Movies like The Root Of Girl
The best movies like The Root Of Girl are Ju Dou (1990), So Long, My Son (2019) and Buddha Mountain (2011). If The Root Of Girl hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.

Quick picks
- Highest ratedYi Yi (2000)8.0/10 from 727 votes
- NewestLeft-Handed Girl (2025)Released 2025
- In ChineseJu Dou (1990)Also in Chinese
Ju Dou (1990)
Tianqing falls in love with Ju Dou, his uncle's wife who is tortured for being childless. However, after they have an affair, they discover that his uncle is impotent and try to conceal the truth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSo Long, My Son (2019)
Two married couples adjust to the vast social and economic changes taking place in China from the 1980s to the present.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBuddha Mountain (2011)
In Chengdu, China, a retired female opera singer named Master Chang takes in a trio of young tenants into her boarding home. The tenants include a rock singer and a college student who has run away from home.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlind Mountain (2007)
Young student Bai Xuemei is cheated and sold as a wife by human traffickers to a remote village. Raped and beaten, she leads the life of a sex slave and child-bearer with no hope of escape because of the villagers apathy and selfishness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisXiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (1998)
Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even more remote spot with a Tibetan saddle tramp Lao Jin to learn horse herding.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisYi Yi (2000)
Each member of a family in Taipei asks hard questions about life's meaning as they live through everyday quandaries. NJ is morose: his brother owes him money, his mother is in a coma, his wife suffers a spiritual crisis when she finds her life a blank and his business partners make bad decisions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisUpstream (2024)
A moment of impulsiveness turns Gao Zhilei into a "stay-at-home" individual, but he never expected his life to take a turn in the opposite direction. A series of changes compel him to take on his responsibilities as the head of the family. When life's burdens hit hard, he must confront himself and start anew.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisButterfly on a Wheel (2007)
A sociopathic kidnapper methodically pushes a desperate pair of parents to their absolute breaking point.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFlowers in the Attic (2014)
After the sudden death of their father, four children face cruel treatment from their ruthless grandmother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLeft-Handed Girl (2025)
A mother and her two daughters move to Taipei to open a noodle stand at a vibrant night market, but family secrets and tradition test their fresh start.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Kindness of Strangers (2019)
Clara and her two sons escape from her abusive husband with little more than their car and plan to start over in New York. After the car towed away, the family meets Alice, who gets them into an emergency shelter. While stealing food at a Russian restaurant called ‘Winter Palace’, Clara meets Marc, who has been given the chance to help the old eatery regain its former glory. The ‘Winter Palace’ soon becomes a place of unexpected encounters between people who are all undergoing some sort of crisis and whom fate has now brought together.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDearest (2014)
A story centered around a divorced couple living in a southern Chinese city Shenzhen and dealing with the disappearance of their missing son.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 thisOne Second (2020)
A movie fan escapes from a labour camp during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and strikes up a relationship with a homeless female vagabond.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Joy Luck Club (1993)
Through a series of flashbacks, four Chinese women born in America and their respective mothers born in feudal China explore their pasts.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCaught by the Tides (2024)
Years after her boyfriend left her for the big city and promised to bring her there after he’s settled down, a Chinese woman sets out on a journey to be reunited with him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this24 City (2008)
As a decades-old state-run aeronautics munitions factory in downtown Chengdu, China is being torn down for the construction of the titular luxury apartment complex, director Jia Zhangke interviews various people affiliated with it about their experiences.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIlo Ilo (2013)
During the late 1990s, a busy working-class Singaporean couple hires a Filipino woman as a maid and nanny to their young son.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Burning Bed (1984)
An abused battered wife has had enough of husband beating up on her. Everywhere she turns for help, there's not much anyone will do. After he rapes her one night, she sets the bed on fire with him in it asleep.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBird (2024)
12-year-old Bailey lives with her single dad Bug and brother Hunter in a squat in North Kent. Bug doesn’t have much time for his kids, and Bailey, who is approaching puberty, seeks attention and adventure elsewhere.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNot Quite Lyin' Eyes (2013)
A nurse provides home care to a disabled Vietnam Vet. Unknown to her, she's part of a con game cooked up by her boyfriend.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Save the Tiger (1973)
A businessman's professional struggles begin to conflict with his personal life over the course of two days.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDinner at Eight (1933)
An ambitious New York socialite plans an extravagant dinner party as her businessman husband, Oliver, contends with financial woes, causing a lot of tension between the couple. Meanwhile, their high-society friends and associates, including the gruff Dan Packard and his sultry spouse, Kitty, contend with their own entanglements, leading to revelations at the much-anticipated dinner.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIt Ends with Us (2024)
When a woman's first love suddenly reenters her life, her relationship with a charming, but abusive neurosurgeon is upended, and she realizes she must learn to rely on her own strength to make an impossible choice for her future.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLes enfants de bohème (2021)
Idi and Rita live with their grandmother, Manie. Idi tries to keep the memories they have of their mother, by drawing on his school notebook. By the force of their desire, the children keep the link they have to their funny mother, despite the separation.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
13: Game of Death (2006)
After losing his job, his car and his money, Phuchit, races against time to complete 13 tasks ordered by an anonymous caller who promised 100 million Baht upon completion.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSusu (2018)
Two Chinese girls take a film transcription job at a heritage English countryside mansion. Discovering entangled family secrets about the Kunqu Opera star Susu, they find it almost impossible to escape, physically and emotionally.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Mapa de la geografía emocional (2024)
A reflection on love and identity with detours towards magical realism, which winks at the oral tradition of coastal populations and introduces us to Leo, a young 21-year-old sailor who revisits his relationship with Jimena after his great-aunt reminds him of his favorite myth from when he was a child: the story of the nereids.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Lucky Girl (2001)
Katlin is a high school student whose obsession with gambling leads to her accumulating a mountain of debt. Her habit also causes a high degree of family tension.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Gateway (2017)
Inside the Chornobyl exclusion zone Grandma Prisa, the family matriarch, consorts with water nymphs, eats a diet filled with hallucinogenic mushrooms, and claims to have personally stabbed 12 SS soldiers to death during World War II. She lives together with her divorced and chronically ill daughter Slava and grandson Vova. Unexpectedly, their measured life comes to an end - Grandma Prisa receives a mystical warning about an impending catastrophe.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like The Root Of Girl and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Root Of Girl?
The closest matches to The Root Of Girl are Ju Dou (1990), So Long, My Son (2019) and Buddha Mountain (2011). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Root Of Girl?
Start with Ju Dou (1990), the closest match to The Root Of Girl.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Root Of Girl?
Yi Yi (2000), rated 8.0/10 by 727 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Root Of Girl?
Left-Handed Girl (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Chinese movies like The Root Of Girl?
Yes: Ju Dou (1990), So Long, My Son (2019) and Buddha Mountain (2011).
How are movies similar to The Root Of Girl chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Root Of Girl, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.





























