Movies like Ponette (1996)
The best movies like Ponette (1996) are The Kite Runner (2007), The 400 Blows (1959) and My Life as a Dog (1985). If Ponette hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedCentral Station (1998)8.1/10 from 1,093 votes
- NewestSummer 1993 (2017)Released 2017
- In FrenchThe 400 Blows (1959)Also in French
The Kite Runner (2007)
After spending years in California, Amir returns to his homeland in Afghanistan to help his old friend Hassan, whose son is in trouble.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe 400 Blows (1959)
For young Parisian boy Antoine Doinel, life is one difficult situation after another. Surrounded by inconsiderate adults, including his neglectful parents, Antoine spends his days with his best friend, Rene, trying to plan for a better life. When one of their schemes goes awry, Antoine ends up in trouble with the law, leading to even more conflicts with unsympathetic authority figures.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisMy Life as a Dog (1985)
A boy, obsessed with comparing himself with those less fortunate, experiences a different life at the home of his aunt and uncle in 1959 Sweden.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisKes (1970)
Bullied at school and ignored and abused at home by his indifferent mother and older brother, Billy Casper, a 15-year-old working-class Yorkshire boy, tames and trains his pet kestrel falcon whom he names Kes. Helped and encouraged by his English teacher and his fellow students, Billy finally finds a positive purpose to his unhappy existence.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWhere Is The Friend's House? (1987)
An 8-year-old boy must return his friend's notebook he took by mistake, lest his friend be punished by expulsion from school.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisMy Ain Folk (1973)
When Jamie's maternal grandmother dies, he and his brother Tommy are separated - Tommy is taken off to a welfare home and Jamie goes to live with his other grandmother and uncle. His life is far from happy, filled with silence, rejection and bouts of violence.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)
In 1940, in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, a young girl living on the Castilian plain is haunted after attending a screening of James Whale's 1931 film Frankenstein and hearing from her sister that the monster is not dead, instead existing as a spirit inhabiting a nearby barn.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Runner (1984)
A young orphan named Amiro lives alone in an abandoned tanker in the Iranian port city of Abadan. He survives by shining shoes, selling water, and collecting deposit bottles. Although he sometimes finds himself at odds with both adults and competing older kids, he finds solace in dreams about departing cargo ships and airplanes—and by running.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDecalogue IV (1989)
A father and daughter, Michał and Anka, have a unique intimacy, which the college-aged Anka is beginning to feel conflicted about. When she finds an unopened letter from her deceased mother, it seems to justify her attraction to Michał, who may not in fact be her father.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCéline (1992)
After the death of her father, 22-year-old Céline inherits most of his estate, but gives it to her stepmother, causing her greedy fiancé to leave her. Following several failed suicide attempts, Céline is hospitalized and comes to the attention of a nurse, Genevieve, who has struggled with depression. Under her personal care, Céline gradually recovers, and the two women grow close.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMommy Is at the Hairdresser's (2008)
in the summer of 1966, in Beloeil, Québec, where a young girl named Élise is enjoying summer vacation. Summer 1966. It's time to enjoy the summer holiday, total freedom. Suddenly her mother leaves her family to pursue her journalism career in London. Her urge to leave is triggered when she coincidentally listens in on a conversation between her husband and his male lover. Her brother Coco seeks solace in the garage, building a super racing car. Her youngest brother Benoît throws himself into his own inner world. The father seems absolutely knocked out by the situation. Élise decides to take control of her family, in an eloquent attempt to save them. With the assistance of flourishing nature around her, she stands on the threshold of an incomparable summer.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Summer 1993 (2017)
After her mother's death, six-year-old Frida is sent to her uncle's family to live with them in the countryside. But Frida finds it hard to forget her mother and adapt to her new life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisForbidden Games (1952)
Orphaned after a Nazi air raid, Paulette, a young Parisian girl, runs into Michel, an older peasant boy, and the two quickly become close. Together, they try to make sense of the chaotic and crumbling world around them, attempting to cope with death as they create a burial ground for Paulette's deceased pet dog. Eventually, however, Paulette's stay with Michel's family is threatened by the harsh realities of wartime.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSenza vergogna (1986)
A partially paralyzed teenager is failing to have sex for the first time. He's eager but clumsy and sickly, so the local country girls reject him. He starts to realize that the only affectionate person in his life is his beautiful mother.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Sugar Cane Alley (1983)
Martinique, in the early 1930s. Young José and his grandmother live in a small village. Nearly everyone works cutting cane and barely earning a living. The overseer can fine a worker for the smallest infraction. The way to advance is to do well in school. José studies hard and succeeds in an exam allowing him to attend school in the capital. With only a partial scholarship, the tuition is very costly. José and his grandmother move to Fort-de-France to make José's studies easier...
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Moving (1993)
Physically separated from her father and at odds with her distraught mother, a girl must negotiate her own passage to maturity.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Long Day Closes (1992)
Bud is a lonely and quiet boy whose moments of solace occur when he sits in rapture at the local cinema, watching towering and iconic figures on the movie screen. The movies give Bud the strength to get through another day as he deals with his oppressive school environment and his burgeoning homosexuality.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThis Boy's Life (1993)
When a son and mother move to Seattle in hopes for a better life, the mother meets a seemingly polite man. Things go south when the man turns out to be abusive, endangering their lives. As the mother struggles to maintain hope in an impossible situation, the son has plans to escape.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAu Hasard Balthazar (1966)
The story of a donkey Balthazar as he is passed from owner to owner, some kind and some cruel but all with motivations beyond his understanding. Balthazar, whose life parallels that of his first keeper, Marie, is truly a beast of burden, suffering the sins of humankind. But despite his powerlessness, he accepts his fate nobly.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · 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: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSummer Hours (2008)
After the death of a septuagenarian woman, her three children deliberate over what to do with her estate.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBoyhood (2014)
The film tells a story of a divorced couple trying to raise their young son. The story follows the boy for twelve years, from first grade at age 6 through 12th grade at age 17-18, and examines his relationship with his parents as he grows.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Foster Boy (2011)
Switzerland, 1955. The young orphan Max is sent as a foster child and contracted to work for the Bösiger family who lives on a farm. His foster parents treat him like a workhorse while their son seizes every opportunity to humiliate him. Playing the accordion is the one thing that is entirely his. But when the new teacher stands up for Max, it only makes a bad situation much worse. The only thing preserving his will to survive is his friendship with Berteli, who was also taken on to work at the farm. Max dreams of Argentina with her: a fantasy world, where allegedly even hayforks are made of silver.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCentral Station (1998)
An emotional journey of a former school teacher, who writes letters for illiterate people, and a young boy, whose mother has just died, as they search for the father he never knew.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisNenette and Boni (1997)
Teenage siblings Nenette and Boni were raised apart as a result of their parents' divorce. Their mother, who doted on her son Boni, has died. He works for an interesting couple as a pizza baker, and is surprised and enraged when his younger sister, having run away from boarding school, suddenly turns up. There's a problem that they must confront.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Father's Glory (1990)
Raised by his science teacher father, Joseph Pagnol, and seamstress mother Augustine, young Marcel grows up during the turn of the century in awe of his rationalist dad. When the family takes a summer vacation in the countryside, Marcel becomes friends with Lili, who teaches him about rural life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Steamroller and the Violin (1961)
Seven year old Sasha practices violin every day to satisfy the ambition of his parents. Already withdrawn as a result of his routines, Sasha quickly regains confidence when he accidentally meets and befriends worker Sergei, who works on a steamroller in their upscale Moscow neighborhood.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisElisa, My Life (1977)
Elisa has not seen her father Luis for nine years, but she receives a telegram from her sister Isabel in a moment of crisis in her marriage with Antonio telling that her father is ill. Elisa decides to travel to the countryside of Madrid with Isabel and her brother-in-law Julián and their two children to visit Luis for his birthday. Elisa decides to stay with her father when her sister returns to Madrid with her family and she gets closer to Luis, understanding why he left her mother years ago. Later she tells him that Antonio cheated on her with her best friend Sophie and their relationship has ended. When Antonio unexpectedly arrives in the house, Elisa makes a decision about her life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
The Butterfly (2002)
An old man who has one interest in life, collecting butterflies, has his life changed by an eight year old girl.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Red Balloon (1956)
A young boy discovers a stray balloon, which seems to have a mind of its own, on the streets of Paris. The two become inseparable, yet the world’s harsh realities finally interfere.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
Like Ponette and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Ponette?
The closest matches to Ponette are The Kite Runner (2007), The 400 Blows (1959) and My Life as a Dog (1985). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Ponette?
People who watched Ponette most often go on to The Kite Runner (2007), The 400 Blows (1959) and My Life as a Dog (1985).
What is the highest-rated movie like Ponette?
Central Station (1998), rated 8.1/10 by 1,093 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Ponette?
Summer 1993 (2017) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like Ponette?
Yes: The 400 Blows (1959), Céline (1992) and Mommy Is at the Hairdresser's (2008).
How are movies similar to Ponette chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Ponette, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.