Movies like The Island (2000)
The best movies like The Island (2000) are Daddy Longlegs (2010), The Beautiful Country (2004) and Light of My Life (2019). If The Island hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedCaptains Courageous (1937)7.4/10 from 200 votes
- NewestGoodbye June (2025)Released 2025
Daddy Longlegs (2010)
After months of living a solitary existence, Lenny, 34, picks up his kids from school. Every year he spends a couple of weeks with his sons Sage, 9, and Frey, 7. Lenny hosts his kids within a midtown studio apartment in New York. During these two weeks, he must figure out if he wants to act as their father or be their friend. Ultimately, their trip upstate results in complete lawlessness taking over their lives.
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 thisLight of My Life (2019)
Years after a pandemic wipes out most of the female population, a father struggles to shield his daughter from a dangerous and predatory world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Book of Love (2017)
After tragedy strikes Henry and Penny, he befriends a tenacious young girl and discovers she is constructing a raft to sail across the Atlantic to find her lost father. Together, along with some unlikely friends, they set forth to construct the vessel and subsequently rebuild their lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStillwater (2021)
Bill Baker, an American oil-rig roughneck from Oklahoma, travels to Marseille to visit his estranged daughter, Allison, who is in prison for a murder she claims she did not commit. Confronted with language barriers, cultural differences, and a complicated legal system, Bill builds a new life for himself in France as he makes it his personal mission to exonerate his daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGod's Creatures (2022)
In a windswept fishing village, a mother is torn between protecting her beloved son and her own sense of right and wrong. A lie she tells for him rips apart their family and close-knit community.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTigertail (2020)
A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBait (2019)
Martin Ward is a cove fisherman, without a boat. His brother Steven has repurposed their father’s vessel as a tourist tripper, driving a wedge between the brothers. With their childhood home now a getaway for London money, Martin is displaced to the estate above the picturesque harbour. As his struggle to restore the family to their traditional place creates increasing friction with tourists and locals alike, a tragedy at the heart of the family changes his world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHeart of Champions (2021)
During their last year at an Ivy League college in 1999, a group of friends and crew teammates' lives are changed forever when an army vet takes over as coach of their dysfunctional rowing team.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Etruscan Smile (2018)
Rory MacNeil, a rugged old Scotsman, reluctantly leaves his beloved isolated Hebridean island and travels to San Francisco to seek medical treatment. Moving in with his estranged son, Rory sees his life transformed through a newly found bond with his baby grandson.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCaptains Courageous (1937)
Harvey, the arrogant and spoiled son of an indulgent absentee-father, falls overboard from a transatlantic steamship and is rescued by a fishing vessel on the Grand Banks. Harvey fails to persuade them to take him ashore, nor convince the crew of his wealth. The captain offers him a low-paid job, until they return to port, as part of the crew that turns him into a mature, considerate young man.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBastard Out of Carolina (1996)
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDad (1989)
A busy executive learns during a meeting that his mother may be dying and rushes home to her side. He ends up being his father's caretaker and becomes closer to him than ever before. Estranged from his own son, the executive comes to realize what has been missing in his own life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLast Ride (2009)
A young boy travels across Australia with his father, who's wanted by the law.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Never Sang for My Father (1970)
A man living in the towering shadow of his aging father finds it difficult to start a new chapter in his life by marrying his girlfriend and moving to California.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGoodbye June (2025)
Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMr. Church (2016)
A unique friendship develops when a little girl and her dying mother inherit a cook - Mr. Church. What begins as an arrangement that should only last six months, instead spans fifteen years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Road Dance (2022)
A young girl lives in the Outer Hebrides in a small village in the years just before WWI. Isolated and hard by the shore, her life takes a dramatic change when a terrible tragedy befalls her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI'll Be Home for Christmas (2016)
Jackie Foster, a dynamic Assistant District Attorney and single mom, is looking forward to wrapping up her latest case and spending Christmas with Gracie, her adorable and precocious, eight-year old daughter. But when Jackie’s estranged dad, Jack , a gruff retired police officer, unexpectedly shows up at her door, they will be forced to confront old wounds.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 thisThe Champ (1931)
A broken-down alcoholic prizefighter struggles to keep custody of his adoring son.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBulundi (1981)
A college professor agrees to teach the son of a gangster and becomes a pawn in a deadly game.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Taras Bulba (1962)
Ukraine, 16th century. While the Poles dominate the Cossack steppes, Andrei, son of Taras Bulba, a Cossack leader, must choose between his love for his family and his folk and his passion for a Polish woman.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDevon (2024)
A recently widowed single mother, struggling to raise her depressed son alone, finds hope when her son’s best friend asks him out.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
JESUS IS COMING (to take the Church away) (2025)
North Carolina, 1971. When his community is ravaged by inexplicable disappearances, a reverend uncovers an extraterrestrial explanation.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Retablo (2018)
Segundo sees silence as his only option for dealing with his father Noé’s secret. The 14-year-old lives with his parents in a village high up in the mountains. Noé is a respected artisan and Segundo’s role model. With loving eye for detail, he artfully crafts altarpieces for church and homes, and is preparing his son to follow in his footsteps. But cracks form in their tight bond.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLa Mission (2009)
A single-parent ex-con in the Mission District of San Francisco finds his personal values challenged when he discovers his son is gay.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Man of a Thousand Faces (1957)
The turbulent life and professional career of vaudeville actor and silent screen horror star Lon Chaney (1883-1930), the man of a thousand faces; bearer of many personal misfortunes that even his great success could not mitigate.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Brothers Karamazov (1958)
Ryevsk, Russia, 1870. Tensions abound in the Karamazov family. Fyodor is a wealthy libertine who holds his purse strings tightly. His four grown sons include Dmitri, the eldest, an elegant officer, always broke and at odds with his father, betrothed to Katya, herself lovely and rich. The other brothers include a sterile aesthete, a factotum who is a bastard, and a monk. Family tensions erupt when Dmitri falls in love with one of his father's mistresses, the coquette Grushenka. Two brothers see Dmitri's jealousy of their father as an opportunity to inherit sooner. Acts of violence lead to the story's conclusion: trials of honor, conscience, forgiveness, and redemption.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Hole in the Head (1959)
An impractical widower tries to hang onto his Miami hotel and his 12-year-old son.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Island?
The closest matches to The Island are Daddy Longlegs (2010), The Beautiful Country (2004) and Light of My Life (2019). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Island?
Start with Daddy Longlegs (2010), the closest match to The Island.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Island?
Captains Courageous (1937), rated 7.4/10 by 200 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Island?
Goodbye June (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Island?
Yes: Daddy Longlegs (2010), The Beautiful Country (2004) and Light of My Life (2019).
How are movies similar to The Island chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Island, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.