Movies like Capernaum (2018)
The best movies like Capernaum (2018) are The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete (2013), Night Always Comes (2025) and The Chamber (1996). If Capernaum hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedWaltz with Bashir (2008)7.7/10 from 1,099 votes
- NewestI Was a Stranger (2025)Released 2025
The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete (2013)
Coming of age story about two inner city youths, who are left to fend for themselves over the summer after their mothers are taken away by the authorities.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 Chamber (1996)
Idealistic young attorney Adam Hall takes on the death row clemency case of his racist grandfather, Sam Cayhall, a former Ku Klux Klan member he has never met.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisBird (2024)
12-year-old Bailey lives with her single dad Bug and brother Hunter in a squat in North Kent. Bug doesn’t have much time for his kids, and Bailey, who is approaching puberty, seeks attention and adventure elsewhere.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHoney Boy (2019)
The story of a child star attempting to mend his relationship with his law-breaking, alcohol-abusing father over the course of a decade, loosely based on Shia LaBeouf’s life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLakeview Terrace (2008)
A young interracial couple has just moved into their California dream home when they become the target of their next-door neighbor, who disapproves of their relationship. A tightly wound LAPD officer has appointed himself the watchdog of the neighborhood. His nightly foot patrols and overly watchful eyes bring comfort to some, but he becomes increasingly aggressive to the newlyweds. These persistent intrusions into their lives cause the couple to fight back.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGardens of the Night (2008)
After being abducted as children, and suffering years of abuse, a teenage boy and girl find themselves living on the street.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDie My Love (2025)
After inheriting a remote Montana house, Jackson moves there from New York with his partner Grace, and the couple soon welcome a child. As Jackson becomes increasingly absent and rural isolation sets in, Grace struggles with loneliness, creative frustration, and unresolved emotional wounds. What begins as an attempt at renewal gradually turns into an intense psychological descent, placing strain on their relationship and exposing the fragile balance between love, identity, and motherhood.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Was a Stranger (2025)
A Syrian doctor and her daughter flee Aleppo, setting off a chain of events that binds five strangers together. A smuggler, a soldier, a poet, and a coast guard captain collide in a crisis that tests their courage, their choices, and their humanity.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisButterfly on a Wheel (2007)
A sociopathic kidnapper methodically pushes a desperate pair of parents to their absolute breaking point.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIndictment: The McMartin Trial (1995)
The McMartin family's lives are turned upside down when they are accused of serious child molestation. The family run a school for infants. An unqualified child cruelty "expert" videotapes the children describing outrageous stories of abuse. One of the most expensive and long running trials in US legal history, exposes the lack of evidence and unprofessional attitudes of the finger pointers which kept one of the accused in jail for over 5 years without bail.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSleepers (1996)
Two gangsters seek revenge on the state jail worker who during their stay at a youth prison sexually abused them. A sensational court hearing takes place to charge him for the crimes.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Thousand and One (2023)
Struggling but unapologetically living on her own terms, Inez is moving from shelter to shelter in mid-1990s New York City. With her 6-year-old son Terry in foster care and unable to leave him again, she kidnaps him so they can build their life together. As the years go by, their family grows and Terry becomes a smart yet quiet teenager, but the secret that has defined their lives threatens to destroy the home they have so improbably built.
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 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 thisAlex of Venice (2015)
After her stay-at-home husband leaves her, a workaholic lawyer finds that she is not completely up to the tasks of caring for her young son, ailing father and household all by herself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisGimme Shelter (2013)
After running away from her abusive mother, a streetwise teen seeks refuge with her father, but he rejects her when he learns that she's pregnant.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNowhere to Run (1993)
Escaped convict Sam Gillen single-handedly takes on ruthless developers who are determined to evict a widow with two young children.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDamage (2009)
An ex-con battles it out in the cage to pay for the operation that would save the daughter of his victim. Along the way he finds fatherly love, and friendship, in the most unlikely of places.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEmbattled (2020)
The eldest son of a ruthlessly tough MMA champion must fight his way out of the abusive cycle his father has continued.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCity of Men (2007)
Best buddies Acerola and Laranjinha, about to turn 18, discover things about their missing fathers' pasts which will shatter their solid friendship, in the middle of a war between rival drug gangs from Rio's favelas.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBeauty Mark (2017)
Angie, a poverty-stricken young mother, is taking care of her son and alcoholic mother when she is evicted from her house. Now she has to get money from the only person she knows with any - the man who abused her as a child.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Kuppathu Raja (2019)
A story about the relationship between the slum dwellers in Chennai and how certain anti-social elements create unrest in their lives.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Waltz with Bashir (2008)
A film director from Israel interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisI Want to See (2008)
July 2006. Another war breaks out in Lebanon. The directors decide to follow a movie star, Catherine Deneuve and a friend, actor and artist Rabih Mroue;, on the roads of South Lebanon. Together, they will drive through the regions devastated by the conflict. It is the beginning of an unpredictable, unexpected adventure...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Frozen River (2008)
A financially strapped mother joins a Mohawk woman to smuggle illegal immigrants into the United States.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNight Shapes (1999)
The Pope is in town and the night of his stay is anything but heavenly for some of Berlin′s inhabitants. Rich and poor, down-and-outs and policemen, street kids and taxi drivers - in their search for a little bit of happiness, they all end up on an amusing and at times harrowing odyssey through the labyrinth of the big city.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Angela's Ashes (1999)
An Irish Catholic family returns to 1930s Limerick after a child's death in America. The unemployed I.R.A. veteran father struggles with poverty, prejudice, and alcoholism as the family endures harsh slum conditions.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEl Norte (1983)
Brother and sister Enrique and Rosa flee persecution at home in Guatemala and journey north, through Mexico and on to the United States, with the dream of starting a new life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNayda (2023)
In a desperate attempt to make their voices heard by the government, two men and a woman, living in difficult circumstances in the Tin Shacks, take a diplomatic meeting with political officials, which turns into a hostage situation. Compelled by circumstances, they unwittingly find themselves cast in the role of terrorists, thereby exposing social inequalities and government indifference.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Capernaum?
The closest matches to Capernaum are The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete (2013), Night Always Comes (2025) and The Chamber (1996). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Capernaum?
Start with The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete (2013), the closest match to Capernaum.
What is the highest-rated movie like Capernaum?
Waltz with Bashir (2008), rated 7.7/10 by 1,099 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Capernaum?
I Was a Stranger (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Capernaum chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Capernaum, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.