Movies like The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom (2011)
The best movies like The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom (2011) are Rocks (2020), The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete (2013) and Like Dandelion Dust (2009). If The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedLion (2016)8.0/10 from 7,129 votes
- NewestEmpire Waist (2024)Released 2024
Rocks (2020)
15-year-old Rocks fears that she and her little brother Emmanuel will be taken into care and forced apart if anyone finds out that their mother has left them. Against all odds, and with the help of her loyal friends, she evades the authorities and navigates the most defining days of her young life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete (2013)
Coming of age story about two inner city youths, who are left to fend for themselves over the summer after their mothers are taken away by the authorities.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLike Dandelion Dust (2009)
Rip Porter is sentenced to seven years in prison for beating his wife, Wendy. When he is released, he discovers that Wendy gave up their child, and the privileged Campbell family adopted him. The two families are soon in a legal battle for the child they both love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 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 thisBastard Out of Carolina (1996)
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGimme Shelter (2013)
After running away from her abusive mother, a streetwise teen seeks refuge with her father, but he rejects her when he learns that she's pregnant.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Home of Our Own (1993)
In 1960s Los Angeles an energetic widow and her six children try to make a dream of theirs come true: to have a home of their own. They leave L.A. and head for the countryside, all the while facing numerous difficulties and obstacles during their journey.
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 thisAny Day Now (2012)
In the late 1970s, when a mentally handicapped teenager is abandoned, a gay couple takes him in and becomes the family he's never had. But once the unconventional living arrangement is discovered by authorities, the men must fight the legal system to adopt the child.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisShort Term 12 (2013)
Grace, a compassionate young supervisor at a foster care facility, helps at-risk teens. But when a new charge dredges up memories of her own troubled past, Grace's tough exterior begins eroding.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe True Adventures of Wolfboy (2019)
Follows a young boy who runs away from home in the search of his estranged mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies 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 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 thisSecrets & Lies (1996)
After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense, a successful black optometrist, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to Cynthia, a working class white woman.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLion (2016)
A five-year-old Indian boy gets lost on the streets of Calcutta, thousands of kilometers from home. He survives many challenges before being adopted by a couple in Australia; 25 years later, he sets out to find his lost family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisStanding Up (2013)
Based on one of the most beloved Young Adult novels of all time: Two kids are stripped naked and left together on an island in a lake - victims of a vicious summer camp prank; But rather than have to return to camp and face the humiliation, they decide to take off, on the run together. What follows is a three day odyssey of discovery and self-discovery.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisParked (2010)
Fred Daly returns to Ireland with nowhere to live but his car. Then dope-smoking 21-year-old Cathal parks beside him, and brightens up his lonely world. Encouraged by Cathal, Fred meets attractive music teacher Jules. Growing closer, these three outsiders are set on a course that will change their lives forever.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Little Princess (1939)
A little girl goes in search of her father who is reported missing by the military during the Second Boer War.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEvelyn (2002)
Desmond Doyle is devastated when his wife abandons their family on the day after Christmas. His unemployment, and the fact that there is no woman in the house to care for the children—Evelyn, Dermot and Maurice—make it clear to the authorities this is an untenable situation. The Catholic Church and the Irish courts decide to put the Doyle children into Church-run orphanages.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Walk to Remember (2002)
When the popular, restless Landon Carter is forced to participate in the school drama production, he falls in love with Jamie Sullivan, the daughter of the town's minister. Jamie has a "to-do" list for her life, as well as a very big secret she must keep from Landon.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGrow Up (TBA)
Sophie is a small-town teenager taking an art scholarship program at Wyatt University in the summer. This summer will change Sophie's life forever.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Tigerland (2000)
A group of recruits go through Advanced Infantry Training at Fort Polk, Louisiana's infamous Tigerland, last stop before Vietnam for tens of thousands of young men in 1971.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001)
Years after his father disowns his adopted brother for marrying a woman of lower social standing, a young man goes on a mission to reunite his family.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRaspberry Magic (2010)
An eleven-year-old science enthusiast turns her raspberry-growing project into an emotional mission to reunite her family after her father leaves and her mother falls into depression.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Fairyocious (2019)
Alma, petrified, does not know how to react when her son, age 8, wants to dress as a fairy and go to school. She asks advice from her neighbor, and eventually the entire building debates his right to behave cross-gender.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Camellia (2023)
The Vietnamese German Huong, equipped with her small video camera, documents her life before moving out, exploring her relationships with friends, family, places and objects that she leaves behind. A poetic snapshot of her person, addressed to her father.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Nixon (1995)
A look at President Richard M. Nixon—a man carrying the fate of the world on his shoulders while battling the self-destructive demands from within—spanning his troubled boyhood in California to the shocking Watergate scandal that would end his Presidency.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEmpire Waist (2024)
Lenore Miller’s size has always earned her teases and jeers in her school’s hallways, but this clothes-loving teenager is about to set the world on fire with her own line of inclusive fashion designs.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWonder Boys (2000)
Grady is a 50-ish English professor who hasn't had a thing published in years—not since he wrote his award winning 'Great American Novel' 7 years ago. This weekend proves even worse than he could imagine as he finds himself reeling from one misadventure to another in the company of a new wonder boy author.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom?
The closest matches to The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom are Rocks (2020), The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete (2013) and Like Dandelion Dust (2009). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom?
Start with Rocks (2020), the closest match to The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom?
Lion (2016), rated 8.0/10 by 7,129 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom?
Empire Waist (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom?
Yes: Rocks (2020), The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete (2013) and Like Dandelion Dust (2009).
How are movies similar to The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.