Sightlines · a viewing thread

Funny Because It Aches

A run of tender, deadpan dramedies where love, grief, and the panic of becoming yourself all get metabolized through jokes — watch these when you want to laugh and cry in the same scene.

Mostly beloved festival-circuit indies and one bona fide crowd-pleaser gateway; the register is modern arthouse-adjacent canon that asks for feeling more than patience, though All of Us Strangers and Sorry, Baby go to genuinely tender-bruise places.

  • All of Us Strangers (2023)
  • The Worst Person in the World (2021)
  • Sorry, Baby (2025)
  • Twinless (2025)
  • (500) Days of Summer (2009)
  • Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022)
  • Voicemails for Isabelle (2026)
  • Blue Heron (2026)
  • The Holdovers (2023) — The overlooked one that most rhymes with these — a deadpan curmudgeon and a grieving boy stuck together over Christmas break, aching and funny in the same breath, the gateway to pull down if the tone here is what you love.
  • A Man Called Ove (2015) — If Ove's been sitting on your list, this is the deadpan grief-comedy to finally watch — a suicidal widower's every attempt to be done with life keeps getting interrupted by neighbors, and it laughs and cries exactly the way this thread does.
  • Short Term 12 (2013) — The under-seen indie that started this whole tender lineage — a foster-care counselor holding teenagers together while barely holding herself, warmth and heartbreak metabolized the same way these films do it.
  • Ghostlight (2024) — The forgotten gem here — a numb, grieving construction worker stumbles into an amateur Romeo and Juliet, and grief cracks open through community theater in a register pitched right between the deadpan and the tender-bruise of this thread.
  • CODA (2021) — The laugh-and-cry crowd-pleaser to pull down next — a hearing girl in a Deaf fishing family caught between duty and becoming herself, warm and funny and quietly devastating like the softer films on this list.
  • Lady Bird (2017) — The one that's pure this-thread DNA — a self-christened teenager clawing her way out of Sacramento, the panic of becoming yourself rendered as deadpan jokes that ache, a straight sibling to (500) Days and The Worst Person in the World.
  • Rental Family (2025) — The overlooked recent one to finally watch — a struggling actor in Tokyo hired to play stand-in family members, performed connection curdling into real grief and tenderness in exactly this thread's key.
  • Sing Street (2016) — If the crowd-pleaser gateway here landed, this is the under-seen one to queue — a Dublin kid starting a band to survive his parents' collapse, joyous and aching at once, becoming yourself set to song.
  • I Swear (2025) — The under-seen coming-of-age to pull down — a Scottish teenager diagnosed with Tourette's fighting to be himself against a town that won't have it, funny and bruising in the way this thread rewards.
  • Tony (2026) — The coming-of-age that rhymes with Short Term 12 and Cha Cha Real Smooth — a directionless nineteen-year-old finds himself, and a found family of misfits, in the heat and clatter of a restaurant kitchen.
  • Hard Truths (2024) — If the tender-bruise end of these (All of Us Strangers, Sorry, Baby) is where you live, this is the recent one to pull down — Mike Leigh turning a furious, depressed woman and the family circling her into something mordantly funny and quietly devastating.
  • Jay Kelly (2025) — The Baumbach one to reach for if The Holdovers and A Man Called Ove landed — a movie star drifting across Europe reckoning with the life he built, wry and aching in the same breath.
  • Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) — If CODA and Lady Bird landed, this is the crowd-pleaser to pull down next — the multiverse spectacle is really a mother-daughter reconciliation that has you laughing and crying in the same scene.
  • How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (2024) — The one that rhymes hardest with A Man Called Ove and The Holdovers — a cynical grandson angling for an inheritance while nursing his dying grandmother, the jokes slowly giving way to real grief.
  • Blue Moon (2025) — Almost the thread's thesis in one film — lyricist Lorenz Hart holding court with wit at Sardi's while his heart quietly breaks over the partner who's moved on, funny precisely because it aches.
  • Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (2023) — A deadpan Quebec charmer for anyone who loved the offbeat tenderness here — a too-empathetic teen vampire and a suicidal boy, the panic of becoming yourself played sweet and wry.
  • Father Mother Sister Brother (2025) — Jarmusch in a quiet register — three deadpan family chapters where the ache of distance between parents and grown children surfaces through small, funny, tender exchanges.
  • A Poet (2025) — A bittersweet tragicomedy for the same wavelength — an aging, unrecognized poet finds late purpose mentoring a gifted teenager, dignity and failure metabolized with rueful humor.