Movies like Three Days in August (2016)
The best movies like Three Days in August (2016) are The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) and Nowhere Special (2020). If Three Days in August hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedShort Term 12 (2013)7.7/10 from 1,474 votes
- NewestLa Vénus électrique (2026)Released 2026
The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947)
Struggling artist Geoffrey Carroll meets Sally while on holiday in the country. A romance develops, but he doesn't tell her he's already married. Suffering from mental illness, Geoffrey returns home where he paints an impression of his wife as the angel of death and then promptly poisons her. He marries Sally but after a while he finds a strange urge to paint her as the angel of death too and history seems about to repeat itself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)
In Brooklyn circa 1900, the Nolans manage to enjoy life on pennies despite great poverty and Papa's alcoholism. We come to know these people well through big and little troubles: Aunt Sissy's scandalous succession of "husbands"; the removal of the one tree visible from their tenement; and young Francie's desire to transfer to a better school...if irresponsible Papa can get his act together.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNowhere Special (2020)
John, a 35-year-old window cleaner, has dedicated his life to bringing up his 4-year-old son, Michael, after the child's mother left them soon after giving birth. When John is given only a few months left to live, he attempts to find a new, perfect family for Michael, determined to shield him from the terrible reality of the situation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSecrets & Lies (1996)
After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense, a successful black optometrist, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to Cynthia, a working class white woman.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPhilomena (2013)
A woman searches for her adult son, who was taken away from her decades ago when she was forced to live in a convent.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisUnsung Hero (2024)
When David Smallbone's successful music company collapses, he moves his family from Australia to the United States in search of a brighter future. With nothing more than their six children, their suitcases, and their love of music, David and his pregnant wife Helen set out to rebuild their lives from the ground up. Based on a remarkable true story, a mum's faith stands against all odds; and inspires her husband and children to hold onto theirs.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Glass Castle (2017)
A young girl is raised in a dysfunctional family constantly on the run from the FBI. Living in poverty, she comes of age guided by her drunkard, ingenious father who distracts her with magical stories to keep her mind off the family's dire state, and her selfish, nonconformist mother who has no intention of raising a family, along with her younger brother and sister, and her other older sister. Together, they fend for each other as they mature in an unorthodox journey that is their family life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFather Mother Sister Brother (2025)
Estranged siblings reunite after years apart, forced to confront unresolved tensions and reevaluate their strained relationships with their emotionally distant parents.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSmall Things Like These (2024)
In 1985, while working as a coal merchant to support his family, Bill Furlong discovers disturbing secrets kept by the local convent and uncovers truths of his own; forcing him to confront his past and the complicit silence of a small Irish town controlled by the Catholic Church.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEve's Bayou (1997)
Summer heats up in rural Louisiana beside Eve’s Bayou, 1962, as the Batiste family tries to survive the secrets they’ve kept and the betrayals they’ve endured.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAngela's Ashes (1999)
An Irish Catholic family returns to 1930s Limerick after a child's death in America. The unemployed I.R.A. veteran father struggles with poverty, prejudice, and alcoholism as the family endures harsh slum conditions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006)
In 1958 New York Diane Arbus is a housewife and mother who works as an assistant to her husband, a photographer employed by her wealthy parents. Respectable though her life is, she cannot help but feel uncomfortable in her privileged world. One night, a new neighbor catches Diane's eye, and the enigmatic man inspires her to set forth on the path to discovering her own artistry.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAvalon (1990)
A Polish-Jewish family comes to the U.S. at the beginning of the twentieth century. There, the family and their children try to make themselves a better future in the so-called promised land.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Remember Mama (1948)
Norwegian immigrant Marta Hanson keeps a firm but loving hand on her household of four children, a devoted husband and a highly-educated lodger who reads great literature to the family every evening. Through financial crises, illnesses and the small triumphs of everyday life, Marta maintains her optimism and sense of humor, traits she passes on to her aspiring-author daughter, Katrin.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWe the Animals (2018)
Manny, Joel and Jonah tear their way through childhood and push against the volatile love of their parents. As Manny and Joel grow into versions of their father and Ma dreams of escape, Jonah, the youngest, embraces an imagined world all his own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLadybird Ladybird (1994)
Maggie has had four children, by four different fathers, removed by social services because of a previous violent relationship. When she meets Jorge, a gentle Latin American refugee, she gradually sees her chance for happiness, but her past still haunts her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 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 thisShort Term 12 (2013)
Grace, a compassionate young supervisor at a foster care facility, helps at-risk teens. But when a new charge dredges up memories of her own troubled past, Grace's tough exterior begins eroding.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Home of Our Own (1993)
In 1960s Los Angeles an energetic widow and her six children try to make a dream of theirs come true: to have a home of their own. They leave L.A. and head for the countryside, all the while facing numerous difficulties and obstacles during their journey.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisVaselinetjie (2017)
At the age of 8, Vaselinetjie is taken away by the Welfare and send to the orphanage. It's a strange, hard, dangerous world of rebel children, fierce house mothers,friends, first loves and where she finally finds true self-acceptance.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Final Day (2024)
Yadira, a creative young Cuban girl, struggles packing on her final day home. Embarking on an immigration journey alone, her suitcase feels too small to carry everything her heart holds.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Angel (2007)
Edwardian England. A precocious girl from a poor background with aspirations to being a novelist finds herself swept to fame and fortune when her tasteless romances hit the best seller lists. Her life changes in unexpected ways when she encounters an aristocratic brother and sister, both of whom have cultural ambitions, and both of whom fall in love with her.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisStrawberry and Chocolate (1993)
In 1979 Cuba, flamboyant gay artist Diego attempts to seduce straitlaced David, an idealistic young communist, and fails dismally. But David conspires to be "friends" with Diego so he can monitor the artist's subversive life for the state. As Diego and David discuss politics, individuality and personal expression in Castro's Cuba, a genuine friendship develops between the two.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLa Vénus électrique (2026)
A painter in 1928 Paris, unable to work since his wife’s death, unknowingly participates in fake spiritualist shows staged by a carnival worker. As he regains his inspiration, she falls in love with the man she is deceiving.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBrideshead Revisited (2008)
Befriended by aristocrat Sebastian Flyte, Oxford student Charles Ryder finds that the power and privilege experienced by the family is seductive. On a visit to the ancestral home, Brideshead, he falls in love with his friend's sister, Julia. However, as his ties to the Flytes deepen, Ryder finds himself at odds with their strong Roman Catholicism.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPollock (2000)
In August of 1949, Life Magazine ran a banner headline that begged the question: "Jackson Pollock: Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?" The film is a look back into the life of an extraordinary man, a man who has fittingly been called "an artist dedicated to concealment, a celebrity who nobody knew." As he struggled with self-doubt, engaging in a lonely tug-of-war between needing to express himself and wanting to shut the world out, Pollock began a downward spiral.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDreams (1990)
Eight visually rich vignettes drawn from Kurosawa’s own dreams—fox weddings and vanished orchards, a soldier’s ghosts, a walk through Van Gogh’s canvases, nuclear nightmares, and a water-mill utopia—meditate on childhood, art, mortality, and humanity’s uneasy bond with nature.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOdissea nuda (1961)
A director arrives in Tahiti to make a film, but soon he lets himself be captured by the exotic charm of the local places and beauties. with E. Salerno.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Could This Be Love? (2007)
Lucas, a wealthy, 43 year-old divorced businessman, is irresistibly attracted to Elsa, a 38 year old renowned sculptor from whom he has commissioned a piece to decorate the reception at his office.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Three Days in August?
The closest matches to Three Days in August are The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) and Nowhere Special (2020). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Three Days in August?
Start with The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947), the closest match to Three Days in August.
What is the highest-rated movie like Three Days in August?
Short Term 12 (2013), rated 7.7/10 by 1,474 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Three Days in August?
La Vénus électrique (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Three Days in August?
Yes: The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) and Nowhere Special (2020).
How are movies similar to Three Days in August chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Three Days in August, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.