Movies like The Paintings (2025)
The best movies like The Paintings (2025) are Canvas (2020), The Shack (2017) and A Monster Calls (2016). If The Paintings hooked you with its family, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedIt's a Wonderful Life (1946)8.3/10 from 5,160 votes
- NewestThe Memory Beneath the Waters (2026)Released 2026
- In SpanishWhere the Tracks End (2023)Also in Spanish
Canvas (2020)
After a heartbreaking loss, a grandfather struggling to reclaim his passion for painting finds the inspiration to create again.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Shack (2017)
A grieving man receives a mysterious, personal invitation to meet with God at a place called 'The Shack'.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Monster Calls (2016)
12-year-old Conor encounters an ancient tree monster who proceeds to help him cope with his mother's terminal illness and being bullied in school.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Worth the HypeMovies like thisVersa (2025)
A young couple looking to start a family who experience emotions—from grief and loss to ultimate joy—as they embark on an ethereal, abstract, and imaginative cosmic dance of life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisMy Girl 2 (1994)
Vada Sultenfuss has a holiday coming up, and an assignment: to do an essay on someone she admires and has never met. She decides she wants to do an assignment on her mother, but quickly realises she knows very little about her. She manages to get her father to agree to let her go to LA to stay with her Uncle Phil and do some research on her mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRaise Your Voice (2004)
A coming-of-age story centered around a small-town singer brokenhearted by the death of her brother in a car crash, who had secretly submitted her for a summer session at a performing arts academy in Los Angeles. In the academy, she experiences a whole new way of life in the big city, far from the small town lifestyle she's used to.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe War with Grandpa (2020)
Peter is thrilled that his Grandpa is coming to live with his family. That is, until Grandpa moves into Peter's room, forcing him upstairs into the creepy attic. And though he loves his Grandpa, he wants his room back - so he has no choice but to declare war.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAugust Rush (2007)
Evan, a musically gifted orphan, runs away from his orphanage and searches New York City for his birth parents. On his journey, he's taken under the wing of the Wizard, a homeless man who lives in an abandoned theater. After discovering his talent, the Wizard gives Evan the name "August Rush" and devises a plan to profit from his talent. Little does Evan know that his parents, Lyla and Louis, are searching for him too.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Secret Life of Bees (2008)
Set in South Carolina in 1964, this is the tale of Lily Owens a 14 year-old girl who is haunted by the memory of her late mother. To escape her lonely life and troubled relationship with her father, Lily flees with Rosaleen, her caregiver and only friend, to a South Carolina town that holds the secret to her mother's past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Healer (2017)
The film follows a man with an unwanted gift for healing who meets a teenager with cancer who helps him to find himself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWhere the Tracks End (2023)
Georgina is a teacher determined to make a difference in the lives of the children she educates in the classroom of a wagon school in rural Mexico.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisLeo (2023)
Jaded 74-year-old reptile Leo has been stuck in the same Florida classroom for decades with his terrarium-mate turtle. When he learns he only has one year left to live, he plans to escape to experience life on the outside but instead gets caught up in the problems of his anxious students — including an impossibly mean substitute teacher.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAngus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008)
Georgia Nicolson is fourteen, lives with nosey parents who don't understand her, an annoying three year old sister and has to wear a beret to school. She would, however, rather be blonde, have a smaller nose and a boyfriend. Revolving around her hilarious journal entries, prepare to be engulfed in the world of the soaring joys and bottomless angst of being a teenager.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTo the Sea (2010)
Before leaving for Rome with his mother, five year old Natan is taken by his father, Jorge, on an epic journey to the pristine Chinchorro reef off the coast of Mexico. As they fish, swim, and sail the turquoise waters of the open sea, Natan discovers the beauty of his Mayan heritage and learns to live in harmony with life above and below the surface, as the bond between father and son grows stronger before their inevitable farewell.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLove the Coopers (2015)
When four generations of the Cooper clan come together for their annual Christmas Eve celebration, a series of unexpected visitors and unlikely events turn the night upside down, leading them all toward a surprising rediscovery of family bonds and the spirit of the holiday.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChristmas with Holly (2012)
After being dumped at the altar on her wedding day, Maggie Conway moves to the island town of Friday Harbor in Washington State, where she meets Mark Nagle, the local coffee shop owner.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Last Song (2010)
A drama centered on a rebellious girl who is sent to a Southern beach town for the summer to stay with her father. Through their mutual love of music, the estranged duo learn to reconnect.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHow to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)
Five years after uniting the dragons and Vikings of Berk, Hiccup and Toothless soar beyond their homeland, charting the vast unknown. During one of their adventures, the pair discover a secret cave that houses hundreds of wild dragons—and a mysterious dragon rider with a startling connection to Hiccup. And as the ruthless conqueror Drago Bludvist rises to seize control of both dragons and people alike, Hiccup must step into his role as a true leader and, alongside his friends and Toothless, protect Berk from a devastating war.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDeparture (2016)
An English mother and her teenage son spend a week preparing the sale of their remote holiday house in the South of France. Fifteen-year-old Elliot struggles with his dawning sexuality and an increasing alienation from his mother, Beatrice. She in turn is confronted by the realisation that her marriage to his father, Philip, has grown loveless and the life she knows is coming to an end. When an enigmatic local teenager, Clément, quietly enters their lives, both mother and son are compelled to confront their desires and, finally, each other.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIt's a Wonderful Life (1946)
George Bailey has spent his entire life giving to the people of Bedford Falls. All that prevents rich skinflint Mr. Potter from taking over the entire town is George's modest building and loan company. But on Christmas Eve the business's $8,000 is lost and George's troubles begin.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe BFG (2016)
An orphan little girl befriends a benevolent giant who takes her to Giant Country, where they attempt to stop the man-eating giants that are invading the human world.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBeauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas (1997)
Astonished to find the Beast has a deep-seated hatred for the Christmas season, Belle endeavors to change his mind on the matter.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAlpha and Omega (2010)
Two young wolves at opposite ends of their pack's social order are thrown together into a foreign land and need each other to return home, but love complicates everything.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both family
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe School of Rock (2003)
Fired from his band and hard up for cash, guitarist and vocalist Dewey Finn finagles his way into a job as a fifth-grade substitute teacher at a private school, where he secretly begins teaching his straight-A students the finer points of rock 'n' roll and the power of sticking it to the man. But as the school’s stern principal closes in and the Battle of the Bands looms, Dewey must risk everything to prove that rock 'n' roll can change lives.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both family
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDinosaur (2000)
An orphaned dinosaur raised by lemurs joins an arduous trek to a sancturary after a meteorite shower destroys his family home.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
Isolated in the bell tower of Notre Dame, Quasimodo longs to experience the world beyond the cathedral walls, despite the wishes of his stern guardian, the Judge of Paris Claude Frollo. His first venture into the city leads him to Esmeralda, a fearless Romani woman whose defiance of Frollo's tyranny draws her—and Quasimodo—into his dangerous obsession.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both family
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHow to Train Your Dragon (2010)
As the son of a Viking leader on the cusp of manhood, shy Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III faces a rite of passage: he must kill a dragon to prove his warrior mettle. But after downing a feared dragon, he realizes that he no longer wants to destroy it, and instead befriends the beast – which he names Toothless – much to the chagrin of his warrior father.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both family
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisDrop Dead Fred (1991)
An unhappy housewife gets a lift from the return of her imaginary childhood friend, Drop Dead Fred.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both family
SnoozefestMovies like thisHow I Spent My Summer Vacation (TBA)
Thirteen-year-old Grace confronts her own mortality as her family spends summer at her grandfather’s house during his illness.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both family
The Memory Beneath the Waters (2026)
After awakening from a recurring nightmare, Luanda, a Black woman and single mother, finds her day pierced by painful memories that insist on resurfacing. A seemingly simple, intimate unease draws her back into recollections of a past shaped by poverty and sorrow. As she confronts these ghosts, Luanda revisits the experiences that forged her path and reveal the strength of the woman she has become.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both family
Like The Paintings and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Paintings?
The closest matches to The Paintings are Canvas (2020), The Shack (2017) and A Monster Calls (2016). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Paintings?
Start with Canvas (2020), the closest match to The Paintings.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Paintings?
It's a Wonderful Life (1946), rated 8.3/10 by 5,160 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Paintings?
The Memory Beneath the Waters (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Spanish movies like The Paintings?
Yes: Where the Tracks End (2023) and To the Sea (2010).
How are movies similar to The Paintings chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Paintings, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.