Movies Like Mother of the Dunes

If you liked Mother of the Dunes (1997), a drama movie directed by Abdoulaye Ascofare, 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
Bamako (2007)
★ 7/10Also drama
Caught in the stranglehold of debt and structural adjustment, Africa is fighting for its survival. In the face of disaster, representatives of African society bring an action against international financial…
2
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…
3
A Far Off Place (1993)
★ 6.2/10Also drama
Thrown together under incredible circumstances, two strangers must discover courage and strength when they begin a journey across the treacherous African desert! Equipped only with their wits and the expertise of a…
4
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…
5
Salomé (2013)
★ 6.1/10Also drama
After the lewd and frenetic Dance of the Seven Veils, and with the solemn pledge from the very lips of Herod himself that she could have whatever her heart desires up to half his kingdom, wanton and proud young Salomé…
6
150 Milligrams (2016)
★ 6.8/10Also drama
In the hospital where she works in Brest, France, a lung specialist discovers a direct link between suspicious deaths and state-approved medicine. She fights single-handedly for the truth to come out.
7
The Safety of Objects (2002)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband…
8
Desert Flower (2009)
★ 7.6/10Also drama
The autobiography of a Somalian nomad who was sold in marriage at 13, fled from Africa a while later to become finally an American supermodel and is now at the age of 38, the UN spokeswoman against female genital…
9
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019)
★ 7.9/10Also drama
Against all the odds, a thirteen year old boy in Malawi invents an unconventional way to save his family and village from famine.
10
Young Mothers (2025)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
Housed in a shelter for young mothers, Jessica, Perla, Julia, Ariane, and Naïma, all of whom have grown up in difficult circumstances, struggle to obtain a better life for themselves and their children.
11
White Material (2010)
★ 6.7/10Also drama
In the midst of a volatile regime change in a Francophone African state, Maria Vial is fighting to sustain her family’s coffee plantation. With rebels and the army struggling for control, French peacekeeping forces…
12
Heaven Will Wait (2016)
★ 6.9/10Also drama
Mélanie, 16 years old, lives with her mother. She likes going to school, her friends, playing the cello, and she wants to change the world. But when she meets a boy on the Internet and falls in love with him, her world…
13
The Smiling Madame Beudet (1923)
★ 6/10Also drama
An unhappily married woman devises a scheme to get rid of her husband.
14
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.
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
The Sheltering Sky (1990)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
An American couple drift toward emptiness in postwar North Africa.
17
Night of the Kings (2021)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
A young man is sent to "La Maca," a prison in the middle of the Ivorian forest ruled by its inmates. As tradition goes with the rising of the red moon, he is designated by the Boss to be the new "Roman" and must tell a…
18
The Insult (2017)
★ 7.5/10Also drama
After an emotional exchange between a Lebanese Christian and a Palestinian refugee escalates, the men end up in a court case that gets national attention.
19
Man with No Past (2025)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
Waking up in an unfamiliar city, a man with no memory must confront the mysteries of his own identity. However, his desperate search to uncover the past pits him against a powerful enemy, leading to a showdown that…
20
Black Site (2022)
★ 6/10Also drama
A group of officers based in a labyrinthine top-secret prison must fight for their lives against Hatchet, a brilliant and infamous high-value detainee. When he escapes, his mysterious and deadly agenda has far reaching…