Movies like Why Girls Leave Home (1921)
The best movies like Why Girls Leave Home (1921) are Wonderstruck (2017), The Freshman (1990) and Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928). If Why Girls Leave Home hooked you, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedSafety Last! (1923)7.7/10 from 614 votes
- NewestOmaha (2025)Released 2025
Wonderstruck (2017)
The story of a young boy in the Midwest is told simultaneously with a tale about a young girl in New York from fifty years ago as they both seek the same mysterious connection.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Freshman (1990)
After a film student gets his belongings stolen, he meets a mobster bearing a startling resemblance to a certain cinematic godfather. Soon, he finds himself caught up in a caper involving endangered species and fine dining.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSteamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)
The just-out-of-college, effete son of a no-nonsense steamboat captain comes to visit his father whom he's not seen since he was a child.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSon of Rambow (2007)
Will is looking for an escape from his family when he encounters Lee, the school bully. Armed with a video camera and a copy of Rambo, Lee plans to make his own action-packed video epic.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisShanghaied (1915)
A shipowner intends to scuttle his ship on its last voyage to get the insurance money. Charlie, a tramp in love with the owner's daughter, is grabbed by the captain and promises to help him shanghai some seamen. The daughter stows away to follow Charlie. Charlie assists in the galley and attempts to serve food during a gale.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWritten on the Wind (1956)
Mitch Wayne is a geologist working for the Hadleys, an oil-rich Texas family. While the patriarch, Jasper, works hard to establish the family business, his irresponsible son, Kyle, is an alcoholic playboy, and his daughter, Marylee, is the town tramp. Mitch harbors a secret love for Kyle's unsatisfied wife, Lucy -- a fact that leaves him exposed when the jealous Marylee accuses him of murder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHigh and Dizzy (1920)
A tipsy doctor encounters his patient sleepwalking on a building ledge, high above the street.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOverboard (1987)
Heiress Joanna Stayton hires carpenter Dean Proffitt to build a closet on her yacht—and refuses to pay him for the project when it's done. But after Joanna accidentally falls overboard and loses her memory, Dean sees an opportunity to get even.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSleep, My Love (1948)
A woman wakes up in the middle of the night on board a train, but she can't remember how she got there. Danger and suspense ensue.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBrand Upon the Brain! (2007)
After returning home to his long-estranged mother upon a request from her deathbed, a man raised by his parents in an orphanage has to confront the childhood memories that have long haunted him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Chaplin Revue (1959)
Three Chaplin silent comedies "A Dog's Life", "Shoulder Arms", and "The Pilgrim" are strung together to form a single feature length film. Chaplin provides new music, narration, and a small amount of new connecting material. "Shoulder Arms" is now described as taking place in a time before "the atom bomb".
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMy Wife's Relations (1922)
Buster and a woman are mistakenly married and her initially unfriendly family begins to treat him nicely when they come to believe he has a large inheritance awaiting him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFive Star Christmas (2020)
After moving back to her hometown, Lisa (Lenz) plots with her siblings and grandparents to help her father's bed and breakfast get a five-star review from an incognito travel critic (Webster), but ends up falling for him, not knowing he is the real critic.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Brave Little Toaster (1987)
A group of dated appliances, finding themselves stranded in a summer home that their family had just sold, decide to seek out their eight year old 'master'.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisForever in My Heart (2019)
Jenna and Charlie found love in Ireland but their dreams drove them apart. Five years later, they reunite and Jenna has to decide where her heart belongs—back home or in the Emerald Isle.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDough and Dynamite (1914)
Pierre and Jacques are working as waiters at a restaurant where the cooks go on strike. When the two are forced to work as bakers, the striking cooks put dynamite in the dough, with explosive results.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies 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
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Bravados (1958)
Jim Douglass arrives in the small town of Rio Arriba in order to witness the hanging of the four men he believes murdered his wife. When the convicts escape, Jim tracks them into Mexico, determined to see that justice is done. But the farther Jim goes in his quest for vengeance, the more merciless he becomes, losing himself in an unrelenting spiral of hatred and violence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927)
London. A mysterious serial killer brutally murders young blond women by stalking them in the night fog. One foggy, sinister night, a young man who claims his name is Jonathan Drew arrives at the guest house run by the Bunting family and rents a room.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSafety Last! (1923)
When a store clerk organizes a contest to climb the outside of a tall building, circumstances force him to make the perilous climb himself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Case of Lena Smith (1929)
A peasant girl goes to great lengths to protect her child in 19th century Vienna. The film is considered lost, and only four minutes of footage are known to remain.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
After the Fog (1929)
Millionaire Joshua Barker insists that his daughter, Faith, must marry Phil Langhorne, a man that neither likes, and Faith is in love with and eager to marry her childhood sweetheart, John Temple.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Kismet (1930)
Hajj, a rascally beggar on the periphery of the court of Baghdad, schemes to marry his daughter to royalty and to win the heart of the queen of the castle himself. This film is believed lost.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
The Figurehead (1920)
In the city of Bolton, party politics are in the control of two men, Jim Durfee and Gordon Freeman, who intend to keep it that way by running a "figurehead" for mayor. They decide upon Sheridan Dows, known as "Sherry," a young society dilettante, who surprises the political bosses by taking his responsibilities seriously.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
A Change in Baggage Checks (1914)
Two vaudeville performers, Steve Jenks and Stella Triplight, receive urgent bookings in different towns but find themselves with each other's trunks due to a mix-up by a baggage agent. To perform, they improvise by wearing the wrong clothes – Steve in Stella's dresses and Stella in Steve's suits – and unexpectedly become huge hits, leading them to team up, share their wardrobe, and find romance after discovering their shared success and loneliness.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
The Money Changers (1920)
Lucy Hegan, the proprietor of a settlement house for the poor, is engaged to Hugh Gordon, the head of a large pharmaceutical and chemical firm who, unknown to Lucy, is also the ringleader of a powerful drug and white slave operation in the Chinese quarter.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Disciplining Daisy (1913)
Daisy Manners, a member of the Phi Beta Kappa sorority, has a bad habit of taking her sorority sisters' things without asking, leaving notes instead. The other girls, fed up with Daisy, decide to teach her a lesson when they hear she's going to a garden fête with Phil Matthews. Daisy goes to her roommates' rooms to borrow items (like a dress, hat, etc.), but finds they've all been hidden or moved by the other girls, leading to funny mix-ups and Daisy's growing frustration. The sisters reveal their prank, and Daisy learns her lesson about borrowing, understanding the inconvenience she caused.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Miss George Washington (1916)
Chronic liar Berenice Somers and her friend Alice, skip school to see a matinee, however, the two girls must think quickly when they see Alice's parents, Judge and Mrs. Altwold. Trying to escape, they run into the hotel room where young diplomat Cleverley Trafton is staying. Alice's parents find them, however, and are shocked that two young women would be in a man's room. Undaunted, Berenice says that she is Cleverley's wife, and that Alice simply had been visiting. Going from hostile to hospitable, the Altwolds then insist that Berenice and Cleverley stay with them. Cleverley is unable to argue his way out of the situation, and both he and Berenice are embarrassed at having to spend the night together. They soon realize, however, that they have come to like each other, and so, deciding to change Berenice's lie into the truth, they begin making plans for their marriage
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Broken Ties (1918)
West Indian born Corinne La Force, who is biracial, is raised by Henry Hasbrook after her father's death. Corinne loves Hasbrook's nephew, Arnold Curtis. When Hasbrook tries to prevent the match because of her heritage she murders him. Arnold is arrested though Marcia Fleming, a married woman who is Arnold’s mistress and her mother-in-law fall under suspicion. Defending Arnold John Fleming discovers the affair and renounces his wife. Arnold is about to confess in hopes of saving Marcia's reputation when Corinne admits her guilt and stabs herself.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
War (1915)
When WWI breaks out previously best friends in their New York neighborhood, The Schultz and Du Bois families, take opposite sides in the conflict. When their youngest Little Johnnie Du Bois and Heinie Schultz, backed up by their "allies," decide to fight it out in a vacant lot a battle royal takes place between the two families. But by this time the Schultze’s' eldest son Fritz and the Du Bois’ pretty daughter Marie have fallen in love so when they embrace in front of the families all agree to put their differences aside since "First and foremost we're all good Americans."
Why it matches: Similar story and style
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Why Girls Leave Home?
The closest matches to Why Girls Leave Home are Wonderstruck (2017), The Freshman (1990) and Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Why Girls Leave Home?
Start with Wonderstruck (2017), the closest match to Why Girls Leave Home.
What is the highest-rated movie like Why Girls Leave Home?
Safety Last! (1923), rated 7.7/10 by 614 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Why Girls Leave Home?
Omaha (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Why Girls Leave Home?
Yes: Wonderstruck (2017), The Freshman (1990) and Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928).
How are movies similar to Why Girls Leave Home chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Why Girls Leave Home, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.