Movies like Sami, Joe and I (2021)
The best movies like Sami, Joe and I (2021) are Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (1998), Luckiest Girl Alive (2022) and Bully (2001). If Sami, Joe and I hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedForrest Gump (1994)8.5/10 from 30,874 votes
- NewestLuckiest Girl Alive (2022)Released 2022
- In GermanParadise: Faith (2013)Also in German
Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (1998)
Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even more remote spot with a Tibetan saddle tramp Lao Jin to learn horse herding.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLuckiest Girl Alive (2022)
A successful woman in New York City finds her life upended when she is forced to confront a dark truth that threatens to unravel her meticulously crafted life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBully (2001)
A group of teenagers in South Florida enact a murder plot against their mutual bully, Bobby, who has emotionally, physically, and sexually abused them for years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGummo (1997)
Teenagers Solomon and Tummler kill time in Xenia, Ohio, a small town that has never recovered from the tornado that ravaged the community in the 1970s.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSnowtown (2011)
Based on true events, 16 year-old Jamie falls in with his mother's new boyfriend and his crowd of self-appointed neighborhood watchmen, a relationship that leads to a spree of torture and murder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAmerican History X (1998)
Derek Vineyard is paroled after serving 3 years in prison for killing two African-American men. Through his brother, Danny Vineyard's narration, we learn that before going to prison, Derek was a skinhead and the leader of a violent white supremacist gang that committed acts of racial crime throughout L.A. and his actions greatly influenced Danny. Reformed and fresh out of prison, Derek severs contact with the gang and becomes determined to keep Danny from going down the same violent path as he did.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisExtremities (1986)
A woman escapes from the man who is about to rape her, but leaves her purse behind. Afraid that her attacker might come after her, she goes to the police, but with no proof of the incident, they can do nothing. In fact, the man does use the information in her bag and comes to her apartment with the intent of rape, but she sprays him in the face with insect repellent, and then holds him captive. She is then faced with deciding whether to go to the police who might not believe her and release him, or to kill him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKill for Me (2013)
Rent’s a bitch. And that is why, six months after her best friend went missing, Amanda finally gives in to getting another roommate, Hailey. The two college students turn out to have something in common, however: abusive men. For Hailey, it’s her dad. For Amanda, it’s a stalkery ex-boyfriend. But problems can be solved and, you know, you scratch my back, I scratch yours. In other words, Kill for Me, I kill for you.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisParadise: Faith (2013)
For Anna Maria, paradise lies with Jesus, and she devotes her time to door-to-door missionary work. One day after years of absence, her husband, an Egyptian Muslim confined to a wheelchair, comes home—and soon prayers are replaced by fighting.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMartha Marcy May Marlene (2011)
After several years of living with a cult, Martha finally escapes and calls her estranged sister, Lucy, for help. Martha finds herself at the quiet Connecticut home Lucy shares with her new husband, Ted, but the memories of what she experienced in the cult make peace hard to find. As flashbacks continue to torment her, Martha fails to shake a terrible sense of dread, especially in regard to the cult's manipulative leader.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMysterious Skin (2005)
A teenage hustler and a young man obsessed with alien abductions cross paths, together discovering a horrible, liberating truth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBreath (2017)
A pair of teenagers in Western Australia looking to escape the monotony of life in a small town take up surfing lessons from a guy named Sando.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHungry Hearts (2015)
The relationship of a couple who meet by chance in New York City is put to the test when they encounter a life or death circumstance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBerlin Alexanderplatz (2020)
In 2015, thirty year old refugee Francis, the sole survivor of a boat that illegally crossed the Mediterranean, is drawn into Berlin's seedy underbelly.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Deer Hunter (1978)
Three steelworkers enlist in the army and are sent to Vietnam, one leaving behind a rushed marriage, the others a shared love. What they encounter during the war changes their lives forever.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisMammal (2016)
After Margaret, a divorcée living in Dublin, loses her teenage son, she develops an unorthodox relationship with Joe, a homeless youth. Their tentative trust is threatened by his involvement with a violent gang and the escalation of her ex-husband's grieving rage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Born Losers (1967)
A biker gang incites a reign of terror in a California coastal town that culminates in four teenage girls being raped. Vietnam veteran Billy Jack has had enough, however, and takes on the depraved bikers single-handedly. He rescues young Vicky Barrington from their clutches, but then has to contend with not only the thugs, but also the ineffectual and racist local lawmen, who have it out for the half-Native American Billy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKen Park (2003)
Teen skater Ken Park (nicknamed Krap Nek; his name spelled and pronounced backward) kills himself at a Visalia skate park; his death bookends the lives of four other young people who knew him: Shawn, the most conventional; Tate brims with psychotic rage; Claude is habitually harassed by his brutish father and coddled, rather uncomfortably, by his enormously pregnant mother; and Peaches looks after her devoutly religious father, but yearns for freedom. They're all rather tight, or so they claim.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Brave One (2007)
A woman struggles to recover from a brutal attack by setting out on a mission for revenge.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBoys Don't Cry (1999)
A young transgender man explores his gender identity and searches for love in rural Nebraska.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisForrest Gump (1994)
A man with a low IQ has accomplished great things in his life and been present during significant historic events—in each case, far exceeding what anyone imagined he could do. But despite all he has achieved, his one true love eludes him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisAmerican Beauty (1999)
Lester Burnham, a depressed suburban father in a mid-life crisis, decides to turn his hectic life around after developing an infatuation with his daughter's attractive friend.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisDancer in the Dark (2000)
Selma, a Czech immigrant on the verge of blindness, struggles to make ends meet for herself and her young son, who has inherited the same genetic disorder and will suffer the same fate without an expensive operation. When life becomes increasingly difficult, Selma learns to cope through her love of musicals, dreaming up little numbers to the rhythmic beats of her surroundings.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGive Me Back My Rex (1975)
The doctor hides the death of the dog from Serezha and gives the boy a new friend. A poignant story of loyalty and friendship.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)
After being dumped by her lover, Pepa finds her life and the lives of those around her spiraling out of control in a deliciously chaotic series of events.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBordertown (2007)
American corporations are using the North American Free Trade Agreement by opening large maquiladoras right across the United States–Mexico border. The maquiladoras hire mostly Mexican women to work long hours for little money in order to produce mass quantity products. Lauren Adrian, an impassioned American news reporter for the Chicago Sentinel wants to be assigned to the Iraq front-lines to cover the war. Instead, her editor George Morgan assigns her to investigate a series of slayings involving young maquiladora factory women in a Mexican bordertown.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Trap (2007)
Mladen and Marija are an ordinary and happy married couple of the "middle class" of the society in which they live as tenants. Mladen works as a civil engineer in a state company, and Marija is an English teacher in primary school. The couple finds joy in their only son, Nemanja. They discover that Nemanja has a rare heart disease and healing is possible with an operation in a foreign medical center, which costs €26,000.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAppointment in Bray (1971)
In 1917, the First World War is raging. Julien is from Luxemburg, so instead of having to go to war he studies piano in Paris. One day his friend Jacques, also a musician and now a fighter pilot on the front, invites him to spend a few days in his family's empty house in Bray. The housekeeper, a beautiful stoic woman lets Julien in, but his friend is late and he is obliged to wait. In the meantime, he starts reminiscing of the pre-war days spent with his friend and Jacques' girlfriend Odile.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
December Boys (2007)
For many years, four teenage orphans at an Australian outback convent have watched their younger comrades find new parents, and realize that they may never be adopted. The Reverend Mother sends the four boys away on a seaside vacation, where they meet Teresa and Fearless, a couple who would make perfect parents. The youths compete with one another to be the one Teresa and Fearless decide to adopt.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJindabyne (2006)
Outside the Australian town of Jindabyne, local man Stuart Kane is on a fishing trip with friends when they discover the body of a murdered girl.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Sami, Joe and I?
The closest matches to Sami, Joe and I are Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (1998), Luckiest Girl Alive (2022) and Bully (2001). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Sami, Joe and I?
Start with Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (1998), the closest match to Sami, Joe and I.
What is the highest-rated movie like Sami, Joe and I?
Forrest Gump (1994), rated 8.5/10 by 30,874 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Sami, Joe and I?
Luckiest Girl Alive (2022) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there German movies like Sami, Joe and I?
Yes: Paradise: Faith (2013) and Berlin Alexanderplatz (2020).
How are movies similar to Sami, Joe and I chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Sami, Joe and I, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.