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Movies that feel like Toni Erdmann (2016)

If you loved Toni Erdmann, the closest films we have are Captain Fantastic (2016), The Holdovers (2023) and Hit the Road (2021). All three share Toni Erdmann's witty and playful feel, which is what we rank on before quality. 9 of the 12 picks below are included with a subscription right now on Amazon Prime Video, Hulu and Peacock Premium and others, checked against today's data.

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.

🍅 93% Rotten Tomatoes7.3 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Maren Adewittyplayfulcontemplativemelancholy

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If Toni Erdmann hit the spot, these will too

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

Both are built on the same subject: death of mother

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.

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The Holdovers poster
The Holdovers
2023 · dir. Alexander Payne
🍅 97%7.9drama · comedy

The same mix in both: wit, then play

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.

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Hit the Road poster
Hit the Road
2021 · dir. Panah Panahi
🍅 95%7.2comedy · drama

Both keep coming back to the same thing: family

The difference: Not nearly as melancholy as Toni Erdmann

A chaotic family is on a road trip across a rugged landscape. In the back seat, Dad has a broken leg, Mom tries to laugh when she's not holding back tears, and the youngest keeps exploding into car karaoke. Only the older brother is quiet.

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

Common ground: death

The difference: Sits closer to family than Toni Erdmann 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.

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

Both land stillness and melancholy at once

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.

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Meu Passado Me Condena: O Filme poster
Meu Passado Me Condena: O Filme
2013 · dir. Julia Rezende
5.8comedy

Witty comedy, and it commits to that

The immature and cheap douche bag Fábio Clóvis marries the pseudo-intellectual Miá and they travel in a cruise to Europe on board of a fancy passenger vessel. Fabio and Miá are invited to have dinner with the wealthy Beto Assunção and his gorgeous wife Laura in a VIP restaurant on the vessel. Soon Fábio discovers that Beto was Miá's boyfriend and Miá learns that Fábio had a crush on Laura that was his classmate. Meanwhile the cynical chamber maid Suzana Mello and her estranged husband, the entertainer Wilson, make a bet that Fábio and Miá will split before the end of the trip and poison their relationship. When the ship arrives in Casablanca, Fábio meets his bothersome childhood friend Cabeça that affects their honeymoon.

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Taxi poster
Taxi
2015 · dir. Jafar Panahi
🍅 96%7.3comedy · drama

Both lean on play more than on drama

A yellow cab is driving through the vibrant and colourful streets of Tehran. Very diverse passengers enter the taxi, each candidly expressing their views while being interviewed by the driver who is no one else but the director Jafar Panahi himself. His camera placed on the dashboard of his mobile film studio captures the spirit of Iranian society through this comedic and dramatic drive…

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Sunshine Cleaning poster
Sunshine Cleaning
2008 · dir. Christine Jeffs
🍅 74%6.8comedy · drama

Contemplative comedy in both cases

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.

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

Drama built on melancholy, twice over

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.

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

Comedy with a pulse of wit, in both cases

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.

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Pieces of April poster
Pieces of April
2003 · dir. Peter Hedges
🍅 83%7comedy · drama

The same preoccupation in both: family

Quirky and rebellious April Burns lives with her boyfriend in a low-rent New York City apartment miles away from her emotionally distant family. But when she discovers that her mother has a fatal form of breast cancer, she invites the clan to her place for Thanksgiving. While her father struggles to drive her family into the city, April -- an inexperienced cook -- runs into kitchen trouble and must ask a neighbor for help.

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Instructions Not Included poster
Instructions Not Included
2013 · dir. Eugenio Derbez
🍅 63%7.5comedy · drama

Drama with a pulse of play, in both cases

The difference: Reviewed a good deal more coolly

Valentin is Acapulco's resident playboy, until a former fling leaves a baby on his doorstep and him heading with her out of Mexico.

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The best-reviewed films that share Toni Erdmann’s defining feeling.