Movies like Heart of a Stranger (2002)
The best movies like Heart of a Stranger (2002) are Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996), Girl in the Box (2016) and Normal (2003). If Heart of a Stranger hooked you with its drama and tv movie, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Man Without a Face (1993)6.6/10 from 590 votes
- NewestDas Wunder von Kapstadt (2022)Released 2022
Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996)
A dramatization of the life of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (Don Cheadle), with a lot of factual based occurrences. A reformed junkie returns from prison to clean up his act and devote the rest of his life to the young kids of Harlem. 1996 was the 25th anniversary of the first tournament named after him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGirl in the Box (2016)
The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNormal (2003)
A Midwestern husband and father announces his plan to have a sex change operation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTalhotBlond (2012)
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCheaters (2000)
In the fall of 1994, a teacher at Chicago's run-down Steinmetz High conspires with the school's academic decathlon team to cheat on an academic competition.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIron Jawed Angels (2004)
Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIntroducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999)
An acclaimed stage performer, Dorothy still struggled with the challenge of her color, in a time that wouldn't let some stars in by the front door. Yet against the odds she beat out many more famous rivals for the role of "Carmen Jones", becoming the first black woman ever nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award. Marriages and affairs would break her heart, but her heart was strong. Seductive and easily seduced, she was born to be a star - with all the glory and all the pain of being loved, abused, cheated, glorified, undermined and undefeated. Here was a woman who wouldn't wait in the wings. Halle Berry stars as Dorothy Dandrige.
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 Bramble House Christmas (2017)
While settling his father’s estate, Finn Conrad becomes suspicious as to why the man left a nurse $100,000. His dad knew her for less than two months before he died. Just before Christmas, Finn wants what to reclaim what he considers his family’s money, going undercover to investigate the bed and breakfast the nurse has recently taken over. When Finn meets Willa, he discovers she’s not a conniving gold digger at all, but a woman in need who put the money to good use. When she discovers his true identity, will it keep Willa from ever trusting him again?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTuesdays with Morrie (1999)
A journalist finds himself questioning his own life when his best friend, a dying man, offers him some very powerful wisdom and advice for coping in relationships, careers and society.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHow Sarah Got Her Wings (2015)
Good Samaritan Sarah Fitzpatrick has a fatal accident just before Christmas, and finds herself in the lobby before the gates of Heaven. Certain that she will be let in, she is shocked to find that her name is not on the reservation list. However, she is granted the chance to return to Earth as an "angel in training" with the requirement to help a soul in need. Sarah has the 12 days before Christmas to secure her place on the list leaving her in the race for her after-life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisAnne of Green Gables (2016)
Anne Shirley, an orphan, is fostered by farmer Matthew Cuthbert and his sister Marilla, who were expecting a boy to be sent them to help with their farm work. They accept Anne, who quickly endears herself to them and to the local villagers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHomeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story (2003)
Based on a true story. Liz Murray is a young girl who is taken care of by her loving, but drug-addicted parents. Liz becomes homeless at 15 and after a tragedy comes upon her, she begins her work to finish high school.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Christmas Shoes (2002)
Two separate stories mesh - in the first, a young music teacher, Maggie Andrews, begins dying of a heart condition and her son Nathan tries to get a pair of Christmas shoes for her before she dies. In the second, lawyer Robert Layton and his wife Kate are slowly drifting apart and the matter comes to a head during Christmas when Kate takes over for Maggie for the school choir.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors (2015)
"Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors" is based on the inspiring true story of living legend Dolly Parton's remarkable upbringing. This once-in-a-lifetime movie special takes place inside the tight-knit Parton family as they struggle to overcome devastating tragedy and discover the healing power of love, faith and a raggedy patchwork coat that helped make Parton who she is today. The film is set in the Tennessee Great Smoky Mountains in 1955. It is neither a biopic nor a musical about Dolly's whole life and performing career, but rather a family-oriented faith-based story about the incidents in her and her family's life around the time she was nine years old.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Am Elizabeth Smart (2017)
The story of Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping and captivity, as told from her perspective.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHardball (2001)
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 thisThe Man Without a Face (1993)
Justin McLeod is a former teacher who lives as a recluse on the edge of town after his face is disfigured from an automobile accident ten years earlier, in which a boy was incinerated--and for which he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. Also suspected of being a paedophile, he is befriended by Chuck, causing the town's suspicions and hostility to be ignited.
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 thisHeartless (1997)
Bed-ridden Anne O'Keefe is a very sick young lady and in desperate need of a heart transplant. Her life is on a downward spiral, until a brutal crime is committed. Suzanne Hawks, wife of a very wealthy business man is murdered - shot at point blank range; for her, it is the end. However, Anne is saved, given Suzanne's heart. It should be a whole new lease on life. Suzanne's death begins to haunt Anne and she finds herself drawn into an erotic, nightmarish world where the lines between the two women's personalities blur and become intertwined to the point of obsession and beyond...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Das Wunder von Kapstadt (2022)
The true story of an operation which was a revolution, not only for the world of medicine. Frankfurt 1967. A young doctor called Lisa Scheel is trying to get a foothold in the male-dominated world of transplant surgery. But after she is passed over by her main professor in favour of a male applicant, on the spur of the moment Lisa heads off to Cape Town. Here, she starts work for Dr. Barnaard, who, like his colleagues in Frankfurt, is planning a heart transplantation. Together with the surgeon Hamilton Naki, who due to apartheid can only join the team secretly, Lisa is a major contributor to the first heart transplant in history.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Heartless (2005)
Comedy drama about a vain barrister who undergoes a personality change after having a heart transplant. Believing that this could be linked to the character of the donor, he travels to a village in Scotland to find out more about him, and there falls for the man's widow.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Blood Work (2002)
Still recovering from a heart transplant, a retired FBI profiler returns to service when his own blood analysis offers clues to the identity of a serial killer.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHeart of a Boy (2006)
Five year old Timmy needs a heart transplant to live. A community struggles to help him survive.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Bianca (2012)
Bianca, a middle aged, elegant and beautiful woman, is bewitched with the craving for wealth, a desire she would go to any length to satisfy and secure. A home breaker, husband snatcher and conniving selfish gold-digger saddled with the burden of two male children, Sunny and Chuks from her first marriage, traverses the city in search of the man who can afford to tend to her craving after divorcing her husband.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Good Heart (2009)
Jacques is the curmudgeonly owner of a gritty New York dive bar that serves as home to a motley assortment of professional drinkers. Jacques is determinedly drinking and smoking himself to death when he meets Lucas, a homeless young man who has already given up on life. Determined to keep his legacy alive, Jacques deems Lucas is a fitting heir and takes him under his wing.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Intruder (2005)
An emotionally cold man leaves the safety of his Alpine home to seek a heart transplant and an estranged son.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Wasteland (2011)
Two lovers talking on a beach in France. One hides the fact that he is in need of a heart transplant. He knows that someone has to die so that he may live. But to find out who it was that died so that he may live.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Skaterherz (TBA)
Fourteen-year-old Elias has been waiting half his life for a donor heart. The moment has finally arrived. But when he wakes up after the heart transplant, an unknown boy is standing next to his bed. Yet Elias is the only one who can see him. The boy has a mission for Elias that presents him with a huge challenge.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like Heart of a Stranger and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Heart of a Stranger?
The closest matches to Heart of a Stranger are Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996), Girl in the Box (2016) and Normal (2003). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Heart of a Stranger?
Start with Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996), the closest match to Heart of a Stranger.
What is the highest-rated movie like Heart of a Stranger?
The Man Without a Face (1993), rated 6.6/10 by 590 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Heart of a Stranger?
Das Wunder von Kapstadt (2022) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Heart of a Stranger?
Yes: Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996), Girl in the Box (2016) and Normal (2003).
How are movies similar to Heart of a Stranger chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Heart of a Stranger, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.