Movies like Sabbatical (2014)
The best movies like Sabbatical (2014) are Fathers and Daughters (2015), The Glass Castle (2017) and Broken (2012). If Sabbatical hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedStill Alice (2014)7.5/10 from 3,379 votes
- NewestGoodbye June (2025)Released 2025
Fathers and Daughters (2015)
A Pulitzer-winning writer grapples with being a widower and father after a mental breakdown, while, 27 years later, his grown daughter struggles to forge connections of her own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Glass Castle (2017)
A young girl is raised in a dysfunctional family constantly on the run from the FBI. Living in poverty, she comes of age guided by her drunkard, ingenious father who distracts her with magical stories to keep her mind off the family's dire state, and her selfish, nonconformist mother who has no intention of raising a family, along with her younger brother and sister, and her other older sister. Together, they fend for each other as they mature in an unorthodox journey that is their family life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBroken (2012)
Three suburban English families' lives intertwine with tragic consequences.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStill Alice (2014)
Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children, is a renowned linguistics professor who starts to forget words. When she receives a devastating diagnosis, Alice and her family find their bonds tested.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBastard 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 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 thisLittle Boy Blue (1998)
Living in rural Texas is a dysfunctional family: an abusive dad, a Vietnam vet with a war wound that's left him impotent; a compliant wife and a son of about 20, two small sons who look a lot like their brother. The dad harbors a secret, and he goes to murderous lengths to keep it hidden. The young man, Jimmy, who has suspicions, but little comes out until a Yankee woman comes to town.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Thing with Feathers (2025)
Following the death of his wife, a young father's hold on reality crumbles, and a strange presence begins to stalk him from the shadowy recesses of the apartment he shares with his two young sons.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDie My Love (2025)
After inheriting a remote Montana house, Jackson moves there from New York with his partner Grace, and the couple soon welcome a child. As Jackson becomes increasingly absent and rural isolation sets in, Grace struggles with loneliness, creative frustration, and unresolved emotional wounds. What begins as an attempt at renewal gradually turns into an intense psychological descent, placing strain on their relationship and exposing the fragile balance between love, identity, and motherhood.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe River (1984)
Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSons and Lovers (1960)
The son of a working-class British mining family has dreams of pursuing an art career, but when he strikes up an affair with an older, married woman from the town it enrages his kind but possessive mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Ice Storm (1997)
In the weekend after thanksgiving 1973 the Hood family is skidding out of control. Then an ice storm hits, the worst in a century.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Mouthful of Air (2021)
Julie is a new mom and children's book author, who escapes into the bright Crayola-colored world of her creation in order to leave behind the darkness caused by her post-partum depression.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJulien Donkey-Boy (1999)
Undiagnosed, untreated and generally untethered schizophrenic Julien lives with his pregnant younger sister, anorexic aspiring wrestler brother, sympathetic grandmother, and severely depressed and abusive German father.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBlackbird (2019)
A terminally ill mother invites her family to their country house for one final gathering, but tensions quickly boil over between her two daughters.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLeave the World Behind (2023)
A family's getaway to a luxurious rental home takes an ominous turn when a cyberattack knocks out their devices—and two strangers appear at their door.
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 Nest (2020)
Rory is an ambitious entrepreneur who brings his American wife and kids to his native country, England, to explore new business opportunities. After abandoning the sanctuary of their safe American suburban surroundings, the family is plunged into the despair of an archaic '80s Britain and their unaffordable new life in an English manor house threatens to destroy the family.
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 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 thisVoyager (1991)
April 1957: Rational engineer Faber's plane crashes in Mexico, where he learns that he became a father in 1938. He takes a ship from NYC to France and meets cute, young Sabeth. Is it fate?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Prince of Tides (1991)
A troubled Southern man talks to his suicidal sister's psychiatrist about their family history and falls in love with her (and New York City) in the process.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFalimy (2023)
During a dysfunctional family's chaotic pilgrimage to a spiritual shrine, their elderly patriarch goes missing.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Papers (2025)
Trapped in the middle of the world-shaking Panama Papers scandal, Ana Mendez must fight the system, the global media and her own ethical compass to try to restore her reputation and save her family.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Hold Me Down (2017)
Based on true events, Hold Me Down depicts a day in the life of a 19-year-old single mother in the Bronx who works as a stripper at an illegal nightclub to support her child.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Middle of Nowhere (2008)
The film follows Grace, a young woman whose irresponsible mother blows her college fund on her younger sister's beauty pageant campaign.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisFierce People (2006)
A massage therapist looking to overcome her addictions and reconnect with her son, whose father is an anthropologist in South America studying the Yanomani people, moves in with a wealthy ex-client in New Jersey.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCall Me Dad (2025)
Little Intan was used as collateral for a debt by her mother, who was forced to become a migrant worker and leave her behind. But from that moment, her life took a turn. Dedi, the debt collector — a stranger who initially just came to collect — ended up becoming an important figure in Intan’s life. Together with Tatang, they grew into an unusual kind of “family.”
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
En el limbo de los olvidados siempre es verano (2021)
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Sabbatical?
The closest matches to Sabbatical are Fathers and Daughters (2015), The Glass Castle (2017) and Broken (2012). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Sabbatical?
Start with Fathers and Daughters (2015), the closest match to Sabbatical.
What is the highest-rated movie like Sabbatical?
Still Alice (2014), rated 7.5/10 by 3,379 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Sabbatical?
Goodbye June (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Sabbatical?
Yes: Fathers and Daughters (2015), The Glass Castle (2017) and Broken (2012).
How are movies similar to Sabbatical chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Sabbatical, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.