Movies like Heart of Light (1998)
The best movies like Heart of Light (1998) are Bastard Out of Carolina (1996), The Young One (1960) and Cardboard Boxer (2016). If Heart of Light hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedHands of Stone (2016)6.6/10 from 470 votes
- NewestGoodbye June (2025)Released 2025
Bastard 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 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 thisCardboard Boxer (2016)
Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHounddog (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 thisThe Congress (2013)
An aging, out-of-work actress accepts one last job, though the consequences of her decision affect her in ways she didn't consider.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
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 · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHands of Stone (2016)
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAll Day and a Night (2020)
While serving life in prison, a young man looks back at the people, the circumstances and the system that set him on the path toward his crime.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHoly Lands (2019)
When lapsed Jew and former cardiologist Harry suddenly decides to spend his retirement as a pig farmer in Nazareth, Israel, the move deeply shocks his family and his new neighbours. Back in New York, Harry’s ex-wife Monica is trying to manage the lives of their adult children, Annabelle and David, as well as her own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Short History of the Long Road (2019)
Nola grew up living in a van with her father, Clint—two nomads against the world. When tragedy strikes, Nola must confront the reality of life on the road alone, learning to own her grief, her past, and her new destination.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAdam (2020)
A hard-living salesman becomes a quadriplegic after an accident.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStrange Weather (2016)
Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisLucky Them (2013)
More interested in partying and flirting with young musicians than work, veteran rock journalist Ellie Klug has one last chance to prove her value to her magazine’s editor: a no-stone-unturned search to discover what really happened to long lost rock god, Matt Smith, who also happens to be her ex-boyfriend. Teaming up with an eccentric amateur documentary filmmaker, Ellie hits the road in search of answers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
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 · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAmateur (2018)
14-year-old basketball phenom Terron Forte has to navigate the under-the-table world of amateur athletics when he is recruited to an elite NCAA prep school.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLorelei (2020)
A man is released from prison after 15 years. He reunites with his high school girlfriend, now a single mother of three. What follows is a lyrical take on love, regret and second chances.
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 thisGracie (2007)
A teenager faces an uphill battle when she fights to give women the opportunity to play competitive soccer.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Dry White Season (1989)
During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBurden (2018)
Ku Klux Klansman Mike Burden opens the Redneck Shop and KKK museum in historic Laurens, SC. He subsequently falls in love with a single mother and, under her influence, quits the Klan and is taken in by an African American Reverend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisQivitoq (1956)
A young teacher, Eva Nygaard, arrives in Greenland from Denmark to surprise her fiancé, the Doctor Erik Halsøe, but is crushed to find he has not waited for her and he is about to be married to his assisting nurse. Eva travels to a small fishing village to await the next ship back to Denmark. There she enters into a tense and often confrontational relationship with Jens, a quiet moody Dane who manages a trading company outpost. Meanwhile, Jens is trying to persuade a Greenlander named Pavia to become a company fisherman, despite Pavia's fear of alienating his fellow villagers and upsetting the spirit, Qivitoq.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Experiment (2010)
THE EXPERIMENT is the story of the nurse Gert, who is appointed as headmistress of a special children's home, owned by the Danish state in Greenland, 1951. The children's home is intended to accommodate 16 carefully selected Greenlandic children, who have just come home after a year of civilization in Denmark. Now they are to be introduced into the Greenlandic community as role models. Gert, who lives alone and has no family, accepts the assignment with pride. She is idealistic and ambitious and feels passionate about saving Greenland from destitution. The means to this end is to educate and civilize the 16 children in the Danish language and culture, so they can spearhead Greenland's transformation from being a poor hunter society to being an equal part of Denmark. Due to her blind faith in the experiment, Gert underestimates the obvious personal costs to the children. And when the children as well as the Danish state fail her...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Endless Night (2015)
Ellesmere Island, northern Canada, 1908. Josephine, a brave but naive woman, embarks on a dangerous journey through inhospitable regions in search of her husband, the explorer Robert Peary, who tries to find a route to the North Pole.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhen Children Play in the Sky (2006)
The film takes place in Greenland and tells us two parallel stories about two boys, one from the start of the 20th century and the other from the 21st century.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Good Traitor (2020)
The Danish ambassador to Washington declares himself to be the sole representative of a free Denmark during the Nazi occupation of the country.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Kalak (2024)
Jan, a nurse who is also a father, was sexually abused by his father as a teenager. Working in Nuuk, Greenland, he tries to connect to the culture with sex. When someone calls him a Kalak, a Greenlandic word with a double meaning of both a "true" and "dirty" Greenlander, he wears the epithet as a badge of honor. Ultimately, he has to confront his father.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Inuk (2012)
Several years after losing his father, Inuk learns the way of his people again.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Price of a Story (2024)
A rich Czech tourist and his translator come to an Inuit shaman – an Angakkoq. The meeting, arranged at a local museum, is to discuss a legendary encounter between the Angakkoq’s ancestors with the ancestors of the Czech tourist. The foreigner is willing to pay a lot of money for the story. The shaman’s evocative narration brings to life a fictional story from the time of the first Christian missionaries in Greenland. This short film about the clash of different cultures and mentalities is the first Czech-Greenlandic co-production.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Journey to Greenland (2016)
Thomas and Thomas are going through a rough patch: they are both thirty-something actors living in Paris. They randomly decide to leave the city and fly away to Kullorsuaq, one of the most remote villages of Greenland, where Thomas' father Nathan lives. Among the Inuit community, they will discover the charms of the local customs and their friendship will be challenged.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Wedding of Palo (1934)
The movie tells of the contest between two rivals for the love of an Inuk woman. The forces of nature will determine the winner.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Heart of Light?
The closest matches to Heart of Light are Bastard Out of Carolina (1996), The Young One (1960) and Cardboard Boxer (2016). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Heart of Light?
Start with Bastard Out of Carolina (1996), the closest match to Heart of Light.
What is the highest-rated movie like Heart of Light?
Hands of Stone (2016), rated 6.6/10 by 470 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Heart of Light?
Goodbye June (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Heart of Light chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Heart of Light, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.