Best movies like The Motel

A socially awkward teenage math prodigy finds new confidence and new friendships when he lands a spot on the British squad at the International Mathematics Olympiad.

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.

A lyrical telling of the coming of age of a 13-year-old boy who learns to cope with his new found sexuality and his unrequited love for the cool kid in school.

An adult Martin Roy reminisces about his life in the 1966/67 school year. At fifteen years old and in his last year of junior high school, he breathed, ate and slept hockey. He collected hockey cards, played street hockey with his friends, tried skating and ice hockey for the first time in his life, but was most fascinated with his local national league team, the Montréal Canadiens, and its star player, Henri Richard. He dreamed of growing up and working for the Canadiens franchise. But a more immediate goal was to get tickets to one of their games, using M. Richard and his banker father, Hervé, as possible conduits to that goal.

The story of two childhood friends who are forced to re-think their friendship as adults. When Jake is injured in a car accident, the only person willing to take care of him is his childhood friend Sam. With the aid of a tough-as-nails physical therapist, Sam helps Jake recuperate, but when Sam's high school crush enters the picture, old habits and bitter rivalries resurface, threatening to tear their friendship apart.

While on a train, a teenage boy thinks about his life and the flamboyant aunt whose friendship acted as an emotional shield from his troubled family. This film evokes the haunting quality of memory while creating a heartfelt portrait of a boy's life in a rural 1940s Southern town.

The story of the Raymans, a wealthy Jewish family that's falling apart. The son, Clark, is a bright and curious high schooler with a talent for manipulation. As his mother May enters treatment for a pill addiction, and he and his father Roger stop getting along, Clark thinks about running away from home. He just needs to decide where to go.

A smart teenage girl comes of age in a small town with her self-centered parents who had her when they were teenagers.

Bullied by his siblings and nagged by his parents, 11-year-old Preston is fed up with his family -- especially their frugality. But he gets his chance to teach them a lesson when a money-laundering criminal nearly bulldozes Preston with his car and gives the boy a blank check as compensation. Preston makes the check out for $1 million and goes on a spending spree he'll never forget. Maybe now, his family will take him seriously!

Charlie Boyle finds that even his high IQ can't solve all of his problems when he takes on a double life in order to make friends his own age.

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.

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.

Havoc is created in a small Southern community when a 12-year-old shows up, causing a couple 13-year-old friends to fall in love with her, thus possibly jeopardizing their friendship.

A movie about the travails of Jason (Mark Webber), a young gas station attendant and movie projectionist living in Nebraska. His encounters with various social difficulties and with Frances (Zooey Deschanel), a beautiful and enigmatic young woman leads to dramatic changes and decisions in his life.

A 17-year-old boy becomes friends with Billy Magic, the radio DJ he idolizes, and eventually slips into the payola and corruption of the entertainment world.

All hilarity breaks loose in this heartwarming coming-of-age comedy when three generations of Fiedlers collide in a crazy family reunion. As they prepare for the biggest Bar Mitzvah on the block, they begin to see that they're much more alike than they'd originally thought.

The story of a unique young boy genius, Bruno, whose expression of his own individuality leads his family and community along an emotional journey.

A film about three high school friends who find their happy-go-lucky existence tarnished forever the instant they get embroiled in a drug-running scheme that goes awry. When things start getting messy, they rue the day they agreed to the venture; instead of smuggling weed from Canada to Detroit, which they'd expected, the threesome's forced to traffic a huge stash of heroin.

Filipino-American high school student Ben (Dante Basco) works in a comic book shop to earn money to pay his way into Cal Arts. His father, a postman, is determined that his son--who has won a pre-med scholarship to UCLA--will become a doctor. The eighteenth birthday party of Ben's sister, Rose, sets off a comedic and touching series of events and family struggles that will in turn determine young Ben's future. This fresh independent production from Gene Cajayon presents a lighthearted and warm coming-of-age tale filtered through the eyes of an American subculture rarely seen on film.

A teenager with an early onset of male-pattern baldness befriends his high school's janitor.

When Joan Weldon discovers she is dying of lung cancer, she sets out to reconcile her dysfunctional relationships with her three children, her husband, and along the way, her former best friend. The family's destructive ways are offset by messy and somewhat humorous attempts by Joan to set her children on the right course before she dies. In this big dysfunctional mix, they will all learn to connect in their own ways, and realize on their own terms what life is about.

A boy learns that confidence and self-esteem are the greatest gifts.

A twenty-nine year-old slacker who lives with his mom realizes his sweet set-up is threatened when she hears wedding bells with her self-help guru beau.

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.

Set in the 1970s, Tom Spader is an attorney who is determined to end what he has dubbed "the colored man's losing streak." When his winning of a high-profile case thrusts him into the limelight, he decides to moves his wife and their two kids out of their mixed lower-middle-class town and into the posh enclave of Greenwich, Connecticut.

After being struck and killed by lightning, a young man recounts the way he blackmailed his fellow classmates into contributing to his literary magazine.

An autobiographical film taken from the experiences of writer-director Rob Moretti, CRUTCH is a coming-of-age tale about a young man's struggle with family problems and substance abuse. Behind a facade of suburban middle class perfection, David's home life is falling apart. As he tries to cope with the impossible situation, the troubled and impressionable teenager falls under the spell of Kenny, a georgous, thirty-something, has-been actor turned theatre coach. When Kenny's "support" escalates into seduction, David slowly decends into an abyss of drinking and drug addition from which he must escape if he is to survive. CRUTCH is a dramatic tale of the confusion of youth and the difficulties in finding oneself.

The chance to shine in a singing competition offers much-needed hope for a Southern middle-schooler who's drowning in worries, from bullies in the halls to turmoil at home -- and the news that his reservist father has been called back to Afghanistan.

The true story about a father struggling to make amends with his twin sons as they pursue their dreams of professional baseball.

After a tragic accident caused by the truck of the middle-aged Carl Lee where a woman dies with a crushed stern, he is arrested and sent to the county jail. His son PJ, who works washing dishes and cleaning tables in a restaurant, feels lost, without financial support to keep his father's house, and is fired from his job and evicted from his house.

Bullied high school student Tommy is suddenly befriended by his chief tormentor, Matt, the school's most popular student and star athlete. Tommy is suspicious, but is forced to accept the awkward friendship in order to enter a cooking contest with a big prize. And besides, it's so much easier to impress his crush, Sarah, when he's not getting beat up by Matt and his team. As the cooking contest heats up, Sarah sniffs out a conspiracy, but nobody wants to hear about it. Can Tommy trust his budding friendship with Matt or is it all a huge joke on him?

In seeking her own redemption from the one man of whom she is most afraid, 10-year-old Cadi Forbes discovers a secret sin haunting her community of Welsh immigrants in 1850s Appalachia.

The first part of Bill Douglas' influential trilogy harks back to his impoverished upbringing in early-'40s Scotland. Cinema was his only escape - he paid for it with the money he made from returning empty jam jars - and this escape is reflected most closely at this time of his life as an eight-year-old living on the breadline with his half-brother and sick grandmother in a poor mining village.

Curse of the Starving Class is a play by Sam Shepard, considered the first of a series on family tragedies. Drama about a dirt-poor 1950's-era farm family. Dad's a foul talking drunk and Mom is desperately trying to save what's left of their family life.

When Jamie's maternal grandmother dies, he and his brother Tommy are separated - Tommy is taken off to a welfare home and Jamie goes to live with his other grandmother and uncle. His life is far from happy, filled with silence, rejection and bouts of violence.

A middle-aged couple, on the verge of proceeding with a divorce, find themselves questioning their decision to separate when fellow friends and neighbors, oblivious to their marital troubles, assemble at their house for a 4th of July Weekend party.

A new student at a British public school forms a secret society centered around cooking and midnight feasting with other school misfits and outcasts.

Iris is broke after her divorce and takes a job working as a housekeeper for a wealthy woman named Paula. When Paula and her husband separate, an unlikely friendship blossoms between the women.

A pizza deliveryman develops a bond with a girl nearly half his age.

A 12-year-old boy and his single mother live separate lives. The boy spends his days alone while his mother works and goes out with her friends. The boy’s solitude is both a source of freedom and a cause for grief. His explorations slowly bring to light the dark contrast between the rules of society and the laws of nature. And before long, the delicate balance of his inner world becomes shattered by unforeseen events.

Izzy, the youngest son of a troubled New York family, takes a shine to breaking into people's apartments as a way to get attention.

Summer, 1948. 14-year-old Alan has just three wishes: that there will be lasting peace, that England will win the Ashes, and that he will finally kiss classmate Ann. So when he's cast opposite her in a play that requires a kiss and England seem to be doing well in cricket, life couldn't be better.

Every kid wants to be cool and fit in - life's a blast even when you're different. When Mo's reflection is revealed, he sees a body that doesn't quite resemble any of his peers. Here, he tells the tale of his youth, growing up on the south shore of Long Island, New York

Mica is born smelling of fish that soap and doctors can't remove. Problems increase starting school as no one'll be his friend. He sees a therapist. His life seems doomed until he meets Laura.

Morgan Roberts, a middle aged adult in crisis, reunites with his best friend when he returns to the summer camp of his youth. His troubles seem to magnify when he is joined by a rag-tag group of 10 year old campers. Through their struggles they collectively overcome their personal problems and exchange them for one of the best summers of their lives.

A teenager pretends to be dying from cancer as a way to cope with the realities of his daily existence and his father's terminal illness.

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

Ricky is just out of a young offenders institute, heading home to Hackney and determined to go straight. Instead, he heads straight for trouble when he becomes involved in a street confrontation, siding with his best friend Wisdom against a local rude boy. The trouble escalates into a series of tit-for-tat incidents that threaten to spiral out of control. Ricky's 12-year-old brother Curtis, hero-worships Ricky, though he appears smart enough to know he doesn't want to follow his example. Yet, despite the stern warnings from his mother and support from her friends in the community, might Ricky's bad boy allure be too attractive for Curtis to resist?

Jimmy always gets teased by the football team for being overweight. As a school assignment he writes about it in his journal, but soon he finds out that he's not the only kid in school with problems.

The Wongs struggle to cope with life, love, and family dysfunction in the suburbs of New York.