Movies like Joy (2013)

Eleanor the Great (2025)

94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Dear Zoe (2022)

Tess enlists her biological father – a lovable slacker from the wrong side of the tracks – and the charming juvenile delinquent next door to help her come to grips with the death of her little sister.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

The 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

Holy Lands (2019)

When lapsed Jew and former cardiologist Harry suddenly decides to spend his retirement as a pig farmer in Nazareth, Israel, the move deeply shocks his family and his new neighbours. Back in New York, Harry’s ex-wife Monica is trying to manage the lives of their adult children, Annabelle and David, as well as her own.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

The Pumpkin Eater (1964)

Jo, the mother of seven children, divorces her second husband in order to marry Jake, a successful but promiscuous screenwriter. Though they are physically and emotionally compatible, they are slowly torn apart.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

The 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

Adopt a Highway (2019)

Russ Millings has just been released from prison after serving 21 years for a 3rd strike conviction for possessing an ounce of marijuana. As he tries to adapt to a world he doesn’t recognize – including trying to learn how to use the internet – he finds an abandoned baby in a dumpster behind the fast food restaurant where he works as a dishwasher. Unsure of what to do, and caught between impulses of kindness and panic, Russ soon realizes this could be his chance at redemption.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Lorelei (2020)

A man is released from prison after 15 years. He reunites with his high school girlfriend, now a single mother of three. What follows is a lyrical take on love, regret and second chances.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Salomé (2013)

After the lewd and frenetic Dance of the Seven Veils, and with the solemn pledge from the very lips of Herod himself that she could have whatever her heart desires up to half his kingdom, wanton and proud young Salomé comes before her king with an unreasonable demand. Beguiled by John the Baptist, and then scorned for the sake of his god, lascivious Salomé—encouraged by her mother, the vindictive, Herodias—commands that John be executed and his head delivered on a silver platter.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Won't Back Down (2012)

Jamie Fitzpatrick and Nona Alberts are two women from opposites sides of the social and economic track, but they have one thing in common: a mission to fix their community's broken school and ensure a bright future for their children. The two women refuse to let any obstacles stand in their way as they battle a bureaucracy that's hopelessly mired in traditional thinking, and they seek to re-energize a faculty that has lost its passion for teaching.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Hounddog (2008)

A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius (2004)

The story of golf icon and legend, Bobby Jones, who retired from competition at the tender age of 28.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Hardball (2001)

An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

The Young One (1960)

A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Gigi & Nate (2022)

A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

What Maisie Knew (2013)

In New York City, six-year-old Maisie is caught in the middle of a bitter custody battle between her self-absorbed parents—an aging rock singer mother and a distracted art dealer father. As both quickly marry new partners to strengthen their legal standing, Maisie is shuttled back and forth in an endless game of emotional point-scoring. Yet amid the chaos and upheaval, Maisie begins to find true comfort and affection in her new step-parents.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Inside I'm Dancing (2004)

Michael is a 24-year-old who has cerebral palsy and long-term resident of the Carrigmore Residential Home for the Disabled, run by the formidable Eileen. His life is transformed when the maverick Rory O'Shea moves in.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Hands of Stone (2016)

The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Goodbye June (2025)

Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972)

Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

One Last Shot (2026)

June and her friends give everything they've got to complete a movie for her college application project.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Persepolis (2007)

In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Satrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Anche il riccio respira (TBA)

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Dense on the Sea (2000)

Constant Wegman (Benja Bruijning), a 14 year old boy, raised by his grandmother (Carry Tefsen) in Zeedijk, Amsterdam. She is the owner of a cafe-hotel “De Rode Laars” (“The Red Boots”). The dreaming Constant runs away from this world of drunkards, gamblers, fighters by writing poems. His grandmother wants him to take control of the cafe. Then Constant secretly subscribes to a national poem writing competition: a new Vondel is born!

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Off the Road (2013)

Paul, fourteen, neglects his studies to spend all his time on his moped, to the consternation of his parents.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

The Great Phuket (2024)

Fourteen-year-old Li Xing lives in a district full of ruins and reconstruction. School brings him nothing but problems and his family is no help at all. One day, he finds an underground shelter where strange things happen...

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Butterfly Cloud (1977)

End of childhood, first love and misunderstandings that seem unsolvable. Comic story of sixteen years old boy who seems to be all against his dreams - and the families and friends, and the world from the supermarket where he works.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Mira (2026)

Mira dreams of becoming a truck driver. As adolescence transforms her body, the way others look at her begins to change. Her dream is suddenly in jeopardy, but Mira isn't ready to give up on it.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

The Squid and the Whale (2005)

Based on the true childhood experiences of Noah Baumbach and his brother, The Squid and the Whale tells the touching story of two young boys dealing with their parents' divorce in Brooklyn in the 1980s.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Jinn (2018)

Summer is a carefree teenage girl whose world is turned upside down when her mother abruptly converts to Islam and becomes a different person. At first resistant to the faith, she begins to reevaluate her identity after becoming attracted to a Muslim classmate, crossing the thin line between physical desire and piety.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama