Film

The Fabelmans

Spielberg turns his own childhood into a movie, tracing a boy's obsession with a camera as his parents' marriage quietly comes apart around him. It's tender, funny, and unexpectedly clear-eyed about the cost of art-making on the people closest to you. Best for anyone who loves films about how films get made, or who has ever used a camera to avoid looking at something directly.

TMDb rating7.6

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Belfast2021

Branagh's own childhood memoir, shot in gorgeous black and white, about a family fracturing under pressure while a boy watches from the sidelines, half-understanding, half-enchanted by cinema himself.

But Its politics (the Troubles) sit more insistently in the background than Fabelmans' domestic drama does.

Belfast poster

Cinema Paradiso1988

The purest film ever made about falling in love with the movies themselves, following a boy and an old projectionist in postwar Sicily. Unabashedly sentimental in the best way.

But It leans hard into nostalgia and swelling music; if that sort of thing embarrasses you, this won't convert you.

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Roma2018

Cuarón's own black-and-white childhood reconstruction, seen through a family's housekeeper rather than the family itself, gorgeous and quietly devastating about domestic upheaval.

But Very slow, very observational — plot takes a back seat to atmosphere and memory.

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The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Stories We Tell2012

Same premise as Fabelmans almost exactly — a filmmaker discovers a parent's hidden truth and turns the camera itself into the instrument of finding it out — but done as nonfiction, with the real people instead of stand-ins.

Sarah Polley's documentary digs into her own family's buried secret using home movies, staged reenactments, and interviews with people who each remember it differently.

But No score-driven catharsis, no actors playing your favorites — it's a real family untangling a real story, messily.

Stories We Tell poster
More like this (8)

Almost Famous2000

Cameron Crowe's own semi-autobiographical teenage years, chasing a passion (rock journalism instead of filmmaking) while a fierce, complicated mother worries from home.

But Warmer and more comedic throughout — less interested in marital breakdown, more in youthful adventure.

Almost Famous poster

Empire of the Sun1987

Spielberg again, decades earlier, filming a child's-eye view of WWII chaos with the same instinct for wonder curdling into trauma. Fascinating to watch as a companion piece.

But Bleaker and more punishing than Fabelmans; the innocence here gets ground down hard.

Empire of the Sun poster

Licorice Pizza2021no page yet

Paul Thomas Anderson's shaggy, sun-drenched love letter to 1970s San Fernando Valley adolescence, full of the same specific, lived-in nostalgia for a very particular time and place.

But Looser and more episodic — don't expect the tight emotional arc Fabelmans builds toward.

Hugo2011

Scorsese's own valentine to early cinema, wrapped in a children's adventure, tracing how the earliest filmmakers turned tricks of light into magic.

But Aimed more squarely at younger viewers and pure spectacle rather than family drama.

Hugo poster

Radio Days1987

Woody Allen's warm, funny memory piece about growing up with a colorful extended family and a household ruled by the radio instead of the movies.

But Episodic and light on plot, more a string of memories than a single story.

Radio Days poster

Boyhood2014

Linklater's twelve-years-in-the-making experiment watches a kid actually age into a teenager, with divorce, new stepfathers, and identity forming in real time.

But No filmmaking framing device, and its power comes from patience rather than incident.

Boyhood poster

8½1963

Fabelmans belongs to a lineage of directors filming thinly-veiled versions of themselves; this is the film that essentially invented the genre, sixty years earlier and far stranger.

Fellini's fractured self-portrait of a director paralyzed mid-production, drowning in memory, guilt, and fantasy. The granddaddy of every autobiographical filmmaker movie that followed.

But Dreamlike and nonlinear by design — if you want a clear story with a beginning and end, this will frustrate you.

8½ poster

Big Fish2003

Same question wearing a costume: how do you love someone once you've learned the stories they told about themselves — and about your family — weren't quite the truth?

Tim Burton's tall-tale fable about a son trying to separate his dying father's mythologized stories from the truth of who he actually was, told with lush, fantastical imagery.

But Wildly sentimental and whimsical where Fabelmans stays grounded — it trades realism for outright fairy tale.

Big Fish poster

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Cinema Paradiso, Belfast