Movies like To Spark a Wildfire (2024)
The best movies like To Spark a Wildfire (2024) are Lion (2016), Dad (1989) and Light of My Life (2019). If To Spark a Wildfire hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedLion (2016)8.0/10 from 7,129 votes
- NewestThe Weight (2026)Released 2026
Lion (2016)
A five-year-old Indian boy gets lost on the streets of Calcutta, thousands of kilometers from home. He survives many challenges before being adopted by a couple in Australia; 25 years later, he sets out to find his lost family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisDad (1989)
A busy executive learns during a meeting that his mother may be dying and rushes home to her side. He ends up being his father's caretaker and becomes closer to him than ever before. Estranged from his own son, the executive comes to realize what has been missing in his own life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLight of My Life (2019)
Years after a pandemic wipes out most of the female population, a father struggles to shield his daughter from a dangerous and predatory world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Never Sang for My Father (1970)
A man living in the towering shadow of his aging father finds it difficult to start a new chapter in his life by marrying his girlfriend and moving to California.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 thisIn My Father's Den (2004)
War journalist Paul Prior returns to his New Zealand hometown after his father’s death, rekindling strained relationships with his brother and memories of a troubled past. He befriends Celia, a curious and aspiring writer, who shares a fascination with his world. When Celia mysteriously disappears, Paul becomes the prime suspect, forcing him to confront buried secrets and uncover the dark truths of his family and community.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRabbit-Proof Fence (2002)
In 1931, three Aboriginal girls escape after being plucked from their homes to be trained as domestic staff, and set off on a trek across the Outback.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Boys Are Back (2009)
When the wife of sports-writer Joe Warr dies of cancer, he takes on the responsibility of raising their 6-year-old son, and his teenage son from a previous marriage. As Joe rejects the counsel of his mother-in-law and other parents, he develops his own philosophies on parenting.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFather Mother Sister Brother (2025)
Estranged siblings reunite after years apart, forced to confront unresolved tensions and reevaluate their strained relationships with their emotionally distant parents.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Greening of Whitney Brown (2011)
Whitney, a spoiled pre-teen from Philadelphia, is forced to move to the country when her parents feel the squeeze of economic hard times. A fish out of water, far from her comfort zone, she befriends an amazing horse, and undertakes a misguided journey back to her old life, only to discover that her family is her home.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies 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 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 thisFalling (2020)
John Peterson lives with his partner Eric and their adopted daughter in Southern California. When he is visited by his aging father Willis from Los Angeles who is searching for a place to retire, their two very different worlds collide.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSpeak (2004)
Freshman high-school student Melinda has refused to speak ever since she called the cops on a popular summer party. With her old friends snubbing her for being a rat, and her parents too busy to notice her troubles, she folds into herself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWhale Rider (2003)
A contemporary story of love, rejection, and triumph as a young Māori girl fights to fulfill a destiny her grandfather refuses to recognize.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisJames White (2015)
James White is a troubled twentysomething trying to stay afloat in a frenzied New York City. As he retreats further into a hedonistic lifestyle, his mother's battle with a serious illness faces a series of setbacks that force him to assume more responsibility. With the pressure on him mounting, James must find new reserves of strength or risk imploding completely.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhite Oleander (2002)
A teenager journeys through a series of foster homes after her mother goes to prison for committing a crime of passion.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOne & Two (2015)
In an isolated farmhouse, located in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by a mysterious wooden wall, Zac and Eva, two siblings gifted with extraordinary abilities, endure every day the wrath of their strict father while witnessing how a cruel sickness lurks their beloved mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisSecrets & Lies (1996)
After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense, a successful black optometrist, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to Cynthia, a working class white woman.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSwimming Upstream (2003)
A young man aspiring for recognition of his talents battles against his estranged father's sentiment towards him as the father deals with his own demons.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Girl at My Door (2014)
Sent from Seoul to serve in a remote coastal village, a policewoman gets involved in the life of a mysterious teenage girl who is abused by both her father and her grandmother.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUnder Capricorn (1949)
A British ex-convict in colonial Australia and his fragile wife, haunted by the past crime that binds them, struggle to rebuild their lives when a young newcomer stirs long-buried passions and secrets.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisG.I. Jane (1997)
In response to political pressure from Senator Lillian DeHaven, the U.S. Navy begins a program that would allow for the eventual integration of women into its combat services. The program begins with a single trial candidate, Lieutenant Jordan O'Neil, who is chosen specifically for her femininity. O'Neil enters the grueling Navy SEAL training program under the command of Master Chief John James Urgayle, who unfairly pushes O'Neil until her determination wins his respect.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCandy (2006)
A poet falls in love with an art student, who gravitates to his bohemian lifestyle — and his love of heroin. Hooked as much on one another as they are on the drug, their relationship alternates between states of oblivion, self-destruction, and despair.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisJindabyne (2006)
Outside the Australian town of Jindabyne, local man Stuart Kane is on a fishing trip with friends when they discover the body of a murdered girl.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe New Interns (1964)
Young doctors mix romance with their careers in a big-city hospital.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Visitor Q (2001)
In a dysfunctional family where the mother is a heroin addict and prostitute, beaten by her son, and the father is an ex-TV reporter, sleeping with his daughter and filming his son being beaten up, ‘Q’, a complete stranger enters the bizarre family, changing their lives for the better, finding a balance in their disturbing natures.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Weight (2026)
When Samuel is torn from his daughter and sent to a brutal prison, Warden Clancy offers him a high-stakes proposition: smuggle gold out of a remote mine with a dangerous crew of prisoners and he’ll win his freedom.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIrumudi (2026)
An alcoholic with a violent past—living peacefully with his daughter beside a waterfall—decides to take Ayyappa Deeksha (a 41-day spiritual vow and period of intense austerity) at her request.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
My motherland is checkered (2026)
In a mix of 2D animation and live action, through their voices and acting, two actresses recount the lives of imprisoned women that opposed the Russian Regime and their emotional stories of suffering and anguish.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like To Spark a Wildfire?
The closest matches to To Spark a Wildfire are Lion (2016), Dad (1989) and Light of My Life (2019). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after To Spark a Wildfire?
Start with Lion (2016), the closest match to To Spark a Wildfire.
What is the highest-rated movie like To Spark a Wildfire?
Lion (2016), rated 8.0/10 by 7,129 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like To Spark a Wildfire?
The Weight (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like To Spark a Wildfire?
Yes: Lion (2016), Dad (1989) and Light of My Life (2019).
How are movies similar to To Spark a Wildfire chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside To Spark a Wildfire, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.