Movies Like Diary for My Children

If you liked Diary for My Children (1984), a drama movie directed by Márta Mészáros, 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
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
Hounddog (2008)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
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
An American Rhapsody (2001)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
A Hungarian family forced to flee the Communist country for the United States must leave a young daughter behind. Six years later, the family arranges to bring the absent daughter to the United States where she has…
5
The Girl in the Book (2015)
★ 5.8/10Also drama
The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.
6
Strange Weather (2016)
★ 5.9/10Also drama
Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.
7
A Dry White Season (1989)
★ 6.7/10Also drama
During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.
8
Lucky Them (2013)
★ 6/10Also drama
More interested in partying and flirting with young musicians than work, veteran rock journalist Ellie Klug has one last chance to prove her value to her magazine’s editor: a no-stone-unturned search to discover what…
9
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…
10
Holy Lands (2019)
★ 6.1/10Also drama
When lapsed Jew and former cardiologist Harry suddenly decides to spend his retirement as a pig farmer in Nazareth, Israel, the move deeply shocks his family and his new neighbours. Back in New York, Harry’s ex-wife…
11
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.
12
The Truth About Emanuel (2013)
★ 6/10Also drama
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
13
Eleanor the Great (2025)
★ 6.8/10Also drama
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
14
The Trials of Cate McCall (2013)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
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.
15
Unthinkable (2010)
★ 6.8/10Also drama
The government gets wind of a plot to destroy America involving a trio of nuclear weapons for which the whereabouts are unknown. It's up to a seasoned interrogator and an FBI agent to find out exactly where the nukes…
16
Hardball (2001)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
17
Brand Upon the Brain! (2007)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
After returning home to his long-estranged mother upon a request from her deathbed, a man raised by his parents in an orphanage has to confront the childhood memories that have long haunted him.
18
Call Me Crazy: A Five Film (2013)
★ 7/10Also drama
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
19
Sight (2023)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
Ming Wang is an impoverished Chinese prodigy who flees Communist China to become a pioneering eye surgeon in America. When tasked with restoring the sight of an orphan in India, who was blinded by her stepmother, Wang…
20
I Believe in Unicorns (2015)
★ 6.7/10Also drama
Feeling awkward and isolated, an imaginative and strong-willed teenage girl runs away from home with an older punk rock drifter.