Movies Like American Fiction
If you loved American Fiction's Comedy and Drama storytelling, these films deliver a similar experience — carefully selected for tone, themes, and emotional depth. Each pick includes where to watch it right now.
★ Top Picks
Happiness
The lives of several individuals intertwine as they go about their lives in their own unique ways, engaging in acts which society as a whole might find disturbing in a desperate search for human connection.
Mother
A neurotic, twice-divorced sci-fi writer moves back in with his mother to solve his personal problems.
Madea's Big Happy Family
When Shirley, Madea's niece, receives distressing news about her health, the only thing she wants is her family gathered around her. However, Shirley's three adult children are too preoccupied with their own troubled lives to pay attention to their mother. It is up to Madea, with the help of rowdy Aunt Bam, to bring the clan together and help Shirley deal with her crisis.
Inventing the Abbotts
In the 1950s, brothers Jacey and Doug Holt, who come from the poorer side of their sleepy Midwestern town, vie for the affections of the wealthy, lovely Abbott sisters. Lady-killer Jacey alternates between Eleanor and Alice, wanting simply to break the hearts of rich young women. But sensitive Doug has a real romance with Pamela, which Jacey and the Abbott patriarch, Lloyd, both frown upon.
The Savages
A sister and brother face the realities of familial responsibility as they begin to care for their ailing father.
We the Animals
Manny, Joel and Jonah tear their way through childhood and push against the volatile love of their parents. As Manny and Joel grow into versions of their father and Ma dreams of escape, Jonah, the youngest, embraces an imagined world all his own.
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
In a sleepy Louisiana parish, a group of lifelong friends stage a rather unorthodox intervention to help a young playwright unravel the truth about her complicated mother and let go of her painful past.
Critical Care
Werner Ernst is a young hospital resident who becomes embroiled in a legal battle between two half-sisters who are fighting over the care of their comatose father. But are they really fighting over their father's care, or over his $10 million estate? Meanwhile, Werner must contend with his nutty supervisor, who insists that he only care for patients with full insurance. Can Werner sidestep the hospital's legal team and do what's best for the patient?
More Movies Like American Fiction
Cruel Intentions
Slaking a thirst for dangerous games, Kathryn challenges her stepbrother, Sebastian, to deflower their headmaster's daughter before the summer ends. If he succeeds, the prize is the chance to bed Kathryn. But if he loses, Kathryn will claim his most prized possession.
Soul Food
Traditional Sunday dinners at Mama Joe's turn sour when sisters Teri, Bird and Maxine start bringing their problems to the dinner table in this ensemble comedy. When tragedy strikes, it's up to grandson Ahmad to pull the family together and put the soul back into the family's weekly gatherings.
Adulthood
The lives of two siblings are completely upended when they discover a dead body, long buried in their parent’s basement, sending them down a rabbit hole of crime and murder.
Hannah and Her Sisters
Between two Thanksgivings, Hannah's husband falls in love with her sister Lee, while her hypochondriac ex-husband rekindles his relationship with her sister Holly.
Pleasantville
Geeky teenager David and his popular twin sister, Jennifer, get sucked into the black-and-white world of a 1950s TV sitcom called "Pleasantville," and find a world where everything is peachy keen all the time. But when Jennifer's modern attitude disrupts Pleasantville's peaceful but boring routine, she literally brings color into its life.
The Edge of Seventeen
Two high school girls are best friends until one dates the other's older brother, who is totally his sister's nemesis.
Life of Brian
Brian Cohen is an average young Jewish man, but through a series of ridiculous events, he gains a reputation as the Messiah. When he's not dodging his followers or being scolded by his shrill mother, the hapless Brian has to contend with the pompous Pontius Pilate and acronym-obsessed members of a separatist movement. Rife with Monty Python's signature absurdity, the tale finds Brian's life paralleling Biblical lore, albeit with many more laughs.
This Is Where I Leave You
When their father passes away, four grown, world-weary siblings return to their childhood home and are requested -- with an admonition -- to stay there together for a week, along with their free-speaking mother and a collection of spouses, exes and might-have-beens. As the brothers and sisters re-examine their shared history and the status of each tattered relationship among those who know and love them best, they reconnect in hysterically funny and emotionally significant ways.
Crimes of the Heart
Three sisters try to come to grips with the meaning of their mother's suicide.
Wildflower
The story of Bea Johnson from birth to graduation as she navigates life with an intellectually disabled parent and an extended family who can't quite agree on the best way to help.
The Prince of Tides
A troubled Southern man talks to his suicidal sister's psychiatrist about their family history and falls in love with her (and New York City) in the process.
The Onion Movie
Venerable newscaster Norm Archer reports the latest news in politics, health, culture and entertainment - such as an automotive recall of decapitation-inducing "Neckbelts" and a study finding that "depression hits losers hardest". This compilation of bogus news stories, celebrity profiles, movie trailers and skits come courtesy of the ace satirists at The Onion.
Why These Movies Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with American Fiction (2023): Comedy and Drama themes, similar narrative structure, and comparable emotional depth. NoBadPicks uses a combination of TMDB collaborative filtering, genre matching, and AI analysis to surface films most likely to resonate with fans of American Fiction.
See full details for American Fiction (2023)