Movies like Southbound Train (1981)
The best movies like Southbound Train (1981) are The River (1984), Salomé (2013) and Mr. Turner (2014). If Southbound Train hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedBattle of the Year (2013)6.8/10 from 369 votes
- NewestGoodbye June (2025)Released 2025
The 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 thisSalomé (2013)
After the lewd and frenetic Dance of the Seven Veils, and with the solemn pledge from the very lips of Herod himself that she could have whatever her heart desires up to half his kingdom, wanton and proud young Salomé comes before her king with an unreasonable demand. Beguiled by John the Baptist, and then scorned for the sake of his god, lascivious Salomé—encouraged by her mother, the vindictive, Herodias—commands that John be executed and his head delivered on a silver platter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMr. Turner (2014)
Eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner lives his last 25 years with gusto and secretly becomes involved with a seaside landlady, while his faithful housekeeper bears an unrequited love for him.
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 thisCome Sunday (2018)
Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies 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 thisHungry Hearts (2015)
The relationship of a couple who meet by chance in New York City is put to the test when they encounter a life or death circumstance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Dinner with Hervé (2018)
An unlikely friendship evolves over one wild night in LA between a struggling journalist and actor Hervé Villechaize, the world's most famous gun-toting dwarf, resulting in life-changing consequences for both.
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 thisMammal (2016)
After Margaret, a divorcée living in Dublin, loses her teenage son, she develops an unorthodox relationship with Joe, a homeless youth. Their tentative trust is threatened by his involvement with a violent gang and the escalation of her ex-husband's grieving rage.
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 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 thisO.G. (2018)
Louis Menkins is five weeks away from being released after 26 years in prison. He is faced with the decision to put his own release at risk in order to protect a young man named Beecher from growing gang controversies.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies 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 thisFast Girls (2012)
A street smart runner develops an intense rivalry with an equally ambitious wealthy young athlete.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLittle Men (2016)
Jake is a quiet, sensitive middle schooler with dreams of being an artist. He meets the affably brash Tony at his grandfather's funeral, and the unlikely pair soon hit it off. The budding friendship is put at risk, however, when a rent dispute between Jake's father, Brian, and Tony's mother, Leonor, threatens to become contentious.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBattle of the Year (2013)
A down-on-his-luck coach is hired to prepare a team of the best American dancers for an international tournament that attracts all the best crews from around the world, but the Americans haven't won in fifteen years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhere the Red Fern Grows (1974)
Billy Coleman works hard and saves his earnings for two years to achieve his dream of buying two red-bone coonhound pups. He develops a new trust in life as he faces overwhelming challenges in adventure and tragedy roaming the river bottoms of Cherokee country with his dogs, Old Dan and Little Ann.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCall Me Crazy: A Five Film (2013)
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEl Chicano (2019)
A pair of twin brothers from East L.A. choose to live their lives differently and end up on opposite sides of the law.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this4:30 (2005)
Longing for human contact Xiao Wu tries all he can to make a connection through physical and metaphorical walls in that hour between night and day.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Who Rents There Now? (2018)
The story follows the lives of different people who occupy a single room in an apartment across various points in time. By overlapping these different timelines and generations of tenants within the exact same physical space, the film explores themes of impermanence, memory, and shared history.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Bleak Moments (1972)
Moments from the uncompromisingly bleak existence of a secretary, her intellectually disabled sister, aloof and uneasy teacher boyfriend, bizarre neighbor and irritating workmate.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSally White (2025)
Sally White seemed like the perfect tenant: med student, great credit, safe name. But when she arrives eight months pregnant and unapologetically Black, her roommates realize they've been "namefished" and their comfort zone's not so comfy.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Kiracı (1987)
Kerim lives with his family in a rent house for years. One day his landlord tells him to look for another house or raise the rent money.He finds a house by the help of Sühandan whom he works together and in love.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAll in Favor (2025)
At a downtown Madrid building, an ordinary meeting of neighbors commune to vote on a change of elevator. However, the event escalates into a full-blown conflict after the unexpected announcement that a new, mentally ill tenant will rent an apartment.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA solution that pleases all (1986)
It talks about a wife who seeks to keep her deceased son of her husband away from home, so that she can live alone and bring her daughter to live with her, while the son seeks to be alone in the apartment so that he can marry, they think of the only solution is for the son to marry the daughter and live in the apartment, to escalate events.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
California Winter (2015)
Young real estate agent Clara Morales encouraged risky loans to her clients during the housing boom. She must now rescue her father’s home from foreclosure - a consequence of the loan she advised him to take.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Black '47 (2018)
In 1847, when Ireland is in the grip of the Great Famine that has ravaged the country for two long years, Feeney, a hardened Irish Ranger who has been fighting for the British Army abroad, returns home to reunite with his estranged family, only to discover the cruelest reality, a black land where death reigns.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisShady Business (1981)
Residents of a shanty town are faced with its destruction. With the help of the local trickster, Paja "the Bighead" moves with his family to an empty flat in New Belgrade blocks. Everything goes fine until the real owner knocks at the door.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Southbound Train?
The closest matches to Southbound Train are The River (1984), Salomé (2013) and Mr. Turner (2014). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Southbound Train?
Start with The River (1984), the closest match to Southbound Train.
What is the highest-rated movie like Southbound Train?
Battle of the Year (2013), rated 6.8/10 by 369 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Southbound Train?
Goodbye June (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Southbound Train chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Southbound Train, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.