Movies Like Heat Wave

If you liked Heat Wave (2012), a movie directed by Adina Belin, 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
The Last Song (2010)
★ 7.2/10
A drama centered on a rebellious girl who is sent to a Southern beach town for the summer to stay with her father. Through their mutual love of music, the estranged duo learn to reconnect.
2
Blue Heron (2026)
★ 6.5/10
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.
3
Call Me by Your Name (2017)
★ 8.1/10
In the summer of 1983, a 17-year-old Elio spends his days in his family's villa in Italy. One day Oliver, a graduate student, arrives to assist Elio's father, a professor of Greco-Roman culture. Soon, Elio and Oliver…
4
Avanti! (1972)
★ 6.9/10
A successful businessman travels to Italy to arrange for the return of his tycoon father's body, only to learn that dear old dad died with his longtime mistress.
5
Dirty Dancing (1987)
★ 7.3/10
Expecting the usual tedium that accompanies a summer in the Catskills with her family, 17-year-old Frances 'Baby' Houseman is surprised to find herself stepping into the shoes of a professional hoofer—and unexpectedly…
6
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
★ 7.2/10
Tom Ripley is a calculating young man who believes it's better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody. Opportunity knocks in the form of a wealthy U.S. shipbuilder who hires Tom to travel to Italy to bring back his…
7
Landline (2017)
★ 6.2/10
A teenager living with her sister and parents in Manhattan during the 1990s discovers that her father is having an affair.
8
What Maisie Knew (2013)
★ 7.1/10
In New York City, a young girl is caught in the middle of her parents' bitter custody battle.
9
Janet Planet (2024)
★ 6.2/10
In rural Western Massachusetts, 11-year-old Lacy spends the summer of 1991 at home, enthralled by her own imagination and the attention of her mother, Janet. As the months pass, three visitors enter their orbit, all…
10
In the Heights (2021)
★ 7.1/10
The story of Usnavi, a bodega owner who has mixed feelings about closing his store and retiring to the Dominican Republic or staying in Washington Heights.
11
Dìdi (弟弟) (2024)
★ 7.2/10
In 2008, during the last month of summer before high school begins, an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy learns what his family can't teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to love your mom.
12
No One Gets Out Alive (2021)
★ 5.8/10
An immigrant in search of the American dream is forced to take a room in a boarding house and soon finds herself in a nightmare from which she can't escape.
13
The Boy (2015)
★ 5.8/10
An intimate portrait of a 9 year old sociopath as he discovers his taste for killing.
14
Brooklyn (2015)
★ 7.3/10
In 1950s Ireland and New York, young Eilis Lacey has to choose between two men and two countries.
15
Girl in the Basement (2021)
★ 7.6/10
Sara is a teen girl who is looking forward to her 18th birthday to move away from her controlling father Don. But before she could even blow out the candles, Don imprisons her in the basement of their home.
16
A Thousand and One (2023)
★ 6.6/10
Struggling but unapologetically living on her own terms, Inez is moving from shelter to shelter in mid-1990s New York City. With her 6-year-old son Terry in foster care and unable to leave him again, she kidnaps him so…
17
Rip Tide (2017)
★ 6.1/10
There comes a point in everyone’s life when you have to make a decision about the direction you’re going to take. For newly-18 American fashion model Cora, that time is now. She’s moved to an Australian coastal town to…
18
Romance & Cigarettes (2006)
★ 6.1/10
Ironworker Nick lives with his wife, Kitty, and three daughters. When he meets a significantly younger woman, Tula, he starts an affair with her, much to the chagrin of his wife, and his life is thrown into upheaval…
19
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.
20
Save the Last Dance (2001)
★ 6.6/10
After the death of her mother, Sara moves to the South Side of Chicago to live with her father and gets transferred to a majority-black school. Her life takes a turn for the better when befriends Chenille and her…