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Grey Gardens poster

Movies that feel likeGrey Gardens (1976)

Edie Bouvier Beale and her mother, Edith, two aging, eccentric relatives of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, are the sole inhabitants of a Long Island estate. The women reveal themselves to be misfits with outsized, engaging personalities. Much of the conversation is centered on their pasts, as mother and daughter now rarely leave home.

If you loved Grey Gardens, the closest films we have are The Magician (1958), Vernon, Florida (1981) and Room 237 (2012). All three share Grey Gardens' contemplative feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Nuts! (2016).

🍅 95% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7.5 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Ellen Giffardcontemplativeparanoidwhimsical
9 of 12 streaming nowAmazon Prime Video · Paramount Plus Premium · Criterion Channel

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If Grey Gardens hit the spot, these will too

The Magician poster
The Magician
1958 · dir. Ingmar Bergman
🍅 100%★ 7.5drama

The same preoccupation in both: paranoia

The difference: Trades the whimsy of Grey Gardens for an angle of its own

A traveling magician and his troupe arrive in a Swedish town in the 1840s, where their act is scrutinized by local authorities and a skeptical medical official. Their stay leads to a series of confrontations that test the boundaries between performance, belief, and deception.

Vernon, Florida poster
Vernon, Florida
1981 · dir. Errol Morris
🍅 100%★ 7documentary

One thread runs through both: eccentric

The difference: Easier on the paranoia than Grey Gardens

Early Errol Morris documentary intersplices random chatter he captured on film of the genuinely eccentric residents of Vernon, Florida. A few examples? The preacher giving a sermon on the definition of the word "Therefore," and the obsessive turkey hunter who speaks reverentially of the "gobblers" he likes to track down and kill.

Room 237 poster
Room 237
2012 · dir. Rodney Ascher
🍅 94%★ 6.2documentary

Contemplative and paranoid in the same breath

The difference: Made in the 2010s, in a different era of the craft

A subjective documentary that explores various theories about hidden meanings in Stanley Kubrick's classic film The Shining. Five very different points of view are illuminated through voice over, film clips, animation and dramatic reenactments.

Nuts! poster
Nuts!
2016 · dir. Penny Lane
🍅 94%★ 7.1documentary · animationRent or buy

Both lean on whimsy more than on documentary

The difference: Sits closer to animation than Grey Gardens does

The true story of John Romulus Brinkley, a small-town Kansas doctor who discovers in 1917 that he can cure impotence by transplanting goat testicles into men. And that’s just the tipping point in this stranger-than-fiction tale. With the balls of a P.T. Barnum, the gonads of goats, and the wishful dreams of flaccid men, Brinkley amassed a fortune, was almost elected Governor of Kansas, invented junk mail and the infomercial, and built the world’s most powerful radio station. By the time all of the twists and turns of Brinkley’s story are revealed, Nuts! certainly earns its title.

The Manchurian Candidate poster
The Manchurian Candidate
1962 · dir. John Frankenheimer
🍅 96%★ 7.9thriller · drama

Contemplative documentary in both cases

Near the end of the Korean War, a platoon of U.S. soldiers is captured by communists and brainwashed. Following the war, the platoon is returned home, and Sergeant Raymond Shaw is lauded as a hero by the rest of his platoon. However, the platoon commander, Captain Bennett Marco, finds himself plagued by strange nightmares and soon races to uncover a terrible plot.

Dogtooth poster
Dogtooth
2009 · dir. Yorgos Lanthimos
🍅 94%★ 7.1drama

Both keep coming back to the same thing: dysfunctional family

Three teenagers are confined to an isolated country estate that could very well be on another planet. The trio spend their days listening to endless homemade tapes that teach them a whole new vocabulary. Any word that comes from beyond their family abode is instantly assigned a new meaning. Hence 'the sea' refers to a large armchair and 'zombies' are little yellow flowers. Having invented a brother whom they claim to have ostracized for his disobedience, the uber-controlling parents terrorize their offspring into submission.

The Parallax View poster
The Parallax View
1974 · dir. Alan J. Pakula
🍅 87%★ 7.1crime · drama · thriller

Documentary with a pulse of paranoia, in both cases

An ambitious reporter gets in trouble while investigating a senator's assassination which leads to a vast conspiracy involving a multinational corporation behind every event in the world's headlines.

Flee poster
Flee
2021 · dir. Jonas Poher Rasmussen
🍅 98%★ 7.9documentary · animation

The shared currency is whimsy

Recounted mostly through animation to protect his identity, Amin looks back over his past as a child refugee from Afghanistan as he grapples with a secret he’s kept hidden for 20 years.

Raging Bull poster
Raging Bull
1980 · dir. Martin Scorsese
🍅 92%★ 8.1drama · historyPrime Video

Both are built on the same subject: paranoia

The life of boxer Jake LaMotta, whose violence and temper that led him to the top in the ring destroyed his life outside of it.

Cutter's Way poster
Cutter's Way
1981 · dir. Ivan Passer
🍅 92%★ 6.8drama · mystery · thriller

Both sit in the same contemplative register

Alex Cutter is a boozy, belligerent and deeply cynical Vietnam veteran whose encounter with a landmine during the war has left him minus an eye, a leg and an arm. When his drifter playboy friend Richard Bone is falsely accused of murder, Cutter sets out for revenge in his own inimitable style.

Marathon Man poster
Marathon Man
1976 · dir. John Schlesinger
🍅 82%★ 7.4thriller · crime · dramaParamount+

Both run paranoid where it counts

A graduate student and obsessive runner in New York is drawn into a mysterious plot involving his brother, a member of the secretive Division.

The Man Who Knew Too Much poster
The Man Who Knew Too Much
1956 · dir. Alfred Hitchcock
🍅 89%★ 7.4thriller · mystery · drama

Reaching back to the 1950s for it

An American doctor and his wife, a former singing star, witness a murder while vacationing in Morocco, and are drawn into a twisting plot of international intrigue when their young son is kidnapped.

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The best-reviewed films that share Grey Gardens’ defining feeling.