Movies like Avalon (1990)
The best movies like Avalon (1990) are A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), Cabrini (2024) and One Life (2023). If Avalon hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedOne Life (2023)7.8/10 from 1,011 votes
- NewestIdhayam Murali (2026)Released 2026
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)
In Brooklyn circa 1900, the Nolans manage to enjoy life on pennies despite great poverty and Papa's alcoholism. We come to know these people well through big and little troubles: Aunt Sissy's scandalous succession of "husbands"; the removal of the one tree visible from their tenement; and young Francie's desire to transfer to a better school...if irresponsible Papa can get his act together.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCabrini (2024)
Italian immigrant Francesca Cabrini arrives in 1889 New York City and is greeted by disease, crime, and impoverished children. Cabrini sets off on a daring mission to convince the hostile mayor to secure housing and healthcare for society's most vulnerable. With broken English and poor health, Cabrini uses her entrepreneurial mind to build an empire of hope unlike anything the world had ever seen.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOne Life (2023)
British stockbroker Nicholas Winton visits Czechoslovakia in the 1930s and forms plans to assist in the rescue of Jewish children before the onset of World War II, in an operation that came to be known as the Kindertransport.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBlue Moon (2025)
On the evening of March 31, 1943, legendary lyricist Lorenz Hart confronts his shattered self-confidence in Sardi’s bar as his former collaborator, Richard Rodgers, celebrates the opening night of his ground-breaking hit musical, “Oklahoma!”
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Dead (1987)
After a convivial holiday dinner party, things begin to unravel when a husband and wife address some prickly issues concerning their marriage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGentleman's Agreement (1947)
A magazine writer poses as a Jew to expose anti-Semitism.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Devil's Arithmetic (1999)
An American-born Jewish adolescent, Hannah Stern, is uninterested in the culture, faith and customs of her relatives. However, she begins to revaluate her heritage when she has a supernatural experience that transports her back to a Nazi death camp in 1941. There she meets a young girl named Rivkah, a fellow captive in the camp. As Rivkah and Hannah struggle to survive in the face of daily atrocities, they form an unbreakable bond.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDoubt (2008)
In 1964 Bronx, two Catholic school nuns question the new priest's ambiguous relationship with a troubled African-American student.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Sound of Silence (2019)
A successful "house tuner" in New York City, who calibrates the sound in people's homes in order to adjust their moods, meets a client with a problem he can't solve.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisIn America (2003)
A family of Irish immigrants adjusts to life on the mean streets of Hell's Kitchen while also grieving the death of a child.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 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 River Runs Through It (1992)
The Maclean brothers, Paul and Norman, live a relatively idyllic life in rural Montana, spending much of their time fly fishing. The sons of a minister, the boys eventually part company when Norman moves east to attend college, leaving his rebellious brother to find trouble back home. When Norman finally returns, the siblings resume their fishing outings, and assess where they've been and where they're going.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Namesake (2007)
The American-born son of Indian immigrants strives to fit in among his fellow New Yorkers despite his family's unwillingness to let go of their traditional ways.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTalk Radio (1988)
A rude, contemptuous talk show host becomes overwhelmed by the hatred that surrounds his program just before it goes national.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Keys of the Kingdom (1944)
A young priest, Father Chisholm is sent to China to establish a Catholic parish among the non-Christian Chinese. While his boyhood friend, also a priest, flourishes in his calling as a priest in a more Christian area of the world, Father Chisholm struggles. He encounters hostility, isolation, disease, poverty and a variety of set backs which humble him, but make him more determined than ever to succeed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Boy in the Woods (2023)
The remarkable true-life survival story of a Jewish boy hiding and being hunted in the forests of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, based on Maxwell Smart's memoir.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRachel Getting Married (2008)
A young woman who has been in and out from rehab for the past 10 years returns home for the weekend for her sister's wedding.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFatima (2020)
In 1917, outside the parish of Fátima, Portugal, a 10-year-old girl and her two younger cousins witness multiple visitations of the Virgin Mary, who tells them that only prayer and suffering will bring an end to World War I. As secularist government officials and Church leaders try to force the children to recant their story, word of the sighting spreads across the country, inspiring religious pilgrims to flock to the site in hopes of witnessing a miracle..
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisChaplin (1992)
An aged Charlie Chaplin narrates his life to his autobiography's editor, including his rise to wealth and comedic fame from poverty, his turbulent personal life and his run-ins with the FBI.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLegends of the Fall (1994)
In early 20th-century Montana, Col. William Ludlow lives on a ranch in the wilderness with his sons, Alfred, Tristan, and Samuel. Eventually, the unconventional but close-knit family are bound by loyalty, tested by war, and torn apart by love, as told over the course of several decades in this epic saga.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGangs of New York (2002)
In early 1860s New York, Irish immigrant Amsterdam Vallon is released from prison and returns to the Five Points, seeking revenge against his father's killer, William Cutting, a powerful anti-immigrant gang leader. He knows that revenge can only be attained by infiltrating Cutting's inner circle. Vallon's journey becomes a fight for personal survival and to find a place for the Irish people.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Counterfeiters (2007)
The story of Jewish counterfeiter Salomon Sorowitsch, who was coerced into assisting the Nazi operation of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp during World War II.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTrain of Life (1998)
In 1941, the inhabitants of a small Jewish village in Central Europe organize a fake deportation train so that they can escape the Nazis and flee to Palestine.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEuropa (1991)
In 1945 Germany, following the end of World War II, Leopold Kessler, an American of German descent, is hired by his uncle as a sleeping car conductor on the Zentropa train line. Leopold's wish is to be neutral to the ongoing purges of loyalists by Allied forces and do what he can to help a hurting country, but ultimately finds himself being used by both sides.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBlack Book (2006)
Israel, 1956: Jewish teacher Rachel Stein rather unexpectedly meets an old friend at the kibbutz. It brings back memories of her experiences in the Netherlands during the war, memories of betrayal. In September 1944, Rachel's hiding place is bombed by Allied troops; she makes contact with a resistance member and joins a group of Jews to be smuggled across the Biesbosch to the freed South Netherlands. Only Rachel escapes a massacre by patrol Germans, and is rescued by a resistance group under the leadership of Gerben Kuipers, whose son is captured trying to smuggle weapons. Kuipers asks Rachel to seduce SS-hauptsturmführer Ludwig Müntze, a mission that she will soon learn that the boat attack wasn't a coincidence.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMadame Favre's (2026)
In a nursing home, a young man visits his grandmother. As she constantly repeats that she wants to go home, his grandson visits her now empty apartment, seeking to capture memories of a fading past.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Reagan (2024)
Told through the voice of former KGB agent Viktor Petrovich, whose life becomes inextricably linked with Ronald Reagan's when Reagan first caught the Soviets’ attention as an actor in Hollywood, Reagan overcomes the odds to become the 40th president of the United States.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIdhayam Murali (2026)
A young man navigates the complexities of unrequited love, finding that even as years pass and life takes unexpected turns, certain emotions remain deeply embedded in his heart.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Home for the Holidays (1995)
After losing her job, making out with her soon-to-be former boss, and finding out that her daughter plans to spend Thanksgiving with her boyfriend, Claudia Larson faces spending the holiday with her unhinged family.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
Like Avalon and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Avalon?
The closest matches to Avalon are A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), Cabrini (2024) and One Life (2023). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Avalon?
Start with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), the closest match to Avalon.
What is the highest-rated movie like Avalon?
One Life (2023), rated 7.8/10 by 1,011 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Avalon?
Idhayam Murali (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Avalon?
Yes: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), Cabrini (2024) and One Life (2023).
How are movies similar to Avalon chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Avalon, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.