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Movies that feel like The Holdovers (2023)

If you loved The Holdovers, the closest films we have are The Descendants (2011), Captain Fantastic (2016) and Toni Erdmann (2016). All three share The Holdovers' contemplative and witty feel, which is what we rank on before quality. 8 of the 12 picks below are included with a subscription right now on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu and others, checked against today's data.

A curmudgeonly instructor at a New England prep school is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually, he forms an unlikely bond with one of them — a damaged, brainy troublemaker — and with the school’s head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam.

🍅 97% Rotten Tomatoes7.9 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Alexander Paynecontemplativewittyplayfulmelancholy
Stream it:Peacock
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If The Holdovers hit the spot, these will too

The Descendants poster
The Descendants
2011 · dir. Alexander Payne
🍅 87%7.3comedy · drama

The same hand behind both of them: Alexander Payne

The difference: None of the melancholy The Holdovers is built on

With his wife Elizabeth on life support after a boating accident, Hawaiian land baron Matt King takes his daughters on a trip from Oahu to Kauai to confront a young real estate broker, who was having an affair with Elizabeth before her misfortune.

Feels alike?
Captain Fantastic poster
Captain Fantastic
2016 · dir. Matt Ross
🍅 82%7.8drama · comedy

Both are built on the same subject: mental illness

Deep in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, a father devoted to raising his six kids with a rigorous physical and intellectual education is forced to leave his paradise and enter the world, beginning a journey that challenges his idea of what it means to be a parent.

Feels alike?
Toni Erdmann poster
Toni Erdmann
2016 · dir. Maren Ade
🍅 93%7.3comedy · drama

The same mix in both: stillness, then wit

Convinced that his daughter has forgotten how to laugh, a father shows up unannounced while she's living abroad and bombards her with outrageous jokes.

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Manchester by the Sea poster
Manchester by the Sea
2016 · dir. Kenneth Lonergan
🍅 96%7.8drama

The same two preoccupations: boston, massachusetts, and melancholy

After his older brother passes away, Lee Chandler is forced to return home to care for his 16-year-old nephew. There he is compelled to deal with a tragic past that separated him from his family and the community where he was born and raised.

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A Man Called Otto poster
A Man Called Otto
2022 · dir. Marc Forster
🍅 70%7.5comedy · drama

Playful where it counts, melancholy underneath

The difference: Critics were much harder on this one

When a lively young family moves in next door, grumpy widower Otto Anderson meets his match in a quick-witted, pregnant woman named Marisol, leading to an unlikely friendship that turns his world upside down.

Feels alike?
Red Dog poster
Red Dog
2011 · dir. Kriv Stenders
🍅 84%7.3drama · comedy · family

Two things both keep coming back to: 1970s and grief

The difference: Sits closer to family than The Holdovers does

The legendary true story of the Red Dog who united a disparate local community while roaming the Australian outback in search of his long lost master.

Feels alike?
Babylon poster
Babylon
2022 · dir. Damien Chazelle
🍅 57%7.1drama · comedy

The same preoccupation in both: alcoholism

A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, tracing the rise and fall of multiple characters in an era of unbridled decadence and depravity during Hollywood's transition from silent films to sound films in the late 1920s.

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Le Week-End poster
Le Week-End
2013 · dir. Roger Michell
🍅 89%6.4comedy · drama

One thread runs through both: holiday

Nick and Meg Burrows return to Paris, the city where they honeymooned, to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary and rediscover some romance in their long-lived marriage. The film follows the couple as long-established tensions in their marriage break out in humorous and often painful ways.

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Another Round poster
Another Round
2020 · dir. Thomas Vinterberg
🍅 93%7.7comedy · drama

Both keep coming back to the same thing: teacher student relationship

Four stagnant high school teachers decide to test out a theory that maintaining a constant level of intoxication will improve their overall lives.

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Good Bye, Lenin! poster
Good Bye, Lenin!
2003 · dir. Wolfgang Becker
🍅 91%7.7comedy · drama

Contemplative drama, and it commits to that

The difference: Made in the 2000s, in a different era of the craft

Alex Kerner's mother was in a coma while the Berlin wall fell. When she wakes up he must try to keep her from learning what happened (as she was an avid communist supporter) to avoid shocking her which could lead to another heart attack.

Feels alike?
I'm Still Here poster
I'm Still Here
2024 · dir. Walter Salles
8.2drama · history

Common ground: 1970s

The difference: Leans harder into history than The Holdovers does

A woman married to a former politician during the 1971 military dictatorship in Brazil is forced to reinvent herself and chart a new course for her family after a violent and arbitrary act.

Feels alike?
Elling poster
Elling
2001 · dir. Petter Næss
🍅 85%7.5comedy · drama

Both lean on wit more than on comedy

40-year-old Elling, sensitive, would-be poet, is sent to live in a state institution when his mother, who has sheltered him his entire life, dies. There he meets Kjell Bjarne, a gentle giant and female-obsessed virgin, also in his 40s.

Feels alike?

In the mood for more contemplative?

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The best-reviewed films that share The Holdovers’ defining feeling.