Movies Like When We Aren't Here

If you liked When We Aren't Here, a movie directed by Lucas Boetsch, here are 20 movies with a similar feel, based on TMDB's recommendations. Each one links to its cast, trailer and where it's streaming.

1
I Believe in Unicorns (2015)
★ 6.6/10
Feeling awkward and isolated, an imaginative and strong-willed teenage girl runs away from home with an older punk rock drifter.
2
Strange Weather (2016)
★ 5.9/10
Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.
3
Vicious (2025)
★ 6/10
When Polly receives a mysterious box, it comes with one rule: place inside something she needs, something she hates, and something she loves. If she doesn’t obey, it will consume everything—and everyone—she’s ever known.
4
A Mouthful of Air (2021)
★ 6.4/10
Julie is a new mom and children's book author, who escapes into the bright Crayola-colored world of her creation in order to leave behind the darkness caused by her post-partum depression.
5
Mikey and Nicky (1976)
★ 6.9/10
Nick is desperate, holed up in a cheap hotel, suffering from an ulcer and convinced that a local mob boss wants him killed. Terrified, he calls Mikey, his friend since childhood and a fellow gangster. So begins a long…
6
The Trials of Cate McCall (2013)
★ 6.4/10
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
7
My Mom Jayne (2025)
★ 7.9/10
Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and…
8
Here (2024)
★ 6.5/10
An odyssey through time and memory, centered on a place in New Jersey where—from wilderness, and then, later, from a home—love, loss, struggle, hope and legacy play out between couples and families over generations.
9
The Bad Seed Returns (2022)
★ 7/10
Several years after the murderous events of the first movie left her father dead, Emma is now living with her aunt Angela and navigating high school. Angela’s husband begins to suspect that Emma may not be as innocent…
10
Bastard Out of Carolina (1996)
★ 7.1/10
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as…
11
Southbound (2015)
★ 5.9/10
The film contains five stories set on desolate stretches of a desert highway. Two men on the run from their past, a band on its way to a gig, a man struggling to get home, a brother in search of his long-lost sister…
12
Goodbye June (2025)
★ 6.5/10
Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.
13
Off the Map (2003)
★ 6.4/10
An 11-year-old girl watches her father come down with a crippling depression. Over one summer, she learns answers to several mysteries and comes to terms with love and loss.
14
Dalíland (2022)
★ 5.9/10
In 1973, a young gallery assistant goes on a wild adventure behind the scenes as he helps aging genius Salvador Dali prepare for a big show in New York.
15
Call Me Crazy: A Five Film (2013)
★ 7/10
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
16
Helen (2009)
★ 6.5/10
On the outside, Helen has it all – a loving family and a successful career – but when her suppressed mental illness resurfaces, the world crumbles around her. Crippled by depression, Helen finds solace through her…
17
The Girl in the Book (2015)
★ 5.8/10
The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.
18
The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972)
★ 7.3/10
Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal…
19
The Safety of Objects (2002)
★ 6.5/10
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband…
20
Curve (2016)
★ 6.9/10
Clinging to a smooth, curved surface high above a sentient abyss, a woman tries to cover the few feet back to safety without losing purchase and falling to her death.