Best movies like All the Invisible Children
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Seven short films - each one focused on the plight of a different child protagonist.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Italy
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: anthology, touching, atmospheric, rough, serious, captivating, neorealism, realistic, independent film
Best tv shows and movies like All the Invisible Children (2005):
Similar in 85%
Kinshasa Kids (2012)
Plot Summary:
Perhaps the most ebullient “musical” you’ll see this year, Marc-Henri Wajnberg’s singular documentary/fiction hybrid follows a group of street children in the Congolese capital.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 136
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, France
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: uplifting, serious, realistic, captivating
Similar in 78%
Wild Bill (2011)
Plot Summary:
Out on parole after 8 years inside Bill Hayward returns home to find his now 11 and 15 year old sons abandoned by their mother and fending for themselves. Unwilling to play Dad, an uncaring Bill is determined to move on.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: captivating, rough, touching, suspenseful, sexy, family saga, hood, crime drama, cult classic, indie film
Similar in 83%
Rocks (2019)
Plot Summary:
A young teenage girl finds herself struggling to take care of herself and her younger brother after being abandoned by their single mother with no choice but to live out on the streets.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: serious, disturbing, suspense, rough, social
Similar in 81%
Neds (2010)
Plot Summary:
NEDs (Non Educated Delinquents) is the story of a young man’s journey from prize-winning schoolboy to knife-carrying teenager. Struggling against the low expectations of those around him, John McGill changes from victim to avenger, scholar to NED, altar boy to glue sniffer. When he attempts to change back again, his new reality and recent past make conformity near impossible and violent self determination near inevitable.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, France, Italy
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: rough, bleak, serious, realistic, disturbing, atmospheric, gloomy, biting, hood, sad
Similar in 75%
The Son of the Shark (1993)
Plot Summary:
Brothers Martin and Simon, not yet teens, are incorrigible vandals; Martin runs away from reform school, Simon from foster homes, and they always find each other in a seacoast town of Lignan, where their destructive behavior is infamous. (It may date to their mother's leaving the family.) Martin is philosophical, romantic, and poetic: he dreams of being the son of a shark; he holds tight to a book about goldfish his mother gave him. In both halting and wild ways, he tries to court Marie, a neighbor girl. Simon, with a pocketknife and an intractable will, seems more dangerous to others. What, on earth, is there for these children-becoming-men?.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 327
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Belgium, France, Luxembourg
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: rough, touching, serious, realistic
Similar in 83%
Play (2011)
Plot Summary:
In central Gothenburg, Sweden, a group of boys, aged 12-14, robbed other children on about 40 occasions between 2006 and 2008. The thieves used an elaborate scheme called the 'little brother number' or 'brother trick', involving advanced role-play and gang rhetoric rather than physical violence.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden, France
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, psychological, serious, captivating, inspirational, touching, transgressive, realistic, witty, contemplative
Similar in 77%
Holly (2006)
Plot Summary:
Shot on location in Cambodia, including many scenes in actual brothels in the notorious red light district of Phnom Penh, HOLLY is a captivating, touching and emotional experience. Patrick, an American card shark and dealer of stolen artifacts, has been 'comfortably numb' in Cambodia for years, when he encounters Holly, a 12-year-old Vietnamese girl, in the K11 red light village. The girl has been sold by her impoverished family and smuggled across the border to work as a prostitute.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 913
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, France, Israel, Cambodia
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: disturbing, emotional, psychological, touching, bleak, sincere, sad, serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 82%
Red Hook Summer (2012)
Plot Summary:
When his mom deposits him at the Red Hook housing project in Brooklyn to spend the summer with the grandfather he’s never met, young Flik may as well have landed on Mars. Fresh from his cushy life in Atlanta, he’s bored and friendless, and his strict grandfather, Enoch, a firebrand preacher, is bent on getting him to accept Jesus Christ as his personal savior. Only Chazz, the feisty girl from church, provides a diversion from the drudgery. As hot summer simmers and Sunday mornings brim with Enoch’s operatic sermons, things turn anything but dull as people’s conflicting agendas collide.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 121 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, captivating, tense, talky, independent film
Similar in 80%
May Allah Bless France (2014)
Plot Summary:
French rapper, author, and spoken word artist Abd Al Malik makes his directorial debut with this adaptation of his 2004 autobiography, chronicling his upbringing in the crime- and drug-ridden streets of Strasbourg and his life-changing encounters with hip hop and religion.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 291
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: captivating, inspirational, psychological, atmospheric, rough, touching, serious, realistic
Similar in 77%
Sugar (2013)
Plot Summary:
A 20-year-old homeless girl is suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome on the streets of Hollywood and Venice beach.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 399
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic
Similar in 83%
Boy Called Twist (2004)
Plot Summary:
The harrowing tale of a South African street-kid's search for love, based on Dickens' classic story. Growing up neglected in a rural orphanage, Twist escapes to the unpredictable freedom of Cape Town, where he falls in with Fagin's gang of street urchins. With a gritty honesty steeped in its vibrant characters, Boy called Twist superbly captures the contemporary equivalents of Dickens' seedy individuals as it shadows the timeless tale in its own inimitable style.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 165
Genere: Drama
Country: South Africa
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 87%
A Children's Story (2004)
Plot Summary:
The story focuses on the life of an 11-year old boy surrounded by criminality and poverty in the suburbs of Naples.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 457
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: disturbing, rough, bleak, serious, realistic
Similar in 75%
The Rose Seller (1998)
Plot Summary:
13-year-old Monica leads a street life, making her living by selling flowers to couples in local nightspots, she is joined by 10-year-old Andrea who runs out of her house after her mother beats her.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Colombia
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: social, rough, bleak, serious, realistic, disturbing
Similar in 80%
Barbarians (2014)
Plot Summary:
"Barbarians" is a teenage drama about coming of age in a world where there is no opportunity. A portrait of a young generation growing up in a society of lost values.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 627
Genere: Drama
Country: Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: sincere, rough, serious, realistic, tense, bleak
Similar in 85%
Streeters (2001)
Plot Summary:
Authentic and committed, moving and stormy drama of street kids from Mexico City. Wonderful adaptation of successful play about street kids who have more trouble with corrupt cops, than with dirty and heavy work.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 547
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, bleak, realistic, independent film
Similar in 76%
Lilet Never Happened (2012)
Plot Summary:
Lilet Never Happened is the rollercoaster story of how a young girl, struggling to survive in the streets of Manila, spirals down into child prostitution. She is a fighter. She is a dreamer. She is a rebel and she thinks she can handle the world with her wits. But she has to face up to reality when she runs out of innocent dreams.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 281
Genere: Drama
Country: Netherlands, UK, Philippines
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic, disturbing, bleak, emotional
Similar in 79%
Almost Brothers (2004)
Plot Summary:
The strange friendship between two men of opposite social classes. Miguel is a senator. His childhood friend Jorge is a major drug-dealer. In the 1970s, they meet in prison: Miguel was there for political reasons, and Jorge, as a common criminal.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 645
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil, Chile, France
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspense, captivating, entertaining
Similar in 80%
King of Thieves (2003)
Plot Summary:
Two amateur circus kids from a poor Ukrainian village, ten-year-old Barbu and his older sister Mimma, are sold to a circus artist called Caruso who promises them a career in the West.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 416
Genere: Drama
Country: Slovakia, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Germany, France
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: disturbing, emotional, serious, realistic, bleak
Similar in 90%
The Devils (2002)
Plot Summary:
Les Diables (The Devils) chronicles the struggle of an autistic girl and her brother trying to survive without their parents.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Spain
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: disturbing, captivating, emotional, realistic, bleak, serious, weird
Similar in 86%
10 1/2 (2010)
Plot Summary:
Tommy, 10 years old, is well known by Social Services. He is considered a danger to society. Gilles, his guardian at this halfway house, sees potential for redemption in this kid driven by violence.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 719
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, captivating
Similar in 90%
No One's Child (2014)
Plot Summary:
The movie is based on the fascinating, true story of a feral boy whom hunters found among wolves in a forest in the mountains of Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) in the mid-1980s. The boy was sent to the institution for children in an attempt to socialize him and got the Muslim name – Haris. Contrary to most predictions, he was developing and making friends quickly. When the war in BiH broke out in 1992, Haris got the letter from local Bosnian authorities which asked for his immediate return. Upon returning to BiH, he had nowhere to go. While wandering aimlessly, he came across a group of soldiers that gave him a gun and took him with them.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Serbia, Croatia
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, captivating
Similar in 81%
Mother, I Love You (2013)
Plot Summary:
Raimonds, a 12 year old boy, falls into a world of petty crime while trying to stay out of trouble with his mother.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 896
Genere: Drama
Country: Latvia
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, captivating, entertaining
Similar in 80%
Ezra (2007)
Plot Summary:
Ezra, jeune ex-soldat Sierra-Léonais, essaie tant bien que mal de retrouver des repères pour revenir à une vie normale après la guerre civile qui a ravagé son pays. Son quotidien est partagé entre un centre de réhabilitation psychologique et un tribunal de réconciliation nationale organisé sous l'égide de l'ONU. Durant le procès en réhabilitation auquel Ezra participe, il doit affronter sa soeur qui l'accuse du meurtre de leurs parents. Ezra, qui a traversé cette violente guerre civile complètement drogué et alcoolisé, ne se souvient de rien. Ezra reconnaîtra-t-il l'horreur et par ce fait, permettra-t-il à sa soeur et à sa communauté villageoise d'accéder au pardon ?.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 288
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Nigeria, USA, UK, Austria
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: captivating, rough, thought provoking, disturbing, bleak, serious, realistic
Similar in 84%
Firelight (2012)
Plot Summary:
Incarcerated women join a band of volunteers who battle forest fires and assist during natural disasters.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 631
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, sincere, touching, serious, psychological, captivating
Similar in 84%
White Water (2015)
Plot Summary:
White Water is the story of a 7 year-old black kid in segregated 1963 Opelika, Alabama who becomes obsessed with the desire to taste the water from the "white's only" drinking fountain and sets out on a quest to do the unthinkable: drink from it.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 209
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: touching, sentimental, serious, suspenseful, realistic
Similar in 80%
The Wild Ones (2012)
Plot Summary:
Five juvenile delinquents break out of jail and attempt to make their way to a house in the Mendoza foothills of Argentina.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 239
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina, Netherlands
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, realistic, captivating, bleak
Similar in 77%
LUV (2012)
Plot Summary:
Over the course of one day, a shy 13-year-old forms a bond with his troubled uncle.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, captivating, rough, realistic, hood, crime drama, independent film
Similar in 88%
On the Outs (2004)
Plot Summary:
Follows the choices made by three young women - one a drug dealer, one an addict, one a pregnant teen - in Jersey City.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 692
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: rough, touching, serious, emotional, anthology, bleak, realistic, independent film
Similar in 83%
Ali Zaoua: Prince of the Streets (2000)
Plot Summary:
Ali, Kwita, Omar and Boubker are street kids. The daily dose of glue sniffing represents their only escape from reality. Since they left Dib and his gang, they have been living on the portside of Casablanca. They live in constant fear of Dib's revenge. Ali wants to become a sailor - when he was living with his mother, a prostitute, he used to listen to a fairy tale about the sailor who discovered the miracle island with two suns. Instead of finding his island in the dream, Ali and his friends are confronted with Dib's gang. Matters are getting serious.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Crime
Country: Morocco, Tunisia, France, Belgium, USA
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, captivating, bleak, social, disturbing, crying, islamic, realistic, masterpiece
Similar in 86%
Bullet Boy (2004)
Plot Summary:
Ricky is just out of a young offenders institute, heading home to Hackney and determined to go straight. Instead, he heads straight for trouble when he becomes involved in a street confrontation, siding with his best friend Wisdom against a local rude boy. The trouble escalates into a series of tit-for-tat incidents that threaten to spiral out of control. Ricky's 12-year-old brother Curtis, hero-worships Ricky, though he appears smart enough to know he doesn't want to follow his example. Yet, despite the stern warnings from his mother and support from her friends in the community, might Ricky's bad boy allure be too attractive for Curtis to resist?.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: psychological, rough, serious, realistic, hood, bleak, gloomy