Movies like The Trip to Bountiful (1985)
The best movies like The Trip to Bountiful (1985) are The Last Bus (2021), Driving Miss Daisy (1989) and Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (2022). If The Trip to Bountiful hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedParis, Texas (1984)8.1/10 from 2,374 votes
- NewestOmaha (2025)Released 2025
The Last Bus (2021)
Widower Tom, on the recent passing of his wife Mary, uses his free bus pass to travel the length of Britain from John O'Groats in Caithness to Land's End in Cornwall, their shared birthplace, using only local buses. It's an incident-fuelled nostalgia trip and his encounters with local people make him a media phenomenon. Tom is totally unaware and to his surprise on arrival at Land’s End he’s greeted as a celebrity.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDriving Miss Daisy (1989)
The story of an old Jewish widow named Daisy Werthan and her relationship with her black chauffeur, Hoke. From an initial mere work relationship grew in 25 years a strong friendship between the two very different characters, in a time when those types of relationships were shunned.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisApollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (2022)
A man narrates stories of his life as a 10-year-old boy in 1969 Houston, weaving tales of nostalgia with a fantastical account of a journey to the moon.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOmaha (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
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSweet Bird of Youth (1962)
Gigolo and drifter Chance Wayne returns to his hometown as the companion of a faded movie star, Alexandra Del Lago, whom he hopes to use to help him break into the movies. Chance runs into trouble when he finds his ex-girlfriend, the daughter of the local politician Tom "Boss" Finley, who more or less forced him to leave his daughter and the town many years ago.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Aviator (2004)
A biopic depicting the life of filmmaker and aviation pioneer Howard Hughes from 1927 to 1947, during which time he became a successful film producer and an aviation magnate, while simultaneously growing more unstable due to severe obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWhip It (2009)
In Bodeen, Texas, an indie-rock loving misfit finds a way of dealing with her small-town misery after she discovers a roller derby league in nearby Austin.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVanya on 42nd Street (1994)
An uninterrupted rehearsal of Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya' plays out by a company of actors. The setting: their run-down theater with an unusable stage and crumbling ceiling. The play is shown act by act with the briefest of breaks to move props or for refreshments. The lack of costumes, real props and scenery is soon forgotten.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMarjorie Prime (2017)
A service which creates holographic projections of late family members allows an elderly woman to spend time with a younger version of her deceased husband.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGiant (1956)
Wealthy rancher Bick Benedict and dirt-poor cowboy Jett Rink both woo Leslie Lynnton, a beautiful young woman from Maryland who is new to Texas. She marries Benedict, but she is shocked by the racial bigotry of the White Texans against the local people of Mexican descent. Rink discovers oil on a small plot of land, and while he uses his vast, new wealth to buy all the land surrounding the Benedict ranch, the Benedict's disagreement over prejudice fuels conflict that runs across generations.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBlack or White (2015)
A grieving widower is drawn into a custody battle over his granddaughter, whom he helped raise her entire life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Perfect World (1993)
A kidnapped boy strikes up a friendship with his captor: an escaped convict on the run from the law, headed by an honorable U.S. Marshal.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Whales of August (1987)
Two aged sisters reflect on life and the past during a late summer day in Maine.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisParis, Texas (1984)
A man wanders out of the desert not knowing who he is. His brother finds him, and helps to pull his memory back of the life he led before he walked out on his family and disappeared four years earlier.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisOld Yeller (1957)
Young Travis Coates is left to take care of the family ranch with his mother and younger brother while his father goes off on a cattle drive in the 1860s. When a yellow mongrel comes for an uninvited stay with the family, Travis reluctantly adopts the dog.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWildlife (2018)
14-year-old Joe is the only child of Jeanette and Jerry — a housewife and a golf pro — in a small town in 1960s Montana. Nearby, an uncontrolled forest fire rages close to the Canadian border, and when Jerry loses his job (and his sense of purpose) he decides to join the cause of fighting the fire, leaving his wife and son to fend for themselves.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Dinner with Hervé (2018)
An unlikely friendship evolves over one wild night in LA between a struggling journalist and actor Hervé Villechaize, the world's most famous gun-toting dwarf, resulting in life-changing consequences for both.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Soldier's Story (1984)
In a rural town in Louisiana, a black Master Sergeant is found shot to death just outside the local Army Base. Military lawyer, Captain Davenport—also a black man—is sent from Washington to conduct an investigation. Facing an uncooperative chain of command and fearful black troops, Davenport must battle with deceit and prejudice in order to find out exactly who really did kill the Master Sergeant.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPlaces in the Heart (1984)
In 1935 rural Texas, recently widowed Edna Spaulding struggles to survive with two small children, a farm to run, and very little money in the bank - not to mention a deadly tornado and the unwelcome presence of the Ku Klux Klan. Edna is aided by her beautician sister, Margaret; a blind boarder, Mr. Will; and a would-be thief, Moze, who decides to teach Edna how to plant and harvest cotton.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWhere the Red Fern Grows (2003)
Set in the Ozark Mountains during the Great Depression, Billy Coleman works hard and saves his earnings for 2 years to achieve his dream of buying two coonhound pups. He develops a new trust in God as he faces overwhelming challenges in adventure and tragedy roaming the river bottoms of Cherokee country with "Old Dan" and "Little Ann."
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCool Hand Luke (1967)
When petty criminal Luke Jackson is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn't play by the rules of either the sadistic warden or the yard's resident heavy, Dragline, who ends up admiring the new guy's unbreakable will. Luke's bravado, even in the face of repeated stints in the prison's dreaded solitary confinement cell, "the box," make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison officers.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPandora's Box (1929)
The rise and inevitable fall of an amoral but naive young woman whose insouciant eroticism inspires lust and violence in those around her.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931)
On the South Pacific island of Bora Bora, a young couple's love is threatened when the tribal chief declares the girl a sacred virgin.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Few Good Men (1992)
When cocky military lawyer Lt. Daniel Kaffee and his co-counsel, Lt. Cmdr. JoAnne Galloway, are assigned to a murder case, they uncover a hazing ritual that could implicate high-ranking officials such as shady Col. Nathan Jessep.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFirst Blood (1982)
When former Green Beret John Rambo is harassed by local law enforcement and arrested for vagrancy, he is forced to flee into the mountains and wage an escalating one-man war against his pursuers.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDown by Law (1986)
A disc jockey, a pimp and an Italian tourist escape from jail in New Orleans.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisJunebug (2005)
On the way to meet with an independent artist in the South, newlywed art dealer Madeleine is convinced by her husband, George, that they should stop to meet his family in North Carolina. Madeleine's affluent lifestyle clashes with the family, but she befriends George's wide-eyed and pregnant sister-in-law, Ashley, who is nearing her due date. Through the family, Madeleine gains greater insight into George's character.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCurse of the Golden Flower (2006)
During China's Tang dynasty the emperor has taken the princess of a neighboring province as his wife. She has borne him two sons and raised his eldest. Now his control over his dominion is complete, including the royal family itself.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGoodbye Bafana (2007)
The true story of a white South African racist whose life was profoundly altered by the black prisoner he guarded for twenty years. The prisoner's name was Nelson Mandela.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMemoirs of a Geisha (2005)
In the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Trip to Bountiful?
The closest matches to The Trip to Bountiful are The Last Bus (2021), Driving Miss Daisy (1989) and Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (2022). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Trip to Bountiful?
Start with The Last Bus (2021), the closest match to The Trip to Bountiful.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Trip to Bountiful?
Paris, Texas (1984), rated 8.1/10 by 2,374 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Trip to Bountiful?
Omaha (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Trip to Bountiful?
Yes: The Last Bus (2021), Driving Miss Daisy (1989) and Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (2022).
How are movies similar to The Trip to Bountiful chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Trip to Bountiful, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.