Skip to content

Movies like The Kids Aren't Alright (2016)

The best movies like The Kids Aren't Alright (2016) are Permanent Record (1988), Before I Fall (2017) and Joe Bell (2020). If The Kids Aren't Alright hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.

Quick picks

  1. Permanent Record (1988)

    David Sinclair seems to have everything going for him: he's smart, musically talented, and very successful. To top off his senior year in high school, his band is trying to get a recording session. Therefore, David's suicide leaves everyone, especially his best friend and bandmate, Chris, with a lot of questions.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  2. Before I Fall (2017)

    Samantha Kingston has everything. Then, everything changes. After one fateful night, she wakes up with no future at all. Trapped into reliving the same day over and over, she begins to question just how perfect her life really was.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Worth the HypeMovies like this
  3. Joe Bell (2020)

    The true story of a small town, working class father who embarks on a solo walk across the U.S. to crusade against bullying after his son is tormented in high school for being gay.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  4. All Together Now (2020)

    An optimistic, talented teen clings to a huge secret: she's homeless and living on a school bus. When tragedy strikes, can she learn to accept a helping hand?

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  5. Out of the Blue (1981)

    A young girl whose father is an ex-convict and whose mother is a junkie finds it difficult to conform and tries to find comfort in a quirky combination of Elvis and the punk scene.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Worth the HypeMovies like this
  6. The Tracey Fragments (2007)

    Tracey Berkowitz, 15, a self-described normal girl, loses her 9-year old brother, Sonny. In flashbacks and fragments, we meet her overbearing parents and the sweet, clueless Sonny. We watch Tracey navigate high school, friendless, picked on and teased. She develops a thing for Billy Zero, a new student, imagining he's her boyfriend. We see the day she loses Sonny and we watch her try to find him.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

  7. Disconnect (2013)

    A hard-working lawyer, attached to his cell phone, can't find the time to communicate with his family. An estranged couple uses the internet as a means to escape from their lifeless marriage. A widowed ex-cop struggles to raise a mischievous son who cyber-bullies a classmate. An ambitious journalist sees a career-making story in a teen that performs on an adult-only site. They are strangers, neighbors and colleagues and their stories collide as ordinary people struggling to connect in today's wired world.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Worth the HypeMovies like this
  8. Billy Jack (1971)

    A Euro-Indigenous American Ex-Green Beret hapkido expert saves wild horses from being slaughtered for dog food and helps protect a desert "freedom school" for runaways.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  9. Call 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 this
  10. Hounddog (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 this
  11. Lorelei (2020)

    A man is released from prison after 15 years. He reunites with his high school girlfriend, now a single mother of three. What follows is a lyrical take on love, regret and second chances.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  12. Across the Tracks (1991)

    When Billy returns from reform school he has to attend a different high school at the other side of town. He tries to start with a clean slate but his old rival doesn't make it easy on him and his buddy Louie tries to make him go astray again. His brother Joe, quite the opposite of Billy, is a good runner and determined to win a track scholarship. He suggests Billy to join his school's track team, which pits the two brothers against each other.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

  13. Zero Day (2003)

    Two troubled adolescents chronicle the events that ultimately lead up to a terrifying assault on their school.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Worth the HypeMovies like this
  14. Parked (2010)

    Fred Daly returns to Ireland with nowhere to live but his car. Then dope-smoking 21-year-old Cathal parks beside him, and brightens up his lonely world. Encouraged by Cathal, Fred meets attractive music teacher Jules. Growing closer, these three outsiders are set on a course that will change their lives forever.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  15. To Save a Life (2009)

    Jake Taylor has everything. He has a beautiful girl, he's the champion in basketball and beer pong, and everyone loves him. Then, an old childhood friend of his commits suicide. Jake wonders what he could've done to save his friend's life. A youth minister tells him that Jake needs God. So Jake becomes a Christian. However, things begin to spin out of control. Jake is going to realize just what it means to be a Christian and how, to save a life.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  16. The Double (2014)

    An awkward office drone becomes increasingly unhinged after a charismatic and confident look-alike takes a job at his workplace and seduces the woman he desires.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  17. Dear Evan Hansen (2021)

    Evan Hansen, a high schooler with social anxiety, unintentionally gets caught up in a lie after the family of a classmate who committed suicide mistakes one of Hansen’s letters for their son’s suicide note.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  18. Neverwas (2005)

    Zach Riley is a psychiatrist, who leaves a job at a prestigious university, to take up a job at the privately run mental institution, Millwood. What he doesn't reveal at the time of his appointment is that this was the very place where his novelist father, T.L. Pierson, spent many years of his life.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  19. Tea and Sympathy (1956)

    A sensitive young man recalls his time in boarding school when the only person who seemed compassionate towards him was his housemaster's wife.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Worth the HypeMovies like this
  20. Morvern Callar (2002)

    After her boyfriend commits suicide, a young woman attempts to use the unpublished manuscript of a novel and a sum of money he left behind to reinvent her life.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  21. Blonde (2022)

    From her volatile childhood as Norma Jeane, through her rise to stardom and romantic entanglements, this reimagined fictional portrait of Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe blurs the lines of fact and fiction to explore the widening split between her public and private selves.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

  22. Tale of a Tiger (1984)

    Primary school aged Orville has a fascination for model planes which intensifies when he encounters Harry who owns a sadly neglected but real Tiger Moth. Orville becomes obsessed with the notion that the Tiger might fly once more and the adventure begins when he and Harry set out to achieve that goal.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

  23. Christina's House (2000)

    A teenage girl is plagued by bizarre occurrences and deaths related to her new home.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

  24. Reckless (1984)

    Teenager Johnny Rourke is reckless. Born on the wrong side of the tracks, he breaks the law and girls' hearts with equal cool. Cheerleader Tracey Prescott is reckless too. She dumps her conventional life and boring boyfriend to follow Johnny wherever his dangerous path leads.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

  25. The Wild Life (1984)

    Eighties teen romp involving Bill and his new apartment, Jim and his rebellious antics, Tom and his crazy self, and Anita with her older man David.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  26. Seven Minutes in Heaven (1986)

    Natalie allows her classmate Jeff, who has run away from home, to stay at her place while her father is away on a business trip. Natalie soon starts dating Jeff's friend James Casey, who isn't as faithful as she thinks, while her best friend Polly falls in love with baseball player Zoo Knudsen.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  27. Awaara (1951)

    A petty thief is put on trial for the attempted murder of a lawyer. Through a series of flashbacks, the intertwining lives of the thief, the lawyer, and the thief's defense lawyer are illustrated.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

    Worth the HypeMovies like this
  28. What's Up with Cinta? (2002)

    A popular high school girl strains her relationship with her close-knit clique when she begins falling for a reclusive, lower-class schoolmate.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

    Worth the HypeMovies like this
  29. And Then Came Lola (2009)

    A talented, but distracted photographer, Lola, on the verge of success in both love and work, could lose it all if she doesn't make it to a crucial meeting on time. But, as usual, Lola is late. With her job and girlfriend on the line, she has three chances to make it right. In a desperate race through the streets and back rooms of San Francisco, time grows short-will Lola make it? Will she come at all? With a pop sensibility that mixes live action, animation and still photography, And Then Came Lola explores love's age old question in a fresh new way, "If you try, try again, will you finally get it right?" (Written by M. Siler and E. Seidler)

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

  30. Baby Shark (2005)

    This treatise on teens behaving badly takes three separate approaches to its theme. In the first story, a hottie skater boy asks a bored, young heterosexual couple to sexually indulge him. In the second story, a boy/girl couple contends with a nerd who clings to the boy after class each day. In the third and final story, an attractive young guy puts the moves on his identical twin brother's girlfriend.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Like The Kids Aren't Alright and something else?

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

Frequently asked questions

What are the best movies like The Kids Aren't Alright?

The closest matches to The Kids Aren't Alright are Permanent Record (1988), Before I Fall (2017) and Joe Bell (2020). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.

What should I watch after The Kids Aren't Alright?

Start with Permanent Record (1988), the closest match to The Kids Aren't Alright.

What is the highest-rated movie like The Kids Aren't Alright?

Disconnect (2013), rated 7.1/10 by 1,274 TMDB users.

What is the newest movie like The Kids Aren't Alright?

Blonde (2022) is the most recent release on this list.

Are there English movies like The Kids Aren't Alright?

Yes: Permanent Record (1988), Before I Fall (2017) and Joe Bell (2020).

How are movies similar to The Kids Aren't Alright chosen?

First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Kids Aren't Alright, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.

↑ ↓ to move · Enter to open · Full search page