Movies like Mother's Elling (2003)
The best movies like Mother's Elling (2003) are The Big Kahuna (1999), Somewhere in Queens (2023) and Family Weekend (2013). If Mother's Elling hooked you with its comedy and drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedCleveland Abduction (2015)7.3/10 from 453 votes
- NewestMexicali (2026)Released 2026
The Big Kahuna (1999)
Three salesmen working for a firm that makes industrial lubricants are waiting in the company's "hospitality suite" at a manufacturers' convention for a "big kahuna" named Dick Fuller to show up, in hopes they can persuade him to place an order that could salvage the company's flagging sales.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSomewhere in Queens (2023)
Leo and Angela Russo live a simple life in Queens, surrounded by their overbearing Italian-American family. When their son finds success on his high school basketball team, Leo tears the family apart trying to make it happen.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFamily Weekend (2013)
A 16-year-old girl takes her parents hostage after they miss her big jump-roping competition.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Intervention (2016)
A weekend getaway for four couples takes a sharp turn when one of the couples discovers the entire trip was orchestrated to host an intervention on their marriage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Clique (2008)
A young girl tries to fit in with a clique of popular middle school girls after moving into the guest house of one of their homes.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Last Detail (1973)
Two Navy men are ordered to bring a young offender to prison, but decide to show him one last good time along the way.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHusbands (1970)
A common friend's sudden death brings three men, married with children, to reconsider their lives and ultimately leave the country together. But mindless enthusiasm for regained freedom will be short-lived.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChoke (2008)
A sex-addicted con-man pays for his mother's hospital bills by playing on the sympathies of those who rescue him from choking to death.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLife's a Breeze (2013)
An unemployed slacker, his aged mother and his niece must overcome their many differences to find a lost fortune.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHarvest (2025)
Over seven hallucinatory days, a village with no name, in an undefined time and place, disappears.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCleveland Abduction (2015)
A single mother becomes Ariel Castro's first kidnapping victim, and finds herself trapped in his home with two other women for 11 years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFarming (2018)
Based on the writer/director's childhood, FARMING tells the story of a young Nigerian boy, 'farmed out' by his parents to a white British family in the hope of a better future. Instead, he becomes the feared leader of a white skinhead gang.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Walk the Line (1970)
Henry Tawes, a middle-aged sheriff in a rural Tennessee town, is usually the first man to criticize others for their bad behavior. Miserable in his marriage, Henry falls in love with teenage seductress Alma, who is the daughter of local criminal and moonshiner Carl McCain. Henry's moral character comes further into question when he is tempted to conceal Carl's crimes in order to prolong his relationship with Alma.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisRise of the Footsoldier 3 (2017)
In the late 1980s, Pat Tate journeys from peddling pills in Marbella to his time in prison, where he solidifies his power before his release to reclaim his turf.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDesperate Living (1977)
After killing her husband, Peggy Gravel and her murderous maid Grizelda wind up in the crazy town of Mortville, where Queen Carlotta presides over a sleazy collection of misfits.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMexicali (2026)
A former special forces contractor is forced out of retirement as an avocado farmer in Mexico when local gangsters try to force him and his family off their farm.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHard to Die (1990)
While doing the inventory for a lingerie outlet in a high rise office building, five attractive women are terrorized by a series of bizarre killings. They suspect that the strange janitor, who witnessed another series of killings six months previously, is at the bottom of the whole thing. Little do they know the real horror that they face in the end.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisConvict (2014)
Set in the dark and old Parramatta prison built by the original convicts our lead character Ray a war veteran finds himself serving 18 months for manslaughter after defending his fiance. He soon realizes that the prison boss has it in for him and does everything possible to break Ray even going after his fiance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWasp (2003)
Zoë is a single mother who lives with her four children in Dartford. She is poor and can't afford to buy food. One day her old flame drives by and asks her to go on a date with him. Scared that he doesn't want to go out with her, she lies and tells him that she is just babysitting the kids. This will be her first date in years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDon't Make Me Go (2022)
A terminally ill man and his teenage daughter embark on a road trip from California to New Orleans for his 20th college reunion. While there, he secretly hopes she can reunite with the mother who left them long ago.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this24 Hour Party People (2002)
Manchester, 1976. Tony Wilson is an ambitious but frustrated local TV news reporter looking for a way to make his mark. After witnessing a life-changing concert by a band known as the Sex Pistols, he persuades his station to televise one of their performances, and soon Manchester's punk groups are clamoring for him to manage them. Riding the wave of a musical revolution, Wilson and his friends create the legendary Factory Records label and The Hacienda club.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAbel (1986)
Abel has never left home (literally). After failing with doctors and psychiatrists, Abel's father Victor brings home Christine, a friend, in an attempt to teach Abel basic social skills. But Victor's wife Duif accuses him of having an affair, and in the ensuing row Abel is thrown out into the street. But help is at hand when he runs into kind-hearted stripper Zus - whose show Victor is obsessed with…
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAdaptation. (2002)
Charlie Kaufman is a confused L.A. screenwriter overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy, sexual frustration, self-loathing, and by the screenwriting ambitions of his freeloading twin brother Donald. While struggling to adapt "The Orchid Thief," by Susan Orlean, Kaufman's life spins from pathetic to bizarre. The lives of Kaufman and Orlean's book become strangely intertwined as each one's search for passion collides with the other's.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAmerican Splendor (2003)
An original mix of fiction and reality illuminates the life of comic book hero everyman Harvey Pekar.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLetter to America (1999)
Two friends from Odesa try to compose a video message to their pals, emigrants to the United States. One of them rents his apartment to a tricky girl who invents various excuses not to pay the rent. An exceptional story about people on the verge of despair who nonetheless manage to enjoy life, even if these joys are beyond good and evil.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy & drama
YOYO (2017)
Caroline can't stand that she is a virgin...and then the world ends. In post-apocalyptic LA, after a dust storm has wiped out the planet, she is convinced that Francis was sent as the man to pop her cherry. YOYO is a heartfelt, dark comedy about finding meaning in life, even when life ceases to exist.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both comedy
In the Name of the Law (1932)
The story is about a drug ring and the finally successful efforts of the Paris police to break it up. A young detective goes into a den in Paris' Chinatown, following a clue, and that is the last seen of him until his body is found floating in the Seine several days later. The only clue is a woman's glove. The dead man's friends on the force vow to avenge him, and receive information leading them to suspect one Sandra, a beautiful foreigner, played by the stunning Marcelle Chantal.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Isolde (1989)
After librarian Isolde attempts suicide, she leaves her politician husband for a younger student with a dark past. Isolde's former husband, however, has something else in mind for the young man.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
That Lovely Girl (2014)
Moshe and Tami are a couple, Moshe is in his fifties and Tami is in her early twenties. They live together in a cruel and violent relationship, from which Tami seems unable to set herself free. Tami and Moshe are father and daughter...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Across My Land (2017)
Father and son 'minutemen' patrol the American/Mexican border near their home in Nogales, Arizona.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like Mother's Elling and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Mother's Elling?
The closest matches to Mother's Elling are The Big Kahuna (1999), Somewhere in Queens (2023) and Family Weekend (2013). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Mother's Elling?
Start with The Big Kahuna (1999), the closest match to Mother's Elling.
What is the highest-rated movie like Mother's Elling?
Cleveland Abduction (2015), rated 7.3/10 by 453 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Mother's Elling?
Mexicali (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Mother's Elling chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Mother's Elling, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.