Movies like Star Boys (2017)

Little Man Tate (1991)

Dede is a sole parent trying to bring up her son Fred. When it is discovered that Fred is a genius, she is determined to ensure that Fred has all the opportunities that he needs, and that he is not taken advantage of by people who forget that his extremely powerful intellect is harboured in the body and emotions of a child.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & family

Tove (2020)

Helsinki, 1945. The end of the war brings a new sense of artistic and social freedom for painter Tove Jansson. While focusing her artistic dreams on painting, the enchanting tales of the ‘Moomin’ creatures she told to scared children in bomb shelters, rapidly take on a life of their own, bringing international fame.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Skin (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

Omaha (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

Light of My Life (2019)

Years after a pandemic wipes out most of the female population, a father struggles to shield his daughter from a dangerous and predatory world.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Tigertail (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

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

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

Come 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

I Never Sang for My Father (1970)

A man living in the towering shadow of his aging father finds it difficult to start a new chapter in his life by marrying his girlfriend and moving to California.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

The Giver (2014)

In a seemingly perfect community, without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, a young boy is chosen to learn from an elderly man about the true pain and pleasure of the "real" world.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Max Winslow and The House of Secrets (2020)

Five teenagers compete to win a mansion owned by entrepreneur and scientist Atticus Virtue. To win the teens must face-off against a super computer named HAVEN who controls the mansion.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family

The Sound of Silence (2019)

A successful "house tuner" in New York City, who calibrates the sound in people's homes in order to adjust their moods, meets a client with a problem he can't solve.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

The 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

What Maisie Knew (2013)

In New York City, six-year-old Maisie is caught in the middle of a bitter custody battle between her self-absorbed parents—an aging rock singer mother and a distracted art dealer father. As both quickly marry new partners to strengthen their legal standing, Maisie is shuttled back and forth in an endless game of emotional point-scoring. Yet amid the chaos and upheaval, Maisie begins to find true comfort and affection in her new step-parents.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Daddy Longlegs (2010)

After months of living a solitary existence, Lenny, 34, picks up his kids from school. Every year he spends a couple of weeks with his sons Sage, 9, and Frey, 7. Lenny hosts his kids within a midtown studio apartment in New York. During these two weeks, he must figure out if he wants to act as their father or be their friend. Ultimately, their trip upstate results in complete lawlessness taking over their lives.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Jonathan (2018)

Jonathan is a young man with a strange condition that only his brother understands. But when he begins to yearn for a different life, their unique bond becomes increasingly tested.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

The Quiller Memorandum (1966)

After two British Secret Intelligence Service agents are murdered at the hands of a cryptic neo-Nazi group known as Phoenix, the suave agent Quiller is sent to Berlin to investigate.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Mary (2024)

A miraculous conception. A merciless king. A murderous pursuit. Mary's journey to give birth to Jesus unfolds in this biblical coming-of-age epic.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Remember (2015)

With the aid of a fellow Auschwitz survivor and a hand-written letter, an elderly man with dementia goes in search of the person responsible for the death of his family.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Bad Timing (1982)

Nancy Savoca’s second student film follows two twelve-year olds, Bobby (Joey D’Arelli) and Denise (Kelly Cinnante) who run away to Hollywood. They land at an open mic night in a New Jersey bar where Bobby’s aunt and uncle (once aspiring actors) lay out the realities of life as a working actor. The film was inspired by performers Savoca met while making her first student film, most notably William DaPrato. Filled with wry humor and quiet revelations about the pursuit of artistic dreams, Bad Timing also features Marianne Leone and the on-screen debut of future Academy Award winner Chris Cooper.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & family

American Graffiti (1973)

A couple of high school graduates spend one final night cruising the strip with their buddies before they go off to college.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Aparajito (1956)

Apu and his family have moved away from the country to live in the bustling holy city of Benares. As he progresses from wide-eyed child to intellectually curious teenager, eventually studying in Kolkata, we witness his academic and moral education, as well as the growing complexity of his relationship with his mother.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Meet the Robinsons (2007)

Lewis, a brilliant young inventor, is keen on creating a time machine to find his mother, who abandoned him in an orphanage. Things take a turn when he meets Wilbur Robinson and his family.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both family

Spoiled Children (1977)

Successful writer/director Bernard Rougerie is at a creative dead end and decides to isolate himself from his wife in order to complete the script for his next film. Bernard moves into an apartment building whose tenants are in the midst of a revolt against their abusive landlord. Reluctant at first, he joins their cause and then becomes involved in an affair with young, unemployed resident Anne.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Anche il riccio respira (TBA)

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Big (1988)

When a young boy makes a wish at a carnival machine to be big, he wakes up the following morning to find that it has been granted and his body has grown older overnight, but he is still the same 13-year-old boy inside. Now he must learn how to cope with the unfamiliar world of grown-ups, including getting a job and having his first romantic encounter with a woman.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Innuendo (2017)

Tuuli grows up in an oppressively religious and abusive family in Finland. To escape from the shadow of her angelic twin sister she travels to Melbourne, Australia. Curious of sexuality, she becomes a nude model for art classes. Her innocent surface reveals sordid cracks as she sets about exerting her twisted version of righteousness.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Paranoid Park (2007)

A teenage skateboarder becomes suspected of being connected with a security guard who suffered a brutal death in a skate park called "Paranoid Park".

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Persepolis (2007)

In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Satrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama