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Sunshine Cleaning poster

Movies that feel likeSunshine Cleaning (2009)

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.

If you loved Sunshine Cleaning, the closest films we have are Toni Erdmann (2016), August: Osage County (2013) and Good Bye, Lenin! (2003). All three share Sunshine Cleaning's witty and playful feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Love Is All You Need (2012).

🍅 74% Rotten Tomatoes★ 6.8 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Christine Jeffswittyplayfulcontemplativemelancholy
7 of 12 streaming nowHBO Max · Amazon Prime Video · Paramount Plus Essential

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If Sunshine Cleaning hit the spot, these will too

Looking for the series itself? Also in this series: Sunshine (2007)

Toni Erdmann poster
Toni Erdmann
2016 · dir. Maren Ade
🍅 93%★ 7.3comedy · drama

Both land wit and play at once

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.

August: Osage County poster
August: Osage County
2013 · dir. John Wells
🍅 67%★ 7.2comedy · dramaPrime Video

Both keep coming back to the same thing: suicide

An intense look at the lives of the strong-willed daughters of the Weston family, whose paths have diverged until a family crisis brings them back to the Midwest house they grew up in, and to the dysfunctional mother who raised them.

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

The same mix in both: stillness, then melancholy

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.

Asteroid City poster
Asteroid City
2023 · dir. Wes Anderson
🍅 76%★ 6.4comedy · dramaPeacock

Witty comedy, and it commits to that

In an American desert town circa 1955, the itinerary of a Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention is spectacularly disrupted by world-changing events.

Patch Adams poster
Patch Adams
1998 · dir. Tom Shadyac
🍅 22%★ 6.9comedy · drama

Playful drama in both cases

The difference: The critics' underdog of the pair

The true story of Dr. Hunter "Patch" Adams, who in the 1970s found that humor is the best medicine, and was willing to do just anything to make his patients laugh—even if it meant risking his own career.

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

Comedy built on stillness, twice over

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.

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

Common ground: new mexico

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.

City of Men poster
City of Men
2007 · dir. Paulo Morelli
🍅 74%★ 7.2dramaParamount+

Drama with a pulse of melancholy, in both cases

The difference: Takes it somewhere less witty than Sunshine Cleaning does

Best buddies Acerola and Laranjinha, about to turn 18, discover things about their missing fathers' pasts which will shatter their solid friendship, in the middle of a war between rival drug gangs from Rio's favelas.

Nobody Knows poster
Nobody Knows
2004 · dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda
🍅 92%★ 8drama

Both are built on the same subject: brothers and sisters

In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.

Silent Heart poster
Silent Heart
2014 · dir. Bille August
★ 7.1drama

Both lean on stillness more than on drama

Three generations of a family gather over a weekend. The sisters Sanne and Heidi have accepted their terminally-ill mother’s desire to die before her disease worsens; but, as the weekend progresses, their mother's decision becomes harder and harder to deal with, and old conflicts come to the surface.

Love Is All You Need poster
Love Is All You Need
2012 · dir. Susanne Bier
🍅 75%★ 6.5comedy · romance · dramaRent or buy

Both lean on wit more than on comedy

The difference: Sits closer to romance than Sunshine Cleaning does

Ida, a Danish hairdresser who has lost her hair to cancer, returns home from the hospital one day to find her husband is cheating on her. She decides to travel to Italy on her own for her daughter's wedding, but discovers on arriving that the wedding gathering will present its own challenges.

Taste of Cherry poster
Taste of Cherry
1997 · dir. Abbas Kiarostami
🍅 82%★ 7.7dramaMax

The same preoccupation in both: suicide

A middle-aged Tehranian man, Mr. Badii is intent on killing himself and seeks someone to bury him after his demise. Driving around the city, the seemingly well-to-do Badii meets with numerous people, including a Muslim student, asking them to take on the job, but initially he has little luck. Eventually, Badii finds a man who is up for the task because he needs the money, but his new associate soon tries to talk him out of committing suicide.

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The best-reviewed films that share Sunshine Cleaning’s defining feeling.