Movies like Kate's Secret (1986)
The best movies like Kate's Secret (1986) are Cheaters (2000), Girl in the Box (2016) and A Bramble House Christmas (2017). If Kate's Secret hooked you with its tv movie and drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedRay Donovan: The Movie (2022)6.8/10 from 242 votes
- NewestReflejo (2025)Released 2025
Cheaters (2000)
In the fall of 1994, a teacher at Chicago's run-down Steinmetz High conspires with the school's academic decathlon team to cheat on an academic competition.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGirl in the Box (2016)
The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Bramble House Christmas (2017)
While settling his father’s estate, Finn Conrad becomes suspicious as to why the man left a nurse $100,000. His dad knew her for less than two months before he died. Just before Christmas, Finn wants what to reclaim what he considers his family’s money, going undercover to investigate the bed and breakfast the nurse has recently taken over. When Finn meets Willa, he discovers she’s not a conniving gold digger at all, but a woman in need who put the money to good use. When she discovers his true identity, will it keep Willa from ever trusting him again?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTalhotBlond (2012)
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSeeds of Yesterday (2015)
The Sheffield family reveal and go through some home truths as their middle child inherits the Foxworth mansion. The family's ghosts looming over, and more tragedies are in store as the curse lives on.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLocke & Key (2011)
Three children become the caretakers of a New England mansion that is home to a bevy of secrets and magic.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this...First Do No Harm (1997)
When Lori Reimuller learns that her young son Robbie has epilepsy, she first trusts the judgment of the hospital staff in how best to bring it under control. As Robbie's health slides radically downhill, however, she becomes frustrated and desperate, and so does her own research into the existing literature on treatments. When she decides to try an alternative treatment called the Ketogenic Diet, devised long ago by a doctor from Johns Hopkins, she is met with narrow-minded resistance from Robbie's doctor, who is prepared to take legal action to prevent Lori from removing him from the hospital.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996)
A dramatization of the life of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (Don Cheadle), with a lot of factual based occurrences. A reformed junkie returns from prison to clean up his act and devote the rest of his life to the young kids of Harlem. 1996 was the 25th anniversary of the first tournament named after him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMy Dinner with Hervé (2018)
An unlikely friendship evolves over one wild night in LA between a struggling journalist and actor Hervé Villechaize, the world's most famous gun-toting dwarf, resulting in life-changing consequences for both.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Christmas Shoes (2002)
Two separate stories mesh - in the first, a young music teacher, Maggie Andrews, begins dying of a heart condition and her son Nathan tries to get a pair of Christmas shoes for her before she dies. In the second, lawyer Robert Layton and his wife Kate are slowly drifting apart and the matter comes to a head during Christmas when Kate takes over for Maggie for the school choir.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisReturn to Zero (2014)
Based on the true story of a successful couple, Maggie and Aaron who are preparing for the arrival of their first child.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHello (2022)
An emotionally unavailable flight attendant meets a potential love interest and later finds out that her "perfect guy" has ulterior motives. As the clock ticks down on New Year's Eve, she must fight to keep her murdered ex-boyfriend's secrets or find herself dead.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Neighbor in the Window (2020)
A suburban wife finds herself and the security of her family threatened by another seemingly friendly neighborhood mom.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNormal (2003)
A Midwestern husband and father announces his plan to have a sex change operation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSound of Christmas (2016)
Lizzie is a young piano teacher working at a music school while trying to save enough money for a Steinway piano. The school is gearing up for their major Christmas fundraiser and she has committed much of her time to plan the event. One afternoon, she meets Brad who takes an interest in her playing and asks if she will teach his uninterested teenage daughter. She begins to break through to the young girl, and sparks begin to fly with Brad, but she is shocked to find out that his interest is not solely in her playing, but in the property that houses the music school. She sets out to save the school and the event, but can she work things out with Brad?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Am Elizabeth Smart (2017)
The story of Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping and captivity, as told from her perspective.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRay Donovan: The Movie (2022)
A showdown decades in the making brings the Donovan family legacy full circle. As the events that made Ray who he is today finally come to light, the Donovans find themselves drawn back to Boston to face the past. Each of them struggles to overcome their violent upbringing, but destiny dies hard, and only their fierce love for each other keeps them in the fight.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHeaven (2019)
Heaven Leigh Casteel, gifted and intelligent, is the eldest of five dirt-poor children struggling to survive in a mountain shack. As she endures neglect and abuse, Heaven discovers a dark secret that changes everything she thought she knew about her family. Then tragedy tears her world apart and she must forge her own way in the cruel, unknown world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIf There Be Thorns (2015)
Christopher and Cathy Dollanganger live together as man and wife with Cathy's two sons who are unaware of the incestuous nature of their parents' relationship. But when a mysterious woman moves in next door and befriends the younger boy, Bart, he begins a strange transformation and displays accusatory behavior towards Cathy and Christopher. When Christopher discovers their mysterious neighbor is, in fact, his mother Corrine Dollanganger, all of the family's long-hidden secrets are revealed in a tragic climax.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStalked by My Doctor (2015)
When a teenage girl is miraculously saved by a heart surgeon, the doctor begins to flirt with her. Her father doesn’t believe her and unbeknownst to all, the doctor is obsessed with the girl.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSharing the Secret (2000)
A teenage girl, who feels she must always seem happy for her parents and friends, secretly binges and purges.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Dying to Be Perfect: The Ellen Hart Pena Story (1996)
Story about a runner whose bulimia and anorexia threatens both her dream of competing in the Olympics and her marriage to Denver's mayor.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Hole (2001)
Four teenagers at a British private school secretly uncover and explore the depths of a sealed underground hole created decades ago as a possible bomb shelter.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLife Is Sweet (1991)
Just north of London live Wendy, Andy, and their twenty-something twins, Natalie and Nicola. Wendy clerks in a shop, Andy is a cook who forever puts off home remodeling projects, Natalie is a plumber and Nicola is jobless. This film is about how they interact and play out family, conflict and love.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRed Delicious (TBA)
After a relapse, 39-year-old Amaro returns to his mother’s home, where their opposing relationships with food expose a cycle of love, control, and inherited harm.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Reflejo (2025)
When Inés finds out she has three days to fit into a dress that isn't her size, she makes extreme decisions to make it happen.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1987)
The final 17 years of American singer and musician Karen Carpenter, performed almost entirely by modified Barbie dolls.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGlitzer im Gesicht (TBA)
When 18-year-old Benjamin gets himself and his mother involved in a dangerous car accident, she has him admitted to a clinic for people with mental illness. There, he must confront his bulimia for the first time—an eating disorder triggered by the unattainable pressure of the Instagram fitness world. In the midst of this struggle, he falls head over heels in love with his fellow patient, Maxim.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Gap Between Her Legs (2021)
The Gap Between Her Legs is an experimental LGBT love story about a young bulimic woman who enters a state of bliss by giving in to her true homosexual identity.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
As Light As Breath (2013)
Thirteen-year-old Maruska has a few extra kilos. And with all the beautiful models, the complex starts. Her friends are climbing the steps of severe anorexia, and Maruska is facing the first stage: bulimia.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Kate's Secret?
The closest matches to Kate's Secret are Cheaters (2000), Girl in the Box (2016) and A Bramble House Christmas (2017). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Kate's Secret?
Start with Cheaters (2000), the closest match to Kate's Secret.
What is the highest-rated movie like Kate's Secret?
Ray Donovan: The Movie (2022), rated 6.8/10 by 242 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Kate's Secret?
Reflejo (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Kate's Secret?
Yes: Cheaters (2000), Girl in the Box (2016) and A Bramble House Christmas (2017).
How are movies similar to Kate's Secret chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Kate's Secret, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.