Movies like Backward, Forward, and All Around
The best movies like Backward, Forward, and All Around are Bastard Out of Carolina (1996), Won't Back Down (2012) and Light of My Life (2019). If Backward, Forward, and All Around hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Elephant Man (1980)8.1/10 from 4,128 votes
- NewestGoodbye June (2025)Released 2025
Bastard 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 thisWon'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
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLight of My Life (2019)
Years after a pandemic wipes out most of the female population, a father struggles to shield his daughter from a dangerous and predatory world.
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 thisWhat 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
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAlex of Venice (2015)
After her stay-at-home husband leaves her, a workaholic lawyer finds that she is not completely up to the tasks of caring for her young son, ailing father and household all by herself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Trials of Cate McCall (2013)
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMagpie (2024)
A couple's lives are thrown into disarray when their daughter is cast opposite a controversial major star.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCome Sunday (2018)
Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisStrange Weather (2016)
Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisBruised (2021)
Jackie Justice is a mixed martial arts fighter who leaves the sport in disgrace. Down on her luck and simmering with rage and regret years after the fight, she's coaxed into a brutal underground fight by her manager and boyfriend Desi and grabs the attention of a fight league promoter who promises Jackie a life back in the Octagon. But the road to redemption becomes unexpectedly personal when Manny - the son she gave up as an infant - shows up at her doorstep. A triumphant story of a fighter who reclaims her power, in and out of the ring, when everyone has counted her out
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Safety of Objects (2002)
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Never Sang for My Father (1970)
A man living in the towering shadow of his aging father finds it difficult to start a new chapter in his life by marrying his girlfriend and moving to California.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHoly 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
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe 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
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMost (2003)
A poetic and powerful story of a father forced to choose between love and duty.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGracie (2007)
A teenager faces an uphill battle when she fights to give women the opportunity to play competitive soccer.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe 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
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 thisGoodbye 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
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDawn of Revenge (1922)
A disabled man plots revenge on a woman who married someone else.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Broadway Gold (1923)
Sunny Duane, a chorus girl, goes out to dinner with Cornelius Fellowes, a wealthy man who is murdered the same night. Anxious to avoid suspicion, she escapes and quickly marries a man who believes he is going to die and wants to leave her his fortune. He recovers but is helplessly crippled. With the law closing in a last minute change of fortune rescues Sunny future.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Elephant Man (1980)
A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man being mistreated by his "owner" as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of great intelligence and sensitivity.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisSwannsong (2024)
A mother goes searching for memories of her son after his death and struggles with the truth she finds out.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
She's Having a Baby (1988)
Jake and Kristy Briggs are newlyweds. Being young, they are perhaps a bit unprepared for the full reality of marriage and all that it (and their parents) expect from them. Do they want babies? Their parents certainly want them to. Is married life all that there is? Things certainly aren't helped by Jake's friend Davis, who always seems to turn up just in time to put a spanner in the works.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisHello, Goodbye (2017)
Hazuki and Aoi are classmates but their relationship outside class is fraught, and outside school non-existent. But when both girls are drawn to helping an elderly woman, they're forced to interact, confronting their differences and similarities as well as their deepest secrets.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002)
A deaf man and his girlfriend resort to desperate measures in order to fund a kidney transplant for his sister. Things go horribly wrong, and the situation spirals rapidly into a cycle of violence and revenge.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStruck by Lightning (1990)
This little comedy is set in a small factory come halfway home, employing only handicapped people. Ollie Rennie is the boss and sometime minder of all his workers. He employees Pat Cannizzaro to help get all his workers into some sort of sport, and Pat just happens to be a soccer teacher. He forms a team and tries to take them all the way, with some funny results.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Radio (2003)
In the racially divided town of Anderson, South Carolina in 1976, football coach Harold Jones spots a mentally disabled African-American young man nicknamed Radio near his practice field and is inspired to befriend him. Soon, Radio is Jones' loyal assistant, and he becomes a student at T.L. Hanna High School. But things start to sour when Coach Jones begins taking guff from parents and fans who feel that his devotion to Radio is getting in the way of the team's quest for a championship.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Backward, Forward, and All Around?
The closest matches to Backward, Forward, and All Around are Bastard Out of Carolina (1996), Won't Back Down (2012) and Light of My Life (2019). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Backward, Forward, and All Around?
Start with Bastard Out of Carolina (1996), the closest match to Backward, Forward, and All Around.
What is the highest-rated movie like Backward, Forward, and All Around?
The Elephant Man (1980), rated 8.1/10 by 4,128 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Backward, Forward, and All Around?
Goodbye June (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Backward, Forward, and All Around?
Yes: Bastard Out of Carolina (1996), Won't Back Down (2012) and Light of My Life (2019).
How are movies similar to Backward, Forward, and All Around chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Backward, Forward, and All Around, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.