Movies like Just Charlie (2017)
The best movies like Just Charlie (2017) are Moonlight (2016), Fish Tank (2009) and Sebastian (2024). If Just Charlie hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedMommy (2014)8.2/10 from 2,925 votes
- NewestRiley (2025)Released 2025
Moonlight (2016)
The tender, heartbreaking story of a young man’s struggle to find himself, told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love, while grappling with his own sexuality.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFish Tank (2009)
Fifteen-year-old Mia is in a constant state of war with her family and the world around her. When she meets her party-girl mother’s charming new boyfriend Connor, she is amazed to find he returns her attention, and believes he might help her start to make sense of her life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSebastian (2024)
Max is a 25-year-old freelance writer and aspiring novelist who seems well on his way to success in London’s cultural spheres. Yet by night, he finds a different kind of exhilaration as a sex worker with the pseudonym Sebastian, meeting men via an escorting platform. Max uses his experiences as Sebastian to fuel his stories and the worthy debut novel that he has been longing to write, finally seems within reach.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Killed My Mother (2009)
Hubert, a brash 17-year-old, is confused and torn by a love-hate relationship with his mother that consumes him more and more each day. After distressing ordeals and tragic episodes, Hubert will find his mother on the banks of Saint Lawrence river, where he grew up, and where a murder will be committed: the murder of childhood.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMysterious Skin (2005)
A teenage hustler and a young man obsessed with alien abductions cross paths, together discovering a horrible, liberating truth.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLilting (2014)
A young man of Chinese-Cambodian descent dies, leaving behind his isolated mother and his lover of four years. Though the two don't share a language, they grow close through their grief.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGod's Own Country (2017)
A young farmer in rural Yorkshire numbs his daily frustrations with binge drinking and casual sex, until the arrival of a Romanian migrant worker.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Male Gaze: Hide and Seek (2021)
On an Italian beach a father leaves his wife and child to reignite an old acquaintance. In London an app hookup leads to more than just a fling. Meanwhile Slovak lovers Dominik and Adam have their relationship put to the test when secrets come to the fore. Popular with children across the globe, hiding and seeking is a game we never seem to stop playing - well into our adult years. The short films are: Lolo (2019); The Den [La tana] (2015); Stanley (2017); If Only You Were Mine [Keby si bol môj] (2017); No Strings (2015).
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Queen & Country (2015)
In this sequel to Hope and Glory (1987), Bill Rohan has grown up and is drafted into the army, where he and his eccentric best mate, Percy, battle their snooty superiors on the base and look for love in town.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Male Gaze: The Boy Is Mine (2020)
We wish to make him ours, to keep and to hold forever - but will the boy reciprocate? And is he everything we expected him to be? In these five tales from the UK, France, Sweden, Mexico and the USA, a variety of characters throw caution to the wind and take their chances on a fleeting moment. The short films are: Uneven [Impar] (2016); Wolves (2016); Johnny (2018); Debut (2016); Guardian (2018).
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Summer Games (2011)
The story of an adult and a teenage couple during a brief summer holiday by the sea. While Nic's parents remain trapped in a precarious mutual dependency despite repeated attempts at reconciliation, their 12-year-old son tries to come to terms with his father's traumatizing violent outbursts in games with other children. He tries to teach Marie, who is of his age and suffers from her own relationship with her father, to feel nothing. In fact, both of them are transformed by their experience of the joys and pains of first love.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Run (2020)
A former boyracer, who married his first love and took a job in one of the fish factories, now has a 17 year-old-son of his own following in his footsteps and can no longer ignore the fact he’s going nowhere. Unable to be physically or emotionally present with his family, he takes his son’s car out for one final joy ride and risks losing the love that surrounds him
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Riley (2025)
The life of a disciplined high school athlete begins to unravel when his queer identity competes against the idea of who he was supposed to be.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Reinventing Marvin (2017)
Telling the true story of Marvin Bijou, a young boy from a working-class family in a small village, who suffers constant bullying at school and home for being ‘different’ – too sensitive and too feminine. A chance encounter with a drama teacher opens the doors to a world that offers him the chance to escape his situation.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisS#x Acts (2013)
Gili is a teenager who decides to change schools. She is determined to improve her lame social status. Over the course of a few weeks she hooks up with several different boys, all from her new school. Their encounters get more and more sexual, each time exploring their limits a little further. The boys are eager to take what is so generously offered, and Gili is thrilled with the attention. Just as Gili is trapped in the zone where it's not certain if she is giving her consent to what is happening or not, the viewer too feels trapped in the same zone, feeling for certain that something terrible is happening, but unable to pin point exactly when, and what...
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018)
Pennsylvania, 1993. After getting caught with another girl, teenager Cameron Post is sent to a conversion therapy center run by the strict Dr. Lydia Marsh and her brother, Reverend Rick, whose treatment consists in repenting for feeling “same sex attraction.” Cameron befriends fellow sinners Jane and Adam, thus creating a new family to deal with the surrounding intolerance.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlackbird (2012)
An unlikely friendship with a preppy classmate lands toubled teenager Sean Randall in serious hot water when he's falsely accused of planning a Columbine shooting scenario.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSome Dogs Bite (2010)
A 14-year-old (Casey) leads his two half-brothers (H, 19 years old and baby Severino) on a journey to find and live as a family with his father after their mother dies.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Mommy (2014)
A peculiar neighbor offers hope to a recent widow who is struggling to raise a teenager who is unpredictable and, sometimes, violent.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisTomboy (2011)
Ten-year-old Laure isn't like most girls. She prefers football to dolls and sweaters to dresses. When Laure and her family move to a new neighbourhood, local girl Lisa mistakes Laure for a boy. Indulging in this exciting new identity, Laure becomes Mickaël, and so begins a summer of long sunny afternoons, playground games and first kisses. Yet with the school term fast approaching, and with suspicions arising amongst friends and family, Laure must face up to an uncertain future.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Male Gaze: Strikers & Defenders (2020)
Work up a sweat from the soccer field to the locker room in these drama-fueled four films from Germany, France and the UK that explore how rivalry between teams can spill over into teacher-pupil relationships, high school crushes and brotherly compassion. The short films are: Islands [Inseln] (2018); Play It Like a Man [Un été viril] (2018); Colours (2015); Through the Fields [Passer les champs] (2015).
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
The Hand of God (2021)
In 1980s Naples, an awkward teen struggling to find his place experiences heartbreak and liberation after he's inadvertently saved from a freak accident by football legend Diego Maradona.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFireworks (2023)
The troubled relationship between Gianni and Nino, set in the narrow-minded and prejudicial Sicily of 1982.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisJellyfish (2019)
In Margate, England, life is not easy for teenager Sarah Taylor, between being bullied at school, being exploited by a dominant boss and having to take care of her depressive mother and her two siblings. But Sarah finds a way to channel her growing despair and fight adversity when her drama teacher gives her a new purpose.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Short 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: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisI Believe in Unicorns (2015)
Feeling awkward and isolated, an imaginative and strong-willed teenage girl runs away from home with an older punk rock drifter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisReturn (2011)
Back from a tour of duty, Kelli struggles to find her place in her family and the rust-belt town she no longer recognizes.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisReality (2023)
Augusta, Georgia, United States, June 3, 2017. After running some errands, Reality Winner returns home, where she is approached by two men.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAn American Girl: Chrissa Stands Strong (2009)
A fourth grader and her friends deal with bullying from a more popular girl in their class.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGood Vibrations (2012)
The story of music legend Terri Hooley, a key figure in Belfast's punk rock scene. Hooley founded the Good Vibrations store from which a record label sprung, representing bands such as The Undertones, Rudi and The Outcasts.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Just Charlie?
The closest matches to Just Charlie are Moonlight (2016), Fish Tank (2009) and Sebastian (2024). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Just Charlie?
People who watched Just Charlie most often go on to Moonlight (2016), Fish Tank (2009) and Sebastian (2024).
What is the highest-rated movie like Just Charlie?
Mommy (2014), rated 8.2/10 by 2,925 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Just Charlie?
Riley (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Just Charlie?
Yes: Moonlight (2016), Fish Tank (2009) and Sebastian (2024).
How are movies similar to Just Charlie chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Just Charlie, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.