Movies like Angela's Ashes (1999)
The best movies like Angela's Ashes (1999) are Black '47 (2018), 25th Hour (2002) and Gangs of New York (2002). If Angela's Ashes hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedGoodFellas (1990)8.5/10 from 15,011 votes
- NewestBrownsville Bred (2025)Released 2025
Black '47 (2018)
In 1847, when Ireland is in the grip of the Great Famine that has ravaged the country for two long years, Feeney, a hardened Irish Ranger who has been fighting for the British Army abroad, returns home to reunite with his estranged family, only to discover the cruelest reality, a black land where death reigns.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this25th Hour (2002)
On the eve of a seven-year prison sentence, a New York drug dealer spends his final day of freedom confronting his past, his relationships, and the choices that led to his downfall in a city still reeling from 9/11.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGangs of New York (2002)
In early 1860s New York, Irish immigrant Amsterdam Vallon is released from prison and returns to the Five Points, seeking revenge against his father's killer, William Cutting, a powerful anti-immigrant gang leader. He knows that revenge can only be attained by infiltrating Cutting's inner circle. Vallon's journey becomes a fight for personal survival and to find a place for the Irish people.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Wonder (2022)
Haunted by her past, a nurse travels from England to a remote Irish village in 1862 to investigate a young girl's supposedly miraculous fast.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIn the Name of the Father (1993)
A small-time Belfast thief, Gerry Conlon, is wrongly convicted of an IRA bombing in London, along with his father and friends, and spends 15 years in prison fighting to prove his innocence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisIronweed (1987)
An alcoholic drifter spends Halloween in his hometown of Albany, New York after returning there for the first time in decades.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete (2013)
Coming of age story about two inner city youths, who are left to fend for themselves over the summer after their mothers are taken away by the authorities.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGoodFellas (1990)
The true story of Henry Hill, a half-Irish, half-Sicilian Brooklyn kid who is adopted by neighbourhood gangsters at an early age and climbs the ranks of a Mafia family under the guidance of Jimmy Conway.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisA Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006)
Dito Montiel, a successful author, receives a call from his long-suffering mother, asking him to return home and visit his ailing father. Dito recalls his childhood growing up in a violent neighborhood in Queens, N.Y., with friends Antonio, Giuseppe, Nerf and Mike.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisState of Grace (1990)
Hell's Kitchen, New York. Terry Noonan returns home after a ten-year absence. He soon reconnects with Jackie, a childhood friend and member of the Irish mob, and rekindles his love affair with Jackie's sister Kathleen.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Nest (2020)
Rory is an ambitious entrepreneur who brings his American wife and kids to his native country, England, to explore new business opportunities. After abandoning the sanctuary of their safe American suburban surroundings, the family is plunged into the despair of an archaic '80s Britain and their unaffordable new life in an English manor house threatens to destroy the family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStuart: A Life Backwards (2007)
Story about the remarkable friendship between a reclusive writer and illustrator and a chaotic homeless man, whom he gets to know during a campaign to release two charity workers from prison.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOrdinary People (1980)
Beth, Calvin, and their son Conrad are living in the aftermath of the death of the other son. Conrad is overcome by grief and misplaced guilt to the extent of a suicide attempt. He is in therapy. Beth had always preferred his brother and is having difficulty being supportive to Conrad. Calvin is trapped between the two trying to hold the family together.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOnce Upon a Time in America (1984)
A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisHillbilly Elegy (2020)
An urgent phone call pulls a Yale Law student back to his Ohio hometown, where he reflects on three generations of family history and his own future.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Pawnbroker (1965)
A Jewish pawnbroker, a victim of Nazi persecution, loses all faith in his fellow man until he realizes too late the tragedy of his actions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Whale (2022)
A reclusive English teacher suffering from severe obesity attempts to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter for one last chance at redemption.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHunger (2008)
The story of Bobby Sands, the IRA member who led the 1981 hunger strike during The Troubles in which Irish Republican prisoners tried to win political status.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Funeral (1996)
After the funeral of one of their own, a criminal family decides to embark on an emotionally unnerving journey in an attempt to exact bloody revenge.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Humans (2021)
Erik Blake has gathered three generations of his Pennsylvania family to celebrate Thanksgiving at his daughter’s apartment in lower Manhattan. As darkness falls outside and eerie things start to go bump in the night, the group’s deepest fears are laid bare.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDevil's Island (1996)
Devil's Island is a bitter sweet tale of Iceland in the fifties. Life is rough in Reykjavik's post-war slum of Camp Thule, where the abandoned US military barracks have been turned into makeshift homes. Struggling wives and their hard-working husbands try to make ends meet. The younger generation dreams of dollars, Rock'n'Roll and the American way of life. To celebrate or to drown their misery - they're never short of a good reason to booze. Devil's Island vividly depicts the everyday life of a wacky family, their neighbours and friends and shows how some of their dreams come true and others don't.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Champ (1931)
A broken-down alcoholic prizefighter struggles to keep custody of his adoring son.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBrownsville Bred (2025)
Set against the vibrant yet challenging backdrop of her urban neighborhood, the complexities of adolescence are explored as Elaine faces an unexpected upheaval in her life due to her father, Manny, an aspiring salsa musician whose struggles lead him away from his family.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
A Million Little Pieces (2019)
A young drug-addled writer approaching the bottom of his descent submits to two months of agonizing detox at a treatment center in Minnesota.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Song of the Sheep (2024)
A shepherd discovers his wine is gone and one of his sheep, Hervé, can suddenly talk.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962)
An Irish miser, his morphine addicted wife, their debauched older son, and a gravely ill younger son. A quiet Connecticut vacation home on one foggy day in August 1912 becomes the backdrop for domestic decline.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisYou Are Here (2020)
Two brothers plan to spend quality time together on a weekend hike, but when things go wrong they are forced to confront a rift in their relationship.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Justine (1969)
In Alexandria, in 1938, Darley, a young British schoolmaster and poet, makes friends through Pursewarden, the British consular officer, with Justine, the beautiful and mysterious wife of a Coptic banker. He observes the affairs of her heart and incidentally discovers that she is involved in a plot against the British, meant to arm the Jewish underground in Palestine. The plot finally fails, Justine is sent to jail and Darley decides to return to England.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Sadie Thompson (1928)
A young, beautiful prostitute named Sadie Thompson arrives on the South Pacific island of Pago Pago looking for honest work and falls for Timothy O'Hara, an American sailor who is unfazed by her unsavory past. However, Mr. Davidson, a missionary who arrived on the island at the same time, aims to "save" Sadie from her sinful life and petitions to have her separated from her beau and deported back to San Francisco.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWR: Mysteries of the Organism (1971)
What does the energy harnessed through orgasm have to do with the state of communist Yugoslavia circa 1971? Only counterculture filmmaker extraordinaire Dušan Makavejev has the answers (or the questions). His surreal documentary-fiction collision begins as an investigation into the life and work of controversial psychologist and philosopher Wilhelm Reich and then explodes into a free-form narrative of a beautiful young Slavic girl’s sexual liberation.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Angela's Ashes?
The closest matches to Angela's Ashes are Black '47 (2018), 25th Hour (2002) and Gangs of New York (2002). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Angela's Ashes?
Start with Black '47 (2018), the closest match to Angela's Ashes.
What is the highest-rated movie like Angela's Ashes?
GoodFellas (1990), rated 8.5/10 by 15,011 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Angela's Ashes?
Brownsville Bred (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Angela's Ashes?
Yes: Black '47 (2018), 25th Hour (2002) and Gangs of New York (2002).
How are movies similar to Angela's Ashes chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Angela's Ashes, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.