Movies like Downtown Owl (2023)
The best movies like Downtown Owl (2023) are Prince Avalanche (2013), Wildflower (2023) and The Squid and the Whale (2005). If Downtown Owl 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 ratedmid90s (2018)7.5/10 from 1,903 votes
- NewestRez Ball (2024)Released 2024
Prince Avalanche (2013)
Two highway road workers spend the summer of 1988 away from their city lives. The isolated landscape becomes a place of misadventure as the men find themselves at odds with each other and the women they left behind.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWildflower (2023)
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.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Squid and the Whale (2005)
Based on the true childhood experiences of Noah Baumbach and his brother, The Squid and the Whale tells the touching story of two young boys dealing with their parents' divorce in Brooklyn in the 1980s.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBeast Beast (2021)
A look at the lives and trauma surrounding three people living in a southern town.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
The Sweet East (2023)
A picaresque journey through contemporary America, undertaken by a young woman granted access to the strange sects and cults that proliferate in this country by a series of gatekeepers eager to win her over.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Like Movies (2023)
Socially inept 17-year-old cinephile Lawrence Kweller gets a job at a video store, where he forms a complicated friendship with his older female manager.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRez Ball (2024)
After losing their star player, a high school basketball team rooted in Native American culture must unite to keep their state championship dreams alive.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGrandma (2015)
Self-described misanthrope Elle Reid has her protective bubble burst when her 18-year-old granddaughter, Sage, shows up needing help. The two of them go on a day-long journey that causes Elle to come to terms with her past and Sage to confront her future.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEmergency (2022)
Ready for a night of legendary partying, three college students must weigh the pros and cons of calling the police when faced with an unexpected situation.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMiss Stevens (2016)
Stuck at a crossroads in her personal life, it falls on high school English teacher Miss Stevens to chaperone three of her students — Billy, Margot and Sam — on a weekend trip to a drama competition.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLady Bird (2017)
Lady Bird McPherson, a strong willed, deeply opinionated, artistic 17 year old comes of age in Sacramento. Her relationship with her mother and her upbringing are questioned and tested as she plans to head off to college.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDiggers (2007)
In 1976, four working-class friends come of age in The Hamptons, on the South Shore of Long Island, New York, as clam diggers, as were their fathers and their grandfathers before them. They must cope with and learn to face the changing times in both their personal lives and their neighborhood.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThunder Road (2018)
A police officer faces a personal meltdown following a divorce and the death of his mother.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisReverse the Curse (2024)
Follows Ted, an aimless thirtysomething who moves in with his father Marty when he develops a fatal illness. Marty’s health suffers every time the Boston Red Sox lose, so to keep him happy and alive, Ted enlists Marty’s grief counselor Mariana and friends to fake a Red Sox winning streak.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Other People (2016)
David, a struggling comedy writer fresh off from breaking up with his boyfriend, moves from New York City to Sacramento to help his sick mother. Living with his conservative father and much-younger sisters for the first time in ten years, he feels like a stranger in his childhood home. As his mother’s health declines, David frantically tries to extract meaning from this horrible experience and convince everyone (including himself) that he's "doing okay.”
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Way Way Back (2013)
Shy 14-year-old Duncan goes on summer vacation with his mother, her overbearing boyfriend, and her boyfriend's daughter. Having a rough time fitting in, Duncan finds an unexpected friend in Owen, manager of the Water Wizz water park.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017)
An estranged family gathers together in New York for an event celebrating the artistic work of their father.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisScrambled (2024)
When a doctor visit reveals her fertility may be in jeopardy, thirty-something Nellie Robinson stares down the barrel of a future without options and decides to freeze her eggs.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy
SnoozefestMovies like thisPaddleton (2019)
An unlikely friendship between two neighbors becomes an unexpectedly emotional journey when the younger man is diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWhite Noise (2022)
Jack Gladney, professor of Hitler studies at The-College-on-the-Hill, husband to Babette, and father to four children/stepchildren, is torn asunder by a chemical spill from a rail car that releases an "Airborne Toxic Event" forcing Jack to confront his biggest fear - his own mortality.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thismid90s (2018)
In 1990s Los Angeles, a 13-year-old spends his summer navigating between a troubled home life and a crew of new friends he meets at a skate shop.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHoller (2021)
In a forgotten pocket of Southern Ohio where American manufacturing and opportunity are drying up, a determined young woman finds a ticket out when she is accepted to college. Alongside her older brother, Ruth Avery joins a dangerous scrap metal crew in order to pay her way. Together, they spend one brutal winter working the scrap yards during the day and stealing valuable metal from the once thriving factories by night. With her goal in sight, Ruth finds that the ultimate cost of an education for a girl like her may be more than she bargained for, and she soon finds herself torn between a promising future and the family she would leave behind.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBoundaries (2018)
Single mom Laura, along with her awkward 14 year-old son Henry is forced to drive Jack, her estranged, care-free pot dealing father across country after he's kicked out of yet another nursing home.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisRaymond & Ray (2022)
Half brothers Raymond and Ray reunite when their estranged father dies—and discover that his final wish was for them to dig his grave. Together, they process who they've become as men, both because of their father and in spite of him.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJoe Bell (2020)
The true story of a small town, working class father who embarks on a solo walk across the U.S. to crusade against bullying after his son is tormented in high school for being gay.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCastle in the Ground (2021)
After the untimely death of his mother, a grieving teen befriends his charismatic but troubled neighbor, only to become ensnared in a world of addiction and violence as the opioid epidemic takes hold of his small town.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
The 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 Legend of Barney Thomson (2015)
Barney Thomson, awkward, diffident, Glasgow barber, lives a life of desperate mediocrity and his uninteresting life is about to go from 0 to 60 in five seconds, as he enters the grotesque and comically absurd world of the serial killer.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThin Ice (2012)
A dishonest insurance salesman's life quickly disintegrates during a Wisconsin winter when he teams up with a psychopath to steal a rare violin at the home of a reclusive farmer.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisClass Act (1992)
Duncan is a genius straight A student, Blade is ajuvenile delinquent. But because of a mix up with their school records, everyone thinks each is the other one. Now, Duncan kind of likes the attention from being thought of as a real bad dude, if only the school bully would stop trying to rough him up. And Blade definitely likes being thought of as important instead of as trouble.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Downtown Owl?
The closest matches to Downtown Owl are Prince Avalanche (2013), Wildflower (2023) and The Squid and the Whale (2005). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Downtown Owl?
People who watched Downtown Owl most often go on to Prince Avalanche (2013), Wildflower (2023) and The Squid and the Whale (2005).
What is the highest-rated movie like Downtown Owl?
mid90s (2018), rated 7.5/10 by 1,903 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Downtown Owl?
Rez Ball (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Downtown Owl?
Yes: Prince Avalanche (2013), Wildflower (2023) and The Squid and the Whale (2005).
How are movies similar to Downtown Owl chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Downtown Owl, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.