Movies like Miracle of the Heart: A Boys Town Story (1986)

Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story (2003)

Based on a true story. Liz Murray is a young girl who is taken care of by her loving, but drug-addicted parents. Liz becomes homeless at 15 and after a tragedy comes upon her, she begins her work to finish high school.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

I Am Elizabeth Smart (2017)

The story of Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping and captivity, as told from her perspective.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Girl in the Box (2016)

The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

The Miniaturist (2017)

A woman moves to live with her new husband in 17th century Amsterdam, but soon discovers that not everything is what it seems.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Fab Five: The Texas Cheerleader Scandal (2008)

Based on a true story. Five high school cheerleaders, including the daughter of the school principal, run amok -- and teachers, parents and administrators allow them to get away with a wide range of scandalous behavior. Known as the "Fab Five," the girls disregard school rules, drink alcohol and post suggestive pictures on the Internet. But when the new cheerleading coach attempts to discipline them, her superiors ask her to resign.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Hello Sister, Goodbye Life (2006)

A college student must take care of her 7-year-old half sister after the death of their parents.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

American Son (2019)

Time passes and tension mounts in a Florida police station as an estranged interracial couple awaits news of their missing teenage son.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Heaven (2019)

Heaven Leigh Casteel, gifted and intelligent, is the eldest of five dirt-poor children struggling to survive in a mountain shack. As she endures neglect and abuse, Heaven discovers a dark secret that changes everything she thought she knew about her family. Then tragedy tears her world apart and she must forge her own way in the cruel, unknown world.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996)

A dramatization of the life of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (Don Cheadle), with a lot of factual based occurrences. A reformed junkie returns from prison to clean up his act and devote the rest of his life to the young kids of Harlem. 1996 was the 25th anniversary of the first tournament named after him.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

A Bramble House Christmas (2017)

While settling his father’s estate, Finn Conrad becomes suspicious as to why the man left a nurse $100,000. His dad knew her for less than two months before he died. Just before Christmas, Finn wants what to reclaim what he considers his family’s money, going undercover to investigate the bed and breakfast the nurse has recently taken over. When Finn meets Willa, he discovers she’s not a conniving gold digger at all, but a woman in need who put the money to good use. When she discovers his true identity, will it keep Willa from ever trusting him again?

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Little 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

The Christmas Shoes (2002)

Two separate stories mesh - in the first, a young music teacher, Maggie Andrews, begins dying of a heart condition and her son Nathan tries to get a pair of Christmas shoes for her before she dies. In the second, lawyer Robert Layton and his wife Kate are slowly drifting apart and the matter comes to a head during Christmas when Kate takes over for Maggie for the school choir.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Anne of Green Gables (2016)

Anne Shirley, an orphan, is fostered by farmer Matthew Cuthbert and his sister Marilla, who were expecting a boy to be sent them to help with their farm work. They accept Anne, who quickly endears herself to them and to the local villagers.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Boys Town (1938)

Devout but iron-willed Father Flanagan leads a community called Boys Town, a different sort of juvenile detention facility where, instead of being treated as underage criminals, the boys are shepherded into making themselves better people. But hard-nosed petty thief and pool shark Whitey Marsh, the impulsive and violent younger brother of an imprisoned murderer, might be too much for the good father's tough-love system.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Short Term 12 (2013)

Grace, a compassionate young supervisor at a foster care facility, helps at-risk teens. But when a new charge dredges up memories of her own troubled past, Grace's tough exterior begins eroding.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

The Boys of St. Vincent (1994)

The true story of boys being sexually abused at their orphanage, run by a religious community in Newfoundland.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Mammal (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

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977)

A disturbed and institutionalized 16-year-old girl struggles between fantasy and reality.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Brave the Dark (2025)

When Mr. Deen discovers one of his students has been living out of his car and thrown into jail, he decides to bail him out. Determined to curb Nate’s self-destructive behavior, Deen quickly discovers a host of dark secrets slowly tearing Nate apart. What began as a good deed becomes a desperate fight to save Nate from his own demons. As Nate spirals deeper into despair, Deen must decide how far he’s willing to go to save a kid on the brink of losing everything—even himself.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Second Best (1994)

The difficult relationship between a british postal officer and his adoptive son.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Betrayal of Silence (1988)

A new lawyer investigates the abuse case of a young orphan girl and begins to believe that the orphanage priests have something to hide.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

The Public House (1989)

"Horror" film about the harsh lives of the children living in an outwardly prosperous orphanage. When a young boy dies during a clandestine mutual drug-taking session, his accomplices unsuccessfully try to hide his corpse to evade punishment, and then the orphanage management tries to hush up the whole affair to keep up appearances.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

See You Tomorrow (2011)

A day of Hyo-jeong, a first-year student in high school, who repeats a routine endlessly.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Chain Kulii Ki Main Kulii (2007)

An orphan boy with dreams of finding a family and fame as a cricketer, finds a bat with magical powers and lands a spot in the Indian cricket team.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Cherche famille désespérément (1994)

After the accidental death of his son on a racetrack, Edward Milan, a wealthy industrialist, asks his nephew to find his grandson, who has been living in an orphanage for eleven years and whose existence he has just learned. But the boy, named Martineau, is suspicious of the police since he has been unjustly accused of shoplifting. He runs away when the two uniforms in charge of taking him back to his grandfather's house appear. He manages to find lodging with an old lady, a kleptomaniac at times, then with a theater prop master who is persecuted by his fiancée and finally with a lonely veterinarian.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Peacock (2005)

Brings viewers into a small Chinese city and inspires familiarity with the rhythms of everyday existence, with people's dreams, shortcomings and illusions in a way that is universal.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Vaselinetjie (2017)

At the age of 8, Vaselinetjie is taken away by the Welfare and send to the orphanage. It's a strange, hard, dangerous world of rebel children, fierce house mothers,friends, first loves and where she finally finds true self-acceptance.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Os Sinos Tocam à Meia-Noite (TBA)

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

36 Fillette (1988)

A 14-year-old pursues romance with a man while vacationing with her family in Switzerland.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Welcome to Sarajevo (1997)

Follow a group of international journalists into the heart of the once cosmopolitan city of Sarajevo—now a danger zone of sniper and mortar attacks where residents still live. While reporting on an American aid worker who’s trying to get children out of the country, a British correspondent decides to take an orphaned girl home to London.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama