Movies like O Sertão das Memórias (1996)
The best movies like O Sertão das Memórias (1996) are The River (1984), The Middle of the World (2003) and The Movie of My Life (2017). If O Sertão das Memórias hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Straight Story (1999)7.7/10 from 1,922 votes
- NewestThe Son of a Thousand Men (2025)Released 2025
The 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 Middle of the World (2003)
Romão, illiterate and unemployed, feels destiny drawing him on an odyssey to Rio de Janeiro in pursuit of a job and a decent life. A family of seven journeys 2,000 miles across the hinterlands of Brazil on bicycles. Along the way, the story explores the inner dynamics of a family facing a great challenge with the courage to pursue dreams.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Movie of My Life (2017)
The sierras of southern Brazil, 1963. The son of an French man and a Brazilian woman, Tony is a young man with a profound love of cinema and poetry. After graduating from college he returns to his small town in rural Brazil, to find out that his father had left for good, back to France. Tony then looks for the company of his fathers friends in search of information and references of a lost male role-model. He becomes a school teacher and a male figure to kids, in an attempt to provide them with something he lacks himself. A series of developments lead him to a surprising final lead on his fathers' whereabouts and reasons for leaving.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLove for Sale (2006)
In northern Brazil, Hermila patiently waits for her husband. However, he has abandoned her. Sexy, restless and resolute, she raffles off "a night in paradise" with herself. This beautifully-shot portrait doesn't shy away from the burdens of a young scarred woman, but it also celebrates her courage to live according to her own rules.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHands of Stone (2016)
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Son of a Thousand Men (2025)
In a small village, a lonely fisherman yearning for a son is drawn to an ethereal light that links him to others and their long-buried secrets.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLong Way Home (2019)
In order to take a new job as an employee in the public sanitation department, Juliana moves from the inner city of Itaúna to the metropolitan town of Contagem in Brazil. While waiting for her husband to join her, she adapts to her new life, meeting people and discovering new horizons, trying to overcome her past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGirl in the Box (2016)
The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHead Full of Honey (2018)
A young girl tries to help her grandfather, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, navigate his increasing forgetfulness, and ends up going on a remarkable adventure with him.
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 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 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 thisWon't Back Down (2012)
Jamie Fitzpatrick and Nona Alberts are two women from opposites sides of the social and economic track, but they have one thing in common: a mission to fix their community's broken school and ensure a bright future for their children. The two women refuse to let any obstacles stand in their way as they battle a bureaucracy that's hopelessly mired in traditional thinking, and they seek to re-energize a faculty that has lost its passion for teaching.
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 Padre (2018)
American retired Judge Randall Nemes and his hired gun, Gaspar, track down a con man posing as a priest in a small Colombian town only to be thrown off-course by a scrappy 16-year-old girl intent on reuniting with her sister in the United States.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies 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 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 thisThe Visit (1964)
Carla Zachanassian had a child by Serge Miller as a teenager. When Serge refused to marry her, she was driven out of town. By her own wit and cunning, she has returned as a multi-millionaire for a visit. The town lays out the red carpet expecting big things from Carla, only to learn that her sole purpose is to see Serge Miller killed...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisInside I'm Dancing (2004)
Michael is a 24-year-old who has cerebral palsy and long-term resident of the Carrigmore Residential Home for the Disabled, run by the formidable Eileen. His life is transformed when the maverick Rory O'Shea moves in.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBrotherly Love (2015)
West Philadelphia basketball star Sergio Taylor deals with the pressures of fame while his brother and sister have their own issues with ambition.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEnd of the World (1995)
A fugitive man and woman (Kawase, Kawana) come to an island to retrieve their son (Iwasaki), who the woman has given to a foster family, but the son's foster parents are policemen (Ito)... The suspense surrounding the retrieval of the son is made unusual by the location shooting on the vast and desolate Miyakejima Island and leads to an allegorical drama about the essential desires of human beings. This was Kawase Yota's first appearance in a Zeze film, and he has since become a regular actor. The title of the film at the time of its first release was Sukebe Tenkomori.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Straight Story (1999)
Retired farmer and widower Alvin Straight learns one day that his estranged brother Lyle has suffered a severe stroke. Alvin is determined to make things right with Lyle while he still can, but his brother lives in Wisconsin, while Alvin is stuck in Iowa with no car and no driver's license. He then has the idea of making the trip on his old lawnmower, thus beginning a picturesque and at times deeply spiritual odyssey.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStranger Than Paradise (1984)
New York layabout Willie forms an unexpected bond with his young Hungarian cousin Eva when she pays him a surprise visit. Later, Eva moves in with their aunt in Cleveland, and Willie takes his best friend Eddie to see her—a visit that culminates in a strange, eventful trip to Florida.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSommerHundeSöhne (2005)
Summer is the time to travel, enjoy life, and do or leave what you want. A motor home with two occupants makes its way south. But the two travelers do not travel voluntarily, and certainly not together.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Eldorado (2008)
Yvan finds a burglar in his house. After some consideration, Yvan decides not to call the police and to drop the lad near the nearby city but he ends up giving him a lift home to his parents. Together, they travel through Belgium and meet some extraordinary people and find themselves in ditto situations.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThelma & Louise (1991)
Taking a break from their dreary lives, close friends Thelma and Louise embark on a short weekend trip that ends in unforeseen incriminating circumstances. As fugitives, both women rediscover the strength of their bond and their newfound resilience.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
Based on the journals of Che Guevara, leader of the Cuban Revolution. In his memoirs, Guevara recounts adventures he and best friend Alberto Granado had while crossing South America by motorcycle in the early 1950s.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGigantic (1999)
The Hamburg friends Walter, Ricco and Floyd take each day as it comes between the estates of tower blocks and fast food restaurants. All three are in their early twenties and are dreaming of another life when Floyd suddenly takes a job on a freighter going to Singapore.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStampede (2022)
After a difficult separation, Serge Jr. takes his daughter Lily, 9, on a truck ride across Canada. They head to Alberta and its legendary Badlands World’s Best Truck Rodeo, a race Lily and him have been dreaming about. On the road, under his daughter’s increasingly worried gaze, Serge will eventually need to face the music.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like O Sertão das Memórias and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like O Sertão das Memórias?
The closest matches to O Sertão das Memórias are The River (1984), The Middle of the World (2003) and The Movie of My Life (2017). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after O Sertão das Memórias?
Start with The River (1984), the closest match to O Sertão das Memórias.
What is the highest-rated movie like O Sertão das Memórias?
The Straight Story (1999), rated 7.7/10 by 1,922 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like O Sertão das Memórias?
The Son of a Thousand Men (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to O Sertão das Memórias chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside O Sertão das Memórias, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.