Movies like Side Roads (2004)
The best movies like Side Roads (2004) are Last Ride (2009), I Never Sang for My Father (1970) and Tigertail (2020). If Side Roads hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedWhere Hope Grows (2014)7.9/10 from 232 votes
- NewestThe Quiet Son (2025)Released 2025
- In FrenchMy Little Princess (2011)Also in French
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
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Never Sang for My Father (1970)
A man living in the towering shadow of his aging father finds it difficult to start a new chapter in his life by marrying his girlfriend and moving to California.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTigertail (2020)
A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Taste of Honey (1961)
While out to avoid spending time with her narcissistic and promiscuous mother, sixteen-year-old Jo has a brief affair that leaves her pregnant and abandoned. When her mother remarries, Jo's only support becomes her friend Geoffrey, a homosexual.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMy Little Princess (2011)
Young Violetta and her mother Hannah are a peculiar couple. Ten-year-old Violetta lives a quiet life with her grandmother, while her mother Hannah is an unpredictable photographer who lives off of the generosity of others. When Hannah forces her daughter to pose as a model, Violetta finds her life with her loving grandmother turned upside down.The resulting pictures quickly become a sensation for the trendy 70's Paris art scene, and Violetta finds herself caught in between her new stature as an art muse and her dull childhood.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSeptember (1987)
After a suicide attempt, Lane has moved into her country house to recuperate. Her best friend, Stephanie, has come to join her for the summer. Lane's mother, Diane, has recently arrived with her husband Lloyd, Lane's stepfather. Lane is close to two neighbors: Peter, and Howard. Howard is in love with Lane, Lane is in love with Peter, and Peter is in love with Stephanie.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHeaven Will Wait (2016)
Mélanie, 16 years old, lives with her mother. She likes going to school, her friends, playing the cello, and she wants to change the world. But when she meets a boy on the Internet and falls in love with him, her world changes as she is gradually recruited by Daesh. Sonia is 17 years old, and she almost did something irrevocable to “guarantee” her family a place in paradise. These teenage girls might be called Anaïs, Manon or Leila, and one day they all might go some way down the recruitment process. But can they ever come back from it?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSkin (2009)
Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDad (1989)
A busy executive learns during a meeting that his mother may be dying and rushes home to her side. He ends up being his father's caretaker and becomes closer to him than ever before. Estranged from his own son, the executive comes to realize what has been missing in his own life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhat Maisie Knew (2013)
In New York City, six-year-old Maisie is caught in the middle of a bitter custody battle between her self-absorbed parents—an aging rock singer mother and a distracted art dealer father. As both quickly marry new partners to strengthen their legal standing, Maisie is shuttled back and forth in an endless game of emotional point-scoring. Yet amid the chaos and upheaval, Maisie begins to find true comfort and affection in her new step-parents.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 thisChaos (2001)
A bourgeois couple, modern yet conventional. One night by accident, a young prostitute barges into their lives. Hounded down, beaten up, threatened, she will continue to struggle, with the help of a well off lady, first for her survival-her resurrection-then for her dignity and freedom. Stormy encounters for everyone involved.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Minister (2011)
Transport Minister Bertrand Saint-Jean is awoken in the middle of the night by his head of staff. A bus has gone off the road into a gully. He has no choice but to go to the scene of the accident. Thus begins the odyssey of a politician in a world that is increasingly more complex and hostile.
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 thisParadise (1991)
A 10-year-old boy spends a summer in the country with a childless couple and a precocious girl.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 thisWhere Hope Grows (2014)
Calvin Campbell is a former professional baseball player sent to an early retirement due to his panic attacks at the plate. Even though he had all the talent for the big leagues, he struggles with the curveballs life has thrown him. Today, he mindlessly sleepwalks through his days and the challenge of raising his teenager daughter. His life is in a slow downward spiral when it is suddenly awakened and invigorated by the most unlikely person – Produce, a young-man with Down syndrome who works at the local grocery store.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Quiet Son (2025)
Pierre, a devoted father in his 50s, raises his two sons alone. When Louis, the youngest, leaves home to attend the Sorbonne in Paris, Fus, slightly older and not as successful academically, becomes more and more secretive. Driven by a fascination for violence, he gets entangled in far-right extremist groups, at the very opposite of his father’s values. Between them, there is love and hate, until tragedy happens.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLight of My Life (2019)
Years after a pandemic wipes out most of the female population, a father struggles to shield his daughter from a dangerous and predatory world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Fabelmans (2022)
Growing up in post-World War II era Arizona, young Sammy Fabelman aspires to become a filmmaker as he reaches adolescence, but soon discovers a shattering family secret and explores how the power of films can help him see the truth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Journey (1992)
A young man living in a cold southern village in South America, decides to start a trip looking for his father. By doing this he discovers unexpected facts about his Latin American essence.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Patagonia (2010)
Patagonia narrates the journeys of two women - one looking for her past, the other for her future. The film inter-cuts between their stories, in which one of them travels south to north through the Welsh springtime and the other east to west through the Argentine autumn.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Mama's Boy (2013)
Middle-aged cinephile and film projectionist Pera still lives with his mother - and best friend - Mara, in Belgrade. It's 1999 and when NATO bombs start raining down on Serbia, the two of them become refugees. After a surreal journey, they end up in New York, where Pera realizes that he can no longer do the old job he loved so much. While he and Mara were struggling to survive, the new age of digital projection was born. Then Pera stumbles upon some discarded projectors and his new mission in life becomes clear: he will travel around and show people the magic of Real Cinema - the magic that can only be created by celluoid, mechanical projectors, the silver screen and flickering light.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Third Eye (2001)
Michael is supposed to go to prison for 18 months, but escapes from the police officer. On the run, he meets Malika, who has also committed "stupid things." Together, they flee from the "third eye" of her mother, who, according to Malika, can see into the distance.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The House Is Burning (2006)
One day. One night. A group of teenagers struggles to find their way in a world that offers them few choices.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Aaltra (2004)
In this pitch black comedy the rivalry between two neighbors escalates into an all out war. Through a maintenance error on a tractor they both end up, paralyzed, in a wheelchair. It seems they are doomed to stay together. They no longer focus their rage on each other but on the manufacturer of the tractor, in Helsinki. So get ready for a hilarious wheelchair road movie.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBiker Boyz (2003)
A mythic motorcycle tale of father and son, this is the story of Manuel Galloway, also known as "the King of Cali", the president of a motorcycle club whose members are all African-American men, mostly white-collar workers who exchange their suits and ties at night and on weekends for leather outfits and motorcycle helmets.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRappakal (2005)
Saraswathiyamma is the head of a noble family that treats her servant Krishnan as one of her own sons. When her relatives conspire to sell her house, she and Krishnan set out to save it.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Long Roads - Secret Love (1969)
Long-haul driver Hannes picks up a young hitchhiker, Herb, who had a falling-out with his parents after dropping out of college and now travels around doing odd jobs. After a series of adventures, they are joined by Johanna and her child, who missed their bus and need a ride to Berlin. Johanna has left her husband so that he can reflect on their broken relationship and both men gradually begin to fall in love with her.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like Side Roads and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Side Roads?
The closest matches to Side Roads are Last Ride (2009), I Never Sang for My Father (1970) and Tigertail (2020). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Side Roads?
Start with Last Ride (2009), the closest match to Side Roads.
What is the highest-rated movie like Side Roads?
Where Hope Grows (2014), rated 7.9/10 by 232 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Side Roads?
The Quiet Son (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like Side Roads?
Yes: My Little Princess (2011), Heaven Will Wait (2016) and Chaos (2001).
How are movies similar to Side Roads chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Side Roads, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.