Best movies like The Glass Castle

Similar in 89%

Stronger (2017)

Plot Summary:

A victim of the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 helps the police track down the killers while struggling to recover from devastating trauma.

Similar in 86%

The Case for Christ (2017)

Plot Summary:

Based on the true story of an award-winning investigative journalist -- and avowed atheist -- who applies his well-honed journalistic and legal skills to disprove the newfound Christian faith of his wife... with unexpected, life-altering results.

Similar in 80%

When Did You Last See Your Father? (2007)

Plot Summary:

The story of a son's conflicting memories of his dying father.

Similar in 80%

55 Steps (2017)

Plot Summary:

55 Steps is based a the inspiring true story of Eleanor Riese, a mental illness patient herself, who brings a class action suit to give competent mental patients the right to have a say in their medication while they’re in a hospital, and Colette Hughes, the lawyer appointed to her case.

Similar in 81%

Tesla (2020)

Plot Summary:

The story of the Promethean struggles of Nikola Tesla, as he attempts to transcend entrenched technology—including his own previous work—by pioneering a system of wireless energy that would change the world.

Similar in 79%

Vincent & Theo (1990)

Plot Summary:

The tragic story of Vincent van Gogh broadened by focusing as well on his brother Theodore, who helped support Vincent. Based on the letters written between the two.

Similar in 79%

Same Kind of Different as Me (2017)

Plot Summary:

International art dealer Ron Hall must befriend a dangerous homeless man in order to save his struggling marriage to his wife, a woman whose dreams will lead all three of them on the journey of their lives.

Similar in 82%

My Left Foot (1989)

Plot Summary:

In this true story told through flashbacks, Christy Brown is born with crippling cerebral palsy into a poor, working-class Irish family. Able only to control movement in his left foot and to speak in guttural sounds, he is mistakenly believed to be retarded for the first ten years of his life.

Similar in 81%

Angela's Ashes (1999)

Plot Summary:

Based on the best selling autobiography by Irish expat Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes follows the experiences of young Frankie and his family as they try against all odds to escape the poverty endemic in the slums of pre-war Limerick. The film opens with the family in Brooklyn, but following the death of one of Frankie's siblings, they return home, only to find the situation there even worse. Prejudice against Frankie's Northern Irish father makes his search for employment in the Republic difficult despite his having fought for the IRA, and when he does find money, he spends the money on drink.

Similar in 76%

This Boy's Life (1993)

Plot Summary:

In 1957, a son and mother flee the East and an abusive boyfriend to find a new life, and end up in Seattle, where the mother meets a polite garage mechanic. The boy continually gets into trouble by hanging out with the wrong crowd. The mom marries the mechanic, but they soon find out that he's an abusive and unreasoning alcoholic, and they struggle to maintain hope in an impossible situation as the boy grows up with plans to escape the small town by any means possible. Based on a true story by Tobias Wolff.

Similar in 78%

Skin (2008)

Plot Summary:

Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.

Similar in 75%

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (2005)

Plot Summary:

Based on the true story of Evelyn Ryan, a midwestern housewife who managed to rescue her family from debt by entering contests for ad slogans sponsored by consumer product companies.

Similar in 79%

Beautiful Boy (2018)

Plot Summary:

After he and his first wife separate, journalist David Sheff struggles to help their teenage son Nic, who goes from experimenting with drugs to becoming devastatingly addicted to methamphetamine.

Similar in 90%

Factory Girl (2006)

Plot Summary:

In the mid-1960s, wealthy debutant Edie Sedgwick meets artist Andy Warhol. She joins Warhol's famous Factory and becomes his muse. Although she seems to have it all, Edie cannot have the love she craves from Andy, and she has an affair with a charismatic musician, who pushes her to seek independence from the artist and the milieu.

Similar in 89%

Just Mercy (2019)

Plot Summary:

The powerful true story of Harvard-educated lawyer Bryan Stevenson, who goes to Alabama to defend the disenfranchised and wrongly condemned — including Walter McMillian, a man sentenced to death despite evidence proving his innocence. Bryan fights tirelessly for Walter with the system stacked against them.

Similar in 81%

Conviction (2010)

Plot Summary:

When Betty Anne Waters' older brother Kenny is arrested for murder and sentenced to life in 1983, Betty Anne, a Massachusetts wife and mother of two, dedicates her life to overturning the murder conviction. Convinced that her brother is innocent, Betty Anne puts herself through high school, college and, finally, law school in an 18 year quest to free Kenny. With the help of best friend Abra Rice, Betty Anne pores through suspicious evidence mounted by small town cop Nancy Taylor, meticulously retracing the steps that led to Kenny's arrest. Belief in her brother - and her quest for the truth - pushes Betty Anne and her team to uncover the facts and utilize DNA evidence with the hope of exonerating Kenny.

Similar in 86%

Short Term 12 (2013)

Plot Summary:

Grace, a compassionate young supervisor at a foster care facility, works with her boyfriend and colleague, Mason, to help at-risk teens. But when a new charge dredges up memories of her own troubled past, Grace's tough exterior begins eroding.

Similar in 82%

Riding in Cars with Boys (2001)

Plot Summary:

A single mother, with dreams of becoming a writer, has a son at the age of 15 in 1965, and goes through a failed marriage with the drug-addicted father.

Similar in 79%

Joe Bell (2020)

Plot Summary:

The true story of a small town, working class father who embarks on a solo walk across the U.S. to crusade against bullying after his son is tormented in high school for being gay.

Similar in 88%

Lovelace (2013)

Plot Summary:

Story of Linda Lovelace, who is used and abused by the porn industry at the behest of her coercive husband, before taking control of her life.

Similar in 78%

Fair Game (2010)

Plot Summary:

Wife and mother Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts) has a double life as a CIA operative, hiding her vocation from family and friends. Her husband, Joseph Wilson (Sean Penn), writes a controversial article in The New York Times, refuting stories about the sale of enriched uranium to Iraq, Then Valerie's secret work and identity is leaked to the press. With her cover blown and other people endangered, Valerie's career and personal life begin to unravel.

Similar in 80%

The End of the Tour (2015)

Plot Summary:

The story of the five-day interview between Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky and acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace, which took place right after the 1996 publication of Wallace's groundbreaking epic novel, 'Infinite Jest.'.

Similar in 86%

The Founder (2016)

Plot Summary:

The true story of how Ray Kroc, a salesman from Illinois, met Mac and Dick McDonald, who were running a burger operation in 1950s Southern California. Kroc was impressed by the brothers’ speedy system of making the food and saw franchise potential. He maneuvered himself into a position to be able to pull the company from the brothers and create a billion-dollar empire.

Similar in 89%

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

Plot Summary:

The true story of Elle France editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who, in 1995 at the age of 43, suffered a stroke that paralyzed his entire body, except his left eye. Using that eye to blink out his memoir, Bauby eloquently described the aspects of his interior world, from the psychological torment of being trapped inside his body to his imagined stories from lands he'd only visited in his mind.

Similar in 86%

Temple Grandin (2010)

Plot Summary:

A biopic of Temple Grandin, an autistic woman who has become one of top scientists in humane livestock handling.

Similar in 84%

Girl, Interrupted (1999)

Plot Summary:

Set in the changing world of the late 1960s, Susanna Kaysen's prescribed "short rest" from a psychiatrist she had met only once becomes a strange, unknown journey into Alice's Wonderland, where she struggles with the thin line between normal and crazy. Susanna soon realizes how hard it is to get out once she has been committed, and she ultimately has to choose between the world of people who belong inside or the difficult world of reality outside.

Similar in 90%

Freedom Writers (2007)

Plot Summary:

A young teacher inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply themselves, and pursue education beyond high school.