Movies like The Little Refugee (2020)
The best movies like The Little Refugee (2020) are More (2017), Innocence (1997) and Kisses (2008). If The Little Refugee hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedPaper Lives (2021)8.0/10 from 426 votes
- NewestYellow Letters (2026)Released 2026
More (2017)
Gaza is a 14-year-old boy who lives on the Aegean coast of Turkey. Together with his domineering father, he helps smuggle refugees from war-torn countries to Europe, giving them temporary lodgings and scant food until they attempt the crossing. Gaza dreams of escaping this life, but can't help being drawn into a dark world of immorality, exploitation and human suffering. Can you avoid becoming a monster when you've been raised by one? Onur Saylak's debut feature, adapted from the award-winning novel of the same title by Hakan Günday, one of the first novels to document the refugee crisis in Europe, "More" is the gripping story of a boy that gets to grow up in a world where there's no room for innocence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisInnocence (1997)
Yusuf is released from prison after serving a ten year sentence. Because of unexpected problems at his sister’s house, he finds himself in a cheap hotel where he meets a man, a woman, and a child who will change his life in unexpected ways…
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisKisses (2008)
Two kids, Dylan and Kylie, run away from home on Christmas Day and spend a night of magic and terror on the streets of inner-city Dublin.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 thisAbout Dry Grasses (2023)
A young art teacher hopes to be transferred to Istanbul after completing his mandatory duty in a remote village school in Anatolia. After accusations of inappropriate contact with a student surface, his hopes of escape fade and he descends further into an existential crisis.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSomething Useful (2017)
A chance meeting on a train in the Turkish countryside leads two women to a journey that shows them the importance of setting a path for one's life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFor Love and Honor (2007)
Ali Osman is a former bully of city of Istanbul. But lately he gives up bully and starts to operate a synthetic pitch. He often meets his old friends, former bullies, too. One day Ali Osman receives a news which is related with his previous passionate life. Then the whole action stats as a chain of events.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPaper Lives (2021)
In the streets of Istanbul, ailing waste warehouse worker Mehmet takes a small boy under his wing and must soon confront his own traumatic childhood.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisHounddog (2008)
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEleanor 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
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYellow Letters (2026)
The marriage of Derya and Aziz is under pressure after losing their jobs because of state arbitrariness and moving to Istanbul to live with Aziz's parents. They and their 13-year-old daughter Ezgi have to redefine their way of life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Young One (1960)
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCardboard Boxer (2016)
Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Good Lie (2014)
A young refugee of the Sudanese Civil War who wins a lottery for relocation to the United States with three other lost boys. Encountering the modern world for the first time, they develop an unlikely friendship with a brash American woman assigned to help them, but the young man struggles to adjust to this new life and his feelings of guilt about the brother he left behind.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisI Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977)
A disturbed and institutionalized 16-year-old girl struggles between fantasy and reality.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisIn This World (2003)
Torn straight from the headlines, Michael Winterbottom's compelling and prescient 'In This World' follows young Afghan Jamal and his older cousin Enayat as they embark on a hazardous overland trip from their refugee camp at Peshawar, north-west Pakistan. Entering Turkey on foot through a snowy, Kurdish-controlled pass, the pair again take their lives into their hands and face suffocation when they are locked in a freight container on a ship bound for Italy. From there they plan to travel on to Paris, the Sangatte refuge centre and ultimately asylum in London.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Map of the World (1999)
School nurse Alice Goodwin lives with her husband and two daughters on a dairy farm in a small Wisconsin community. After an accident on her property involving a friend's child, the town turns against her and Alice finds herself fighting charges of child abuse.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Road Dance (2022)
A young girl lives in the Outer Hebrides in a small village in the years just before WWI. Isolated and hard by the shore, her life takes a dramatic change when a terrible tragedy befalls her.
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 thisThe Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972)
Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDogville (2003)
A woman on the run from the mob is reluctantly accepted in a small Colorado community in exchange for labor, but when a search visits the town, she learns that their support has a price.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Secret (1974)
A stranger enters into and forever alters the life of a couple. He claims to be pursued by certain authorities who intend to prevent him from disclosing a secret that only he holds, whence the title. Is he lying, or insane - or is he telling the truth? Who, if anyone, is after him? And what *is* - the secret?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLucky Miles (2007)
It's 1990 and an Indonesian fishing boat abandons Iraqi and Cambodian refugees in a remote part of the Western Australia. Although most are quickly caught by officials, three men with nothing in common but their misfortune and determination to escape arrest, begin an epic journey into the heart of Australia.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
That Which Once Was (2011)
In 2032 an eight-year old boy, displaced by global warming, fends for himself as an environmental refugee in a hostile northern metropolis. Haunted by memories of flooding that left him homeless and orphaned, the boy forms an unexpected friendship with an Inuk ice carver who helps him confront his past.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Open Cage (2015)
Anna, a young photojournalist from Berlin, travels to Serbia to make a photo documentary about refugees. Upon her arrival to Belgrade, Serbia's capital, Anna finds out that she can't go about her task the way she had planned. Through the cabdriver Dzeki, she meets the distrustful but interesting young refugee Maja who works at a nearby fast food restaurant. Miserable with her life in Serbia, Maja dreams of a new beginning somewhere abroad. In an attempt to successfully finish her project, Anna starts photographing Maja, secretly making a documentary about her. Blinded by the wish to change her life, Maja doesn't realize Anna's true intentions.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Welcome (2009)
Bilal is 17 years old, a Kurdish boy from Iraq. He sets off on an adventure-filled journey across Europe. He wants to get to England to see his love who lives there. Bilal finally reaches Calais, but how do you cover 32 kilometers of the English Channel when you can't swim? The boy soon discovers that his trip won't be as easy as he imagined... The community of struggling illegal aliens in Calais
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDestruction of Silence (2014)
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The New Country (2000)
A 15-year-old Somalian boy meets a 40-year-old Iranian man in a refugee camp in Skåne, in the south of Sweden. With the threat of deportation hanging over them, they decide to take their faiths in their own hands and together they go on a journey in the Swedish summer.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Any Day Now (2020)
Bahman, Mahtab, Ramin and Donya Mehdipour are enjoying a perfect summer in a small Finnish town. Their routines are fractured by a negative decision on their application for asylum by the Finnish Immigration Service. But life must go on and the 13-year-old Ramin is about to enter an entirely new school, junior high. The Mehdipours use their last chance to appeal but continue their everyday lives, fuelled by their exceptionally positive outlook and attitude.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Aïssa (2014)
Aïssa is a Congolese immigrant in France. She says that she is under eighteen but the authorities consider her an adult. To determine if she can be deported, a doctor must give her a physical examination.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like The Little Refugee and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Little Refugee?
The closest matches to The Little Refugee are More (2017), Innocence (1997) and Kisses (2008). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Little Refugee?
Start with More (2017), the closest match to The Little Refugee.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Little Refugee?
Paper Lives (2021), rated 8.0/10 by 426 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Little Refugee?
Yellow Letters (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to The Little Refugee chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Little Refugee, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.