Best movies like Rain
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Rain (Brooklyn Sudano), a young black musical prodigy, finds trouble and heartbreak when she witnesses her sister's murder by gangbangers. In order to protect her daughter, Rain's mother secretly contacts Rain's biological mother, and Rain learns the truth of her parentage: She is the daughter of a white socialite. Sent to live with her wealthy grandmother (Faye Dunaway), Rain adjusts to boarding school life, where her musical talents flourish.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 413
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, touching, suspenseful
Best tv shows and movies like Rain (2006):
Similar in 75%
Harlem Aria (1999)
Plot Summary:
An aspiring opera singer from Harlem teams up with a charismatic busker and a kindhearted hustler to share his voice with the world, and teaches his two newfound friends the importance of taking your destiny into your own hands. Anton (Gabriel Casseus) lives in Harlem with his aunt. He dreams of moving to Italy and becoming a famous opera singer, and though he's been blessed with a magnificent singing voice, his passion has made him an outsider in his neighborhood. Running away from home, Anton meets passionate street pianist Matthew (Christian Carmago) and together the two begin drawing large, appreciate crowds on the street. Working the crowd as they do their thing is Wes (Damon Wayans), whose natural charm always gets the cash flowing. And while life on the streets is never easy, Anton, Matthew, and Wes soon discover that by following their dreams, they may find a means of transforming their lives forever.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 319
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Germany
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: independent film, uplifting, touching, feel good, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, black cinema
Similar in 87%
Louis (2010)
Plot Summary:
A silent film about Louis Armstrong as a young boy and how he acquired his first cornet.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 224
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, realistic, psychological, captivating, sentimental, offbeat, humorous, stylized, semi serious, independent film
Similar in 89%
Affluenza (2014)
Plot Summary:
An aspiring young photographer finds himself caught up in a heady world of money, sex, and privilege when he moves to wealthy Long Island in the summer of 2008.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 764
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, independent film, suspense, tense, disturbing, biting
Similar in 79%
Stone Pillow (1985)
Plot Summary:
A homeless woman named Florabelle becomes the unwitting guide to the streets for a New York social worker named Carrie who thinks she has lessons to offer the down-and-out clients she serves at the homeless shelter. Soon, however, Carrie realizes that she's the one who has much to learn.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 591
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 79%
California Solo (2012)
Plot Summary:
Lachlan MacAldonich is a self-described “lazy Scotsman” and former guitar player for a once-popular 1990s rock band. No longer famous, he now lives a comfortably numb existence working on an organic farm outside Los Angeles. He drinks himself into a stupor every night and retires to his shabby apartment to record his podcast, recounting the tragic deaths of great musicians. After a particularly heavy night of drowning his sorrows at a local watering hole, he is arrested for driving under the influence. This snag, coupled with a long-ago conviction for a drug offense, means Lachlan faces possible deportation. His only hope of remaining stateside is proving that his absence would cause extreme hardship for a spouse or relative – forcing him to confront relationships he thought were buried forever.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, captivating, sincere, touching, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 83%
Between Us (2009)
Plot Summary:
Abruptly abandoned by her husband in a country completely foreign to her, Colombian native Mariana (Paola Mendoza) struggles to take care of herself and her two young children on the unforgiving streets of New York City. Sebastian Villada, Laura Montana and Anthony Chisholm also star in this gritty independent drama jointly written and directed by Mendoza and her collaborator Gloria La Morte.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, serious
Similar in 78%
X/Y (2014)
Plot Summary:
As Mark, Jen, Sylvia, and Jake navigate through their emotionally-arrested states, X/Y reveals the honest and wanton desire we all have to connect with someone and what is at stake when that connection fades.
IMDB Rating: 4.2
IMDB Votes: 693
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: realistic, psychological, atmospheric, captivating, sexy, sincere, touching, serious, independent film, erotic
Similar in 89%
Amexicano (2007)
Plot Summary:
A look at the bond between an illegal immigrant and a blue-collar Italian-American from Queens.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 299
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, realistic, humorous, independent film
Similar in 82%
Good Time Max (2007)
Plot Summary:
Two genius brothers grow up and grow apart as one becomes a successful surgeon and the other pursues a drug-fueled high life.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 79 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, serious, captivating, realistic, gloomy, independent film, inspirational
Similar in 81%
About Sunny (2011)
Plot Summary:
As things unravel for a struggling single mother in Las Vegas, she must decide what she's willing to give up to get by.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 380
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, captivating, emotional, psychological, independent film, sincere, touching, bleak, gloomy
Similar in 80%
Wait Until Spring, Bandini (1989)
Plot Summary:
Rocklin Colorado, 1925. A hard cold winter. Young Arturo Bandini loves his father Svevo, his mother Maria and his brothers. Even though his bricklayer father wastes the little money he has in the Imperial Poolhall and his time with the rich American widow, Hildegarde. Even though his beautiful and pious mother lets his father get away with that, even if his little brother wets the bed. Arturo loves them all. He also loves to play baseball, even though he has to wait until spring. And he also loves the movies ... and Rosa. But she doesn't love him.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 710
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, France, Italy, USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: independent film, rough, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 89%
Five Star (2014)
Plot Summary:
After John’s absent father is struck by a stray bullet, Primo takes it upon himself to verse the young boy in the code of the streets—one founded on respect and upheld by fear. A member of the Bloods since the age of twelve—both in the film and in reality—the streets of Brooklyn are all Primo has ever known. While John questions whether or not to enter into this life, Primo must decide whether to leave it all behind as he vows to become a better husband and father. Set during those New York summer weeks where the stifling heat seems to encase everything, Five Star plunges into gang culture with searing intensity. Director Keith Miller observes the lives of these two men with a quiet yet pointed distance, carefully eschewing worn clichés through its unflinching focus. Distinctions between fiction and real life remain intentionally ambiguous, allowing the story of these two men to resonate beyond the streets, as they face the question of what it means to be a man.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 569
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, captivating, sexy, hood, tense, sincere, rough, bleak
Similar in 79%
Lost Transmissions (2019)
Plot Summary:
When an acclaimed music producer goes off his medication for schizophrenia, his friends chase him though the LA music scene to help commit him to a psychiatric hospital, revealing the troubling inadequacies of the mental health care system.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: suspense, realistic, touching, serious, suspenseful, disturbing, psychological, sincere, enigmatic, depressing
Similar in 76%
Children of Invention (2009)
Plot Summary:
Two young children living illegally in a model apartment outside Boston are left to fend for themselves when their hardworking mother disappears.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 657
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, touching, realistic, sad, independent film, moody
Similar in 83%
A Beautiful Soul (2012)
Plot Summary:
An R&B singer snagged by the trappings of superstardom loses his way and turns his back on his church and faith-filled beginnings. Tragedy strikes, leaving a chance for redemption in its wake. But with rebirth, first comes death.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 126
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: realistic, touching, psychological, captivating, sincere, serious
Similar in 77%
Not Waving But Drowning (2012)
Plot Summary:
Not Waving But Drowning is a chronological look at growing up, formed from two different stories. The two sets of friends represent the American dilemma between what you have known and what you hope to know; the tear between longing for the past and the desire to explore.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 431
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: realistic, psychological, atmospheric, touching, captivating, sincere, serious, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 77%
Blackout (2007)
Plot Summary:
BLACKOUT takes you inside the personal journey of what went down and what it was really like in Brooklyn, NY on August 14. It examines the nature of man to take advantage of his own fellow man outside of normal conditions, in times of weakness and vulnerability.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 609
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing, psychological, bleak
Similar in 75%
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 80%
Blood Done Sign My Name (2010)
Plot Summary:
A drama based on the true story in which a black Vietnam-era veteran is allegedly murdered by a local white businessman who is later exonerated. The plot focuses on the role of a local high school teacher and the civil unrest that followed the acquittal.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 635
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: disturbing, serious, captivating, realistic, thought provoking, tense, bleak, contemplative, entertaining
Similar in 85%
The Stick Up Kids (2008)
Plot Summary:
People always told Santos he was something special. His Uncle told him to get a skill, so he became a hustler and with his three,they became "The Stick Up Kids" Harlem would never be the same. They thought they had it all... Money, cars, the lifestyle and the lingo. The only two words They didn't know were JURISDICTION AND GENTRIFICATION but in their world it was all for one and one for all until an unexpected, mysterious death, forced "The Stick Up Kids"to change their focus from doing crime to stopping the "North Manhattan Project". Now it was up to Santos to pull off one last sting before it destroyed them all. Watch out America. 'The Stick Up Kids" are coming to your town!.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 104
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, psychological, captivating, crime drama, independent film, rough, suspenseful
Similar in 76%
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 75%
Waterproof (2000)
Plot Summary:
Single mother Tyree Battle struggles to keep her young son Thaniel away from the gang-plagued city streets that he is mixed up in. Under severe gang pressure, Thaniel accidentally shoots Jewish shopkeeper Eli Zeal in a botched robbery attempt. Tyree, protecting her son from the law, kidnaps Eli and flees to her hometown of Waterproof.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 447
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, serious, emotional, christian film, independent film, contemplative
Similar in 81%
2nd Take (2011)
Plot Summary:
Reclusive writer takes aspiring actress under his wing.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 183
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: realistic, psychological, atmospheric, captivating, touching, serious, gloomy
Similar in 89%
Copperhead (2013)
Plot Summary:
A family is torn apart during the American Civil War.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: realistic, tense, touching, serious, captivating
Similar in 88%
The Tic Code (1998)
Plot Summary:
A 10 year old gifted boy wants to be a jazz pianist much to the chagrin of his more classical oriented piano instructor. With his mother's help, he is an underage regular at a local nightspot, where he is teamed up with a sax superstar. Both come to learn that each suffers from Tourette's Syndrome (thus the film title). The older man has developed mannerisms to cover up his own fallibilities and resents the boy and his mother's acceptance of the disease.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 484
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, realistic, independent film, offbeat, serious, contemplative, light, inspirational, feel good
Similar in 76%
Imperial Dreams (2014)
Plot Summary:
A 21-year-old reformed gangster's devotion to his family and his future is put to the test when he is released from prison and returns to his old stomping grounds in Watts, Los Angeles.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: uplifting, touching, rough, serious, hood, inspirational, feel good, social, crime drama, realistic
Similar in 80%
Shadrach (1998)
Plot Summary:
In 1935, 99-year-old former slave Shadrach asks to be buried on the soil where he was born to slavery, and that land is owned by the large Dabney family, consisting of Vernon, Trixie and their seven children, and to bury a black man on that land is a violation of strict Virginia law.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, emotional, independent film, sincere, serious, realistic, light, road movie, sexy
Similar in 88%
The Reading Room (2005)
Plot Summary:
Making good on a promise he made to his dying wife, a widower (Jones) opens a reading room, a place where people can learn to read. Despite his goodwill, problems in the neighborhood threaten his establishment.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 687
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: sincere, uplifting, touching, feel good, serious, emotional, realistic, hispanic
Similar in 82%
Our Song (2000)
Plot Summary:
Focusing on the bonding between three female (an African American female, a half African American half Latino American female, and a Latino American female) high school members of Brooklyn's "Jackie Robinson Steppers Marching Band" and the choices the girls face once their school closes down because of the need for asbestos removal. This film is about a host of topics, not least of which is the hard-work involved in maintaining.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 848
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: disturbing, sincere, thought provoking, touching, independent film, serious, realistic, contemplative, neorealism, erotic
Similar in 76%
The Rising Place (2001)
Plot Summary:
The close friendship of two young women, each of a different race, and their struggle to find purpose in their lives during this time of social injustice and world war.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 208
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, realistic