Movies Like American Daydream

If you liked American Daydream (2024), a movie directed by Ziyu Luo, 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
Bastard Out of Carolina (1996)
★ 7.1/10
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…
2
The Secret Life of Bees (2008)
★ 7.5/10
Set in South Carolina in 1964, this is the tale of Lily Owens a 14 year-old girl who is haunted by the memory of her late mother. To escape her lonely life and troubled relationship with her father, Lily flees with…
3
Hounddog (2008)
★ 6.5/10
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
4
The Souvenir (2019)
★ 6.1/10
A shy but ambitious film student falls into an intense, emotionally fraught relationship with a charismatic but untrustworthy older man.
5
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (2025)
★ 6.3/10
With her life crashing down around her, Linda attempts to navigate her child's mysterious illness, her absent husband, a missing person, and an increasingly hostile relationship with her therapist.
6
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
★ 7.7/10
An aging Chinese immigrant is swept up in an insane adventure, where she alone can save what's important to her by connecting with the lives she could have led in other universes.
7
An Unmarried Woman (1978)
★ 6.8/10
A wealthy woman from Manhattan's Upper East Side struggles to deal with her new identity and her sexuality after her husband of 16 years leaves her for a younger woman.
8
The Doctor (1991)
★ 6.5/10
Jack McKee is a doctor with it all: he's successful, he's rich, and he has no problems.... until he is diagnosed with throat cancer. Now that he has seen medicine, hospitals, and doctors from a patient's perspective…
9
I Believe in Unicorns (2015)
★ 6.7/10
Feeling awkward and isolated, an imaginative and strong-willed teenage girl runs away from home with an older punk rock drifter.
10
Upstream (2024)
★ 6.8/10
A moment of impulsiveness turns Gao Zhilei into a "stay-at-home" individual, but he never expected his life to take a turn in the opposite direction. A series of changes compel him to take on his responsibilities as…
11
The Trials of Cate McCall (2013)
★ 6.4/10
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
12
The Joy Luck Club (1993)
★ 7.2/10
Through a series of flashbacks, four Chinese women born in America and their respective mothers born in feudal China explore their pasts.
13
The Hanging Tree (1959)
★ 6.7/10
Joseph "Doc" Frail is a doctor with a past he's trying to outrun. While in Montana, he comes across a mining camp with a hanging tree and rescues a man named Rune from the noose. With Rune as his servant, Frail decides…
14
The Goodbye Girl (1977)
★ 7/10
After being dumped by her live-in boyfriend, an unemployed dancer and her 10-year-old daughter are reluctantly forced to live with a struggling off-Broadway actor.
15
Hi, Mom (2021)
★ 7/10
Devastated after her mom's serious accident and grief-stricken because she hasn't become the daughter she wanted to be for her mother, a Chinese woman finds herself transported back in time to the year 1981, where she…
16
Blow (2001)
★ 7.4/10
The story of how George Jung, together with the Medellín Cartel led by Pablo Escobar, established the billion-dollar cocaine empire in the United States in the 1970s.
17
Stonehearst Asylum (2014)
★ 6.9/10
An Oxford Medical School graduate takes a position at a mental institution and soon becomes obsessed with a female mental patient, but he has no idea of a recent and horrifying staffing change.
18
Blue Heron (2026)
★ 6.6/10
A family of six's fresh start on 1990s Vancouver Island unravels as their youngest child, Sasha, witnesses the increasingly dangerous behavior of her older brother, Jeremy.
19
Infinitely Polar Bear (2014)
★ 6.6/10
A manic-depressive mess of a father tries to win back his wife by attempting to take full responsibility of their two young, spirited daughters, who don't make the overwhelming task any easier.
20
Saint Judy (2018)
★ 6.9/10
The true story of immigration attorney Judy Wood and how she singlehandedly changed the U.S. law of asylum to save women's lives.