Movies Like Words by Heart

If you liked Words by Heart (1985), a drama and tv movie movie directed by Robert Thompson, 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
Girl in the Box (2016)
★ 6.7/10Also drama and tv movie
The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.
2
Mansfield Park (2007)
★ 6.1/10Also drama and tv movie
Fanny Price is sent to live with her wealthy relatives, the Bertrams, where she is treated poorly by most except her cousin Edmund. Her life is complicated by the arrival of the worldly Mary and Henry Crawford
3
Cheaters (2000)
★ 6.3/10Also drama and tv movie
In the fall of 1994, a teacher at Chicago's run-down Steinmetz High conspires with the school's academic decathlon team to cheat on an academic competition.
4
Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996)
★ 7.1/10Also drama and tv movie
A dramatization of the life of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (Don Cheadle), with a lot of factual based occurrences. A reformed junkie returns from prison to clean up his act and devote the rest of his life to the young…
5
TalhotBlond (2012)
★ 6.3/10Also drama and tv movie
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
6
Hello Sister, Goodbye Life (2006)
★ 6.1/10Also drama and tv movie
A college student must take care of her 7-year-old half sister after the death of their parents.
7
Normal (2003)
★ 6.7/10Also drama and tv movie
A Midwestern husband and father announces his plan to have a sex change operation.
8
The Parts You Lose (2019)
★ 6.7/10Also drama
An unlikely friendship unfolds between a young deaf boy, Wesley, and a fugitive criminal who takes refuge in an abandoned barn on the family’s rural North Dakota farm.
9
Skin (2009)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.
10
Iron Jawed Angels (2004)
★ 6.8/10Also drama and tv movie
Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.
11
Seeds of Yesterday (2015)
★ 6.4/10Also tv movie and drama
The Sheffield family reveal and go through some home truths as their middle child inherits the Foxworth mansion. The family's ghosts looming over, and more tragedies are in store as the curse lives on.
12
Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors (2015)
★ 6.5/10Also drama and tv movie
"Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors" is based on the inspiring true story of living legend Dolly Parton's remarkable upbringing. This once-in-a-lifetime movie special takes place inside the tight-knit Parton family as…
13
A Dry White Season (1989)
★ 6.7/10Also drama
During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.
14
Heaven (2019)
★ 6.2/10Also drama and tv movie
Heaven Leigh Casteel, gifted and intelligent, is the eldest of five dirt-poor children struggling to survive in a mountain shack. As she endures neglect and abuse, Heaven discovers a dark secret that changes everything…
15
40 Acres (2025)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
Hailey Freeman and her family are the last descendants of African American farmers who settled in rural Canada after the Civil War. In a famine-decimated near future, they now struggle to safeguard their farm, as they…
16
My Dinner with Hervé (2018)
★ 6.3/10Also drama and tv movie
An unlikely friendship evolves over one wild night in LA between a struggling journalist and actor Hervé Villechaize, the world's most famous gun-toting dwarf, resulting in life-changing consequences for both.
17
The Truth About Emanuel (2013)
★ 6/10Also drama
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
18
Suburbicon (2017)
★ 5.9/10Also drama
In the quiet family town of Suburbicon during the 1950s, the best and worst of humanity is hilariously reflected through the deeds of seemingly ordinary people. When a home invasion turns deadly, a picture-perfect…
19
Remember (2015)
★ 7.3/10Also drama
With the aid of a fellow Auschwitz survivor and a hand-written letter, an elderly man with dementia goes in search of the person responsible for the death of his family.
20
Bastard Out of Carolina (1996)
★ 7.1/10Also drama
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as…