Movies like Real Mother (2025)
The best movies like Real Mother (2025) are Black Box (2020), I Believe in Unicorns (2015) and Mother and Child (2009). If Real Mother hooked you, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)8.5/10 from 27,813 votes
- NewestThe Colour of My Heart (2026)Released 2026
Black Box (2020)
After losing his wife and his memory in a car accident, a single father undergoes an experimental treatment that causes him to question who he really is.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
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
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 thisHere (2024)
An odyssey through time and memory, centered on a place in New Jersey where—from wilderness, and then, later, from a home—love, loss, struggle, hope and legacy play out between couples and families over generations.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJonathan Livingston Seagull (1973)
Jonathan is sick and tired of the boring life in his seagull clan. He rather experiments with new, always more daring flying techniques. Since he doesn't fit in, the elders expel him from the clan. So he sets out to discover the world beyond the horizon in a quest for wisdom.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 thisDecember Boys (2007)
For many years, four teenage orphans at an Australian outback convent have watched their younger comrades find new parents, and realize that they may never be adopted. The Reverend Mother sends the four boys away on a seaside vacation, where they meet Teresa and Fearless, a couple who would make perfect parents. The youths compete with one another to be the one Teresa and Fearless decide to adopt.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
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
Popcorn FlickMovies 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
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSplendor (1999)
Veronica is a white-bread beauty searching for a good man in Los Angeles. While slam dancing at a Halloween rave, she meets Abel, a sensitive poet. Then she meets Zed, a supersexy tattooed drummer with incredible biceps. Who will she choose? Does she go for true love or cheap sex? She can't decide so she chooses both. But after managing to nurture a picture-perfect threesome, along comes Ernest, a rich movie director with deep baby blues that sweep Veronica off her feet. What's a girl to do now?
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
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSpider-Man: The Venom Saga (2005)
A space-shuttle crash-landing puts the famous web-slinger Spider-Man in contact with a living alien substance that bonds to his suit and enhances his super-powers. Unfortunately, the alien substance begins to change him and he feels the pull of evil, so discards the suit. The evil attaches itself to another host leading to an epic confrontation between good and evil.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBrand Upon the Brain! (2007)
After returning home to his long-estranged mother upon a request from her deathbed, a man raised by his parents in an orphanage has to confront the childhood memories that have long haunted him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
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
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 thisBaby Mama (2008)
A successful, single businesswoman who dreams of having a baby discovers she is infertile and hires a working class woman to be her unlikely surrogate.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSwan Song (2021)
In the near future, Cameron Turner is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Presented with an experimental solution to shield his wife and son from grief, he grapples with altering their fate in this thought-provoking exploration of love, loss, and sacrifice.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCargo (2013)
Stranded in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, a man sets in motion an unlikely plan to protect the precious cargo he carries: his infant daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAlmost Friends (2017)
A man in his mid-20s, still living at home with his mother and stepfather, puts all his eggs in one basket: the girl who works at his local coffee shop. The problem is, she has a serious boyfriend. As they become closer, the line between friendship and intimacy is blurred, and the situation forces both to examine where they are in their lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
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
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Colour of My Heart (2026)
Zia Mohyeddin, Pakistan's most venerated actor, devotes his final years to resurrecting interest in Urdu poetry and passing it on to a new generation of South Asians.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)
An upper-class sextet sits down to dinner but never eats, their attempts continually thwarted by a vaudevillian mixture of events both actual and imagined.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Deer Hunter (1978)
Three steelworkers enlist in the army and are sent to Vietnam, one leaving behind a rushed marriage, the others a shared love. What they encounter during the war changes their lives forever.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisLilya 4-ever (2002)
In a struggling post-Soviet community, Lilya a teenage girl is abandoned when her mother moves to the United States with her boyfriend. Facing neglect and poverty, she meets Andrei, who offers her a job in Sweden, giving her hope for a better life — and a journey that will change everything.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Worth the HypeMovies like thisJerichow (2008)
In a small Northern German town, a dishonourably discharged Afghanistan veteran is offered a job as a deliveryman by an alcoholic Turkish entrepreneur, through which the former meets the latter's gorgeous wife.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDead Poets Society (1989)
At an elite, old-fashioned boarding school in New England, a passionate English teacher inspires his students to rebel against convention and seize the potential of every day, courting the disdain of the stern headmaster.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
As armies mass for a final battle that will decide the fate of the world--and powerful, ancient forces of Light and Dark compete to determine the outcome--one member of the Fellowship of the Ring is revealed as the noble heir to the throne of the Kings of Men. Yet, the sole hope for triumph over evil lies with a brave hobbit, Frodo, who, accompanied by his loyal friend Sam and the hideous, wretched Gollum, ventures deep into the very dark heart of Mordor on his seemingly impossible quest to destroy the Ring of Power.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisE is For: (2024)
A Black Queer Non-Binary barista/street medic who just moved back to their southern hometown realizes they've connected to an alternate version of themselves, it brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "You're just talking to yourself."
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death and Rebirth (1997)
Originally a collection of clips from the Neon Genesis Evangelion TV series, Death was created as a precursor to the re-worked ending of the series. Rebirth was intended as that re-worked ending, but after production overruns Rebirth became only the first half of the first part of The End of Evangelion, with some minor differences.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Real Mother?
The closest matches to Real Mother are Black Box (2020), I Believe in Unicorns (2015) and Mother and Child (2009). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Real Mother?
Start with Black Box (2020), the closest match to Real Mother.
What is the highest-rated movie like Real Mother?
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), rated 8.5/10 by 27,813 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Real Mother?
The Colour of My Heart (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Real Mother?
Yes: Black Box (2020), I Believe in Unicorns (2015) and Mother and Child (2009).
How are movies similar to Real Mother chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Real Mother, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.