Movies like The Mother's Family (2013)
The best movies like The Mother's Family (2013) are Love Streams (1984), Sister Cities (2016) and Dear Frankie (2004). If The Mother's 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 ratedMary and Max (2009)7.9/10 from 2,379 votes
- NewestFather Mother Sister Brother (2025)Released 2025
- In KoreanHigh Society (2018)Also in Korean
Love Streams (1984)
Two closely-bound, emotionally wounded siblings reunite after years apart.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSister Cities (2016)
Based on the internationally-acclaimed play by Colette Freedman, the story of 4 estranged sisters who reunite for their mother’s alleged suicide.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDear Frankie (2004)
Nine-year-old Frankie and his single mum Lizzie have been on the move ever since Frankie can remember, most recently arriving in a seaside Scottish town. Wanting to protect her deaf son from the truth that they've run away from his father, Lizzie has invented a story that he is away at sea on the HMS Accra. Every few weeks, Lizzie writes Frankie a make-believe letter from his father, telling of his adventures in exotic lands. As Frankie tracks the ship's progress around the globe, he discovers that it is due to dock in his hometown. With the real HMS Accra arriving in only a fortnight, Lizzie must choose between telling Frankie the truth or finding the perfect stranger to play Frankie's father for just one day...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Killing of Two Lovers (2021)
In a rural Utah town, David, a father of four, grapples with his separation from wife Nikki as she pursues a new relationship.
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 thisHigh Society (2018)
The story of the journey of married couple up the social latter. The husband is professor at Seoul National University who is running for the National Assembly, and his wife is a painter.
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 thisThe Pumpkin Eater (1964)
Jo, the mother of seven children, divorces her second husband in order to marry Jake, a successful but promiscuous screenwriter. Though they are physically and emotionally compatible, they are slowly torn apart.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Sense of an Ending (2017)
A man becomes haunted by his past and is presented with a mysterious legacy that causes him to re-think his current situation in life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAnother Woman (1988)
Marion is a woman who has learned to shield herself from her emotions. She rents an apartment to work undisturbed on her new book, but by some acoustic anomaly she can hear all that is said in the next apartment in which a psychiatrist holds his office. When she hears a young woman tell that she finds it harder and harder to bear her life, Marion starts to reflect on her own life. After a series of events she comes to understand how her unemotional attitude towards the people around her affected them and herself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Sister's Keeper (2009)
Sara and Brian live an idyllic life with their young son and daughter. But their family is rocked by sudden, heartbreaking news that forces them to make a difficult and unorthodox choice in order to save their baby girl's life. The parents' desperate decision raises both ethical and moral questions and rips away at the foundation of their relationship. Their actions ultimately set off a court case that threatens to tear the family apart, while revealing surprising truths that challenge everyone's perceptions of love and loyalty and give new meaning to the definition of healing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLetters to God (2010)
A young boy fighting cancer writes letters to God, touching lives in his neighborhood and inspiring hope among everyone he comes in contact. An unsuspecting substitute postman, with a troubled life of his own, becomes entangled in the boy's journey and his family by reading the letters. They inspire him to seek a better life for himself and his own son he's lost through his alcohol addiction.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHope Gap (2019)
Grace lives an idyllic life in a British seaside town, but her world soon comes crashing down when her husband of 29 years tells her he's leaving her for another woman. Through stages of shock, disbelief and anger -- and with support from her son -- Grace ultimately regains her footing while learning it's never too late to be happy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFirstborn (1984)
Because he's the oldest, Jake has been the man of the house, since his parents divorce. When Mom starts seeing Sam, who always seems to be trying some new way to get rich quick, and declares he's the man of the house now, Jake puts up with it. Until he discovers Sam's illegal activities.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDaddy 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 thisThe Skeleton Twins (2014)
Estranged twins Maggie and Milo coincidentally cheat death on the same day, prompting them to reunite and confront the reasons their lives went so wrong. As the twins' reunion reinvigorates them, they realize the key to fixing their lives may just lie in repairing their relationship.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Father's Shadow (2025)
Two young brothers explore Lagos with their estranged father during the 1993 Nigerian election crisis, witnessing both the city's magnitude and their father's daily struggles as political unrest threatens their journey home.
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 thisWhat Maisie Knew (2013)
In New York City, six-year-old Maisie is caught in the middle of a bitter custody battle between her self-absorbed parents—an aging rock singer mother and a distracted art dealer father. As both quickly marry new partners to strengthen their legal standing, Maisie is shuttled back and forth in an endless game of emotional point-scoring. Yet amid the chaos and upheaval, Maisie begins to find true comfort and affection in her new step-parents.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
A disturbed, aging Southern belle moves in with her sister for solace — but being face-to-face with her brutish brother-in-law accelerates her downward spiral.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAn Indivisible Heaven (1985)
Noel struggles to accept his father's remarriage to Agnes and the arrival of his step-sister, Melody. The two grow up harboring a bitter hatred for each other. When their parents die, Noel becomes Melody's legal guardian, much to her dismay. Later, each now married, the two become business partners and eventually grow closer.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
To My Unborn Son (1943)
A Yugoslav man, dying after being shot while attempting to help defend his village, writes a letter of encouragement and hope to his unborn child, explaining what he was fighting for in resisting the Nazi invasion of his homeland. A John Nesbitt's Passing Parade short.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Endless Rain (2021)
About a man and a woman who miss each other but cannot meet. Young-ho, a young man who took several tries to get into college, doesn't have any special goals in life, and starts exchanging letters with someone.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Try Seventeen (2002)
Teenager Jones has opted not to go to college and is instead renting a room in a boarding house to work on his writing skills. Soon, Jones finds himself dividing his time between two women: a young actress named Lisa and a photographer named Jane. After Jane's ex-boyfriend arrives to help her recover from a car accident, Jones begins to understand just how much he cares for her.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMary Goes Round (2018)
When a substance abuse counsellor gets arrested for a DUI and returns to her hometown of Niagara Falls, she learns that her estranged father is dying of cancer and wants her to form a bond with her teenage half-sister that she's never met.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Mary and Max (2009)
A tale of friendship between two unlikely pen pals: Mary, a lonely, eight-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max, a forty-four-year old, severely obese man living in New York.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisP.S. I Love You (2007)
A young widow discovers that her late husband has left her 10 messages intended to help ease her pain and start a new life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
This simple romantic tragedy begins in 1957. Guy Foucher, a 20-year-old French auto mechanic, has fallen in love with 17-year-old Geneviève Emery, an employee in her widowed mother's chic but financially embattled umbrella shop. On the evening before Guy is to leave for a two-year tour of combat in Algeria, he and Geneviève make love. She becomes pregnant and must choose between waiting for Guy's return or accepting an offer of marriage from a wealthy diamond merchant.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe King and I (1956)
Widowed Welsh mother Anna Leonowens becomes a governess and English tutor to the wives and many children of the stubborn King Mongkut of Siam. Anna and the King have a clash of personalities as she works to teach the royal family about the English language, customs and etiquette, and rushes to prepare a party for a group of European diplomats who must change their opinions about the King.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this13: The Musical (2022)
After moving from New York City to Indiana, a 12 year old navigates his parents' divorce, his impending bar mitzvah and his new school's social circles.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Mother's Family?
The closest matches to The Mother's Family are Love Streams (1984), Sister Cities (2016) and Dear Frankie (2004). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Mother's Family?
Start with Love Streams (1984), the closest match to The Mother's Family.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Mother's Family?
Mary and Max (2009), rated 7.9/10 by 2,379 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Mother's Family?
Father Mother Sister Brother (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Korean movies like The Mother's Family?
Yes: High Society (2018) and Endless Rain (2021).
How are movies similar to The Mother's Family chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Mother's Family, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.