Movies like Rend Your Heart (2018)

Last 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

Omaha (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

Where the Red Fern Grows (1974)

Billy Coleman works hard and saves his earnings for two years to achieve his dream of buying two red-bone coonhound pups. He develops a new trust in life as he faces overwhelming challenges in adventure and tragedy roaming the river bottoms of Cherokee country with his dogs, Old Dan and Little Ann.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Hurry Sundown (1967)

A ruthless Southern opportunist tries to buy his cousin's land, and when thwarted, brings several tragedies to the lives of his loved ones.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Extraordinary Measures (2010)

Working-class father John Crowley is finally on the fast track to corporate success when his two young children are diagnosed with Pompe disease—a condition that prevents the body from breaking down sugar. With the support of his wife, John ditches his career and teams with unconventional specialist, Dr. Robert Stonehill to found a bio-tech company and develop a cure in time to save the lives of his children. As Dr. Stonehill works tirelessly to prove the theories that made him the black sheep of the medical community, a powerful bond is forged between the two unlikely allies.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Blue Chips (1994)

Pete Bell, a college basketball coach is under a lot of pressure. His team isn't winning and he cannot attract new players. The stars of the future are secretly being paid by boosters. This practice is forbidden in the college game, but Pete is desperate and has pressures from all around.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Where 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

My Father's Shadow (2025)

Two young brothers explore Lagos with their estranged father during the 1993 Nigerian election crisis, witnessing both the city's magnitude and their father's daily struggles as political unrest threatens their journey home.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

The Keys of the Kingdom (1944)

A young priest, Father Chisholm is sent to China to establish a Catholic parish among the non-Christian Chinese. While his boyhood friend, also a priest, flourishes in his calling as a priest in a more Christian area of the world, Father Chisholm struggles. He encounters hostility, isolation, disease, poverty and a variety of set backs which humble him, but make him more determined than ever to succeed.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Eleanor the Great (2025)

94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

The 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

Jonathan (2018)

Jonathan is a young man with a strange condition that only his brother understands. But when he begins to yearn for a different life, their unique bond becomes increasingly tested.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Hamlet (1948)

Winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor, Sir Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet continues to be the most compelling version of Shakespeare’s beloved tragedy. Olivier is at his most inspired—both as director and as the melancholy Dane himself—as he breathes new life into the words of one of the world’s greatest dramatists.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

National Theatre Live: Hamlet (2015)

As a country arms itself for war, a family tears itself apart. Forced to avenge his father's death but paralyzed by the task ahead, Hamlet rages against the impossibility of his predicament, threatening both his sanity and the security of the state.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Undercurrent (1946)

After a rapid engagement, a dowdy daughter of a chemist weds an industrialist, knowing little of his family or past. He transforms her into an elegant society wife, but becomes enraged whenever she asks about Michael, his mysterious long-lost brother.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Mary and Martha (2013)

Wealthy American housewife Mary Morgan takes her bullied son George out of school for home education,including a trip to Southern Africa. Whilst in Mozambique George is bitten by a mosquito which crawls through a hole in his net and dies of malaria. After his funeral at home Mary feels a compulsion to return to Africa where she meets English woman Martha O'Connell,whose 24 year old son Ben, a teacher with voluntary service overseas,has also died of malaria. Ben gave his net to one of his pupils,believing adults cannot catch malaria. The two women are shocked to see the high death rate caused by the disease and,whilst Martha stays in Africa as a voluntary helper,Mary petitions the American government to change things. Martha turns up at Mary's house unannounced and,helped by Mary's ex-diplomat father,they address a senate committee on health spending,persuading them to do more to combat malaria. They meet with some success though a coda states that much more can be done.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Return (2011)

Back from a tour of duty, Kelli struggles to find her place in her family and the rust-belt town she no longer recognizes.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

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

I'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

The Last Mimzy (2007)

Two siblings begin to develop special talents after they find a mysterious box of toys, and soon their parents and even their teacher are drawn into a strange new world – and find a task ahead of them that is far more important than any of them could imagine.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

May December (2023)

Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, a married couple buckles under the pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about their past.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Scaffolding (2017)

17-year-old Asher is split between his charismatic teacher and his brash father, who wants him to take over his scaffolding business.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

The Silent Landscape (2003)

Hamid is an Iranian teenage boy whose sexuality brings him into conflict with his family's Muslim beliefs.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Sandbar (2012)

In this freewheeling dark comedy, a haunted Marine spends one crazy day with his estranged son.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Mr. Holland's Opus (1995)

In 1965, passionate musician Glenn Holland takes a day job as a high school music teacher, convinced it's just a small obstacle on the road to his true calling: writing a historic opus. As the decades roll by with the composition unwritten but generations of students inspired through his teaching, Holland must redefine his life's purpose.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Floated By (2025)

A young adult silently drowning in trauma, yearning to let out what’s inside of him, navigates a series of encounters—each revealing fragments of his inner struggle, toxic masculinity, and unspoken vulnerability, as well as the painful dissonance between his desires and his actions.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Rancho Mirage (2026)

To avoid being put in memory care by his son, a man with Alzheimer's runs away to visit his deceased brother in Las Vegas.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Black Sheep (2021)

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Birdwatchers (2008)

Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, the present. When a young Guarani-Kaiowá woman commits suicide, Nádio leads his community to form a protest camp on the borders of a local farm that sits on their ancestral burial ground.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Escaping Gravity (2013)

To finally gain her father's acceptance, transsexual Leonie decides to return masqueraded as a man to the world of her childhood: the funfair. Though even the old owner of the ghost train has something to hide.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama