Movies like A Big Family (1954)
The best movies like A Big Family (1954) are Daddy Longlegs (2010), Around the Bend (2004) and I Never Sang for My Father (1970). If A Big Family hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Shawshank Redemption (1994)8.7/10 from 31,829 votes
- NewestOmaha (2025)Released 2025
Daddy Longlegs (2010)
After months of living a solitary existence, Lenny, 34, picks up his kids from school. Every year he spends a couple of weeks with his sons Sage, 9, and Frey, 7. Lenny hosts his kids within a midtown studio apartment in New York. During these two weeks, he must figure out if he wants to act as their father or be their friend. Ultimately, their trip upstate results in complete lawlessness taking over their lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAround the Bend (2004)
A tale of four generations of men, all of whom have had their offspring at a young age: a great-grandfather, a grandfather, a father in his twenties and a son who is about 7 years old. When the oldest member passes away, the trio heads out on the road together in the Southwest to search out an old family secret that connects to their past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies 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 thisThe Beautiful Country (2004)
After reuniting with his mother in Ho Chi Minh City, a family tragedy causes Binh to flee from Viet Nam to America. Landing in New York, Binh begins a road trip to Texas, where his American father is said to live.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Banishment (2008)
While vacationing in the countryside at his childhood home, a woman suddenly reveals to her husband that she is expecting a child – but not his.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 thisThe Long, Hot Summer (1958)
Accused barn burner and conman Ben Quick arrives in a small Mississippi town and quickly ingratiates himself with its richest family, the Varners.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Etruscan Smile (2018)
Rory MacNeil, a rugged old Scotsman, reluctantly leaves his beloved isolated Hebridean island and travels to San Francisco to seek medical treatment. Moving in with his estranged son, Rory sees his life transformed through a newly found bond with his baby grandson.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOmaha (2025)
A young girl and her brother are awoken by their father and loaded into the car on an early morning in 2008. As they road trip across the American West, she discovers the truth about their seemingly spontaneous journey.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWon't Back Down (2012)
Jamie Fitzpatrick and Nona Alberts are two women from opposites sides of the social and economic track, but they have one thing in common: a mission to fix their community's broken school and ensure a bright future for their children. The two women refuse to let any obstacles stand in their way as they battle a bureaucracy that's hopelessly mired in traditional thinking, and they seek to re-energize a faculty that has lost its passion for teaching.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Wrinkle in Time (2003)
Meg and Charles Wallace are aided by Calvin and three interesting women in the search for their father who disappeared during a government experiment. Their travels take them around the universe to a place unlike any other.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
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 · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFences (2016)
In 1950s Pittsburgh, a frustrated African-American father struggles with the constraints of poverty, racism, and his own inner demons as he tries to raise a family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI'll Be Home for Christmas (2016)
Jackie Foster, a dynamic Assistant District Attorney and single mom, is looking forward to wrapping up her latest case and spending Christmas with Gracie, her adorable and precocious, eight-year old daughter. But when Jackie’s estranged dad, Jack , a gruff retired police officer, unexpectedly shows up at her door, they will be forced to confront old wounds.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLittle Lord Fauntleroy (1980)
Young Cedric Errol and his widowed mother live in genteel poverty in 1880s Brooklyn after the death of his father. Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, has long ago disowned his son for marrying an American. But after the death of the Earl's remaining son, he decides to accept Cedric as his heir.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Brothers Karamazov (1958)
Ryevsk, Russia, 1870. Tensions abound in the Karamazov family. Fyodor is a wealthy libertine who holds his purse strings tightly. His four grown sons include Dmitri, the eldest, an elegant officer, always broke and at odds with his father, betrothed to Katya, herself lovely and rich. The other brothers include a sterile aesthete, a factotum who is a bastard, and a monk. Family tensions erupt when Dmitri falls in love with one of his father's mistresses, the coquette Grushenka. Two brothers see Dmitri's jealousy of their father as an opportunity to inherit sooner. Acts of violence lead to the story's conclusion: trials of honor, conscience, forgiveness, and redemption.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Joy Luck Club (1993)
Through a series of flashbacks, four Chinese women born in America and their respective mothers born in feudal China explore their pasts.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAngels in the Snow (2015)
The affluent, yet troubled Montgomery family hits the road for a special Christmas in the mountains.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Perfect Game (2009)
Based on a true story, a group of boys from Monterrey, Mexico who become the first non-U.S. team to win the Little League World Series.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBack Roads (2019)
A young man cares for his younger sisters after their mother is imprisoned for murdering their abusive father. When he strikes up an affair with a married woman, long-dormant family secrets bubble to the surface.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisA Beautiful Mind (2001)
From the heights of notoriety to the depths of depravity, John Forbes Nash Jr. experiences it all. As a brilliant but socially awkward mathematician, he made a groundbreaking discovery early in his career and stands on the brink of international acclaim. But as the handsome and arrogant Nash accepts secret work in cryptography, he becomes entangled in a mysterious conspiracy. His life takes a nightmarish turn and he soon finds himself on a painful and harrowing journey of self-discovery.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisMy Own Private Idaho (1991)
Mike Waters is a hustler afflicted with narcolepsy. Scott Favor is the rebellious son of a mayor. Together, the two travel from Portland, Oregon to Idaho and finally to the coast of Italy in a quest to find Mike's estranged mother. Along the way they turn tricks for money and drugs, eventually attracting the attention of a wealthy benefactor and sexual deviant.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Green Mile (1999)
A supernatural tale set on death row in a Southern prison, where gentle giant John Coffey possesses the mysterious power to heal people's ailments. When the cell block's head guard, Paul Edgecomb, recognizes Coffey's miraculous gift, he tries desperately to help stave off the condemned man's execution.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisRonia: The Robber's Daughter (1984)
Ronia lives happily in her father's castle until she comes across a new playmate, Birk, in the nearby dark forest. The two explore the wilderness, braving dangerous Witchbirds and Rump-Gnomes. But when their families find out Birk and Ronia have been playing together, they forbid them to see each other again. Indeed, their fathers are competing robber chieftains and bitter enemies. Now the two spunky children must try to tear down the barriers that have kept their families apart for so long.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Devil Wears Prada (2006)
A young woman from the Midwest gets more than she bargained for when she moves to New York to become a writer and ends up as the assistant to the tyrannical, larger-than-life editor-in-chief of a major fashion magazine.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDas Boot (1981)
A German submarine hunts allied ships during the Second World War, but it soon becomes the hunted. The crew tries to survive below the surface, while stretching both the boat and themselves to their limits.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
Renowned oceanographer Steve Zissou has sworn vengeance upon the rare shark that devoured a member of his crew. In addition to his regular team, he is joined on his boat by Ned, a man who believes Zissou to be his father, and Jane, a journalist pregnant by a married man. They travel the sea, all too often running into pirates and, perhaps more traumatically, various figures from Zissou's past, including his estranged wife, Eleanor.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSchindler's List (1993)
The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisNa startu je delfín (1975)
The teenage hero tries his best to meet the nomination limit for important races, but his coach's insensitive approach causes him to temporarily lose motivation and even give up on sports...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like A Big Family?
The closest matches to A Big Family are Daddy Longlegs (2010), Around the Bend (2004) and I Never Sang for My Father (1970). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after A Big Family?
Start with Daddy Longlegs (2010), the closest match to A Big Family.
What is the highest-rated movie like A Big Family?
The Shawshank Redemption (1994), rated 8.7/10 by 31,829 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like A Big Family?
Omaha (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to A Big Family chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside A Big Family, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.