Movies like Don't Call Me Son (2016)
The best movies like Don't Call Me Son (2016) are The Girl in the Book (2015), Killer's Kiss (1955) and Call Me Crazy: A Five Film (2013). If Don't Call Me Son hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedAll About My Mother (1999)7.6/10 from 2,144 votes
- NewestEleanor the Great (2025)Released 2025
The Girl in the Book (2015)
The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisKiller's Kiss (1955)
Davey Gordon, a New York City boxer at the end of his career, falls for dancer Gloria Price. However, their budding relationship is interrupted by Gloria's violent boss, Vincent Rapallo, who has eyes for Gloria. The two decide to skip town, but before they can, Vincent and his thugs abduct Gloria, and Davey is forced to search for her among the most squalid corners of the city, with his enemy hiding in the shadows.
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 thisThe Secret Life of Bees (2008)
Set in South Carolina in 1964, this is the tale of Lily Owens a 14 year-old girl who is haunted by the memory of her late mother. To escape her lonely life and troubled relationship with her father, Lily flees with Rosaleen, her caregiver and only friend, to a South Carolina town that holds the secret to her mother's past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHelen (2009)
On the outside, Helen has it all – a loving family and a successful career – but when her suppressed mental illness resurfaces, the world crumbles around her. Crippled by depression, Helen finds solace through her friendship with Mathilda, a kindred spirit struggling with bipolar disorder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNormal (2003)
A Midwestern husband and father announces his plan to have a sex change operation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTalhotBlond (2012)
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHamlet (1996)
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, returns home to find his father murdered and his mother now marrying the murderer... his uncle. Meanwhile, war is brewing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Human Voice (2020)
A woman watches time pass beside the suitcases of her ex-lover (who is supposed to come pick them up but never arrives) and a restless dog who doesn't understand that his master has abandoned him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Taste of Honey (1961)
While out to avoid spending time with her narcissistic and promiscuous mother, sixteen-year-old Jo has a brief affair that leaves her pregnant and abandoned. When her mother remarries, Jo's only support becomes her friend Geoffrey, a homosexual.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBrand Upon the Brain! (2007)
After returning home to his long-estranged mother upon a request from her deathbed, a man raised by his parents in an orphanage has to confront the childhood memories that have long haunted him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSky (2016)
A woman embarks on a journey alone across the United States after fleeing from her violent husband.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSpeak (2004)
Freshman high-school student Melinda has refused to speak ever since she called the cops on a popular summer party. With her old friends snubbing her for being a rat, and her parents too busy to notice her troubles, she folds into herself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNothing Personal (2009)
Alone in her empty flat, from her window Anne observes the people passing by who nervously snatch up the personal belongings and pieces of furniture she has put out on the pavement. Her final gesture of taking a ring off her finger signals she is leaving her previous life in Holland behind. She goes to Ireland, where she chooses to lead a solitary, wandering existence, striding through the austere landscapes of Connemara. During her travels, she discovers a house that is home to a hermit, Martin.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTigertail (2020)
A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEleanor the Great (2025)
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Zoe (2019)
Isabelle, a geneticist recovering from a toxic marriage, is raising her only daughter, Zoe, with her contentious ex-husband. Zoe means everything to her mother and so when tragedy strikes the fractured family, Isabelle travels to Russia in seeking the help of a world-renowned fertility physician who Isabelle believes can help bring back her little girl.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSynecdoche, New York (2008)
A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisErin Brockovich (2000)
A twice-divorced mother of three who sees an injustice, takes on the bad guy and wins -- with a little help from her push-up bra. Erin goes to work for an attorney and comes across medical records describing illnesses clustered in one nearby town. She starts investigating and soon exposes a monumental cover-up.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972)
Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWilbur Wants to Kill Himself (2002)
The strange comedy film of two close brothers; one, Wilbur, who wants to kill himself, and the other, Harbour, who tries to prevent this. When their father dies leaving them his bookstore they meet a woman who makes their lives a bit better yet with a bit more trouble as well.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisItalian for Beginners (2000)
Several lonely hearts in a semi-provincial suburb of a town in Denmark use a beginner's course in Italian as the platform to meet the romance of their lives. The film, which unspools the connections and family drama shared between the students, complies with several aesthetic principles of Dogme 95 movement.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLost in Translation (2003)
Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAll About My Mother (1999)
Following the tragic death of her teenage son, Manuela travels from Madrid to Barcelona in an attempt to contact the long-estranged father the boy never knew. She reunites with an old friend, an outspoken transgender sex worker, and befriends a troubled actress and a pregnant, HIV-positive nun.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAlistair1918 (2015)
A social work grad student’s film project on L.A. homelessness becomes something quite other when she and her friends encounter a man claiming to be from another time and place.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Afronauts (2014)
16th July 1969: America prepares to launch Apollo 11. Thousands of kilometers away, a ragtag group of Zambian exiles is trying to beat America to the Moon.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Maybe... Maybe Not (1994)
The heterosexual man Axel is thrown out of his girlfriends home for cheating and ends up moving in with a gay man. Axel learns the advantages of living with gay men even though they are attracted to him and when his girlfriend wants him back he must make a tough decision.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Life Without Me (2003)
A fatally ill mother with only two months to live creates a list of things she wants to do before she dies without telling her family of her illness.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBoys Don't Cry (1999)
A young transgender man explores his gender identity and searches for love in rural Nebraska.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDoes it Hurt? (2007)
DOGMA 95 exists for over 10 years now. But it has been living in the Balkans forever. A desperate filmmaker swears it's time to kill DOGMA . But how far will she go to make it come true?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like Don't Call Me Son and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Don't Call Me Son?
The closest matches to Don't Call Me Son are The Girl in the Book (2015), Killer's Kiss (1955) and Call Me Crazy: A Five Film (2013). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Don't Call Me Son?
Start with The Girl in the Book (2015), the closest match to Don't Call Me Son.
What is the highest-rated movie like Don't Call Me Son?
All About My Mother (1999), rated 7.6/10 by 2,144 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Don't Call Me Son?
Eleanor the Great (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Don't Call Me Son chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Don't Call Me Son, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.