Movies like I Am (2009)
The best movies like I Am (2009) are The Saint of Fort Washington (1993), Lockdown (2000) and Death Wish 3 (1985). If I Am hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedFight Club (1999)8.4/10 from 33,302 votes
- NewestThe Punisher: One Last Kill (2026)Released 2026
The Saint of Fort Washington (1993)
Matthew, a young schizophrenic, finds himself out on the street when a slumlord tears down his apartment building. Soon, he finds himself in even more dire straits, when he is threatened by Little Leroy, a thug who is one of the tough denizens of the Fort Washington Shelter for Men. He reaches out to Jerry, a streetwise combat veteran, who takes Matthew under his wing as a son. The relationship between these two men grows as they attempt to conquer the numbing isolation of homelessness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLockdown (2000)
Avery (Jones) returns to college as a competitive swimmer after getting his life back on track. But his life takes another unexpected turn when he and his two friends (Bonds, Casseus) are wrongly accused of murder and end up in prison.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDeath Wish 3 (1985)
Architect/vigilante Paul Kersey arrives back in New York City and is forcibly recruited by a crooked police chief to fight street crime caused by a large gang terrorizing the neighborhoods.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJawbone (2017)
A former youth boxing champion, Jimmy McCabe is a man in search of hope but looking in all the wrong places. When he hits rock bottom he turns to his childhood boxing club and the only family he has left: gym owner Bill corner man Eddie and promoter Joe. Back in training, years after anyone thought he was a contender, he risks his life, as he tries to stand tall and regain his place in the world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSuburbia (1984)
When household tensions and a sense of worthlessness overcome Evan, he finds escape when he clings with the orphans of a throw-away society. The runaways hold on to each other like a family until a tragedy tears them apart.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 Punisher: One Last Kill (2026)
As Frank Castle searches for meaning beyond revenge, an unexpected force pulls him back into the fight.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisConvict (2014)
Set in the dark and old Parramatta prison built by the original convicts our lead character Ray a war veteran finds himself serving 18 months for manslaughter after defending his fiance. He soon realizes that the prison boss has it in for him and does everything possible to break Ray even going after his fiance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMammal (2016)
After Margaret, a divorcée living in Dublin, loses her teenage son, she develops an unorthodox relationship with Joe, a homeless youth. Their tentative trust is threatened by his involvement with a violent gang and the escalation of her ex-husband's grieving rage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStop-Loss (2008)
A veteran soldier returns from his completed tour of duty in Iraq, only to find his life turned upside down when he is arbitrarily ordered to return to field duty by the Army.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFight Club (1999)
A ticking-time-bomb insomniac and a slippery soap salesman channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy. Their concept catches on, with underground "fight clubs" forming in every town, until an eccentric gets in the way and ignites an out-of-control spiral toward oblivion.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisTo Write Love on Her Arms (2015)
The story follows 19-year-old Renee who has always loved fairy tales: the idea of a princess, a hero and a happily ever after. But Renee’s life is that of a darker tale: she’s a young woman battling addiction, depression and self-injury. In a creative blend of artistic fantasy balanced with harsh reality, the movie follows Renee on her courageous journey towards recovery.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Best in Hell (2022)
Movie about units of the "whites" (PMC "Wagner") who perform an assault operation to capture buildings. They are opposed by the "yellow" units, which have dug in these buildings and are also ready to fight to the end.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWalking Tall: Lone Justice (2007)
In Dallas, witnesses against a drug-lord are murdered in a safe-house.The testimony of FBI agents becomes the only chance to keep him in prison. They are lodged in another safe-house, but the place is invaded and the agents are executed. However, Kate is only wounded, and her boyfriend Nick believes there is a traitor in the agency and takes her to his ranch to protect her life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Deer Hunter (1978)
Three steelworkers enlist in the army and are sent to Vietnam, one leaving behind a rushed marriage, the others a shared love. What they encounter during the war changes their lives forever.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisCrossroads (1986)
A wanna-be blues guitar virtuoso seeks a long-lost song by legendary musician, Robert Johnson.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNo Retreat, No Surrender 3: Blood Brothers (1990)
Two feuding brothers of differing political views, one a policeman, the other a martial artist, join forces to avenge the death of their father, a retired agent who was brutally murdered by the mafia.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Silent Twins (2022)
June and Jennifer Gibbons are twins from the only Black family in a small town in Wales in the 1970s and '80s. Feeling isolated from the community, the pair turn inward and reject communication with everyone but each other, retreating into their own fantasy world of inspiration and adolescent desires. After a spree of vandalism, the girls are sentenced to Broadmoor, an infamous psychiatric hospital, where they face the choice to separate and survive or die together.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBronson (2009)
A young man who was sentenced to 7 years in prison for robbing a post office ends up spending 30 years in solitary confinement. During this time, his own personality is supplanted by his alter ego, Charles Bronson.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCargo 200 (2007)
While returning to Leningrad from a visit to his brother, Professor Artyom's car breaks down and he finds assistance at an isolated farmhouse occupied by Alexey, his wife, a Vietnamese laborer, and a stranger who wanders around the farm. When his car is repaired, Artyom leaves, drunk on moonshine, and students Valera and Angelika arrive. After Valera gets drunk, the stranger abducts Angelika.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWalk On Water If You Can (1979)
Literature graduate Orlando begins a love affair with the Foreign Ministry official Anders. She follows him to Argentina. There she learns that he is already married.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
I Live in Fear (1955)
An aging foundry patriarch, gripped by terror of nuclear annihilation, tries to uproot his family to Brazil. When they petition to have him declared incompetent, a family-court counselor witnesses his obsession slide into ruin—and asks whether ignoring the atomic threat is any saner.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBird (1988)
Saxophone player Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker comes to New York in 1940 and is quickly noticed for his remarkable way of playing. He becomes a drug addict but his loving wife Chan tries to help him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGirasoli (2024)
1963. The young nurse Anna begins working in the juvenile ward of a mental hospital. There she meets Lucia, a fifteen-year-old schizophrenic. Against the backdrop of a struggle between Dr. Marie and the rigid Dr. Oreste to reform patient treatment, a relationship between Anna and Lucia develops, forcing them to make decisive choices for their respective lives.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Lia & Ro (TBA)
Ro takes a supervised day trip from a psychiatric hospital with her sister Lia on her 30th birthday. Amid beach crowds, arcade noise and childhood memories, Ro tries to reconnect with her sister and the world she currently feels removed from.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Howl (2010)
It's San Francisco in 1957, and an American masterpiece is put on trial. Howl, the film, recounts this dark moment using three interwoven threads: the tumultuous life events that led a young Allen Ginsberg to find his true voice as an artist, society's reaction (the obscenity trial), and mind-expanding animation that echoes the startling originality of the poem itself. All three coalesce in a genre-bending hybrid that brilliantly captures a pivotal moment-the birth of a counterculture.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStay Still (2021)
These young women are an odd couple. Julie is quick-witted and stubborn. She celebrates idleness and even voluntarily checks into a psychiatric clinic. Nurse Agnes, on the other hand, is always eager to do the right thing and to meet everyone's expectations of her, which is not always easy. When the two of them accidentally meet one day, odds are they won't get along. But they quickly feel attracted to one another, despite their enormous differences.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Quelques Secondes (2015)
The daily life of five young women living in a Paris hosting center. All haunted by their heavy past (rape, violence, abandonment...), they try to move forward... except one.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Story of Piera (1983)
Piera is a young woman who grows up under the parentage of two extremely original overseers: both her mother and father have incestuous relations with her before they are committed to insane asylums. A special connection, between a mother and her daughter, full of sensuality and complicity, has allowed to portray a family full of fears, rather unbalanced, but nevertheless searching infinite love.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Touched with Fire (2016)
Two young poets with bipolar disorder begin a highly passionate, volatile relationship that threatens both their futures.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like I Am?
The closest matches to I Am are The Saint of Fort Washington (1993), Lockdown (2000) and Death Wish 3 (1985). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after I Am?
Start with The Saint of Fort Washington (1993), the closest match to I Am.
What is the highest-rated movie like I Am?
Fight Club (1999), rated 8.4/10 by 33,302 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like I Am?
The Punisher: One Last Kill (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to I Am chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside I Am, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.