Best movies like The Happiest Man on Earth

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Happiest Man on Earth Starring Joonas Berghäll, and more. If you liked The Happiest Man on Earth then you may also like: The Way, Rabbit Hole, The Keeping Hours, Kramer vs. Kramer, America 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 lonely 40-year-old man sits on the balcony of a Finnish apartment building. Joonas Berghäll has learned that he will die in 14 years’ time, unless he changes his way of living or attitude towards life. Joonas wants to make a film about the state of wellbeing of Finnish men, drawing from his own experiences and mirroring the society at large. The film is built around six stories. It starts with the context of school and proceeds through the contexts of military service, custody battle, burnout and substance abuse to end on the subject of premature death caused by health problems.

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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.

Rabbit Hole

Life for a happy couple is turned upside down after their young son dies in an accident.

The Keeping Hours

A supernatural love story that centers on two parents whose life together falls apart after their son dies. The man, now a successful lawyer, and the woman, now married and an author, get a chance at reconciliation ten years later.

Kramer vs. Kramer

Ted Kramer is a career man for whom his work comes before his family. His wife Joanna cannot take this anymore, so she decides to leave him. Ted is now faced with the tasks of housekeeping and taking care of himself and their young son Billy.

America

In "America," Dr. Maureen Brennan, a psychiatrist at a youth treatment center, encounters her newest patient, a bi-racial boy named America. Through their sessions, Dr. Brennan helps America come to terms with his roller-coaster life, which began when he was taken by authorities from his crack-addicted mother, and placed into foster care as an infant. The short time of stability in his life occurred when America lived with Mrs. Harper, the elderly nanny to one of his foster families. Later reunited with his mother, she soon abandons America and he is again placed into foster care. Lagging behind in school and full of anger, America retreats further away from society after years of sexual abuse. After attempting suicide, America is placed in a treatment center where Dr. Brennan helps him open up about his painful past and discover the support and courage he needs to get his life back on track.

The Babysitter

Overprotective mother Liz Benedict meets 18-year-old orphan Joanna Redwine and hires her as house help and live-in companion to rambunctious daughter Tara. Liz's husband Jeff isn't too thrilled with the arrangement, and his fears soon prove justified when Joanna begins to manipulate everyone and to slowly destroy the family. Meanwhile, next-door neighbor Dr. Linquist investigates and discovers Joanna has a disturbing past.

The Boys Next Door

Jack Palmer is a social worker whose job has taken precedence over his personal life. Mainly, his job is to help four mentally challenged men live regular lives in a home. They consist of: Norman, who works at a donut shop and has a thing for keys; Barry, who thinks he is a golf pro and doesn't communicate well with his father; Arnold, who is into all things Russian and has a habit of spending money; and Lucien, who is into Spider Man and must testify before the state senate. Jack wants to help them, but he also thinks it is time to move on with his life. The hard part is trying to say goodbye to the guys he cares about.

Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story

Based on a true story. Liz Murray is a young girl who is taken care of by her loving, but drug-addicted parents. Liz becomes homeless at 15 and after a tragedy comes upon her, she begins her work to finish high school.

Life as a House

When a man is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he takes custody of his misanthropic teenage son, for whom quality time means getting high, engaging in small-time prostitution, and avoiding his father.

The Mother

A grandmother has a passionate affair with a man half her age, who is also sleeping with her daughter.

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

In 2001, Andrew Bagby, a medical resident, is murdered not long after breaking up with his girlfriend. Soon after, when she announces she's pregnant, one of Andrew's many close friends, Kurt Kuenne, begins this film, a gift to the child.

Just Like Heaven

Shortly after David Abbott moves into his new San Francisco digs, he has an unwelcome visitor on his hands: winsome Elizabeth Martinson, who asserts that the apartment is hers -- and promptly vanishes. When she starts appearing and disappearing at will, David thinks she's a ghost, while Elizabeth is convinced she's alive.

Fireflies in the Garden

The semi-autobiographical story centers on the complexities of love and commitment in a family torn apart when faced by an unexpected tragedy.

In the Gloaming

Danny, dying of AIDS, returns home for his last months. Always close to his mother, they share moments of openness that tend to shut out Danny's father and his sister.

Menashe

Within Brooklyn’s ultra-orthodox Jewish community, a widower battles for custody of his son.

The Disciple

The Disciple is set in the summer of 1939, when 13-year-old Karl arrives in the Åland Islands in the Baltic Sea to work as lighthouse master Hasselbond’s assistant. Hasselbond, however, turns him down because of his young age. Karl struggles desperately to stay on and makes friends with Hasselbond’s oppressed son, Gustaf, but their friendship changes to rivalry and hate when Hasselbond starts to favor Karl over his own son.

Frozen City

Looking to outrun the horrors of his past, a tormented cabbie flees Helsinki for an apartment complex in the suburbs, only to discover that new neighbors bring new problems. What ensues is a raw, realistic tragedy with an unwaveringly humane core.

Memories of Me

After a heart attack, Abbie Polin (Crystal), a New York doctor, goes to Los Angeles to see his father, Abe (King), who works in Hollywood as the "king of the extras." Their relationship has been strained for several years. This was the first movie directed by Henry Winkler, and much of it was filmed inside the MGM Studios in Culver City, California, only a few miles from Hollywood. Lisa, the romantic interest in Abbie's life, also comes for a visit and bonds with Abe, who gets along famously with everyone but his son. Abe begins having memory loss and eventually is diagnosed with a brain aneurysm. He and his son grow closer in time and, before it's too late, Abbie tries to get Abe a speaking role in a film.

Last Night in Rozzie

When a New York lawyer returns to his Boston hometown to reunite his dying friend with his young son, he is forced to finally confront a childhood trauma.

Children of Darkness

A significant number of American children and teenagers - from all social backgrounds - suffer from mental disorders, schizophrenia, autism and emotional problems, leading them to isolation from society while treating their issues in mental health facilities. But there's no end in sight for those young individuals when they face obstacles and mistreatment in inadequate places under the supervision of careless and inexperienced professionals. The documentary follows some of those public mental institutions and another private center dealing with troubled kids and reveals what's wrong with their procedures, and the irreparable harm they cause in those patients.

Blame It on the Night

When his unmarried mother dies, custody of 13-year-old Job is assumed by his alleged father, Chris, whom he has never seen. Job is an enthusiastic cadet at a military academy, and Chris turns out to be a top-grossing rock star who removes Job from his beloved school to keep him company on tour. Getting acquainted is fraught with culture shock for both father and son. Written by Paul Emmons

Unexpected Journey

Lasse is an old racist who has lives in an apartment block filled with a selection of refugees and immigrants. Kamal is a 16-year old boy who's fed up in his life in Finland, and dreams of moving to Nairobi to live with his father. Only problem is that he doesn't have the money to buy the ticket.

My Friend Henry

When 12-year-old Elsi Björkman and her mother Paula return from a week's holiday abroad, Elsi immediately notices that someone has been in her room. She tells her mother about it, but she does not believe her. At the local supermarket Elsi meets Henry, who seems to spend his time returning shopping trolleys. Elsi does not know anything about the boy, who has an irritating habit of appearing from out of nowhere, only to disappear again, as if into thin air. Nevertheless, the children become friends.

Green Chimneys

Green Chimneys follows three young boys living at Green Chimneys, a residential treatment center for children with emotional, behavioral, social and learning challenges.

A Father for Brittany

Keith and Kim Lussier are a childless couple who are given custody of a 3-month-old foster child, Brittany. However, tragedy strikes when Kim dies of cancer in the middle of the adoption process, leaving Keith to fight for Brittany's custody alone.

A Christmas Visitor

The Boyajian family learned of 18-year-old John's death in the Persian Gulf War on Christmas Eve eleven years earlier and have not celebrated Christmas since. They have been so consumed by his death that they have forgotten the joys of the holidays, until a mysterious visitor enters their lives and rekindles the spirit of the season.

Go Toward the Light

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

The Heart of Christmas

Told in flashback from the perspective of Megan, the storyline unfolds when her commitment to faith and family is renewed after reading the blog of Julie Locke, the online journal that Julie kept after her 13 months old Dax was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML).

Headfirst

Headfirst is a black comedy about a single mother with anger management problems and her teenage daughter who is always in trouble at school. With yet another school comes a new teacher and a blast from the past for the mother. Before long, an accidental pickpocket and a notoriously lousy storyteller teams up with this one dysfunctional sort of a family. Nothing is the same anymore. Headfirst is a story about missing teeth, strange friends, hidden dreams and long-gone love. And about a hare.

...First Do No Harm

When Lori Reimuller learns that her young son Robbie has epilepsy, she first trusts the judgment of the hospital staff in how best to bring it under control. As Robbie's health slides radically downhill, however, she becomes frustrated and desperate, and so does her own research into the existing literature on treatments. When she decides to try an alternative treatment called the Ketogenic Diet, devised long ago by a doctor from Johns Hopkins, she is met with narrow-minded resistance from Robbie's doctor, who is prepared to take legal action to prevent Lori from removing him from the hospital.

As They Made Us

Abigail, a divorced mother of two, is struggling to balance the dynamics within her dysfunctional family as she attempts to cultivate new love.

Track Two

A newspaper clip of a 30-year-old movie makes our middle-aged protagonist in the middle of his peak years to look for his best childhood friend. The journey leads him back to his teenage years in the 1990s depression, over-generational substance abuse and past encounters. This partly essayistic, autobiographical documentary tells the story of friendship and generational experiences while also pondering on the causes and effects of destinies in the judgmental atmosphere of our society.

Damaged Care

Anesthesist Doug Peeno hopes to pay for the legal costs of preventing his son Bryan being left in his first wife's bad custody with he proceeds of his present wife Linda's new job. She's the first graduate in her family and eagerly accepted a posting as medical officer in a coldly-greedy medical insurance company. Bening confronted with the medically unacceptable consequences of technically denied treatments, she rebels and finds even payments she approved were often withheld anyway.

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