Movies like A Sunday in the Country (1984)
The best movies like A Sunday in the Country (1984) are Where the Red Fern Grows (2003), Iron Boy (2026) and Where the Red Fern Grows (1974). If A Sunday in the Country hooked you with its drama and family, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Beasts (2022)7.5/10 from 1,001 votes
- NewestIron Boy (2026)Released 2026
- In FrenchIron Boy (2026)Also in French
Where the Red Fern Grows (2003)
Set in the Ozark Mountains during the Great Depression, Billy Coleman works hard and saves his earnings for 2 years to achieve his dream of buying two coonhound pups. He develops a new trust in God as he faces overwhelming challenges in adventure and tragedy roaming the river bottoms of Cherokee country with "Old Dan" and "Little Ann."
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIron Boy (2026)
11-year-old Christophe tries to live up to his rigid and distant father on the family farm in rural France. But the young boy starts to lean over and collapse without warning — on the tractor, at school, at dinner... A doctor finds the solution: Christophe must wear an iron corset to keep himself upright. Forced to reinvent his life away from the farm, Christophe discovers a new passion for music, meets a new friend, and follows her into his first mischief.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & family
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisWhere the Red Fern Grows (1974)
Billy Coleman works hard and saves his earnings for two years to achieve his dream of buying two red-bone coonhound pups. He develops a new trust in life as he faces overwhelming challenges in adventure and tragedy roaming the river bottoms of Cherokee country with his dogs, Old Dan and Little Ann.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Believe (2019)
A 9 year old boy experiences God's power in a supernatural way.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGreyfriars Bobby (1961)
In Scotland 1865, An old shepherd and his little Skye terrier go to Edinburgh. But when the shepherd dies of pneumonia, the dog remains faithful to his master, refuses to be adopted by anyone, and takes to sleeping on his master's grave in the Greyfriars kirkyard, despite a caretaker with a "no dogs" rule. And when Bobby is taken up for being unlicensed, it's up to the children of Edinburgh and the Lord Provost to decide what's to be done.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Greening of Whitney Brown (2011)
Whitney, a spoiled pre-teen from Philadelphia, is forced to move to the country when her parents feel the squeeze of economic hard times. A fish out of water, far from her comfort zone, she befriends an amazing horse, and undertakes a misguided journey back to her old life, only to discover that her family is her home.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & family
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMarona's Fantastic Tale (2020)
Marona, an innocent and empathetic little female dog, remembers the life she has shared with different masters, whom she has loved unconditionally.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & family
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Beasts (2022)
Antoine and Olga, a French couple, have been living in a small village in Galicia for a long time. They practice eco-responsible agriculture and restore abandoned houses to facilitate repopulation. Everything should be idyllic except for their opposition to a wind turbine project that creates a serious conflict with their neighbors. The tension will rise to the point of irreparability.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Day of the Crows (2012)
In a cabin of the deep of the forest, a child and his father lead a wild and hard life in utmost isolation. The child grows up fearing and admiring his father, with the ghosts haunting the forest as his only companions. Until the day he discovers the neighbouring village and meets a young girl there, Manon. At her side, he discovers that love exists. From then on he won't cease to search for the place where his father's love for him is hiding.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Horse (1970)
Auguste Maroilleur, an elderly farmer, exploits 400 hectares of crop land with the help of his family, over which he rules with an iron hand. Things go awry the day he discovers one of his grandsons is involved in drug traffic. To make matters worse, the reckless youth has hidden the white powder in the Maroilleur farm. Without a moment's hesitation, Auguste gets rid of the toxic substance but, of course, the mob has different views...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJuliette in Spring (2024)
Juliette goes back in her hometown to spend some time with her family. She finds herself between a loving but moody father, a New Age mother, a sister in the midst of an existential crisis, and a grandmother slowly losing her mind. Buried memories and family secrets rise to the surface in this sweet, tender and sometimes extravagant family portrait.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOne & Two (2015)
In an isolated farmhouse, located in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by a mysterious wooden wall, Zac and Eva, two siblings gifted with extraordinary abilities, endure every day the wrath of their strict father while witnessing how a cruel sickness lurks their beloved mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Keys of the Kingdom (1944)
A young priest, Father Chisholm is sent to China to establish a Catholic parish among the non-Christian Chinese. While his boyhood friend, also a priest, flourishes in his calling as a priest in a more Christian area of the world, Father Chisholm struggles. He encounters hostility, isolation, disease, poverty and a variety of set backs which humble him, but make him more determined than ever to succeed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPloey: You Never Fly Alone (2018)
A plover chick has not learned to fly when his family migrates in the fall. He must survive the arctic winter, vicious enemies and himself in order to be reunited with his beloved one next spring.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStillwater (2021)
Bill Baker, an American oil-rig roughneck from Oklahoma, travels to Marseille to visit his estranged daughter, Allison, who is in prison for a murder she claims she did not commit. Confronted with language barriers, cultural differences, and a complicated legal system, Bill builds a new life for himself in France as he makes it his personal mission to exonerate his daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMr. Church (2016)
A unique friendship develops when a little girl and her dying mother inherit a cook - Mr. Church. What begins as an arrangement that should only last six months, instead spans fifteen years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDiary of a Country Priest (1951)
An inexperienced, sickly priest shows up in the rural French community of Ambricourt, where he joins the community's clergy. But the locals don't take kindly to the priest, and his ascetic ways and unsociable demeanor make him an outcast. During Bible studies at the nearby girls school, he is continually mocked by his students. Then his attempt to intervene in a family feud backfires into a scandal. His failures, compounded with his declining health, begin to erode his faith.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOmaha (2025)
A young girl and her brother are awoken by their father and loaded into the car on an early morning in 2008. As they road trip across the American West, she discovers the truth about their seemingly spontaneous journey.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAngels and Insects (1995)
In Victorian England, wealthy patriarch Sir Harald Alabaster invites an impoverished biologist, William Adamson, into his home. There, William tries to continue his work, but is distracted by Alabaster's seductive daughter, Eugenia. William and Eugenia begin a torrid romance, but as the couple become closer, the young scientist begins to realize that dark, disturbing things are happening behind the closed doors of the Alabaster manor.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Family Stone (2005)
An uptight, conservative businesswoman accompanies her boyfriend to his eccentric and outgoing family's annual Christmas celebration and finds that she's a fish out of water in their free-spirited way of life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThree Monkeys (2008)
A family battles against the odds to stay together when small lies grow into an extravagant cover-up. In order to avoid hardship and responsibilities that would otherwise be impossible to endure, the family chooses to ignore the truth, not to see, hear or talk about it. But does playing “Three Monkeys” invalidate the truth of its existence?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTokyo Sonata (2008)
The winds of change blow as a family grapples with unemployment, alienation, mistrust and a lack of communication. When a Japanese salaryman loses his job to outsourcing to China, it's simply the beginning of a series of shattering incidents, leading to the implosion of the family unit.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAtlantis: Milo's Return (2003)
Milo and Kida reunite with their friends to investigate strange occurances around the world that seem to have links to the secrets of Atlantis.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Spiderwick Chronicles (2008)
Upon moving into the run-down Spiderwick Estate with their mother, twin brothers Jared and Simon Grace, along with their sister Mallory, find themselves pulled into an alternate world full of faeries and other creatures.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEveryone Says I Look Just Like Her (2010)
Two sisters, one white and one black, spend a week together at their famous father's summer home. A microscopic examination of the new American family unit, it's a deeply personal film about the human connections that bond us all together.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Charlotte (2022)
The true story of Charlotte Salomon, a young German-Jewish painter who comes of age in Berlin on the eve of the Second World War. Fiercely imaginative and deeply gifted, she dreams of becoming an artist. Her first love applauds her talent, which emboldens her resolve. When anti-Semitic policies inspire violent mobs, she escapes to the safety of the South of France. There she begins to paint again, and finds new love. But her work is interrupted, this time by a family tragedy that reveals an even darker secret. Believing that only an extraordinary act will save her, she embarks on the monumental adventure of painting her life story.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Queen Marie of Romania (2019)
Devastated by the First World War and plunged into political controversy, Romania's every hope accompanies its Queen on her mission to Paris, to lobby for its great unification's international recognition at the 1919 Peace Talks.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like A Sunday in the Country and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like A Sunday in the Country?
The closest matches to A Sunday in the Country are Where the Red Fern Grows (2003), Iron Boy (2026) and Where the Red Fern Grows (1974). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after A Sunday in the Country?
Start with Where the Red Fern Grows (2003), the closest match to A Sunday in the Country.
What is the highest-rated movie like A Sunday in the Country?
The Beasts (2022), rated 7.5/10 by 1,001 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like A Sunday in the Country?
Iron Boy (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like A Sunday in the Country?
Yes: Iron Boy (2026), The Butterfly (2002) and Marona's Fantastic Tale (2020).
How are movies similar to A Sunday in the Country chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside A Sunday in the Country, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.