Movies Like Dust to Dreams

If you liked Dust to Dreams (2025), a drama and music movie directed by Idris Elba, here are 20 movies with a similar feel, based on TMDB's recommendations. Each one links to its cast, trailer and where it's streaming.

1
Clouds (2020)
★ 8.2/10Also music and drama
Young musician Zach Sobiech discovers his cancer has spread, leaving him just a few months to live. With limited time, he follows his dream and makes an album, unaware that it will soon be a viral music phenomenon.
2
Almost Famous (2000)
★ 7.5/10Also drama and music
In 1973, a precocious 15-year-old aspiring rock journalist lands a dream assignment from Rolling Stone to tour with a rising rock band, embarking on a coming-of-age journey as he discovers the exhilarating and…
3
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
★ 7.2/10Also drama and music
In Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, gifted but volatile folk musician Llewyn Davis struggles with money, relationships, and his uncertain future.
4
Teen Spirit (2019)
★ 6/10Also music and drama
A shy teenager living on the Isle of Wight dreams of pop stardom. With the help of an unlikely mentor, she enters a singing competition that will test her integrity, talent, and ambition.
5
Exotica (1994)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
In the upscale Toronto strip club Exotica, dancer Christina is visited nightly by the obsessive Francis, a depressed tax auditor. Her ex-boyfriend, the club's MC, Eric, still jealously pines for her even as he…
6
Dance with a Stranger (1985)
★ 6.1/10Also drama
Ruth Ellis lives with her ten-year old son Andy next to a night club. One night she meets David Blakely, and they start a love affair. However, for David with his upper-class background, it is impossible to uphold the…
7
Coda (2020)
★ 6.1/10Also music and drama
A famous pianist at the twilight of his career meets a free-spirited music critic who soon becomes his rock as his mental state deteriorates.
8
King Creole (1958)
★ 6.4/10Also drama and music
Delinquent Danny Fisher flunks out of high school, quits his job as a nightclub busboy, and one night gets the chance to perform. Success is imminent and local crime boss Maxie Fields wants to hire him to perform at…
9
Lurker (2025)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
When a twenty-something retail clerk encounters a rising pop star, he takes the opportunity to edge his way into the in-crowd. But as the line between friend and fan blurs beyond recognition, access and proximity…
10
tick, tick... BOOM! (2021)
★ 7.6/10Also drama and music
On the brink of turning 30, a promising theater composer navigates love, friendship and the pressure to create something great before time runs out.
11
Scarecrow (1973)
★ 7/10Also drama
Two drifters bum around, visit earthy women and discuss opening a car wash in Pittsburgh.
12
Hounddog (2008)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
13
Dancer in the Dark (2000)
★ 7.8/10Also drama
Selma, a Czech immigrant on the verge of blindness, struggles to make ends meet for herself and her young son, who has inherited the same genetic disorder and will suffer the same fate without an expensive operation…
14
Times Square (1980)
★ 6.5/10Also drama and music
When a 13-year-old girl befriends a defiant antisocial child of the streets, the mismatched runaways set off to the Big Apple to find their own adventure.
15
Thirteen (2003)
★ 6.7/10Also drama
When 13-year-old Tracy befriends Evie, the most popular girl in school, her life is turned upside down as Evie introduces her to a world of sex, drugs, and money. But it isn’t long before Tracy’s new lifestyle begins…
16
Gracie (2007)
★ 6.2/10Also drama
A teenager faces an uphill battle when she fights to give women the opportunity to play competitive soccer.
17
Stomp the Yard (2007)
★ 7.2/10Also drama and music
After the death of his younger brother, a troubled 19-year-old street dancer from Los Angeles is able to bypass juvenile hall by enrolling in the historically black, Truth University in Atlanta, Georgia. But his…
18
Aftersun (2022)
★ 7.7/10Also drama
Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories fill the gaps between camcorder footages as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with…
19
Mammal (2016)
★ 6.3/10Also drama
After Margaret, a divorcée living in Dublin, loses her teenage son, she develops an unorthodox relationship with Joe, a homeless youth. Their tentative trust is threatened by his involvement with a violent gang and the…
20
Bravetown (2015)
★ 6.7/10Also drama and music
After an accidental drug overdose, a talented teenage DJ goes to live with his estranged father in a small Army town, where he gets to the bottom of his own pain and learns empathy for others.