feelsalike.com

Movies that feel like Housekeeping (1987)

If you loved Housekeeping, the closest films we have are Local Hero (1983), My Favorite Year (1982) and The Devil Wears Prada (2006). All three share Housekeeping's witty and playful feel, which is what we rank on before quality. 8 of the 12 picks below are included with a subscription right now on Howdy Amazon Channel, Disney Plus and Hulu and others, checked against today's data.

In the Pacific Northwest during the 1950s, two young sisters whose mother has abandoned them wind up living with their Aunt Sylvie, whose views of the world and its conventions don't quite live up to most people's expectations.

πŸ… 92% Rotten Tomatoesβ˜… 7.2 IMDb β†—TMDB β†—dir. Bill Forsythwittyplayfulcontemplativecozy

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If Housekeeping hit the spot, these will too

Local Hero poster
Local Hero
1983 Β· dir. Bill Forsyth
πŸ… 100%β˜… 7.3comedy Β· drama

Bill Forsyth working the same nerve twice

An American oil company sends a man to Scotland to buy up an entire village where they want to build a refinery. But things don't go as expected.

Feels alike?
My Favorite Year poster
My Favorite Year
1982 Β· dir. Richard Benjamin
πŸ… 97%β˜… 7.3comedy Β· drama

Both land wit and play at once

The difference: Missing the comfort of Housekeeping

Fledgling comic Benjy Stone can't believe his luck when his childhood hero, the swashbuckling matinee idol Alan Swann, gets booked to appear on the variety show he writes for. But when Swann arrives, he fails to live up to his silver screen image. Instead, he's a drunken womanizer who suffers from stage fright. Benjy is assigned to look after him before the show, and it's all he can do to keep his former idol from going completely off the rails.

Feels alike?
The Devil Wears Prada poster
The Devil Wears Prada
2006 Β· dir. David Frankel
πŸ… 75%β˜… 7drama Β· comedy

Contemplative comedy in both cases

A young woman from the Midwest gets more than she bargained for when she moves to New York to become a writer and ends up as the assistant to the tyrannical, larger-than-life editor-in-chief of a major fashion magazine.

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The King of Comedy poster
The King of Comedy
1982 Β· dir. Martin Scorsese
πŸ… 89%β˜… 7.8drama Β· comedy

Drama built on wit, twice over

Aspiring comic Rupert Pupkin attempts to achieve success in show business by stalking his idol, a late night talk-show host who craves his own privacy.

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Smoke poster
Smoke
1995 Β· dir. Wayne Wang
πŸ… 89%β˜… 7.4comedy Β· drama

Both trade on play more than on being comedy

Writer Paul Benjamin is nearly hit by a bus when he leaves Auggie Wren's smoke shop. Stranger Rashid Cole saves his life, and soon middle-aged Paul tells homeless Rashid that he wouldn't mind a short-term housemate. Still grieving over his wife's murder, Paul is moved by both Rashid's quest to reconnect with his father and Auggie's discovery that a woman who might be his daughter is about to give birth.

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Whisky poster
Whisky
2004 Β· dir. Juan Pablo Rebella
πŸ… 100%β˜… 7.1comedy Β· drama

Drama with a pulse of stillness, in both cases

When his long-lost brother resurfaces, Jacobo, desperate to prove his life has added up to something, looks to scrounge up a wife. He turns to Marta, an employee at his sock factory, with whom he has a prickly relationship.

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Little Miss Sunshine poster
Little Miss Sunshine
2006 Β· dir. Valerie Faris
πŸ… 91%β˜… 7.8comedy Β· drama

Witty comedy, and it commits to that

A family loaded with quirky, colorful characters piles into an old van and road trips to California for little Olive to compete in a beauty pageant.

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The Big Short poster
The Big Short
2015 Β· dir. Adam McKay
πŸ… 89%β˜… 7.8comedy Β· drama

Drama with a pulse of play, in both cases

The difference: 28 years apart, and the 2010s show

The men who made millions from a global economic meltdown.

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The Disaster Artist poster
The Disaster Artist
2017 Β· dir. James Franco
πŸ… 90%β˜… 7.3comedy Β· drama

Both sit in the same contemplative register

An aspiring actor in Hollywood meets an enigmatic stranger by the name of Tommy Wiseau, the meeting leads the actor down a path nobody could have predicted; creating the worst movie ever made.

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Sunshine Cleaning poster
Sunshine Cleaning
2008 Β· dir. Christine Jeffs
πŸ… 74%β˜… 6.8comedy Β· drama

Both are comedy through and through

A single mother and her slacker sister find an unexpected way to turn their lives around in this off-beat dramatic comedy. In order to raise the tuition to send her young son to private school the mom starts an unusual business – a biohazard removal/crime scene clean-up service.

Feels alike?
Mrs. Doubtfire poster
Mrs. Doubtfire
1993 Β· dir. Chris Columbus
πŸ… 71%β˜… 7.1comedy Β· drama Β· family

Both run cozy where it counts

The difference: Plays it as family more than Housekeeping does

Loving but irresponsible dad Daniel Hillard, estranged from his exasperated spouse, is crushed by a court order allowing only weekly visits with his kids. When Daniel learns his ex needs a housekeeper, he gets the job -- disguised as a British nanny. Soon he becomes not only his children's best pal but the kind of parent he should have been from the start.

Feels alike?
The Trip poster
The Trip
2011 Β· dir. Michael Winterbottom
πŸ… 89%β˜… 7comedy Β· drama

Drama approached the same way

When Steve Coogan is asked by The Observer to tour the country's finest restaurants, he envisions it as the perfect getaway with his beautiful girlfriend. But, when she backs out on him, he has no one to accompany him but his best friend and source of eternal aggravation, Rob Brydon.

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The best-reviewed films that share Housekeeping's defining feeling.