Duffy is speaking at a convention of the Delta Gamma sorority, he reveals that the Delta Gamma girls have always been his dream girls -- his Love Goddesses. There he meets the young and uninhibited Delta Gamma girl, Daphne Delillo. When Daphne moves to New York to work as a network sports reporter, their mutual attraction and Daphne's spontaneity spark an adventurous new relationship for Duffy. Now Duffy must decide which is more valuable to him -- the relationship he has given up, or the relationship he has always dreamed of having.

The joyous, emotional, heartbreaking celebration of the life and music of Whitney Houston, the greatest female R&B pop vocalist of all time. Tracking her journey from obscurity to musical superstardom.

A writer awakens one day to find a strange but beautiful woman in bed with him. He quickly falls in love with her, thinking he has found his muse, but as time passes she becomes more and more unattainable.

Neglected by her husband during the pre-Christmas rush, Mrs. Claus takes the reindeer and sleigh out for a drive, only to end up stranded in the neighborhood of Manhattan's Lower East Side.

Mr. Chu is an elderly widower who teaches tai chi chuan in Beijing. He moves to America to live with his son's family, but finds the cultural adjustment difficult. Since his daughter-in-law is a white woman who does not speak Chinese, Mr. Chu's son, Alex, must mediate.

Paul, a 20 year old midwesterner, arrives at the central bus station and quickly catches eyes with Wye, a 22 year old girl voguing on the sidewalk. After Paul seeks her out in secret, an intense love between them blossoms. But when Paul discovers Wye is trans, he is forced to confront his own identity and what it means to belong.

Eileen is 22 and is smarting from her breakup with Russ. She comes to New York to visit her brother, Adam, who is an airline pilot. Eileen confides to her brother that she thinks she may be the only 22 year old virgin left in the world. Adam assures her that sex is not what all men look for and insists he hasn't slept around. Of course, Adam is lying and is in hot pursuit of a tryst with his occasional girlfriend Mona. However, Adam's date with Mona has a series of job related interruptions. Meanwhile, Eileen decides to see if she can have some fun for herself in New York, and seems to find the perfect candidate in Mike, a man she meets on the bus. But things get complicated when Russ pops in with a proposal and a mistaken assumption.

Desperate to be rid of her toddler, a dissatisfied Beverly Hills housewife hires a stranger to babysit and ends up getting much more than she bargained for.

Donna and Michael are getting married. But first, they have to plan the reception, get the tux, buy the rings, and cope with their own uncertainty about the decision. Michael fears commitment. Donna has her doubts about Michael's immaturity. Both are getting cold feet.

A bootlegger falls apart when his wife leaves him.

This autobiographical story traces the career of playwright Moss Hart. Moss struggles as a dramatic writer until he concentrates his efforts on writing comedy. He suffers through a series of professional and romantic failures before a meeting with George S. Kaufman which changes his fortunes.

A manicurist witnesses a gangland murder. Realizing there was a witness to their crime, the killer tries to track her down and silence her.

LOVE ETC. is a witty, poignant and humorous exploration about the universal stages of love, depicted through five real stories over the course of one year in New York City. Young, old, gay, straight – everyone has experienced love – and the joy and frustration that come with it. From teen romance to a decades-long marriage; newlyweds to a recent divorcee, and even a bachelor so frustrated in his search that he chooses to have children without a partner, LOVE ETC. documents the intimate journeys of engaging characters aged 18-89 who reflect the city’s diversity, and takes an honest look at life's most challenging pursuit.

Grace Leonard, a typical woman of the New York stage, beautiful but old in sin, seduces William Craig, who becomes a thief in order to shower luxuries upon her. He is sentenced to prison and emerges five years later as a sad-faced, gray-haired man, entirely cured of his mad passion for La Valencia. But she sees him and her old passion is stirred, meaning nothing to her that since his release from prison, he has fallen in love and married a good woman who knows nothing of his past. When William is not swayed by her fascinations, Grace threatens to expose his past life.

The true story of two murders that shaped the lives of several college students who went on to become some of the most influential writers of the "Beat Generation."

Zee is walking up and down Manhattan streets, talking to herself and to the husband who has just left her. At a sidewalk café she runs into Eli, and a very unlikely, funny and touching relationship develops between two lost souls in the big city.

When new author Cassie is paired with successful author Elliot on a promotional book tour, she learns to believe in her talent. She also finds truth in the old adage “you can’t judge a book by its cover” as she falls for the guy she once thought to be pompous and full of himself.

A secretary by the name of Emily Borden comes up with a convoluted plan to get her boss to marry her which backfires after some bad advice.

During a book tour in the United States, Max meets and falls in love with a young woman. Many years later, Max returns to the United States, hoping to reunite with his young lover.

Catherine and Mack and their close friends Chris and Madge graduate from a West Coast college and fly to New York City to find work.

Alex, a boy obsessed with scary stories, is trapped by a witch in her modern, magical New York City apartment. His original hair-raising tales are the only thing keeping him safe as he desperately tries to find a way out of this twisted place.

A young secretary falls in love with her boss, a middle-aged playwright. Complications ensue when her boss' son falls for her.

Over the course of a year, film follows Vancouver Pride Society president Ken Coolen to various international Pride events, including Poland, Hungary, Russia, Sri Lanka and others where there is great opposition to pride parades. In North America, Pride is complicated by commercialization and a sense that the festivals are turning away from their political roots toward tourism, party promotion and entertainment. Christie documents the ways larger, more mainstream Pride events have supported the global Pride movement and how human rights components are being added to more established events. In the New York sequence, leaders organize an alternative Pride parade, the Drag March, set up to protest the corporatization of New York Pride. A parade in São Paulo, the world's largest Pride festival, itself includes a completely empty float, meant to symbolize all those lost to HIV and to anti-gay violence.