The World According to Garp
A struggling young writer finds his life and work dominated by his unfaithful wife and his radical feminist mother, whose best-selling manifesto turns her into a cultural icon.
Movies Like The World According to Garp
Similar in style, tone, and themes — find your next watch.
Almost Friends
2017★ 6.3
A man in his mid-20s, still living at home with his mother and stepfather, puts all his eggs in one basket: the girl who works at his local coffee shop. The problem is, she has a serious boyfriend. As they become closer, the line between friendship and intimacy is blurred, and the situation forces both to examine where they are in their lives.
Boxcar Bertha
1972★ 5.8
"Boxcar" Bertha Thompson, a transient woman in Arkansas during the violence-filled Depression of the early '30s, meets up with rabble-rousing union man "Big" Bill Shelly and the two team up to fight the corrupt railroad establishment.
Shirley
2020★ 6.1
A famous horror writer finds inspiration for her next book after she and her husband take in a young couple.
Nocturnal Animals
2016★ 7.4
Susan Morrow receives a book manuscript from her ex-husband – a man she left 20 years earlier – asking for her opinion of his writing. As she reads, she is drawn into the fictional life of Tony Hastings, a mathematics professor whose family vacation turns violent.
Mother
1996★ 6.8
A neurotic, twice-divorced sci-fi writer moves back in with his mother to solve his personal problems.
Foxcatcher
2014★ 6.7
The greatest Olympic Wrestling Champion brother team joins Team Foxcatcher led by multimillionaire sponsor John E. du Pont as they train for the 1988 games in Seoul - a union that leads to unlikely circumstances.
Bruised
2021★ 6.8
Jackie Justice is a mixed martial arts fighter who leaves the sport in disgrace. Down on her luck and simmering with rage and regret years after the fight, she's coaxed into a brutal underground fight by her manager and boyfriend Desi and grabs the attention of a fight league promoter who promises Jackie a life back in the Octagon. But the road to redemption becomes unexpectedly personal when Manny - the son she gave up as an infant - shows up at her doorstep. A triumphant story of a fighter who reclaims her power, in and out of the ring, when everyone has counted her out
Wilson
2017★ 6.0
Middle-aged and divorced, Wilson finds himself lonely, smug, and obsessed with his past.
This Is Where I Leave You
2014★ 6.6
When their father passes away, four grown, world-weary siblings return to their childhood home and are requested -- with an admonition -- to stay there together for a week, along with their free-speaking mother and a collection of spouses, exes and might-have-beens. As the brothers and sisters re-examine their shared history and the status of each tattered relationship among those who know and love them best, they reconnect in hysterically funny and emotionally significant ways.
Queen of the Ring
2025★ 6.7
In a time when pro wrestling for women was illegal all over the country, a small town single mother embraces the danger to change culture as she dominates America's most masculine sport to become the first million dollar female athlete in history.
Uncorked
2020★ 6.1
Elijah must balance his dream of becoming a master sommelier with his father's expectations that he carry on the family's Memphis BBQ joint.
When You Finish Saving the World
2023★ 5.8
Evelyn and her oblivious son Ziggy seek out replacements for each other. As Evelyn tries to parent an unassuming teenager at her shelter, Ziggy fumbles through his pursuit of a brilliant young woman at school.
Effie Gray
2014★ 5.9
A look at the mysterious relationship between Victorian art critic John Ruskin and his teenage bride Effie Gray.
Jeff, Who Lives at Home
2012★ 6.2
Dispatched from his basement room on an errand for his mother, slacker Jeff might discover his destiny (finally) when he spends the day with his brother as he tracks his possibly adulterous wife.
My Brother the Devil
2012★ 6.4
Fourteen-year-old Mo is a lonely, sensitive boy whose hunger for the rant and banter of buddies makes him prone to tread dangerous territories. He idolizes his handsome older brother, Rashid, a charismatic, well-respected member of a local gang, whose drug dealing enables “Rash” to provide for his family. Aching to be seen as a tough guy himself, Mo takes a job that unlocks a fateful turn of events and forces the brothers to confront their inner demons. It turns out that hate is easy. It is love and understanding that take real courage.
Ghostlight
2024★ 7.1
When a construction worker unexpectedly joins a local theater's production of Romeo and Juliet alongside his estranged teenage daughter, the drama onstage starts to mirror his own life.
First Match
2018★ 6.4
Hardened by years in foster care, a teenage girl from Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood decides that wrestling boys is the only way back to her estranged father.
Personal Velocity
2002★ 5.9
In a series of three vignettes, three women in turn struggle to free themselves from the men who restrict their personal freedom.
Kinds of Kindness
2024★ 6.5
A triptych fable following a man without choice who tries to take control of his own life; a policeman who is alarmed that his wife who was missing-at-sea has returned and seems a different person; and a woman determined to find a specific someone with a special ability, who is destined to become a prodigious spiritual leader.
Die My Love
2025★ 6.1
After inheriting a remote Montana house, Jackson moves there from New York with his partner Grace, and the couple soon welcome a child. As Jackson becomes increasingly absent and rural isolation sets in, Grace struggles with loneliness, creative frustration, and unresolved emotional wounds. What begins as an attempt at renewal gradually turns into an intense psychological descent, placing strain on their relationship and exposing the fragile balance between love, identity, and motherhood.