Movies like Cain's Children (2014)
The best movies like Cain's Children (2014) are Murder to Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story (2020), Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story (2025) and The Alabama Solution (2025). If Cain's Children hooked you with its documentary, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest rated13th (2016)7.8/10 from 821 votes
- NewestA Toxic Love Story (2026)Released 2026
Murder to Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story (2020)
After 16-year-old Cyntoia Brown is sentenced to life in prison, questions about her past, physiology and the law itself call her guilt into question.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEvil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story (2025)
Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Alabama Solution (2025)
Incarcerated men defy the odds to expose a cover-up in one of America’s deadliest prison systems.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like this13th (2016)
An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Toxic Love Story (2026)
A string of threatening emails escalates into a revenge plot involving a newly married US marshal and his ex-girlfriend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCome See Me in the Good Light (2025)
In an intimate and joyful story of love in the face of loss, celebrated poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley find strength—and unexpected hilarity—in what might be their final year together.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMy Mom Jayne (2025)
Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisTime (2020)
Fox Rich, indomitable matriarch and modern-day abolitionist, strives to keep her family together while fighting for the release of her incarcerated husband. An intimate, epic, and unconventional love story, filmed over two decades.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFacing Ali (2009)
Ten of Muhammad Ali's former rivals pay tribute to the three-time world heavyweight champion.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFather Soldier Son (2020)
When Sgt. First Class Brian Eisch is critically wounded in Afghanistan, it sets him and his sons on a journey of love, loss, redemption and legacy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTed Bundy: Mind of a Monster (2019)
New exclusive access and never before heard testimony gives a unique insight into the mind of America's most notorious serial killer, Ted Bundy. Breathtaking archive from the time and the voice of Bundy himself, reveals the monster inside the man.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMemories of a Murderer: The Nilsen Tapes (2021)
Serial killer Dennis Nilsen narrates his life and horrific crimes via a series of chilling audiotapes recorded from his jail cell.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Crash (2026)
A teen slams her car into a building, killing her boyfriend and his friend. What seems like a tragic accident becomes a murder case.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Menendez Brothers (2024)
Serving life in prison for murdering their parents, Lyle and Erik Menendez speak out in this documentary explaining the shocking crime and ensuing trials.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStruggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski (2018)
Artists in LA discover the work of forgotten Polish sculptor Stanislav Szukalski, a mad genius whose true story unfolds chapter by astounding chapter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOut of Thin Air (2017)
Set within the stark Icelandic landscape, OUT OF THIN AIR examines the 1976 police investigation into the disappearance of two men in the early 1970s.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
SnoozefestMovies like thisWhitney: Can I Be Me (2017)
The life and tragic death of Whitney Houston.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLong Shot (2017)
When Juan Catalan is arrested for a murder he insists he didn't commit, he builds his case for innocence around unexpected raw footage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNight Will Fall (2014)
When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisVoyeur (2017)
Legendary journalist Gay Talese unmasks a motel owner who spied on his guests for decades. But his bombshell story soon becomes a scandal of its own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Perfumed Garden (2000)
THE PERFUMED GARDEN is an exploration of the myths and realities of sensuality and sexuality in Arab society, a world of taboos and of erotic literature. Through interviews with men and women of all ages, classes, and sexual orientation, the film lifts a corner of the veil that usually shrouds discussion of this subject in the Arab world. Made by an Algerian-French woman director, the film begins by looking at the record of a more permissive history, and ends with the experiences of contemporary lovers from mixed backgrounds. It examines the personal issues raised by the desire for pleasure, amidst societal pressures for chastity and virginity. The film discusses pre-marital sex, courtship and marriage, familial pressures, private vs. public spaces, social taboos (and the desire to break them), and issues of language.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
My motherland is checkered (2026)
In a mix of 2D animation and live action, through their voices and acting, two actresses recount the lives of imprisoned women that opposed the Russian Regime and their emotional stories of suffering and anguish.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
The Big One (1997)
The Big One is an investigative documentary from director Michael Moore who goes around the country asking why big American corporations produce their product abroad where labor is cheaper while so many Americans are unemployed, losing their jobs, and would happily be hired by such companies as Nike.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEmperors of Nothing (2024)
Emperors of Nothing is an unprecedented immersion within Forest, a prison in Brussels notorious for its inhumane incarceration conditions, bearing witness to how the human spirit resists or submits to this harsh world. Deeply personal and candid moments shared with inmates and wardens alike, those who have forfeited or devoted their lives to prison, expose universal truths of what it means to be "behind bars".
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Prison Art (1998)
This documentary, which features Sergei Parajanov’s heartbreaking letters from prison, explores creativity among inmates and the art born in conditions designed to destroy all traces of selfhood.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Was lebst Du? (2004)
I followed the everyday lives of Ali, Kais, Ertan and Alban with my camera for over two years. The time was characterized by disappointments, conflicts and also great successes. It all began with a visit to the "Klingelpütz" youth center in the middle of Cologne. Young migrants have been meeting here for many years.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
A Tale of Singers and Murderers (2016)
The documentary depicts the remarkable phenomenon of the national competition Kalina Krasnaya, organised with a flourish in which the convicts from all over Russia sing their way to victory with songs about longing, war, love and forgiveness.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Standard Operating Procedure (2008)
Investigating the infamous Abu Ghraib scandal, Errol Morris interviews American guards and Iraqi prisoners who were at the military jail before images of prisoner torture emerged in 2004. One female guard, who posed alongside fallen Iraqis in notorious images, tells Morris that her crimes were inspired by her love for another soldier, and another explains why she took photographs of her fellow troops. In the process, Morris suggests that the scandal resulted from systemic flaws in the military.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSpotlight on Merna (2016)
Taking part in The Voice Kids is already quite something, but for 11-year-old Merna it’s really something special. Her parents had to flee Iraq because they are part of the Christian minority, and IS was threatening to kidnap Merna. They now live in Lebanon, where one in three people is a refugee. The family has been waiting for two years for permission to move on. FaceTiming with her older sister, who stayed behind in Iraq, and cooking her favorite dishes with her mother make the situation more bearable. But what also really helps is singing – this calms Merna and makes her less afraid. She used to sing only in church, but since The Voice her beautiful, melancholy voice touches everyone. Because of her status as a refugee, Merna isn’t allowed to attend the foreign performances with the other finalists, but she’s now a national celebrity in Lebanon.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Latvian Coyote (2019)
An absurd game of “finding happiness” is being played by local Latvian coyotes* and illegal immigrants on the Russian and the European Union border. It is a game with no winner – all participants are driven to play by the sense of despair. While one side leaves home and undertakes a perilous journey to the other side of the globe, hoping to spend the rest of their lives in a free country, the other side risks their freedom to earn a chance to stay right where they are, in their homeland. *coyote – someone who smuggles illegal immigrants
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Cain's Children?
The closest matches to Cain's Children are Murder to Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story (2020), Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story (2025) and The Alabama Solution (2025). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Cain's Children?
Start with Murder to Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story (2020), the closest match to Cain's Children.
What is the highest-rated movie like Cain's Children?
13th (2016), rated 7.8/10 by 821 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Cain's Children?
A Toxic Love Story (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Cain's Children chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Cain's Children, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.