Movies like Where the Heart Is (1979)
The best movies like Where the Heart Is (1979) are Curly Sue (1991), The Great Gilly Hopkins (2015) and A Home of Our Own (1993). If Where the Heart Is hooked you, these 20 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Where the Heart Is
Quick picks
- Highest ratedEverything Everywhere All at Once (2022)7.7/10 from 8,652 votes
- NewestNight Always Comes (2025)Released 2025
Curly Sue (1991)
Bill is a penniless drifter who scams strangers out of just enough money to feed himself and his partner in crime, an orphan girl known as Curly Sue. Bill and Curly Sue target Grey, a yuppie lawyer, but their con takes an unexpected turn when the successful woman begins to like the ramshackle duo. But there's one problem—Grey's jealous, conniving boyfriend, Walker.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Great Gilly Hopkins (2015)
Young and feisty Gilly Hopkins devises a scheme to escape from her new foster home and reunite with her birth mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Home of Our Own (1993)
In 1960s Los Angeles an energetic widow and her six children try to make a dream of theirs come true: to have a home of their own. They leave L.A. and head for the countryside, all the while facing numerous difficulties and obstacles during their journey.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLike Dandelion Dust (2009)
Rip Porter is sentenced to seven years in prison for beating his wife, Wendy. When he is released, he discovers that Wendy gave up their child, and the privileged Campbell family adopted him. The two families are soon in a legal battle for the child they both love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Dog's Way Home (2019)
The adventure of Bella, a dog who embarks on an epic 400-mile journey home after she is separated from her beloved human.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEverything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
An aging Chinese immigrant is swept up in an insane adventure, where she alone can save what's important to her by connecting with the lives she could have led in other universes.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMother and Child (2009)
The lives of three women have a commonality: adoption. Karen is a physical therapist who regrets that, as a teenager, she gave up her daughter for adoption. Elizabeth was an adopted child and is now a successful lawyer, but her personal life lacks warmth. Lucy and her husband have failed to conceive and now hope to adopt a baby to make their family complete.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWasp (2003)
Zoë is a single mother who lives with her four children in Dartford. She is poor and can't afford to buy food. One day her old flame drives by and asks her to go on a date with him. Scared that he doesn't want to go out with her, she lies and tells him that she is just babysitting the kids. This will be her first date in years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBenji (2018)
Two school kids strike up a friendship with an orphaned puppy named Benji. When danger befalls them and they end up kidnapped by robbers who are in over their heads, Benji and his scruffy sidekick come to the rescue.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJuno (2007)
Faced with an unplanned pregnancy, sixteen year old high-schooler, Juno MacGuff, makes an unusual decision regarding her unborn child.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBed Rest (2023)
After struggling to start a family, Julie Rivers becomes pregnant and moves into a new home with her husband. She's ordered to mandatory bed rest, and begins seeing ghostly happenings throughout the house.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLosing Isaiah (1995)
Khaila Richards, a crack-addicted single mother, accidentally leaves her baby in a dumpster while high and returns the next day in a panic to find he is missing. In reality, the baby has been adopted by a warm-hearted social worker, Margaret Lewin, and her husband, Charles. Years later, Khaila has gone through rehab and holds a steady job. After learning that her child is still alive, she challenges Margaret for the custody.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAbigail Haunting (2020)
After escaping the clutches of an abusive relationship, Katie reluctantly returns to the foster home she grew up in. Little does she know, her foster mother Marge is harboring a sinister secret dating back a decade. Now, Katie finds herself caught up in a horrifying family drama while confronting an angry spirit named Abigail.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Remember Mama (1948)
Norwegian immigrant Marta Hanson keeps a firm but loving hand on her household of four children, a devoted husband and a highly-educated lodger who reads great literature to the family every evening. Through financial crises, illnesses and the small triumphs of everyday life, Marta maintains her optimism and sense of humor, traits she passes on to her aspiring-author daughter, Katrin.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMartian Child (2007)
A recently-widowed science fiction writer considers whether to adopt a hyper-imaginative 6-year-old abandoned and socially-rejected boy who says he's really from Mars.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMinimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things (2015)
How might your life be better with less? The popular simple-living duo The Minimalists examines the many flavors of minimalism by taking the audience inside the lives of minimalists from various walks of life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Road (2009)
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind and water. It is cold enough to crack stones and, when the snow falls, it is gray. Their destination is the warmer south, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNight Always Comes (2025)
Facing eviction in a city her family can no longer afford, a woman plunges into a desperate and increasingly dangerous all-night search to raise $25,000.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBabes (2024)
After getting pregnant from a one-night stand, a single woman leans on her married best friend and mother of two to guide her through gestation and beyond.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe World According to Garp (1982)
A struggling young writer finds his life and work dominated by his unfaithful wife and his radical feminist mother, whose best-selling manifesto turns her into a cultural icon.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Where the Heart Is?
The closest matches to Where the Heart Is are Curly Sue (1991), The Great Gilly Hopkins (2015) and A Home of Our Own (1993). Below are 17 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Where the Heart Is?
Start with Curly Sue (1991), the closest match to Where the Heart Is.
What is the highest-rated movie like Where the Heart Is?
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), rated 7.7/10 by 8,652 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Where the Heart Is?
Night Always Comes (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Where the Heart Is?
Yes: Curly Sue (1991), The Great Gilly Hopkins (2015) and A Home of Our Own (1993).
How are movies similar to Where the Heart Is chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Where the Heart Is, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.