Best movies like The Blue Butterfly
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Based on a true story, The Blue Butterfly tells the story of a terminally ill 10-year-old boy whose dream is to catch the most beautiful butterfly on Earth, the mythic and elusive Blue Morpho. His mother persuades a renowned entomologist to take them on a trip to the jungle to search for the butterfly, leading to an adventure that will transform their lives.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Adventure, Drama
Country: Canada, USA, UK
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: emotional, touching, serious, realistic, spiritual
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Best tv shows and movies like The Blue Butterfly (2004):
Similar in 78%
Conversations with God (2006)
Plot Summary:
"Conversations with God" is the true story of Neale Donald Walsch that inspired and changed the lives of millions. The journey begins after he unexpectedly breaks his neck in a car accident and loses his job.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Adventure, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, sincere, touching, mystical, motivational, uplifting, sad, existential, esoteric
Similar in 77%
Camino (2008)
Plot Summary:
A religious organization interferes with the life of a terminally ill girl.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 138 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, serious, realistic, spiritual, odd, complex
Similar in 75%
Chac: The Rain God (1975)
Plot Summary:
Unique story of a village's attempts to solve drought by appealing to the powers of a mysterious mountain-dwelling diviner.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 191
Genere: Adventure, Drama
Country: Mexico, Panama
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: spiritual, mystic, esoteric, atmospheric, serious, stylized, suspense
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Similar in 75%
Arcadia (2012)
Plot Summary:
Greta's dad Tom is moving the family cross-country in a dented station wagon, promising a California paradise to his kids. All that's missing is Mom.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 692
Genere: Adventure, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, captivating, sincere, realistic, independent film, crying
Similar in 80%
Digging to China (1997)
Plot Summary:
Harriet, a ten-year old girl, lives together with her big sister and her alcoholic mother out in the countryside. The family runs a motel. Harriet is different from the others, as she owns a great creativity and has nobody to play with. Her infinite world exists only in her mind. One day, Ricky comes along. He is a grown-up, but retarded son of an elderly lady. Soon, Harriet and Ricky share their experiences of life from a different point of view and become close friends. But his mother still plans to give Ricky away into professional care in a home, because she won't live forever to be there for him.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: touching, intellectual, crying, independent film, sentimental, feel good, humorous, emotional, realistic, semi serious
Similar in 84%
Magnifico (2003)
Plot Summary:
With a daughter who suffers from cerebral palsy and a son who's lost his much-needed scholarship, an impoverished married couple begins to abandon their faith and courage in the face of such misfortune. But when a gifted young boy called Magnifico uses his goodness to magically transform their lives for the better, the family's belief in miracles is restored. Suddenly, living with adversity doesn't seem like such a burden.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 930
Genere: Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, emotional, uplifting, serious, realistic, surprise ending, sad, tagalog, contemplative
Similar in 76%
Second Best (1994)
Plot Summary:
The difficult relationship between a british postal officer and his adoptive son.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 80%
When Andrew Came Home (2000)
Plot Summary:
A mother searches for five years to find her kidnapped son in this fact-based drama. Unexpectedly the boy is found, but the reunion is not as she hoped. She now has to deal with five years of abuse that the boy suffered at the hands of his kidnappers.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 657
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, sad
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Similar in 83%
You (2009)
Plot Summary:
You is a love story. It spans 21 years, bouncing around in time, creating a kind of family quilt that wraps around a father as he struggles to overcome the grief of losing his beloved wife and raise their daughter alone. A coming-of-age journey for both the father and his daughter, You is filled with the magic of life and love and family.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 143
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: emotional, sentimental, psychological, captivating, independent film, sincere, touching, offbeat, serious
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Similar in 89%
Fathers and Sons (2005)
Plot Summary:
Intertwined tales of three families who grow up on the same street, focusing on the relationship of fathers and sons. The first section features Anthony and Jenny and traces the father-son bond that develops between Anthony and his newborn son over 30 years. The second story centers on the affairs of an airline pilot who shares a house but not a life with his wife. He crosses paths with an unusual woman and spends an extraordinary night with his son. The final chapter follows the homecoming of Elliot to his estranged family. As his father dies, Elliot meets and falls in love with a woman who sees past his tough-guy exterior.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 406
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, serious, emotional, captivating, offbeat, crying, entertaining
Similar in 76%
Under the Same Moon (2007)
Plot Summary:
Tells the parallel stories of nine-year-old Carlitos and his mother, Rosario. In the hopes of providing a better life for her son, Rosario works illegally in the U.S. while her mother cares for Carlitos back in Mexico.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Adventure, Drama
Country: Mexico, USA
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, emotional, sweet, sincere, sad, controversial, serious, realistic, light
Similar in 82%
The Zigzag Kid (2012)
Plot Summary:
The son of the world's greatest detective embarks on a high-stakes adventure in this action-packed adaptation of the beloved book by Israeli writer David Grossman. (TIFF).
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 489
Genere: Adventure, Drama, Family
Country: Netherlands, Belgium, UK, Spain, France
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, serious, detective, crying
Similar in 75%
The Earthling (1980)
Plot Summary:
Patrick Foley has been on the move all his live. Tired of drifting, he wants to spend his last days in an isolated Australian valley where he grew up. On his difficult journey he meets Shawn, a little desperate city-boy whose parents were killed in an accident in this remote inhospitable territory. Being unable to accompany the boy back to the civilized world he reluctantly takes him with him on his trip to that valley and teaches him in a rugged way how to survive.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Adventure, Drama
Country: Australia, USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: anamorphic, serious, surreal, independent film
Similar in 78%
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 88%
Letters to God (2010)
Plot Summary:
A young boy fighting cancer writes letters to God, touching lives in his neighborhood and inspiring hope among everyone he comes in contact. An unsuspecting substitute postman, with a troubled life of his own, becomes entangled in the boy's journey and his family by reading the letters. They inspire him to seek a better life for himself and his own son he's lost through his alcohol addiction.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: christian film, sentimental, sincere, inspirational, touching, spiritual, sad, uplifting, teen, serious
Similar in 84%
Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984)
Plot Summary:
A shipping disaster in the 19th Century has stranded a man and woman in the wilds of Africa. The lady is pregnant, and gives birth to a son in their tree house. Soon after, a family of apes stumble across the house and in the ensuing panic, both parents are killed. A female ape takes the tiny boy as a replacement for her own dead infant, and raises him as her son. Twenty years later, Captain Phillippe D'Arnot discovers the man who thinks he is an ape. Evidence in the tree house leads him to believe that he is the direct descendant of the Earl of Greystoke, and thus takes it upon himself to return the man to civilization.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 21000
Genere: Adventure, Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 143 min
Plot tags: touching, harsh, serious, stylized, costume drama, visual, fairy tale, gothic horror, period piece, anthropological
Similar in 79%
End of the Spear (2005)
Plot Summary:
"End of the Spear" is the story of Mincayani, a Waodani tribesman from the jungles of Ecuador. When five young missionaries, among them Jim Elliot and Nate Saint, are speared to death by the Waodani in 1956, a series of events unfold to change the lives of not only the slain missionaries' families, but also Mincayani and his people.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Adventure, Biography, Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: emotional, inspirational, christian film, tense, uplifting, serious, realistic, biblical, spiritual, existential
Similar in 75%
...First Do No Harm (1997)
Plot Summary:
When Lori Reimuller learns that her young son Robbie has epilepsy, she first trusts the judgment of the hospital staff in how best to bring it under control. As Robbie's health slides radically downhill, however, she becomes frustrated and desperate, and so does her own research into the existing literature on treatments. When she decides to try an alternative treatment called the Ketogenic Diet, devised long ago by a doctor from Johns Hopkins, she is met with narrow-minded resistance from Robbie's doctor, who is prepared to take legal action to prevent Lori from removing him from the hospital.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: edutainment, sentimental, sincere, uplifting, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, controversial
Similar in 89%
Dawn Anna (2005)
Plot Summary:
The true story of a single mom who overcomes many of life's obstacles.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, realistic, touching, serious, emotional
Similar in 88%
Extraordinary Measures (2010)
Plot Summary:
Working-class father John Crowley is finally on the fast track to corporate success when his two young children, Megan and Patrick, are diagnosed with Pompe disease - a condition that prevents the body from breaking down sugar. With the support of his wife, Aileen, John ditches his career and teams with unconventional specialist Dr. Robert Stonehill to found a bio-tech company and develop a cure in time to save the lives of Megan and Patrick. As Dr. Stonehill works tirelessly to prove the theories that made him the black sheep of the medical community, a powerful bond is forged between the two unlikely allies.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 18000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: emotional, sentimental, inspirational, touching, serious, entertaining, intense, cult classic, captivating, realistic
Similar in 85%
The Miracle of the Cards (2001)
Plot Summary:
"The Miracle of the Cards" is based on the true story of Marion Shergold and her son, Craig, an eight-year-old English boy who had a brain tumor. Several events convinced Marion that God was leading her to a cure for Craig and that the get-well cards he was receiving had the power to keep him alive, so she launched a worldwide campaign to break the Guinness record for receiving the most get-well cards. At the time, the world record seemed an impossible 1,000,265, but Craig received over 350 million cards from all over the world. Against the advice of her doctors, Marion followed one of those cards to America for Craig's miraculous cure.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 569
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, serious, realistic
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Similar in 90%
The Cure (1995)
Plot Summary:
Dexter, age 11, who has AIDS, and his next door neighbor Eric, a little older and much bigger, become best friends. Eric also becomes closer to Dexter's mother than to his own, who is neglectful and bigoted and violently forbids their friendship upon learning of it. Dexter and Erik start the journey to find "The Cure" they had read about in the local newspaper.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Adventure, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: sad, touching, tear jerker, inspirational, sincere, realistic, depressing, spiritual, epic, crying
Similar in 79%
One True Thing (1998)
Plot Summary:
A career woman reassesses her parents' lives after she is forced to care for her cancer-stricken mother.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 13000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: touching, melancholic, emotional, realistic, depressing, clever, serious, contemplative, gloomy, tear jerker
Similar in 80%
The Emerald Forest (1985)
Plot Summary:
For ten years, engineer Bill Markham has searched tirelessly for his son Tommy who disappeared from the edge of the Brazilian rainforest. Miraculously, he finds the boy living among the reclusive Amazon tribe who adopted him. And that's when Bill's adventure truly begins. For his son is now a grown tribesman who moves skillfully through this beautiful-but-dangerous terrain, fearful only of those who would exploit it. And as Bill attempts to "rescue" him from the savagery of the untamed jungle, Tommy challenges Bill's idea of true civilization and his notions about who needs rescuing.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Action, Adventure, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: retro, disturbing, anthropological, exciting, atmospheric, rough, thought provoking, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 89%
Of Boys and Men (2008)
Plot Summary:
Robert Townsend stars as the patriarch of a family devastated when his wife is killed in a senseless auto accident. Reeling with grief, each family member must find courage and vision to carry on, ultimately eager to do the mother proud.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 192
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: realistic, psychological, sentimental, captivating, touching, serious, independent film
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Similar in 83%
Behind the Red Door (2003)
Plot Summary:
Set in New York and New England (but filmed in Newfoundland), Behind the Red Door stars Kyra Sedgwick as Manhattan-based photographer Natalie Haddad, who enjoys success with her strangely gloomy and foreboding camerawork. When her agent and best friend Julia (Stockard Channing) arranges for her to accept a lucrative contract with a Boston ad agency, Natalie discovers that she will be working for her own gay brother Roy (Kiefer Sutherland), whom she hasn't seen in a decade. Although Roy is insufferably snobbish and manipulative, he manages to exert a curious control over Natalie, forcing her to confront several disturbing, long-suppressed memories of her past (shown in black-and-white flashbacks). Before the film is over, Natalie is made to realize why Roy's behavior is so overbearing -- and also, the viewer learns just how intimately Julia is involved in the lives of both siblings.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, touching, serious, realistic
Similar in 90%
The Keys to the House (2004)
Plot Summary:
Meeting his handicapped son for the first time, a young father attempts to forge a relationship with the teenager.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, Germany, France, USA
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, touching, emotional, sincere, bleak, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, crying
Similar in 75%
Mommy Is at the Hairdresser's (2008)
Plot Summary:
Summer 1966. It's time to enjoy the summer holiday, total freedom. Teenage Élise discovers that the sudden departure of her mother completely disrupts the family. Her brother Coco seeks solace in the garage, building a super racing car. Her youngest brother Benoît throws himself into his own inner world. The father seems absolutely knocked out by the situation. Élise decides to take control of her family, in an eloquent attempt to save them. With the assistance of flourishing nature around her, she stands on the threshold of an incomparable summer.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 922
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: emotional, sentimental, touching, serious, realistic, disturbing, sexy, sincere, captivating, sexual
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Similar in 83%
I Am David (2003)
Plot Summary:
Based on Anne Holm's acclaimed young adult novel North to Freedom, I Am David chronicles the struggles of a 12-year-old boy (Ben Tibber) who manages to flee a Communist concentration camp on his own -- through sheer will and determination. All he has in his possession is a loaf of bread, a letter to deliver to someone in Denmark and a compass to help get him there.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Adventure, Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: emotional, sentimental, touching, uplifting, tense, sad, serious, epic, realistic, inspirational
Similar in 80%
The Doctor (1991)
Plot Summary:
Jack McKee is a doctor with it all: he's successful, he's rich, and he has no problems.... until he is diagnosed with throat cancer. Now that he has seen medicine, hospitals, and doctors from a patient's perspective, he realises that there is more to being a doctor than surgery and prescriptions.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: psychological, sentimental, touching, emotional, uplifting, scary, depressing, sincere, serious, realistic