Movies like Roots (2021)
The best movies like Roots (2021) are Cowboys (2020), Mothers' Instinct (2024) and 20th Century Women (2016). If Roots hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedRequiem for a Dream (2000)8.0/10 from 11,469 votes
- NewestThe Thing with Feathers (2025)Released 2025
- In GermanSound of Falling (2025)Also in German
Cowboys (2020)
Troy and his young transgender son Joe are on the run from his conservative mother in the Montana wilderness, with a detective in hot pursuit.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMothers' Instinct (2024)
Housewives Alice and Celine are best friends and neighbours who seem to have it all. However, when a tragic accident shatters the harmony of their lives, guilt, suspicion and paranoia begin to unravel their sisterly bond.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this20th Century Women (2016)
In 1979 Santa Barbara, California, Dorothea Fields is a determined single mother in her mid-50s who is raising her adolescent son, Jamie, at a moment brimming with cultural change and rebellion. Dorothea enlists the help of two younger women – Abbie, a free-spirited punk artist living as a boarder in the Fields' home and Julie, a savvy and provocative teenage neighbour – to help with Jamie's upbringing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Eternal Daughter (2022)
An artist and her elderly mother confront long-buried secrets when they return to a former family home, now a hotel haunted by its mysterious past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisA Wife's Nightmare (2014)
Liz, just returned home after a mental breakdown, has to welcome a relative stranger into her home when Caitlin, a young, vivacious woman, claims to be her husband's daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Mouthful of Air (2021)
Julie is a new mom and children's book author, who escapes into the bright Crayola-colored world of her creation in order to leave behind the darkness caused by her post-partum depression.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Glass Castle (2017)
A young girl is raised in a dysfunctional family constantly on the run from the FBI. Living in poverty, she comes of age guided by her drunkard, ingenious father who distracts her with magical stories to keep her mind off the family's dire state, and her selfish, nonconformist mother who has no intention of raising a family, along with her younger brother and sister, and her other older sister. Together, they fend for each other as they mature in an unorthodox journey that is their family life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMrs Lowry & Son (2019)
An intimate portrayal of the relationship between one of greatest artists of the 20th century, L.S. Lowry and his unhappy and controlling mother, Elizabeth, whom he lived with all his life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDie My Love (2025)
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.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTuesday (2024)
A mother and her teenage daughter must confront Death when it arrives in the form of an astonishing talking bird.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHere (2024)
An odyssey through time and memory, centered on a place in New Jersey where—from wilderness, and then, later, from a home—love, loss, struggle, hope and legacy play out between couples and families over generations.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Taste of Honey (1961)
While out to avoid spending time with her narcissistic and promiscuous mother, sixteen-year-old Jo has a brief affair that leaves her pregnant and abandoned. When her mother remarries, Jo's only support becomes her friend Geoffrey, a homosexual.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNocturnal Animals (2016)
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.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSound of Falling (2025)
Four adolescent girls each spend their youth in the same farmhouse over the last century. Though separated by decades, resonances between their lives emerge: their desires and distress, secrets and truths, encounters with another’s gaze and defiant gaze in return.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRequiem for a Dream (2000)
The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Thing with Feathers (2025)
Following the death of his wife, a young father's hold on reality crumbles, and a strange presence begins to stalk him from the shadowy recesses of the apartment he shares with his two young sons.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Truth About Emanuel (2013)
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Girl in the Book (2015)
The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisBastard Out of Carolina (1996)
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Other Woman (2010)
Emilia, a law-school graduate, falls in love with her married boss, Jack. After Emilia marries Jack, her happiness turns unexpectedly to grief following the death of her infant daughter. Devastated, Emilia nonetheless carries on, attempting to forge a connection with her stepson William and to resist the interference of Jack's jealous ex-wife.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDéprivation (2024)
Matheo is a 17 years old students. Despite being a good one he is lonely and has no friends. His family is precarious. Born from an alcoholic father and a housewife mother Mathéo did not have the best childhood… It’s during his puberty than he discovers not only himself but his sexuality however he will soon assimilate the taste of sex to taking part of other people’s suffering. He will start by first torturing animals in vicious ways but he will soon change up his mind to tackle bigger species. Men and women that will cross his path.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Panic Room (2002)
Trapped in their New York brownstone's panic room, a hidden chamber built as a sanctuary in the event of break-ins, newly divorced Meg Altman and her young daughter Sarah play a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with three intruders - Burnham, Raoul and Junior - during a brutal home invasion. But the room itself is the focal point because what the intruders really want is inside it.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Tale of Two Sisters (2003)
Two sisters return home after a stay in a mental institution, only to face disturbing events and a strained relationship with their stepmother. As eerie occurrences unfold, dark family secrets begin to surface, blurring the line between reality and nightmare.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDie Anruferin (2008)
A lonely woman's prank phone call leads to an unexpected friendship with a grieving widow.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Moments: Mother (2022)
A woman looking for her kidnapped son finds one of the men who took him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Broken Embraces (2009)
Harry Caine, a blind writer, reaches this moment in time when he has to heal his wounds from 14 years back. He was then still known by his real name, Mateo Blanco, and directing his last movie.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisYou Have To Decide (2012)
Jung-gi, who is working as an intern at the Arts and Genius Education Institute, said something to his lab teacher who can't decide anything all day. and was called in by the assistant to be scolded. When he is cooling down on the roof, someone comes up and tells you why the world doesn't go its own way.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
After All (2017)
After All is said and done. A man clears out his childhood home, remembering past conversations.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like Roots and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Roots?
The closest matches to Roots are Cowboys (2020), Mothers' Instinct (2024) and 20th Century Women (2016). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Roots?
Start with Cowboys (2020), the closest match to Roots.
What is the highest-rated movie like Roots?
Requiem for a Dream (2000), rated 8.0/10 by 11,469 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Roots?
The Thing with Feathers (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there German movies like Roots?
Yes: Sound of Falling (2025) and Die Anruferin (2008).
How are movies similar to Roots chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Roots, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.