Movies like Susan, Dear Susan (1975)
The best movies like Susan, Dear Susan (1975) are Adopt a Highway (2019), In a Land That No Longer Exists (2022) and Bastard Out of Carolina (1996). If Susan, Dear Susan hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedIn the Aisles (2018)6.9/10 from 205 votes
- NewestSally: A Solo Play (2026)Released 2026
- In GermanIn a Land That No Longer Exists (2022)Also in German
Adopt a Highway (2019)
Russ Millings has just been released from prison after serving 21 years for a 3rd strike conviction for possessing an ounce of marijuana. As he tries to adapt to a world he doesn’t recognize – including trying to learn how to use the internet – he finds an abandoned baby in a dumpster behind the fast food restaurant where he works as a dishwasher. Unsure of what to do, and caught between impulses of kindness and panic, Russ soon realizes this could be his chance at redemption.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIn a Land That No Longer Exists (2022)
It's 1989 in East Berlin: Suzie is kicked out of school shortly before she graduates from high school and has to defend herself as a worker in the cable factory. However, a randomly taken photo leads her to the fashion world of the GDR. The editor-in-chief Elsa Wilbrodt put her on the cover of Sibylle, the fashion magazine of the GDR. In the Berlin underground scene she made the acquaintance of the gay fashion designer Rudi and the photographer Coyote. Suzie must decide if she's brave enough to leave the old strands behind forever.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBastard Out of Carolina (1996)
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStrange Weather (2016)
Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisHoly Lands (2019)
When lapsed Jew and former cardiologist Harry suddenly decides to spend his retirement as a pig farmer in Nazareth, Israel, the move deeply shocks his family and his new neighbours. Back in New York, Harry’s ex-wife Monica is trying to manage the lives of their adult children, Annabelle and David, as well as her own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Nest (2020)
Rory is an ambitious entrepreneur who brings his American wife and kids to his native country, England, to explore new business opportunities. After abandoning the sanctuary of their safe American suburban surroundings, the family is plunged into the despair of an archaic '80s Britain and their unaffordable new life in an English manor house threatens to destroy the family.
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 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 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 thisSomeday We'll Tell Each Other Everything (2023)
Set in a warm summer in 1990 in former East Germany, it follows a young woman who begins a relationship with a charismatic farmer who is twice her age.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisHardball (2001)
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe 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 this3 Days in Quiberon (2018)
1981, Quiberon, a small village on the coast of Brittany, France. Hilde Fritsch arrives to visit her old friend who has retreated to a spa hotel to escape the daily pressures of her life. Her friend is world-famous star Romy Schneider, but together, they appear like two regular women who are just happy to be reunited. Yet it quickly becomes apparent that Hilde is supposed to offer the support the sensitive actress needs to be able to truly face her own demons.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBobby Jones: Stroke of Genius (2004)
The story of golf icon and legend, Bobby Jones, who retired from competition at the tender age of 28.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Visit (1964)
Carla Zachanassian had a child by Serge Miller as a teenager. When Serge refused to marry her, she was driven out of town. By her own wit and cunning, she has returned as a multi-millionaire for a visit. The town lays out the red carpet expecting big things from Carla, only to learn that her sole purpose is to see Serge Miller killed...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 thisThe Safety of Objects (2002)
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIn the Aisles (2018)
Christian, a reclusive young man from Leipzig, gets a job working the night shift at a big-box store. He's trained to stocks goods and operate a forklift by Bruno, a wistful former truck driver, who introduces Christian to a colorful group of overnight workers, including Marion, with whom Christian develops a troubled infatuation.
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 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 thisManderlay (2005)
In 1933, a young woman and her father discover an Alabama plantation whose inhabitants live as if slavery had never been abolished. Feeling a sense of duty to those behind the heavy gates, she stays to liberate the people and see them through their first harvest. With four of her father's colleagues and a lawyer, she faces the daunting task of resurrecting the place known as Manderlay.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSally: A Solo Play (2026)
This powerful one-woman drama from Sandra Seaton, set at Monticello in the final days before Thomas Jefferson’s death, gives a voice to Sally Hemings. Sabrina Sloan (Hamilton’s Angelica Schuyler) portrays Sally Hemings as well as Jefferson, his daughter Martha and Sally’s brother James. Amid rising family tensions, Sally struggles to ensure Jefferson’s promise to free their children is final.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Frères d'armes (2025)
During a robbery with his brothers, Jules questions his aspirations and his future. He doesn't recognize himself in his brothers' lives. He concludes that he must break free from their influence to regain his freedom.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
River of Hope (2020)
"River of Hope" tells the story of how a former slave Mary Barnes Cabell and her children helped found the first college for African Americans in West Virginia. Based on true events.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Lincoln (2012)
The revealing story of the 16th US President's tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDeux corps (2025)
A short fil that follows a body subjected to institutional and diffuse forms of power: medicalization, psychiatric labeling, regimes of sexuality, and everyday violence. Moving between a white clinical space, a cemetery in Toulouse, and ordinary interiors, the film unfolds through gestures, textures, and encounters with other bodies. Inspired by Michel Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, Artaud, Rancière, and critical thought from Latin America, this short film traces a sensitive cartography of emancipation and asks a simple yet difficult question: what can a body do when it attempts to reclaim its own history?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
As White as in Snow (2001)
Inspired by real-life Elsa Andersson, this mostly fictional movie tells the story of her upbringing as a farmer's daughter, in the early 1900s, who dreams of getting away from the farm and becoming an aviatrix.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Sophie's Ways (1971)
Céline is a free-spirited woman is married to a dull, middle manager Philippe. Her husband's co-worker pegged her as a household ornament because of the union. She befriends a woman who shows her how to juggle the couple's living expenses to get what she wants. As she asserts her independence and gradually frees herself from her husband's claustrophobic world, she turns to painting and writing about the inequity between genders.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Abraham Lincoln (1930)
An episodic dramatization of the 18th President of the United States' life, including his early years, affair with Ann Rutledge, courtship of Mary Todd, debates with Stephen A. Douglas, the election of 1860, his presidency during the Civil War, and finally his assassination at Ford's Theater in 1865.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Susan, Dear Susan?
The closest matches to Susan, Dear Susan are Adopt a Highway (2019), In a Land That No Longer Exists (2022) and Bastard Out of Carolina (1996). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Susan, Dear Susan?
Start with Adopt a Highway (2019), the closest match to Susan, Dear Susan.
What is the highest-rated movie like Susan, Dear Susan?
In the Aisles (2018), rated 6.9/10 by 205 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Susan, Dear Susan?
Sally: A Solo Play (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there German movies like Susan, Dear Susan?
Yes: In a Land That No Longer Exists (2022), Someday We'll Tell Each Other Everything (2023) and 3 Days in Quiberon (2018).
How are movies similar to Susan, Dear Susan chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Susan, Dear Susan, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.