Movies Similar to Sad Jokes

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof(1958)

An alcoholic ex-football player drinks his days away, having failed to come to terms with his sexuality and his real feelings for his football buddy who died after an ambiguous accident. His wife is crucified by her desperation to make him desire her: but he resists the affections of his wife. His reunion with his father—who is dying of cancer—jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.

7.7

The Celebration(1998)

The family of a wealthy businessman gather to celebrate his 60th birthday. During the course of the party, his eldest son presents a speech that reveals a shocking secret.

7.7

Snow Cake(2006)

A drama focused on the friendship between a high-functioning autistic woman and a man who is traumatized after a fatal car accident.

7.2

Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams(2006)

A woman and her daughter struggle to make their way through the aftermath of the Balkan war.

6.9

Harold and Maude(1971)

The young Harold lives in his own world of suicide-attempts and funeral visits to avoid the misery of his current family and home environment. Harold meets an 80-year-old woman named Maude who also lives in her own world yet one in which she is having the time of her life. When the two opposites meet they realize that their differences don’t matter and they become best friends and love each other.

7.6

Sissi: The Fateful Years of an Empress(1957)

After a wonderful time in Hungary Sissi falls extremely ill and must retreat to a Mediterranean climate to rest. The young empress’ mother takes her from Austria to recover in Madeira.

7.2

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest(1975)

A petty criminal fakes insanity to serve his sentence in a mental ward rather than prison. He soon finds himself as a leader to the other patients—and an enemy to the cruel, domineering nurse who runs the ward.

8.4

Requiem(2006)

Michaela, an epileptic, enrolls in college to study education. She goes off her medication and soon begins hearing voices and seeing apparitions that tell her to avoid religious objects, although she is devoutly Roman Catholic. One priest scoffs at the idea that Michaela could be possessed by demons, but a younger pastor arranges an exorcism for the young woman.

6.6

Das Menschenmögliche(2019)

Judith is a doctor who is very committed to her profession. Aiming to become a cardiologist, she performs part of her residency in a chronically understaffed hospital emergency room. During a particularly difficult shift, she makes a mistake that causes the death of a patient. Judith is devastated and doubts whether she is suited to the profession. Her fellow doctors, including her partner Mark, advise her to just carry on as before. While Judith’s actions are investigated, she is assigned to ambulance duty. Being in a new environment and having some distance to the clinical routine allow her to see things in a new light.

0.0

Summer in Berlin(2005)

When you read the title ‘Summer on the Balcony’ you probably think it will be a light Berlin summer comedy but it’s not. This film is an intimate study of two women friends who come to each other because of troubles with everyday life and with men and thus try to enjoy a life based on their ideas.

6.3

8½(1963)

Guido Anselmi, a film director, finds himself creatively barren at the peak of his career. Urged by his doctors to rest, Anselmi heads for a luxurious resort, but a sorry group gathers—his producer, staff, actors, wife, mistress, and relatives—each one begging him to get on with the show. In retreat from their dependency, he fantasizes about past women and dreams of his childhood.

8.1

Open Hearts(2002)

Cecilie and Joachim are about to get married when a freak car accident leaves Joachim disabled, throwing their lives into a spin. The driver of the other car, Marie, and her family don’t get off lightly, either. Her husband Niels works in the hospital where he meets Cecilie and falls madly in love with her.

7.1

Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself(2002)

The strange comedy film of two close brothers; one, Wilbur, who wants to kill himself, and the other, Harbour, who tries to prevent this. When their father dies leaving them his bookstore they meet a woman who makes their lives a bit better yet with a bit more trouble as well.

6.6

Patients(2017)

After a serious sport accident in a swimming pool, Ben, now an incomplete quadriplegic, arrives in a rehabilitation center. He meets with other handicapped persons (tetraplegics, paraplegics, traumatized crania), all victims of accidents, as well as a handicapped since his early childhood. They go through impotence, despair and resignation, with their daily struggle to learn how to move a finger or to hold a fork. Some of them slowly find a little mobility while others receive the verdict of the handicap for life. Despite everything, hope and friendship help them endure their difficulties.

7.4

K-PAX(2001)

Prot is a patient at a mental hospital who claims to be from a far away planet. His psychiatrist tries to help him, only to begin to doubt his own explanations.

7.2

Italian for Beginners(2000)

Several lonely hearts in a semi-provincial suburb of a town in Denmark use a beginner's course in Italian as the platform to meet the romance of their lives. The film, which unspools the connections and family drama shared between the students, complies with several aesthetic principles of Dogme 95 movement.

6.4

The Secret Life of Words(2005)

A solitary nurse bonds with a badly burned patient who survived an accident on an oil rig.

7.0

The Possession of Hannah Grace(2018)

When a cop who is just out of rehab takes the graveyard shift in a city hospital morgue, she faces a series of bizarre, violent events caused by an evil entity in one of the corpses.

5.6

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What If

Marley, a woman in her 40s, discovers she was part of a hospital birth mix-up. The revelation sends her on a journey to redefine family, accompanied by an old high school friend facing his own truths.

0.0

Holy Trinity(2019)

A queer femme dominatrix huffs a magic aerosol can and develops the ability to speak to the dead.

0.0