Best movies like The Life Ahead
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
In seaside Italy, a Holocaust survivor with a daycare business takes in a 12-year-old street kid who recently robbed her.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 15000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: captivating, profound, beautiful
Best tv shows and movies like The Life Ahead (2020):
Similar in 75%
Learn by Heart (2015)
Plot Summary:
The film follows children growing up in the projects, where they juggle the pressures of school and street life.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 165
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: captivating
Similar in 90%
Adu (2020)
Plot Summary:
In a desperate attempt to reach Europe and crouched before an airstrip in Cameroon, a six-year-old boy and his older sister wait to sneak into the holds of an airplane. Not too far away, an environmental activist contemplates the terrible image of an elephant, dead and fangless. Not only do you have to fight against poaching, but you will also have to meet the problems of your newly arrived daughter from Spain. Thousands of kilometers to the north, in Melilla, a group of civil guards prepare to face the furious crowd of sub-Saharan people who have begun the assault on the fence. Three stories linked by a central theme, in which none of its protagonists know that their destinies are doomed to cross and that their lives will no longer be the same.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: psychological, thought provoking, captivating, tear jerker, tearjerker
Similar in 80%
Boys on the Outside (1990)
Plot Summary:
Young men with no future have little in the present as well. Natale is released from prison: he takes up with his friends again but none can find work. Claudio, from Palermo, gets out of juvenile detention in Naples and he's met by Vita, a girl who's come from home to run away with him. Where can they go? A young dad, whose potato stall at the market is shut down because he has no permit, takes his two small children to the beach and yells at them. Mario, gay, a prostitute in drag, gets a visit from his mom; he offers tea, then finds the water to his apartment is shut off. Social workers drop by, parole officers file reports. What hope is there? What options besides crime?.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 591
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Canola (2016)
Plot Summary:
A girl who went missing after an accident returns 10 years later and reunites with her grandmother.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing, sad
Similar in 77%
The Whores (1994)
Plot Summary:
The prostitutes of Palermo are pictured in this episodic Italian drama. The film lacks a real unifying thread as it presents scenes from the lives of 7 hookers. Five are women. One is a man, and one is a transvestite. In one episode, an aging ill-mannered Neapolitan, Orlanda, entertains North African visitors in her home. They do not seem to mind her constant barrage of racist comments. One of her clients falls for her and protects her from a client who stalks her. She is surprised. The male prostitute finds himself becoming violent after his client is too attentive. Liucca gets beaten in lieu of a payment. A mother struggles with her profession and homelife. Grimaldi dehumanizes clients.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 158
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: erotic, gay cinema
Similar in 78%
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 80%
Eighteen (2005)
Plot Summary:
Pip, a street kid just turning 18, receives his grandfather's World War II-era memoirs and discovers parallels to his own life.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 659
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: touching, psychological, serious, realistic, queer cinema
Similar in 80%
Piggies (2009)
Plot Summary:
Tomek is 14 and a good student. He's interested in astronomy and plays football to please his father. The only thing is, he lives in a poor little border town plagued by unemployment, whereas across the river lies Germany with all its relative affluence. Tomek meets Marta at a disco and falls in love with her. He starts to think up ways of earning money in order to keep her interested. He approaches a pimp who seeks out local boys for his German clients. Tomek has no idea of the brutal fate which awaits him.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 627
Genere: Drama
Country: Poland, Germany
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: suspense, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 80%
Beware of Children (2019)
Plot Summary:
During a break in school 13 year-old Lykke, the daughter of a prominent Labour Party member, seriously injures her classmate Jamie, the son of a high profile right-wing politician.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Norway, Sweden
Duration: 157 min
Plot tags: tense, captivating
Similar in 81%
Little Red Wagon (2012)
Plot Summary:
With nothing more than a blazing spirit of philanthropy and his beat-up red wagon, Zach sets out to help homeless children in America. In the process, he sweeps his fractured family - and ultimately the entire country - along with him.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 641
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 75%
Querô: A Damned Report (2007)
Plot Summary:
Querô is an orphan teenager, living alone near the docks in Santos, Brazil. Her mother, a prostitute, died when he was a baby, and he was raised in the bordello where she worked. He also doesn't know who his father is. Believing he rules his own destiny, he refuses to compromise with anyone else, the corrupt policemen always chasing him, the oppressive discipline in the juvenile institution Febem, or the drug dealers who try to lure him. But this independence has a price.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 367
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 86%
Side Job. (2017)
Plot Summary:
Based on the novel "Kanojo no Jinsei wa Machigai ja Nai" (literal translation: Her life is not at fault) by Director Hiroki, it is a powerful story of survivors, who are all trying to find their own silver linings in life.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 228
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating
Similar in 81%
County Lines (2019)
Plot Summary:
A powerful drama about a mother and her fourteen year old boy who is groomed into a lethal nationwide drug selling enterprise, a 'County Line', which exploits vulnerable children and traffics them across Britain.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, captivating, suspense, disturbing, dark
Similar in 86%
(S)He (2020)
Plot Summary:
(S)HE is the story of a transgender child named Juju, a girl born into a boy’s body. With the onset of puberty, JuJu’s discomfort explodes. Our film follows a child’s struggle to get her parents and friends to accept her true gender, as she transitions from boy to girl. But in this tiny rural town, where everyone knows everyone else, it’s an impossible challenge. Juju will have to move in with her mother while her parents break up. Juju becomes Emma, and sings in a rock band at her new high school. With everyone seeing her as a girl, she’ starts to blossom. But as her popularity grows, social networking sit’s rekindle the nightmare she thought she’d left behind.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 48
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 80%
Up Among the Stars (2018)
Plot Summary:
Víctor is a film director who is overcome by his own misfortunes. He is an alcoholic, unemployed and terribly depressed, largely because of the death of his wife. However, Victor is still the best in one thing: telling fantastic stories to his nine-year-old son, Ingmar. These stories are each of the scripts he dreams of directing in the future, when he gathers all the necessary resources. Victor and Ingmar share a present full of sadness and precariousness, but also full of robots and locations of films they have seen together. Despite forming a great team, their problems will multiply when others begin to question their role as a father.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 535
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 86%
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 89%
Bo (2010)
Plot Summary:
Fifteen year old Deborah meets Jennifer who steers her into a career as an escort. Under the alias Bo she begins a new life that she cannot handle and starts a downward spiral that only she can end.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: serious, rough, captivating, realistic, erotic, sad, bleak
Similar in 90%
Macondo (2014)
Plot Summary:
A drama centered on an 11-year-old Chechnyan refugee living in Vienna whose life is thrown into disarray when a friend of his deceased father materializes.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 310
Genere: Drama
Country: Austria
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 88%
Me and You (2012)
Plot Summary:
An introverted teenager tells his parents he is going on a ski trip, but instead spends his time alone in a basement.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, touching, serious, stylized, psychological, existential, freeze frame, realistic, extraordinary
Similar in 75%
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 82%
Master Harold ... and the Boys (2010)
Plot Summary:
This movie is of Hally, an adolescent white South African. He is stuck between his intolerant father's outlook of him and those of his caretaker, Sam. Sam is a black waiter and Hally's friend and teacher. Hally is required to laugh at his father's racist jokes, by contrast, Sam exposes Hally to uplifting experiences. One day Hally was terribly humiliated by his father and Sam shows Hally how to be proud of something he can achieve.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 580
Genere: Drama
Country: South Africa
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 80%
Virgin 2: Not a Porn Movie (2009)
Plot Summary:
A friendship of two young girls, Tina and Nadya, who have fallen into dark professions. Friendships often come at a heavy price and end in tragic death, just when they want to change the course of their lives.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 77
Genere: Drama
Country: Indonesia
Duration:
Plot tags: psychological, tense, captivating, suspense, suspenseful, disturbing
Similar in 78%
Without Destination (2002)
Plot Summary:
Sin Destino follows the life of a 15 year old Mexican boy, Francisco, as he struggles to survive on the streets. His primary source of income is money raised by prostituting himself to men for sex, and the film implies that this learned behaviour has arisen as a result of a contact with a single man when Francisco was 9 years old. This man, Sebastien, is an "artist" who initially claimed to want to photograph the boy, but it is clear that their relationship at one time extended far beyond that of photographer/model.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 220
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: disturbing, psychological, atmospheric, rough, bleak, serious, realistic, surreal, gloomy, sexual
Similar in 76%
Return to Innocence (2001)
Plot Summary:
Director Rocky Costanzo's searing legal drama centers on a highly credentialed child psychologist named Glen Erskine (Richard Meese) whose life is shattered when he's accused of sexually assaulting a young boy he's been treating. Based on the novel of the same name by Gary M. Frazier, this poignant tale also stars Andrew Martin, Steve De Forest, Jeff Harman and Brett Chukerman.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 823
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: psychological, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing, serious, art house, bleak, independent film
Similar in 87%
Darker Than Midnight (2014)
Plot Summary:
Davide is different from the other teenagers. Something makes him look like a girl. Davide is fourteen when he runs away from home. His intuition leads him to choose Villa Bellini, a park in Catania, as a refuge. The park is a world in itself, a world of the marginalized, to which the rest of the city turns a blind eye. But one day the past catches up and Davide has to face the most difficult choice, this time alone.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 355
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, captivating, realistic, queer cinema
Similar in 82%
The Kid with a Bike (2011)
Plot Summary:
Abandoned by his father, a young boy is left in the hands of an unqualified childcare provider.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 28000
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, France, Italy
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: sincere, realistic, meditative, atmospheric, emotional, surreal, disturbing, compassionate, touching, psychological
Similar in 76%
Death of a Superhero (2011)
Plot Summary:
A dying 15-year-old boy draws stories of an invincible superhero as he struggles with his mortality.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany, Ireland
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, sincere, sad, cult classic, teen, realistic
Similar in 86%
Brainstorm (2000)
Plot Summary:
A trip to the mental institution hell. This odyssey is lived by Neto, a middle class teenager, who lives a normal life until his father sends him to a mental institution after finding drugs on his pocket. The maconha cigarrete is just the final drop that exposes the family tragedy. Send to a mental institution, Neto gets to know a completely absurd, inhumane reality in which the people are devoured by a corrupt and cruel institution system. The documentary type language used by the director give this movie a sensation of realty that increases even more the impact of the emotions Neto goes through. In the mental institution, Neto is forced to mature. The transformations that he goes through change this relations with his father.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 74 min
Plot tags: disturbing, psychological, atmospheric, captivating, controversial, tense, serious, realistic, talky
Similar in 87%
The Namesake (2006)
Plot Summary:
American-born Gogol, the son of Indian immigrants, wants to fit in among his fellow New Yorkers, despite his family's unwillingness to let go of their traditional ways.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 22000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, India, Japan
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: emotional, sentimental, touching, sincere, captivating, realistic, offbeat, entertaining, sad, independent film
Similar in 78%
The Promise (1996)
Plot Summary:
In this acclaimed and gripping social portrait of immoral lives in need of rescue, Igor (Jérémie Renier), aged 15, and his father Roger (Olivier Gourmet) deal in housing and peddling illicit labor in the outlying districts of Liege, Belgium. Scams, lies and swindling rule their lives. When one of his father’s illegal workers gets injured on the job and asks Igor to promise to take care of his wife and baby, Igor finds himself at a crossroad. He wants to keep the promise, but the price would be to betray his father.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Tunisia
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: sincere, slow cinema, inspirational, thought provoking, art house, aesthetic, mesmerizing, tense, touching, serious