Movies like Palindromes (2005)
The best movies like Palindromes (2005) are Storytelling (2001), Welcome to the Dollhouse (1996) and Dark Horse (2012). If Palindromes 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 ratedThe Royal Tenenbaums (2001)7.5/10 from 5,281 votes
- NewestMessy (2025)Released 2025
Storytelling (2001)
College and high school serve as the backdrop for two stories about dysfunction and personal turmoil.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWelcome to the Dollhouse (1996)
An unattractive 7th grader struggles to cope with suburban life as the middle child with inattentive parents and bullies at school.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDark Horse (2012)
Abe is a man who is in his thirties and who lives with his parents. He works regretfully for his father while pursuing his hobby of collecting toys. Aware that his family doesn't think highly of him, he tries to spark a relationship with Miranda, who recently moved back home after a failed literary/academic career. Miranda agrees to marry Abe out of desperation, but things go awry.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisLife During Wartime (2010)
Friends, family, and lovers struggle to find love, forgiveness, and meaning in an almost war-torn world riddled with comedy and pathos.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisHappiness (1998)
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.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThumbsucker (2005)
Justin Cobb, a teenager in suburban Oregon, copes with his thumb-sucking problem, romance, and his diagnosis with ADHD and subsequent experience using Ritalin.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGhost World (2001)
Two quirky, cynical, teenaged girls try to figure out what to do with their lives following high school graduation. After they play a prank on an eccentric, middle-aged record collector, one of them befriends him, which causes a rift in the girls’ friendship.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIgby Goes Down (2002)
Igby Slocumb, a rebellious and sarcastic 17-year-old boy, is at war with the stifling world of old money privilege he was born into. With a schizophrenic father, a self-absorbed, distant mother, and a shark-like young Republican big brother, Igby figures there must be a better life out there -- and sets about finding it.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHenry Fool (1998)
An egocentric bum transforms the lives of a shy New Jersey garbageman and his sister.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRunning with Scissors (2006)
Young Augusten Burroughs absorbs experiences that could make for a shocking memoir: the son of an alcoholic father and an unstable mother, he's handed off to his mother's therapist, Dr. Finch, and spends his adolescent years as a member of Finch's bizarre extended family.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
SnoozefestMovies like thisChuck & Buck (2000)
Chuck and Buck are childhood best friends whose lives have taken very different paths. While Chuck moved away and now has a real life, Buck stayed behind and developed a dangerous fixation—on Chuck's life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPecker (1998)
A Baltimore teenager who picks up a second-hand camera starts snapping his way to stardom, soon turning into a nationwide sensation, with a fateful choice between his life and his art.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisImaginary Heroes (2004)
Matt Travis is good-looking, popular, and his school's best competitive swimmer, so everyone is shocked when he inexplicably commits suicide. As the following year unfolds, each member of his family struggles to recover from the tragedy with mixed results.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSpanking the Monkey (1994)
Bright young student Raymond Aibelli is forced to sidetrack an important medical internship because his mother, Susan, is recovering from a broken leg. When he isn't tasked with the most mundane aspects of Susan's recuperation, Raymond finds distraction in a neighborhood girl, Toni Peck. But, as Susan begins relying on her son for both physical and emotional needs, Raymond starts developing disturbing and unwanted new yearnings.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisLove Liza (2002)
Following the unexplained suicide of his wife Liza, website designer Wilson Joel turns to huffing gasoline fumes and remote control gaming while avoiding an inevitable conflict with his mother-in-law.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGummo (1997)
Teenagers Solomon and Tummler kill time in Xenia, Ohio, a small town that has never recovered from the tornado that ravaged the community in the 1970s.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMessy (2025)
Brutally self-aware, promiscuous love addict Stella Fox moves to New York after a devastating break-up and pursues disappointing romantic dalliances over the course of a summer.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005)
Single dad Richard meets Christine, a starving artist who moonlights as a cabbie. They awkwardly attempt to start a romance, but Richard’s divorce has left him emotionally damaged. Meanwhile, Richard’s sons—one a teenager, the other 6-years-old—take part in clumsy experiments with the opposite sex.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRushmore (1998)
When a beautiful first-grade teacher arrives at a prep school, she soon attracts the attention of an ambitious teenager named Max, who quickly falls in love with her. Max turns to the father of two of his schoolmates for advice on how to woo the teacher. However, the situation soon gets complicated when Max's new friend becomes involved with her, setting the two pals against one another in a war for her attention.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHow to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog (2002)
The story of Peter McGowan, a chain-smoking, impotent, insomniac playwright who lives in Los Angeles. Once very successful, he is now in the tenth year of a decade-long string of production failures. He finds himself bonding with a new neighbor's lonely young daughter who has mild cerebral palsy; and during one of his middle-of-the-night strolls, he encounters his oddball doppelgänger.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisAmerican Splendor (2003)
An original mix of fiction and reality illuminates the life of comic book hero everyman Harvey Pekar.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWiener-Dog (2016)
A dachshund passes from oddball owner to oddball owner, whose radically dysfunctional lives are all impacted by the pooch.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisEntertainment (2015)
Set in the Mojave Desert, the film follows a broken-down comedian playing clubs across the Southwest, working his way to Los Angeles to meet his estranged daughter.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Royal Tenenbaum and his wife Etheline had three children and then they separated. All three children are extraordinary --- all geniuses. Virtually all memory of the brilliance of the young Tenenbaums was subsequently erased by two decades of betrayal, failure, and disaster. Most of this was generally considered to be their father's fault. "The Royal Tenenbaums" is the story of the family's sudden, unexpected reunion one recent winter.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHick (2012)
A pistol-packing teen meets an unstable rebel and a cocaine-snorting drifter as she hitchhikes her way out West.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisLittle Sister (2016)
After returning to her childhood home, young nun Colleen finds her old room exactly how she left it: painted black and covered in goth and metal posters. Her parents are happy enough to see her, but her brother is living as a recluse in the guesthouse since returning home from the Iraq war.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBrief Interviews with Hideous Men (2009)
After her boyfriend mysteriously leaves her with little explanation, a doctoral candidate in anthropology at a prestigious East Coast university is left looking for answers as to what went wrong.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisCloser to the Moon (2014)
A Romanian police officer teams up with a small crew of bank robbers to pull off a heist by convincing everyone at the scene of the crime that they are only filming a movie.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisReal Women Have Curves (2002)
In East Los Angeles, an 18-year-old struggles between her ambitions of going to college and the desires of her domineering mother for her to get married, have children, and oversee the small, rundown family-owned textile factory.
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 this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Palindromes?
The closest matches to Palindromes are Storytelling (2001), Welcome to the Dollhouse (1996) and Dark Horse (2012). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Palindromes?
People who watched Palindromes most often go on to Storytelling (2001), Welcome to the Dollhouse (1996) and Dark Horse (2012).
What is the highest-rated movie like Palindromes?
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), rated 7.5/10 by 5,281 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Palindromes?
Messy (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Palindromes?
Yes: Storytelling (2001), Welcome to the Dollhouse (1996) and Dark Horse (2012).
How are movies similar to Palindromes chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Palindromes, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.