Films and TV shows that feel like Wake Me Up When September Ends by Green Day

A quiet, aching song of grief for a lost father, where the pain of loss lingers through autumn and the wish is to sleep through it until it ends.

1. Garden State (2004): A numb young man returns home for a parent's funeral, with the same mid-2000s ache of grief and drifting.
2. Dead Poets Society (1989): Autumn, youth and loss, ending in a grief that stays with the survivors.
3. Stand by Me (1986): Boys grapple with death and the end of innocence in a bittersweet late-summer story.
4. The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012): A tender, hurting teen story about grief, memory and getting through the hard season.
5. Jarhead (2005): Same-era Iraq war mood, with the waiting, dread and the toll on those left behind.
6. Six Feet Under (2001): A family reckons with a father's death and the long afterlife of grief.
7. Manchester by the Sea (2016): Quiet, devastating portrait of loss that never fully lifts.
8. Dan in Real Life (2007): A widowed father and his daughters in an autumn family setting, with grief running under the warmth.