Movies like Olivia (1977)
The best movies like Olivia (1977) are Bastard Out of Carolina (1996), Mindwalk (1991) and The Safety of Objects (2002). If Olivia hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Olivia
Quick picks
- Highest ratedLittle Lord Fauntleroy (1980)7.3/10 from 326 votes
- NewestJean & I (2025)Released 2025
Bastard 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 thisMindwalk (1991)
On the French island of Mont Saint-Michel, Jack, a failed presidential candidate, Tom, a poet and Sonia, a physicist, engage in an intellectual conversation about politics, philosophy and life over the course of a single day.
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 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 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 River (1984)
Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.
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 thisThe Trials of Cate McCall (2013)
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFarming (2018)
Based on the writer/director's childhood, FARMING tells the story of a young Nigerian boy, 'farmed out' by his parents to a white British family in the hope of a better future. Instead, he becomes the feared leader of a white skinhead gang.
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 thisCome Sunday (2018)
Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisCall 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 thisFaith Like Potatoes (2006)
Frank Rautenbach leads a strong cast as Angus Buchan, a Zambian farmer of Scottish heritage, who leaves his farm in the midst of political unrest and racially charged land reclaims and travels south with his family to start a better life in KwaZulu Natal,South Africa.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTalhotBlond (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
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Pumpkin Eater (1964)
Jo, the mother of seven children, divorces her second husband in order to marry Jake, a successful but promiscuous screenwriter. Though they are physically and emotionally compatible, they are slowly torn apart.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTigertail (2020)
A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisXiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (1998)
Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even more remote spot with a Tibetan saddle tramp Lao Jin to learn horse herding.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLittle Lord Fauntleroy (1980)
Young Cedric Errol and his widowed mother live in genteel poverty in 1880s Brooklyn after the death of his father. Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, has long ago disowned his son for marrying an American. But after the death of the Earl's remaining son, he decides to accept Cedric as his heir.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSkin (2009)
Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI 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
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHeading South (2006)
A story of three female tourists who visit Haiti, in order to enjoy the sexual nature of the young men.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Between Hamburg and Haiti (1940)
A successful German overseas merchant with a plantation in Haiti is looking for a suitable wife in Hamburg and comes across a barmaid from the Reeperbahn with an illegitimate child. He wants to marry her, but she does not follow him out of nobility. In search of her, he finds her in Mexico as the secretary of his former lover, a writer.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Man by the Shore (1993)
Early 1960s Haiti during 'Papa Doc' Duvalier's dictatorship seen through the eyes of a young girl whose family has suffered heavily.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Blue Heart (2025)
Marianne and Pétion live in Haiti and wait impatiently for a call from their son in the USA. The promise of the American dream now seems to elude them, as the line between hope and reality becomes increasingly blurred.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Jean & I (2025)
Michelle, a 10-year-old survivor of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, attempts to escape both her past and her new home when she learns that her "new" family is not what they seem.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Anita (1982)
Young Anita's life consists of working as a servant to a wealthy family, leaving her little time for anything else. Her servitude (which some would call slavery) provides an insight into a frighteningly common experience for children in Haiti.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
How To Never Again (2014)
Mia, a Canadian actress must return to Haiti when her mother is killed. She is soon embroiled in a fight with her sister and authorities over the family inheritance. Framed and imprisoned, she will need all her wits to survive and escape.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Once on This Island (TBA)
Adaptation of the Broadway musical. The story is set in the French Antilles in the Caribbean Sea and tells of a peasant girl who falls in love with an aristocrat. Against this backdrop, social class differences play out while the island gods wager a bet of what is stronger, love or death.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Tragedy of King Christophe (1991)
Special broadcast of Aimé Césaire's text, directed by Hervé Denis for the Cooperation and Cultural Action Mission of the French Embassy in Haiti.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Dana's Story (2017)
Dana’s Story is an adaptation of Amazon’s Best-Selling urban fiction novel, “Behind Closed Doors: Dana’s Story” by A.L Smith. Based on a true story, the critically acclaimed novel is a fictionalized depiction of one little girl’s experience as a victim of domestic human trafficking.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Olivia?
The closest matches to Olivia are Bastard Out of Carolina (1996), Mindwalk (1991) and The Safety of Objects (2002). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Olivia?
Start with Bastard Out of Carolina (1996), the closest match to Olivia.
What is the highest-rated movie like Olivia?
Little Lord Fauntleroy (1980), rated 7.3/10 by 326 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Olivia?
Jean & I (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Olivia chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Olivia, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.