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Movies like Departure (2016)

The best movies like Departure (2016) are Girl in the Box (2016), Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996) and My Dinner with Hervé (2018). If Departure hooked you with its drama and tv movie, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.

Quick picks

  1. Girl in the Box (2016)

    The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

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  2. Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996)

    A dramatization of the life of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (Don Cheadle), with a lot of factual based occurrences. A reformed junkie returns from prison to clean up his act and devote the rest of his life to the young kids of Harlem. 1996 was the 25th anniversary of the first tournament named after him.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

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  3. My Dinner with Hervé (2018)

    An unlikely friendship evolves over one wild night in LA between a struggling journalist and actor Hervé Villechaize, the world's most famous gun-toting dwarf, resulting in life-changing consequences for both.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

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  4. A Bramble House Christmas (2017)

    While settling his father’s estate, Finn Conrad becomes suspicious as to why the man left a nurse $100,000. His dad knew her for less than two months before he died. Just before Christmas, Finn wants what to reclaim what he considers his family’s money, going undercover to investigate the bed and breakfast the nurse has recently taken over. When Finn meets Willa, he discovers she’s not a conniving gold digger at all, but a woman in need who put the money to good use. When she discovers his true identity, will it keep Willa from ever trusting him again?

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

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  5. TalhotBlond (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

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  6. American Son (2019)

    Time passes and tension mounts in a Florida police station as an estranged interracial couple awaits news of their missing teenage son.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

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  7. Hello Sister, Goodbye Life (2006)

    A college student must take care of her 7-year-old half sister after the death of their parents.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

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  8. The Christmas Shoes (2002)

    Two separate stories mesh - in the first, a young music teacher, Maggie Andrews, begins dying of a heart condition and her son Nathan tries to get a pair of Christmas shoes for her before she dies. In the second, lawyer Robert Layton and his wife Kate are slowly drifting apart and the matter comes to a head during Christmas when Kate takes over for Maggie for the school choir.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

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  9. Iron Jawed Angels (2004)

    Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

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  10. Girl Fight (2011)

    Inspired by a true story, Girl Fight recounts the harrowing story of a 16-year-old, stellar high school student whose life spirals downward when her former friends conspire to upload onto the Internet a shocking video of them beating her up.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

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  11. Normal (2003)

    A Midwestern husband and father announces his plan to have a sex change operation.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

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  12. Ray Donovan: The Movie (2022)

    A showdown decades in the making brings the Donovan family legacy full circle. As the events that made Ray who he is today finally come to light, the Donovans find themselves drawn back to Boston to face the past. Each of them struggles to overcome their violent upbringing, but destiny dies hard, and only their fierce love for each other keeps them in the fight.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

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  13. Heaven (2019)

    Heaven Leigh Casteel, gifted and intelligent, is the eldest of five dirt-poor children struggling to survive in a mountain shack. As she endures neglect and abuse, Heaven discovers a dark secret that changes everything she thought she knew about her family. Then tragedy tears her world apart and she must forge her own way in the cruel, unknown world.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

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  14. Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999)

    An acclaimed stage performer, Dorothy still struggled with the challenge of her color, in a time that wouldn't let some stars in by the front door. Yet against the odds she beat out many more famous rivals for the role of "Carmen Jones", becoming the first black woman ever nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award. Marriages and affairs would break her heart, but her heart was strong. Seductive and easily seduced, she was born to be a star - with all the glory and all the pain of being loved, abused, cheated, glorified, undermined and undefeated. Here was a woman who wouldn't wait in the wings. Halle Berry stars as Dorothy Dandrige.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

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  15. I Am Elizabeth Smart (2017)

    The story of Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping and captivity, as told from her perspective.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

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  16. Cocaine Godmother (2017)

    At the age of 17, Griselda Blanco, made her way to the U.S. with a fake passport with her first husband Carlos. Living in Queens with her three sons, Griselda became enticed by the money the drug world offered, and quickly became embroiled with local drug runners. Griselda masterminded the use of beautiful women, the elderly and children as the mules and created false-bottom suitcases to smuggle cocaine from Colombia.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

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  17. Sound of Christmas (2016)

    Lizzie is a young piano teacher working at a music school while trying to save enough money for a Steinway piano. The school is gearing up for their major Christmas fundraiser and she has committed much of her time to plan the event. One afternoon, she meets Brad who takes an interest in her playing and asks if she will teach his uninterested teenage daughter. She begins to break through to the young girl, and sparks begin to fly with Brad, but she is shocked to find out that his interest is not solely in her playing, but in the property that houses the music school. She sets out to save the school and the event, but can she work things out with Brad?

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

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  18. Cheaters (2000)

    In the fall of 1994, a teacher at Chicago's run-down Steinmetz High conspires with the school's academic decathlon team to cheat on an academic competition.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

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  19. How Sarah Got Her Wings (2015)

    Good Samaritan Sarah Fitzpatrick has a fatal accident just before Christmas, and finds herself in the lobby before the gates of Heaven. Certain that she will be let in, she is shocked to find that her name is not on the reservation list. However, she is granted the chance to return to Earth as an "angel in training" with the requirement to help a soul in need. Sarah has the 12 days before Christmas to secure her place on the list leaving her in the race for her after-life.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

  20. Beast (2026)

    MMA legend Patton James, now a commercial fisherman, is pulled back into the cage when his brother is in danger. Reuniting with his old coach Sammy, he commits to one final fight in one championship against the brutal champion Xavier Grau.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

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  21. Zimmer mit Tante (2010)

    Juvenile detention or retirement home: That's the choice 17-year-old Malu is faced with after she's been caught stealing again. In order to save the girl from imprisonment, her aunt Johanna agrees to take Malu in with her until she has completed her social service in a retirement home. The rebellious half-orphan, whose single father Paul has hardly any time for her as a pilot, initially finds being placed with her aunt just as restrictive as a stay in prison.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

  22. Brief an mein Leben (2015)

    Diagnosis burnout: The successful career woman Toni Lehmstedt can be referred to a psychiatric clinic after a physical breakdown. Urs Egger's free adaptation of the biographical novel of the same name by Miriam Meckel with Grimme award winner Marie Bäumer in the leading role.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

  23. Endstation Glück (2016)

    Helene realizes that she is at a turning point. After the unexpected death of her husband, the trip around the world she has longed for for decades falls through. Instead, she inherits a disused country station financed by a loan and not much else. Her friends Rosina and Luise, on the other hand, would prefer to carry on as before.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

  24. The Glassblower (2016)

    Marie violates tradition in a small German town of Lauscha, to become the first female glassblower in in 1890. Her glass ball decorations find a new market in America.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

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  25. Luther and I (2017)

    As a nun, Katharina von Bora lives the life destined for her until she comes into contact with a completely new world of thought in the early 20s through the writings of Martin Luther. She flees with some of her co-sisters and comes without legal status, without income and rejected by her family to Wittenberg, where she meets Martin Luther personally. Katharina decides to marry the reformer and, as his wife, becomes a respected housekeeper, an equal interlocutor and the mother of their children together.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

  26. Unboxing (2014)

    How do we represent the ideas of gender? This short reflects about this topic, as we see an unidentified character, suited up, and with a paper bag over his head, walking down the hallway of its high school.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

  27. Madfabulous (2026)

    When the flamboyant Henry Paget arrives in 1890s North Wales to claim his aristocratic inheritance, his theatrical flair and defiant eccentricities send shockwaves through the upper-class elite, much to the amusement of the local townspeople. Alongside his spirited cousin, Lily, and loyal butler, Gelert, Henry tries to carve out his own identity as the Fifth Marquess, navigating suffocating traditions, scheming relatives, and the long shadow cast by his estranged father.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

  28. Winnetous Weiber (2014)

    It should be a relaxed holiday with her daughter Nora - at least that's how the single mother Maren Bogner imagined it: a journey in the footsteps of Winnetou, a ride to the breathtaking locations of the legendary Karl May films, a holiday of discovery in Croatia. Although Nora doesn't share her mother's enthusiasm, a little variety never hurts. They are accompanied by Nora's best friend, the successful but stressed businesswoman Gabriele Hochmann with a GDR past. Arriving at the starting point of their guided "Winne Tour", the three women make the acquaintance of Elisabeth zu Hallbach-Süren, who, together with her young assistant Simone Lehmann, has also set out for the scenes of German cinema nostalgia.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style

  29. Die Vierte Gewalt (2012)

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

  30. Clouds of Sils Maria (2014)

    A veteran actress comes face-to-face with an uncomfortable reflection of herself when she agrees to take part in a revival of the play that launched her career 20 years earlier.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

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Like Departure and something else?

Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.

Frequently asked questions

What are the best movies like Departure?

The closest matches to Departure are Girl in the Box (2016), Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996) and My Dinner with Hervé (2018). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.

What should I watch after Departure?

Start with Girl in the Box (2016), the closest match to Departure.

What is the highest-rated movie like Departure?

Beast (2026), rated 7.5/10 by 227 TMDB users.

What is the newest movie like Departure?

Madfabulous (2026) is the most recent release on this list.

Are there German movies like Departure?

Yes: Zimmer mit Tante (2010), Brief an mein Leben (2015) and Endstation Glück (2016).

How are movies similar to Departure chosen?

First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Departure, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.

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