Movies like The trunks of return (1996)
The best movies like The trunks of return (1996) are Hounddog (2008), Skin (2009) and Trees of Peace (2021). If The trunks of return hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedAdú (2020)6.9/10 from 303 votes
- NewestRisa and the Wind Phone (2026)Released 2026
- In SpanishAmong Wolves (2010)Also in Spanish
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
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSkin (2009)
Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTrees of Peace (2021)
Four women from different backgrounds forge an unbreakable sisterhood while trapped and in hiding during the genocide in Rwanda.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAmong Wolves (2010)
Entre lobos (Among Wolves) tells the remarkable story of a poor country boy named Marcos, who at the age of 7 is handed over to his father's employer, a rich landowner, who in turn delivers him to a life of labor with a hermetic goatherd in an isolated valley. The old man, who lives in a cave, is unused to human company and at first seems not very interested in having a live-in apprentice. The boy, who was abused by his parents, is frightened and equally aloof initially. Despite this, the shepherd begins teaching Marcos how to herd the goats, as well as how to care for himself and how to survive in the wilderness by trapping and fishing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Road Dance (2022)
A young girl lives in the Outer Hebrides in a small village in the years just before WWI. Isolated and hard by the shore, her life takes a dramatic change when a terrible tragedy befalls her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe 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
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOmaha (2025)
A young girl and her brother are awoken by their father and loaded into the car on an early morning in 2008. As they road trip across the American West, she discovers the truth about their seemingly spontaneous journey.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAdú (2020)
In a desperate attempt to reach Europe and crouched before an airstrip in Cameroon, a six-year-old boy and his older sister wait to sneak into the holds of an airplane. Not too far away, an environmental activist contemplates the terrible image of an elephant, dead and fangless. Not only do you have to fight against poaching, but you will also have to meet the problems of your newly arrived daughter from Spain. Thousands of kilometers to the north, in Melilla, a group of civil guards prepare to face the furious crowd of sub-Saharan people who have begun the assault on the fence. Three stories linked by a central theme, in which none of its protagonists know that their destinies are doomed to cross and that their lives will no longer be the same.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEleanor 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
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Color of Friendship (2000)
Mahree Bok lives on a farm in South Africa. Her father is a policeman who cannot hide his joy when activist Steve Biko is caught by the South African authorities. Piper Dellums is the daughter of a US congressman from California and who lives in a nice home in Washington DC. When Mahree is chosen to spend a semester at the Dellums' house, she doesn't expect that her host family would be black. Nor do her hosts suspect that she is not a black South African.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNotes for My Son (2020)
Battling terminal cancer, a woman writes a one of a kind notebook about life, death and love for her son to remember her by. Based on a true story.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTigertail (2020)
A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAll Together Now (2020)
An optimistic, talented teen clings to a huge secret: she's homeless and living on a school bus. When tragedy strikes, can she learn to accept a helping hand?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCall Me Crazy: A Five Film (2013)
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 thisThe Coming of Sin (1978)
A superstitious servant girl - who has foreboding nightmares about a naked man on horseback - comes to live with a solitary female artist at her country chateau. As the artist takes the girl under her wing, a sensuous relationship develops between them.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Believe in Unicorns (2015)
Feeling awkward and isolated, an imaginative and strong-willed teenage girl runs away from home with an older punk rock drifter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRisa and the Wind Phone (2026)
Risa, after her father's death, discovers she has the ability to communicate with him from beyond the grave. As she explores this supernatural connection, she faces emotional challenges and family secrets that will test her faith in what she thought was possible.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisBastard 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 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 · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe whisper of the wind (2020)
Tahar is a 20-year-old Sahrawi man who lives in the Basque Country. However, his family continues to live in the Tindouf refugee camp. One day, he receives a call from there: his father is dying.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
I'm tiny (2015)
As I´m tiny, the night seems to dark to me, so I swicht on the light in case the wardrobe monster is scared.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Wilaya (2012)
Fatimetu returns to the Wilaya of Smara for the funeral of her mother, after 16 years living in Spain. There she meets her brother Jatri, who is expecting his first child with Aichetu his wife, and her sister Hayat. Jatri tells her that she has inherited the family Khaimah and must care for her sister. Fatimetu reluctantly accepts the last will of her mother, though she is not sure how to take care of her sister as she can barely take care of herself.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Champs-Elysées (2023)
A boy has a dream of traveling to the world, especially to Paris where his uncle lives, but a wall built on his land divides his country and does not allow him to travel or cross to the other side of his land.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Wait, Fati! (2008)
The story of a Saharan family as it celebrates a wedding in the Tindouf refugee camp. The wedding is both the reason and the starting point for getting to know the members of this family who have reached a point where they must make important decisions.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Letter to Sasha (2012)
Fatma, who lives in Asuerd’s refugee camp in the Hamada of the Algerian desert, will listen in television to news that will give her a great idea … to contact with a girl from another side of the Atlantic Ocean: Sasha, one of the daughters of the president Obama.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Sand bellies (2024)
The Algerian region of Tindouf is home to more than 170,000 Sahrawis, who have been living in refugee camps since 1976, when Morocco occupied the Western Sahara region. In a place of inhospitable conditions and scarcity, the Sahrawi population lives on dwindling humanitarian aid. Six percent of them face the added difficulty of coeliac disease.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Best Option (2016)
Koto is a restless and impulsive young African, born in a refugee camp. His life in Catalonia among the paddy fields of the Delta passes by with few changes, always under the protection of his foster parents. He has left behind the tough childhood he had in the Saharan refugee camp where he was born. One day life takes a sudden turn: the doctors tell him that he urgently needs a kidney transplant. The best choice as a possible donor would be his biological mother. The sudden arrival of his Saharan family is a shock for Koto, who watches as the life he has been living for the past 10 years falls apart around him. Far removed from the beliefs and customs of his people, the young man must deal with his origins to try to save his own life. The film is based on a real story and played by Koto himself.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Coría and the sea (2014)
This is a story about women who are fighters, tenacious, hopeful, active women…who were capable of lifting, from nothingness, in the harshest landscape of the world, life. They are the Sahrawi women. 40 years ago, they were forced into exile; the men of this region, marched to war and the women created “temporary cities”: The Refugee Camps. They invented a new day to day life which made possible a sustainable existence and a hope, of one day returning home. Coría every night dreams of the sea; the majestic image of its water, the sound of its waves, are the echoes that join the people with their homeland. The will beats in the hearts of the Sahrawi women who maintain their unbreakable spirit, ever moving forward.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Battalion to My Beat (2016)
Eager to escape a life of confinement in the refugee camps of Western Sahara in Algeria, Mariam flees into the desert to join the army, naively believing herself to be the Joan of Arc who will save her country from occupation.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like The trunks of return and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The trunks of return?
The closest matches to The trunks of return are Hounddog (2008), Skin (2009) and Trees of Peace (2021). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The trunks of return?
Start with Hounddog (2008), the closest match to The trunks of return.
What is the highest-rated movie like The trunks of return?
Adú (2020), rated 6.9/10 by 303 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The trunks of return?
Risa and the Wind Phone (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Spanish movies like The trunks of return?
Yes: Among Wolves (2010), Adú (2020) and Notes for My Son (2020).
How are movies similar to The trunks of return chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The trunks of return, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.