Movies like The Only Way Out Is Through (2025)
The best movies like The Only Way Out Is Through (2025) are Gerry (2002), White Water Summer (1987) and Wildlike (2015). If The Only Way Out Is Through hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedInto the Wild (2007)7.8/10 from 10,474 votes
- NewestRebuilding (2025)Released 2025
Gerry (2002)
Two friends named Gerry become lost in the desert after taking a wrong turn. Their attempts to find their way home only lead them into further trouble.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhite Water Summer (1987)
When the experienced guide Vic accompanies the city boy Alan and his three friends on their first wilderness experience, he not only hopes to teach the four boys lessons about the wilderness, but about themselves. Vic pushes them to the limit. Soon after alienating the boys, Vic finds himself in desperate need of help and must rely on his students in order to survive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWildlike (2015)
Fourteen-year-old Mackenzie is sent to live with her uncle in Juneau when her mother can’t care for her anymore. The living situation quickly takes a turn for the worse, and she runs away to rejoin her mother in Seattle. While on her dangerous journey of sleeping in cars and breaking into hotel rooms, she’s drawn to Rene, a lonesome backpacker looking for tranquility in the wilderness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGood One (2024)
On a weekend backpacking trip in the Catskills, 17-year-old Sam contends with the competing egos of her father and his oldest friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisInto the Wild (2007)
After graduating from Emory University in 1992, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandons his possessions, gives his entire $24,000 savings account to charity, and hitchhikes to Alaska to live in the wilderness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this127 Hours (2010)
The true story of mountain climber Aron Ralston's remarkable adventure to save himself after a fallen boulder crashes on his arm and traps him in an isolated canyon in Utah.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOld Joy (2006)
Soon to be a father, Mark feels the pressure of domestic responsibility closing in, so he is more than happy to accept when his old friend Kurt proposes a camping trip in the Oregon wilderness. During their time together, the men come to grips with the changes in their lives and the effect on their relationship.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Adventures of the Wilderness Family (1975)
The story of a modern family bored with the hassles of the city life in Los Angeles. They head for the wilderness never to return.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisDances with Wolves (1990)
Wounded Civil War soldier John Dunbar tries to commit suicide—and becomes a hero instead. As a reward, he's assigned to his dream post, a remote junction on the Western frontier, and soon makes unlikely friends with the local Sioux tribe.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLand (2021)
Edee, in the aftermath of an unfathomable event, finds herself unable to stay connected to the world she once knew and in the face of that uncertainty, retreats to the magnificent, but unforgiving, wilds of the Rockies. After a local hunter brings her back from the brink of death, she must find a way to live again.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWalkabout (1971)
Under the pretense of having a picnic, a geologist takes his teenage daughter and 6-year-old son into the Australian outback and attempts to shoot them. When he fails, he turns the gun on himself, and the two city-bred children must contend with harsh wilderness alone. They are saved by a chance encounter with an Aboriginal boy who shows them how to survive, and in the process underscores the disharmony between nature and modern life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Shooting (1966)
Two miners agree to guide a mysterious woman, who has appeared in their camp from nowhere, to a nearby town; but soon, because of her erratic behavior, they begin to suspect that her true purpose is quite different.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWalking Out (2017)
A city teen travels to Montana to go hunting with his estranged father, only for the strained trip to become a battle for survival when they encounter a grizzly bear.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisRobinson Crusoe (1997)
Robinson Crusoe flees Britain on a ship after killing his friend over the love of Mary. A fierce ocean storm wrecks his ship and leaves him stranded by himself on an uncharted island. Left to fend for himself, Crusoe seeks out a tentative survival on the island, until he meets Friday, a tribesman whom he saves from being sacrificed. Initially, Crusoe is thrilled to finally have a friend, but he has to defend himself against the tribe who uses the island to sacrifice tribesman to their gods. During time their relationship changes from master-slave to a mutual respected friendship despite their difference in culture and religion.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAlpha (2018)
In the prehistoric past, Keda, a young and inexperienced hunter, struggles to return home after being separated from his tribe when bison hunting goes awry. On his way back he will find an unexpected ally.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCertain Women (2016)
Three strong-willed women strive to forge their own paths amidst the wide-open plains of the American Northwest: a lawyer forced to subdue a troubled client; a wife and mother whose plans to construct her dream home reveal fissures in her marriage; and a lonely ranch hand who forms an ambiguous bond with a young law student.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLost on a Mountain in Maine (2024)
When twelve-year-old Donn Fendler gets tired of waiting for his father and brothers to join him on the summit of Maine's highest peak, he decides to find his own way back to camp. But Donn doesn't count on a fast-moving fog that obscures the path. He doesn't count on falling down an embankment that hides him from sight. And he doesn't count on taking a turn that leaves him alone to wander aimlessly for nearly two weeks in the empty mountain wilderness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRebuilding (2025)
After wildfires take his ranch, a cowboy named Dusty winds up in a FEMA camp, finding community with others who lost homes, including his daughter and ex-wife.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Mountain Men (1980)
The story concerns two grizzled mountain men -- Bill Tyler and Henry Frapp -- during the dying days of the fur-trapping era. The plot begins when Running Moon runs away from her abusive husband Heavy Eagle and comes across the two seedy fur trappers. The mountain men take her in, unaware that Heavy Eagle has dispatched an army of Indian braves to reclaim her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisGold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain (1995)
Two teen girls, one from the city, one from the country, try to find the hidden gold of Bear Mountain learning about friendship, loyalty and courage on the way.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisItalian for Beginners (2000)
Several lonely hearts in a semi-provincial suburb of a town in Denmark use a beginner's course in Italian as the platform to meet the romance of their lives. The film, which unspools the connections and family drama shared between the students, complies with several aesthetic principles of Dogme 95 movement.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLost in Translation (2003)
Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBlackbird (1988)
A story about friendship between two boys coming from different social backgrounds, but with the equally bitter family experiences.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Muriel's Wedding (1994)
Socially awkward Muriel Heslop wants nothing more than to get married. Unfortunately, due to her oppressive politician father, Muriel has never even been on a date. Ostracized by her more socially adept friends, Muriel runs into fellow outcast Rhonda Epinstalk, and the two move from their small Australian town to the big city of Sydney, where Muriel changes her name and begins the arduous task of redesigning her life to match her fantasies.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAbout a Boy (2002)
Will Freeman is a good-looking, smooth-talking bachelor whose primary goal in life is avoiding any kind of responsibility. But when he invents an imaginary son in order to meet attractive single moms, Will gets a hilarious lesson about life from a bright, but hopelessly geeky 12-year-old named Marcus. Now, as Will struggles to teach Marcus the art of being cool, Marcus teaches Will that you're never too old to grow up.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKnockin' on Heaven's Door (1997)
Two young men, Martin and Rudi, both suffering from terminal cancer, get to know each other in a hospital room. They drown their desperation in tequila and decide to take one last trip to the sea. Drunk and still in pajamas they steal the first fancy car they find, a 60's Mercedes convertible. The car happens to belong to a bunch of gangsters, which immediately start to chase it, since it contains more than the pistol Martin finds in the glove box.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMaybe... Maybe Not (1994)
The heterosexual man Axel is thrown out of his girlfriends home for cheating and ends up moving in with a gay man. Axel learns the advantages of living with gay men even though they are attracted to him and when his girlfriend wants him back he must make a tough decision.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Big Blue (1988)
Childhood friends Jacques and Enzo share a passion for the danger of free diving. Jacques, following in the footsteps of his father, who died at sea when Jacques was a boy, harbors a remarkable ability to adjust his heart rate and breathing patterns in the water, with his vital signs more closely resembling those of dolphins than men.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTalk to Her (2002)
Two men share an odd friendship while they care for two women who are both in deep comas.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisParadise Now (2005)
Two childhood friends are recruited for a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Only Way Out Is Through?
The closest matches to The Only Way Out Is Through are Gerry (2002), White Water Summer (1987) and Wildlike (2015). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Only Way Out Is Through?
Start with Gerry (2002), the closest match to The Only Way Out Is Through.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Only Way Out Is Through?
Into the Wild (2007), rated 7.8/10 by 10,474 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Only Way Out Is Through?
Rebuilding (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Only Way Out Is Through?
Yes: Gerry (2002), White Water Summer (1987) and Wildlike (2015).
How are movies similar to The Only Way Out Is Through chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Only Way Out Is Through, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.