Movies Like Sami, Joe and I

If you liked Sami, Joe and I (2021), a drama movie directed by Karin Heberlein, 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
Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (1998)
★ 7.2/10Also drama
Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even…
2
Luckiest Girl Alive (2022)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
A successful woman in New York City finds her life upended when she is forced to confront a dark truth that threatens to unravel her meticulously crafted life.
3
Bully (2001)
★ 6.7/10Also drama
A group of teenagers in South Florida enact a murder plot against their mutual bully, Bobby, who has emotionally, physically, and sexually abused them for years.
4
Snowtown (2011)
★ 6.3/10Also drama
Based on true events, 16 year-old Jamie falls in with his mother's new boyfriend and his crowd of self-appointed neighborhood watchmen, a relationship that leads to a spree of torture and murder.
5
American History X (1998)
★ 8.3/10Also drama
Derek Vineyard is paroled after serving 3 years in prison for killing two African-American men. Through his brother, Danny Vineyard's narration, we learn that before going to prison, Derek was a skinhead and the leader…
6
Straw Dogs (2011)
★ 5.9/10Also drama
A young couple moves to a quaint southern town. Soon their perfect getaway turns out to become a living hell when dark secrets and lethal passions spiral out of control.
7
Extremities (1986)
★ 6.2/10Also drama
A woman escapes from the man who is about to rape her, but leaves her purse behind. Afraid that her attacker might come after her, she goes to the police, but with no proof of the incident, they can do nothing. In…
8
Paradise: Faith (2013)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
For Anna Maria, paradise lies with Jesus, and she devotes her time to door-to-door missionary work. One day after years of absence, her husband, an Egyptian Muslim confined to a wheelchair, comes home—and soon prayers…
9
Cape Fear (1991)
★ 7.3/10Also drama
Sam Bowden is a small-town corporate attorney. Max Cady is a tattooed, cigar-smoking, Bible-quoting, psychotic rapist. What do they have in common? 14 years ago, Sam was a public defender assigned to Max Cady's rape…
10
The White Masai (2005)
★ 6.3/10Also drama
A girl, Carola, whose vacation in Kenya takes an interesting turn when she becomes infatuated with a Masai. Carola decides to leave her boyfriend to stay with her lover. There, she has to adapt to the Masai's way of…
11
Mysterious Skin (2005)
★ 7.7/10Also drama
A teenage hustler and a young man obsessed with alien abductions cross paths, together discovering a horrible, liberating truth.
12
Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
After several years of living with a cult, Martha finally escapes and calls her estranged sister, Lucy, for help. Martha finds herself at the quiet Connecticut home Lucy shares with her new husband, Ted, but the…
13
Berlin Alexanderplatz (2020)
★ 6.9/10Also drama
In 2015, thirty year old refugee Francis, the sole survivor of a boat that illegally crossed the Mediterranean, is drawn into Berlin's seedy underbelly.
14
The Deer Hunter (1978)
★ 8/10Also drama
Three steelworkers enlist in the army and are sent to Vietnam, one leaving behind a rushed marriage, the others a shared love. What they encounter during the war changes their lives forever.
15
Mammal (2016)
★ 6.3/10Also drama
After Margaret, a divorcée living in Dublin, loses her teenage son, she develops an unorthodox relationship with Joe, a homeless youth. Their tentative trust is threatened by his involvement with a violent gang and the…
16
The Brave One (2007)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
A woman struggles to recover from a brutal attack by setting out on a mission for revenge.
17
Ken Park (2003)
★ 6/10Also drama
Teen skater Ken Park (nicknamed Krap Nek; his name spelled and pronounced backward) kills himself at a Visalia skate park; his death bookends the lives of four other young people who knew him: Shawn, the most…
18
Boys Don't Cry (1999)
★ 7.4/10Also drama
A young transgender man explores his gender identity and searches for love in rural Nebraska.
19
The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008)
★ 7/10Also drama
When German police viciously quell a protest against the shah of Iran, popular journalist Ulrike Meinhof rebels against her dishonest marriage, walks away from her children and joins radical anarchist Andreas Baader…
20
Sound of Falling (2025)
★ 7/10Also drama
Four adolescent girls each spend their youth in the same farmhouse over the last century. Though separated by decades, resonances between their lives emerge: their desires and distress, secrets and truths, encounters…