Movies like Absences (2013)
The best movies like Absences (2013) are Caddo Lake (2024), Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) and The Girl in the Park (2007). If Absences hooked you, these 20 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedAftersun (2022)7.7/10 from 2,046 votes
- NewestHamnet (2025)Released 2025
Caddo Lake (2024)
When an 8-year-old girl mysteriously vanishes on Caddo Lake, a series of past deaths and disappearances begin to link together, forever altering a broken family’s history.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBunny Lake Is Missing (1965)
A woman reports that her young daughter is missing, but there seems to be no evidence that she ever existed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Girl in the Park (2007)
A mother, enduringly traumatized by the disappearance of her three-year old daughter 15 years ago, has cut herself off from her ex-husband and son. However, when a troubled young woman with a checkered past enters her life, old psychic wounds painfully resurface, as does the illogical and increasingly irrational hope that the young woman may be the daughter she lost so long ago.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisElizabeth Is Missing (2019)
Maud's best friend Elizabeth has disappeared, but as she tries to solve the mystery, dementia threatens to erase all the clues, giving the search a poignant urgency.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStill Alice (2014)
Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children, is a renowned linguistics professor who starts to forget words. When she receives a devastating diagnosis, Alice and her family find their bonds tested.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWakefield (2017)
A man's nervous breakdown causes him to leave his wife and live in his attic for several months.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Thing with Feathers (2025)
Following the death of his wife, a young father's hold on reality crumbles, and a strange presence begins to stalk him from the shadowy recesses of the apartment he shares with his two young sons.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRelic (2020)
When elderly mother Edna inexplicably vanishes, her daughter rushes to the family's decaying home, finding clues of her increasing dementia scattered around the house in her absence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Shack (2017)
A grieving man receives a mysterious, personal invitation to meet with God at a place called 'The Shack'.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Fallout (2021)
In the wake of a school tragedy, Vada, Mia and Quinton form a unique and dynamic bond as they navigate the never linear, often confusing journey to heal in a world that feels forever changed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAftersun (2022)
Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories fill the gaps between camcorder footages as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the troubled man she didn't.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHamnet (2025)
The powerful story of love and loss that inspired the creation of Shakespeare's timeless masterpiece, Hamlet.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWhat They Had (2018)
A woman must fly back to her hometown when her Alzheimer's-stricken mother wanders into a blizzard. The return home forces her to confront her past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJesus Henry Christ (2012)
At the age of ten, Henry James Hermin, a boy who was conceived in a petri-dish and raised by his feminist mother, follows a string of Post-It notes in hopes of finding his biological father.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBirth/Rebirth (2023)
A single mother and a childless morgue technician are bound together by their relationship to a little girl they have reanimated from the dead.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPalm Trees and Power Lines (2023)
Seventeen-year-old Lea spends her summer break tanning in her backyard, and drifting between tiptoeing around her needy mother, and aimlessly trailing her best friend and boys from school. This monotony is interrupted by a chance encounter with Tom, a seductive man twice her age who promises an alternative to Lea's unsatisfying adolescent life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRemember Me (2010)
Still reeling from a heartbreaking family event and his parents' subsequent divorce, Tyler Hawkins discovers a fresh lease on life when he meets Ally Craig, a gregarious beauty who witnessed her mother's death. But as the couple draws closer, the fallout from their separate tragedies jeopardizes their love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005)
Jack Slavin is an environmentalist with a heart condition who lives with his daughter, Rose, on an isolated island. While Jack fights against developers who wish to build in the area, he also craves more contact with other people. When he invites his girlfriend, Kathleen, and her sons, Rodney and Thaddius, to move in, Rose is upset. The complicated family dynamics makes things difficult for everyone in the house.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAn Almost Christmas Story (2024)
A young owl meets a lost little girl in New York City. Together, they try to get home for Christmas.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIn Her Skin (2009)
Tale of a 15-year-old Australian girl who went missing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
Like Absences and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Absences?
The closest matches to Absences are Caddo Lake (2024), Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) and The Girl in the Park (2007). Below are 17 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Absences?
Start with Caddo Lake (2024), the closest match to Absences.
What is the highest-rated movie like Absences?
Aftersun (2022), rated 7.7/10 by 2,046 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Absences?
Hamnet (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Absences?
Yes: Caddo Lake (2024), Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) and The Girl in the Park (2007).
How are movies similar to Absences chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Absences, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.