Movies like Passage of Life (2017)
The best movies like Passage of Life (2017) are The Nest (2020), The Good Lie (2014) and Skin (2009). If Passage of Life hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedShoplifters (2018)7.8/10 from 2,413 votes
- NewestOmaha (2025)Released 2025
- In JapaneseOne Million Yen Girl (2008)Also in Japanese
The 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 thisThe Good Lie (2014)
A young refugee of the Sudanese Civil War who wins a lottery for relocation to the United States with three other lost boys. Encountering the modern world for the first time, they develop an unlikely friendship with a brash American woman assigned to help them, but the young man struggles to adjust to this new life and his feelings of guilt about the brother he left behind.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSkin (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
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNight Always Comes (2025)
Facing eviction in a city her family can no longer afford, a woman plunges into a desperate and increasingly dangerous all-night search to raise $25,000.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Beautiful Country (2004)
After reuniting with his mother in Ho Chi Minh City, a family tragedy causes Binh to flee from Viet Nam to America. Landing in New York, Binh begins a road trip to Texas, where his American father is said to live.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHouse of Sand and Fog (2003)
Behrani, an Iranian immigrant buys a California bungalow, thinking he can fix it up, sell it again, and make enough money to send his son to college. However, the house is the legal property of former drug addict Kathy. After losing the house in an unfair legal dispute with the county, she is left with nowhere to go. Wanting her house back, she hires a lawyer and befriends a police officer. Neither Kathy nor Behrani have broken the law, so they find themselves involved in a difficult moral dilemma.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 thisFamily Romance, LLC (2019)
Love is a business at Family Romance, a company that rents human stand-ins for any occasion. Founder Yuichi Ishii helps make his clients’ dreams come true. But when the mother of 12-year-old Mahiro hires Ishii to impersonate her missing father, the line between acting and reality threatens to blur.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Color of Friendship (2000)
Mahree Bok lives on a farm in South Africa. Her father is a policeman who cannot hide his joy when activist Steve Biko is caught by the South African authorities. Piper Dellums is the daughter of a US congressman from California and who lives in a nice home in Washington DC. When Mahree is chosen to spend a semester at the Dellums' house, she doesn't expect that her host family would be black. Nor do her hosts suspect that she is not a black South African.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLittle Lord Fauntleroy (1980)
Young Cedric Errol and his widowed mother live in genteel poverty in 1880s Brooklyn after the death of his father. Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, has long ago disowned his son for marrying an American. But after the death of the Earl's remaining son, he decides to accept Cedric as his heir.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOne Million Yen Girl (2008)
A 21-year-old girl is released from prison, only to deal with the neighborhood gossip about her and family conflicts. She decides to save one million yen, move to where no one knows her and keep repeating the process.
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 thisWhat 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
Worth the HypeMovies like thisShoplifters (2018)
In the outskirts of Tokyo, a poor but close-knit group living on the fringes of society survives through shoplifting and odd jobs. When Osamu and his son take in a neglected young girl, their already fragile existence begins to unravel. As the family grows attached to her, buried secrets surface, forcing them to confront the true meaning of love, belonging, and what makes a family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTokyo Family (2013)
An elderly couple journey to Tokyo to visit their grown children, only to find them preoccupied and self-involved.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 thisFarming (2018)
Based on the writer/director's childhood, FARMING tells the story of a young Nigerian boy, 'farmed out' by his parents to a white British family in the hope of a better future. Instead, he becomes the feared leader of a white skinhead gang.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMindwalk (1991)
On the French island of Mont Saint-Michel, Jack, a failed presidential candidate, Tom, a poet and Sonia, a physicist, engage in an intellectual conversation about politics, philosophy and life over the course of a single day.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Trials of Cate McCall (2013)
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
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 thisUnimundo 45 (2018)
When an anti-immigrant candidate wins the presidency, a jaded Latina news producer sheds her cynicism and reconnects with her suppressed activist side on live TV.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Welcome (2009)
Bilal is 17 years old, a Kurdish boy from Iraq. He sets off on an adventure-filled journey across Europe. He wants to get to England to see his love who lives there. Bilal finally reaches Calais, but how do you cover 32 kilometers of the English Channel when you can't swim? The boy soon discovers that his trip won't be as easy as he imagined... The community of struggling illegal aliens in Calais
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLocked In (2017)
Samira and Nazim, asylum seekers who fled after torture find themselves in the UK again detained by the state. They are on the fast track system, soon to be deported. With the clock ticking, the memories of their torture and what awaits on their return torment them. Will they be able to gain asylum in time? What will the cost be to their relationship?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Link (2020)
Two boys meet in a park. There is a barrier between them. Their friendship will reveal it.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Jacir (2023)
A glance at the divided U.S. political system through the eyes of a young Syrian refugee on the streets of Memphis, TN, as he faces the harsh realities of chasing the American dream.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Unwanted (2017)
A lonely boy, who lives in Amsterdam with his refugee mother from Kosovo, keeps getting into trouble while yearning for her acceptance. But the traumas caused by the war, which his mother hides away from him, turn his world upside down.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
I Have to Run (2025)
A gay artist flees the repressive laws and war in Russia to go to Berlin, leaving his boyfriend behind. Meanwhile, life in Berlin turns out to be less inclusive he had expected.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Hägring (1984)
July 1972 in Iran. Mohammed is arrested for illegal spreading of flyers. He is put in jail and tortured. After one year he is released and flees to Sweden. He arrives at a refugee camp where he is taught Swedish. He is surrounded by people without hope.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Pengugee (2021)
Middle-aged, childless couple Olivia and Gavin donate to ‘adopt’ a penguin from a television advert. Their lives are changed when the penguin actually arrives on their doorstep. While Olivia takes to the penguin immediately, Gavin is less pleased, near-disgusted by this foreign invader. However, when the Penguin comes back from his first day of school beaten and abused, Gavin realizes the impact of his prejudice and performs a fatherly act.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Red Prior (2025)
After giving away her young daughter, an incarcerated immigrant mother begins to make sense of her contrition when she connects with a kindred inmate.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like Passage of Life and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Passage of Life?
The closest matches to Passage of Life are The Nest (2020), The Good Lie (2014) and Skin (2009). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Passage of Life?
Start with The Nest (2020), the closest match to Passage of Life.
What is the highest-rated movie like Passage of Life?
Shoplifters (2018), rated 7.8/10 by 2,413 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Passage of Life?
Omaha (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Japanese movies like Passage of Life?
Yes: One Million Yen Girl (2008), Shoplifters (2018) and Tokyo Family (2013).
How are movies similar to Passage of Life chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Passage of Life, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.