Best movies like Gran Torino

Similar in 82%

About Schmidt (2002)

Plot Summary:

66-year-old Warren Schmidt is a retired insurance salesman and has no particular plans other than to drive around in the motor home his wife insisted they buy. He's not altogether bitter, but not happy either, as everything his wife does annoys him, and he disapproves of the man his daughter is about to marry. When his wife suddenly dies, he sets out to postpone the imminent marriage of his daughter to a man he doesn't like, while coping with discoveries about his late wife and himself in the process.

Similar in 77%

Mud (2012)

Plot Summary:

Two teenage boys encounter a fugitive and make a pact to help him escape from an island in the Mississippi.

Similar in 80%

A Perfect World (1993)

Plot Summary:

A kidnapped boy strikes up a friendship with his captor: an escaped convict on the run from the law, headed by an honorable U.S. Marshal.

Similar in 84%

My Family (1995)

Plot Summary:

Traces over three generations an immigrant family's trials, tribulations, tragedies, and triumphs. Maria and Jose, the first generation, come to Los Angeles, meet, marry, face deportation all in the 1930's. They establish their family in East L.A., and their children Chucho, Paco, Memo, Irene, Toni, and Jimmy deal with youth culture and the L.A. police in the 50's. As the second generation become adults in the 60's, the focus shifts to Jimmy, his marriage to Isabel (a Salvadorian refugee), their son, and Jimmy's journey to becoming a responsible parent.

Similar in 85%

This Is England (2006)

Plot Summary:

A story about a troubled boy growing up in England, set in 1983. He comes across a few skinheads on his way home from school, after a fight. They become his new best friends even like family. Based on experiences of director Shane Meadows.

Similar in 78%

Harry Brown (2009)

Plot Summary:

An elderly ex-serviceman and widower looks to avenge his best friend's murder by doling out his own form of justice.

Similar in 86%

North Country (2005)

Plot Summary:

A fictionalized account of the first major successful sexual harassment case in the United States -- Jenson vs. Eveleth Mines, where a woman who endured a range of abuse while working as a miner filed and won the landmark 1984 lawsuit.

Similar in 88%

The Visitor (2007)

Plot Summary:

A college professor travels to New York City to attend a conference and finds a young couple living in his apartment.

Similar in 89%

The Kite Runner (2007)

Plot Summary:

After spending years in California, Amir returns to his homeland in Afghanistan to help his old friend Hassan, whose son is in trouble.

Similar in 87%

Goodbye Solo (2008)

Plot Summary:

A man planning to commit suicide hires a taxi driver to take him to his jumping-off point.

Similar in 90%

Precious (2009)

Plot Summary:

Set in Harlem in 1987, Claireece "Precious" Jones is a 16-year-old African American girl born into a life no one would want. She's pregnant for the second time by her absent father; at home, she must wait hand and foot on her mother, an angry woman who abuses her emotionally and physically. School is chaotic and Precious has reached the ninth grade with good marks and a secret--she can't read.

Similar in 83%

12 and Holding (2005)

Plot Summary:

Three pre-adolescents with virginal and eager-of-signals naivety, hit headlong against monstrous and inhospitable loneliness, in the incandescent fire among the ashes of their own inocence.

Similar in 88%

Sling Blade (1996)

Plot Summary:

Karl Childers is a mentally disabled man who has been in the custody of the state mental hospital since the age of 12 for killing his mother and her lover. Although thoroughly institutionalized, Karl is deemed fit to be released into the outside world.

Similar in 84%

Manchester by the Sea (2016)

Plot Summary:

After his older brother passes away, Lee Chandler is forced to return home to care for his 16-year-old nephew. There he is compelled to deal with a tragic past that separated him from his family and the community where he was born and raised.

Similar in 85%

Nebraska (2013)

Plot Summary:

An aging, booze-addled father takes a trip from Montana to Nebraska with his estranged son in order to claim what he believes to be a million-dollar sweepstakes prize.

Similar in 86%

Philadelphia (1993)

Plot Summary:

No one would take his case until one man was willing to take on the system. Two competing lawyers join forces to sue a prestigious law firm for AIDS discrimination. As their unlikely friendship develops their courage overcomes the prejudice and corruption of their powerful adversaries.

Similar in 84%

Million Dollar Baby (2004)

Plot Summary:

Despondent over a painful estrangement from his daughter, trainer Frankie Dunn isn't prepared for boxer Maggie Fitzgerald to enter his life. But Maggie's determined to go pro and to convince Dunn and his cohort to help her.

Similar in 85%

Trainspotting (1996)

Plot Summary:

Renton, deeply immersed in the Edinburgh drug scene, tries to clean up and get out, despite the allure of the drugs and influence of friends.

Similar in 83%

Heartbreak Ridge (1986)

Plot Summary:

A hard-nosed, hard-living Marine gunnery sergeant clashes with his superiors and his ex-wife as he takes command of a spoiled recon platoon with a bad attitude.

Similar in 83%

Pale Rider (1985)

Plot Summary:

A small gold mining camp is terrorised by a ruthless land owner wanting to take their land. Clint Eastwood arrives riding a pale horse just as a young girl is praying to God to help the miners. He is revealed to be a preacher with mysterious and possible otherworldly origins who teams up with the miners to defeat the land owner and the corrupt sheriff.

Similar in 82%

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

Plot Summary:

While serving time for insanity at a state mental hospital, implacable rabble-rouser, Randle Patrick McMurphy inspires his fellow patients to rebel against the authoritarian rule of head nurse, Mildred Ratched.

Similar in 80%

Rain Man (1988)

Plot Summary:

Selfish yuppie Charlie Babbitt's father left a fortune to his savant brother Raymond and a pittance to Charlie; they travel cross-country.

Similar in 90%

Scent of a Woman (1992)

Plot Summary:

Charlie Simms is a student at a private preparatory school who comes from a poor family. To earn the money for his flight home to Gresham, Oregon for Christmas, Charlie takes a job over Thanksgiving looking after retired U.S. Army officer Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade, a cantankerous middle-aged man who lives with his niece and her family.

Similar in 86%

American History X (1998)

Plot Summary:

Derek Vineyard is paroled after serving 3 years in prison for killing two thugs who tried to break into/steal his truck. Through his brother, Danny Vineyard's narration, we learn that before going to prison, Derek was a skinhead and the leader of a violent white supremacist gang that committed acts of racial crime throughout L.A. and his actions greatly influenced Danny. Reformed and fresh out of prison, Derek severs contact with the gang and becomes determined to keep Danny from going down the same violent path as he did.

Similar in 84%

Good Will Hunting (1997)

Plot Summary:

Will Hunting has a genius-level IQ but chooses to work as a janitor at MIT. When he solves a difficult graduate-level math problem, his talents are discovered by Professor Gerald Lambeau, who decides to help the misguided youth reach his potential. When Will is arrested for attacking a police officer, Professor Lambeau makes a deal to get leniency for him if he will get treatment from therapist Sean Maguire.

Similar in 75%

The Help (2011)

Plot Summary:

Aibileen Clark is a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children and has recently lost her only son; Minny Jackson is an African-American maid who has often offended her employers despite her family's struggles with money and her desperate need for jobs; and Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is a young white woman who has recently moved back home after graduating college to find out her childhood maid has mysteriously disappeared. These three stories intertwine to explain how life in Jackson, Mississippi revolves around "the help"; yet they are always kept at a certain distance because of racial lines.

Similar in 79%

The Joy Luck Club (1993)

Plot Summary:

Through a series of flashbacks, four young chinese women born in America and their respective mothers born in feudal China, explore their past. This search will help them understand their difficult mother/daughter relationship.

Similar in 87%

Detachment (2011)

Plot Summary:

A chronicle of three weeks in the lives of several high school teachers, administrators and students through the eyes of substitute teacher, Henry Barthes. Henry roams from school to school, imparting modes of knowledge, but never staying long enough to form any semblance of sentient attachment.

Similar in 79%

Django Unchained (2012)

Plot Summary:

With the help of a German bounty hunter, a freed slave sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.