Movies Like Places in the Heart

If you liked Places in the Heart (1984), a drama movie directed by Robert Benton, 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
Sounder (1972)
★ 7.5/10Also drama
The oldest son of a loving and strong family of black sharecroppers comes of age in the Depression-era South after his father is imprisoned for stealing food.
2
The Birth of a Nation (1915)
★ 5.9/10Also drama
Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In…
3
Rosewood (1997)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
Spurred by a white woman's lie, vigilantes destroy a black Florida town and slay inhabitants in 1923.
4
Minari (2020)
★ 7.3/10Also drama
A Korean American family moves to an Arkansas farm in search of its own American dream. Amidst the challenges of this new life in the strange and rugged Ozarks, they discover the undeniable resilience of family and…
5
Old Yeller (1957)
★ 6.9/10Also drama
Young Travis Coates is left to take care of the family ranch with his mother and younger brother while his father goes off on a cattle drive in the 1860s. When a yellow mongrel comes for an uninvited stay with the…
6
The Best of Enemies (2019)
★ 7.4/10Also drama
Centers on the unlikely relationship between Ann Atwater, an outspoken civil rights activist, and C.P. Ellis, a local Ku Klux Klan leader who reluctantly co-chaired a community summit, battling over the desegregation…
7
Drums Along the Mohawk (1939)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
Albany, New York, 1776. After marrying, Gil and Lana travel north to settle on a small farm in the Mohawk River Valley, but soon their growing prosperity and happiness are threatened by the sinister sound of drums that…
8
The Deep End of the Ocean (1999)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
A three-year-old boy disappears during his mother's high school reunion. Nine years later, by chance, he turns up in the town in which the family has just relocated.
9
Ordinary Angels (2024)
★ 7.7/10Also drama
Inspired by the incredible true story of a hairdresser who single-handedly rallies an entire community to help a widowed father save the life of his critically ill young daughter.
10
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
★ 7.8/10Also drama
Tom Joad returns to his home after a jail sentence to find his family kicked out of their farm due to foreclosure. He catches up with them on his Uncle’s farm, and joins them the next day as they head for California…
11
Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot (2024)
★ 7.2/10Also drama
Led by Donna and Reverend W.C. Martin, 22 families from a rural Black church in the small East Texas town of Possum Trot adopt 77 of the most difficult-to-place kids in the foster system and kickstart a movement in the…
12
The Sugarland Express (1974)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
Married small-time crooks Lou-Jean and Clovis Poplin lose their baby to the state of Texas and resolve to do whatever it takes to get him back. Lou-Jean gets Clovis out of jail, and the two steal their son from his…
13
News of the World (2020)
★ 6.9/10Also drama
A Texan traveling across the wild West bringing the news of the world to local townspeople, agrees to help rescue a young girl who was kidnapped.
14
The Help (2011)
★ 8.2/10Also drama
Aibileen Clark is a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children and has recently lost her only son; Minny Jackson is an African-American maid who has often offended her employers…
15
The River (1984)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from…
16
Since You Went Away (1944)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
In 1943, several people enter, re-enter, and exit the difficult life of a Midwestern family whose patriarch has been called up to war, leaving behind his wife and two teen daughters.
17
Norma Rae (1979)
★ 7.2/10Also drama
Norma Rae is a southern textile worker employed in a factory with intolerable working conditions. This concern about the situation gives her the gumption to be the key associate to a visiting labor union organizer…
18
Dances with Wolves (1990)
★ 7.8/10Also drama
Wounded Civil War soldier John Dunbar tries to commit suicide—and becomes a hero instead. As a reward, he's assigned to his dream post, a remote junction on the Western frontier, and soon makes unlikely friends with…
19
Honkytonk Man (1982)
★ 6.3/10Also drama
During the Great Depression, a young boy leaves his family's Oklahoma farm to travel with his country musician uncle who is trying out for the Grand Ole Opry.
20
One Life (2023)
★ 7.8/10Also drama
British stockbroker Nicholas Winton visits Czechoslovakia in the 1930s and forms plans to assist in the rescue of Jewish children before the onset of World War II, in an operation that came to be known as the…