Best movies like About Sarah
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like About Sarah Starring Kellie Martin, Mary Steenburgen, Diane Baker, Marion Ross, and more. If you liked About Sarah then you may also like: Walter, A Way of Life, The Other Woman, Jewel, Antonia's Line and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.
When the matriarch of the family suddenly dies, custody of a mentally disabled mother is inherited by her normal daughter.
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A Way of Life
At 17 Leigh-Anne Williams has a six month old baby to look after, with only the help of three teenage squatters who flog stolen gear to make ends meet. A neighbour (actually from Turkey) across the street becomes target to her growing paranoia that Social Services are going to take her daughter, Rebecca, away from her. Her behaviour becoming increasingly desperate as her delusions over her neighbour grow.
The Other Woman
After the divorce from Michael, Tessa raises her daughters Kate and Lara alone. None of them can stand Michael's new young wife Carolyn, a model. But when Tessa learns that she's suffering from cancer and soon will die, she tries to get her kids to accept Carolyn as new mother. She takes them on a trip across the country to her father Jacob's ranch in Wyoming. During this trip, Tessa tries to teach Carolyn about the responsibilities involved in raising kids.
Antonia's Line
After World War II, Antonia and her daughter, Danielle, go back to their Dutch hometown, where Antonia's late mother has bestowed a small farm upon her. There, Antonia settles down and joins a tightly-knit but unusual community. Those around her include quirky friend Crooked Finger, would-be suitor Bas and, eventually for Antonia, a granddaughter and great-granddaughter who help create a strong family of empowered women.
A Mother's Crime
Encouraged by her lover, Danielle kills her husband and goes on the lam with her infant daughter Cali. But the cops catch her and, en route to prison, she agrees to give custody of Cali to her arch rival, her sister Nikki. But on release from prison, Danielle will stop at nothing to get Cali back from Nikki's safe and healthy home.
The Good Mother
After her best friend dies, a teen discovers that the girl's mother deliberately made her sick.
Sling Blade
Karl Childers, a mentally disabled man, has been in the custody of the state mental hospital since the age of 12 for killing his mother and her lover. Although thoroughly institutionalized, he is deemed fit to be released into the outside world.
Don't Knock Twice
A mother desperate to reconnect with her troubled daughter becomes embroiled in the urban legend of a demonic witch.
I Am Sam
Sam, a neurodivergent man, has a daughter with a homeless woman who abandons them when they leave the hospital, leaving Sam to raise Lucy on his own. But as Lucy grows up, Sam's limitations as a parent start to become a problem and the authorities take her away. Sam convinces high-priced lawyer Rita to take his case pro bono and in turn teaches her the value of love and family.
Girl in Progress
As single mom Grace juggles work, bills, and her affair with a married doctor, her daughter, Ansiedad, plots a shortcut to adulthood after finding inspiration in the coming-of-age stories she's reading for school.
Square Dance
An awkward 13-year-old leaves her cranky grandfather in rural Texas, to live with her mother in Fort Worth.
The Last Man on Earth
An epidemic has killed off all of the fertile men on earth, except for Elmer Smith, a hillbilly who lives out in a cabin in the Ozarks, when he is discovered, every woman on the planet begins fighting over him.
Listen
In the outskirts of London, Portuguese couple and parents of three, Bela and Jota, struggle to make ends meet. When a misunderstanding arises at school with their deaf daughter, the British social services grow concerned for the safety of their children. The film portrays the tireless battle of these immigrant parents against the law to keep their family together.
Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision
A film about the work of the artist most famous for her monuments such as the Vietnam Memorial Wall and the Civil Rights Fountain Memorial.
Secrets & Lies
After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense, a successful black optometrist, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to a working class white woman, Cynthia. At first Cynthia denies the claim, but she eventually admits to birthing Hortense as a teenager, and the two begin to bond. However, when Cynthia invites Hortense to a family barbecue, Cynthia's already tense relationship with her family becomes even more complicated.
My Zoe
Isabelle, a geneticist recovering from a toxic marriage, is raising her only daughter, Zoe, with her contentious ex-husband. Zoe means everything to her mother and so when tragedy strikes the fractured family, Isabelle travels to Russia in seeking the help of a world-renowned fertility physician who Isabelle believes can help bring back her little girl.
Sassy Pants
Desperate to get out from under her overprotective mother, a home-schooled teen runs off to live with her dad, and forms a bond with his much-younger boyfriend.
American Hollow
American Hollow is a 1999 American documentary film directed and produced by Rory Kennedy. The film follows the extended Bowling family, residents of an eastern Kentucky valley, for a year in Perry County, Kentucky. The music for the film was composed by Bill Frisell. Iree Bowling died at the age of 81 in December 2010.
Growing Up Coy
A Colorado family is thrust into the international media spotlight when they fight for the rights of their 6-year-old transgender daughter in a landmark civil rights case.
Little Chenier
LITTLE CHENIER: A CAJUN STORY is the story of a young man who lives a simple life on a houseboat in the Louisiana bayou with his mentally handicapped brother until one is accused of a crime in the small town.
Like Normal People
An intellectually-challenged man and woman meet, fall in love, and are determined to get married, despite the initial objections of their families and friends. Based on a true story.
Circle of Violence: A Family Drama
Georgia Benfield, at her wit's end, loses control and begins physically abusing her elderly mother, just as Georgia had been abused herself as a child. As family and friends slowly begin to learn of the abuse, and long-buried family secrets come to light, both mother and daughter must learn to accept the past, to change what is happening at present in order to face a better future.
A Fight for Jenny
When Kelsey remarries, her struggle to get custody of her daughter from her first marriage is complicated by her current husband being black.
When Michael Calls
A woman begins to receive ominous phone calls from her nephew, who died 15 years earlier. With each phone call, a family member dies. Will she be the next in line?
The Promise
Lisa's husband, Bill, abuses her. With her sister's encouragement, she takes their three kids and leaves her husband. Bill keeps interfering with Lisa's attempts at a new life. She gets an order of protection against him, but the police can't do anything else to help her. One night Bill breaks into Lisa's apartment and shoots her. As she dies in the hospital, Lisa asks her sister to promise to take care of her three children. The sister takes the kids into her home, but Bill is still on the loose, an ever present threat.
Johnny Bull
An English girl comes to America to join her American husband in a Pennsylvania coal town in the late 1950's. She faces the ire of her new mother-in-law, a former Hungarian with different ideas about the life and culture that her son should have.
A Dangerous Woman
Martha Horgan is a withdrawn, mentally disabled woman who lives with her aunt, Frances. One of Martha's unusual traits is that she doesn't lie, a quality that leads to her getting fired from a dry-cleaning shop thanks to the actions of the shifty Getso. Conflict seems to follow Martha, since she also becomes romantically involved with local fix-it man, Mackey, who is sleeping with Frances as well.
The Perfect Mother
Since self-made immigrant Nico Podaras's death, widow Elenie runs his lucrative garage, with an illegal side business, generously using the profits to keep control of their three sons' lives. Simpleton Dan is happy to sire the crucial heir without hesitation to keep unruly, immature wife Charlene in line, but goes to far, so she absconds pregnant. Firstborn John gave up his dream, fishery, to work in the garage. When he marries Kathryn, she starts questioning and resisting Elenie's matriarchal manipulation, but bares her a grandson. The conflict escalates, leaving John torn between loyalties.
The Dollhouse Murders
While staying at her Aunt Claire's country home, Amy Treloar discovers a dollhouse with a secret only the dolls know.
Jackie & Ryan
A modern day train hopper fighting to be a successful musician and a single mom battling to maintain custody of her daughter defy their circumstances by coming together in a relationship that may change each others lives forever.
Family Squares
The Worth Family has been divided for years but when the matriarch, Grandma Mabel dies suddenly, the family has to come together. The story of Family Squares takes the Worth Family on a journey discovering that not only did Grandma Mabel keep some secrets, so did everyone else. They find their way back to each other and realize that while you can’t choose your family, you can choose to be friends with them.
Hidden Love
A psychiatrist tries to help a suicidal woman who despises her grown daughter.
A Suitable Girl
A Suitable Girl follows three young women in India struggling to maintain their identities and follow their dreams amid intense pressure to get married. The film examines the women's complex relationship with marriage, family, and society.
My Flesh and Blood
My Flesh and Blood is a 2003 documentary film by Jonathan Karsh chronicling a year in the life of the Tom family. The Tom family is notable as the mother, Susan, adopted eleven children, most of whom had serious disabilities or diseases. The film itself is notable for handling the sensitive subject matter in an unsentimental way that is more uplifting than one might expect.
Mom's Apple Pie: The Heart of the Lesbian Mothers' Custody Movement
While the fight for LGBTQ Civil Rights movement was gaining momentum, the 1970s witnessed horrific custody battles for lesbian mothers. Mom's Apple Pie: The Heart of the Lesbian Mothers’ Custody Movement revisits the early tumultuous years of the lesbian custody movement through the stories of five lesbian mothers and their four children. Narrated by Kate Clinton, the documentary interviews the sons and daughters who were separated from their mothers, the mothers themselves, and one woman who made the difficult decision to flee with her children.
Getting Out
Breaking out of prison with a child in her womb and a dream of a normal existence, Arlene Holsclaw (Rebecca De Mornay) resolves to get a job and lead a good, Christian life. But the ghosts from her past -- including an ex-boyfriend (Rob Knepper) who wants to pimp her out and a sadistic mother (Ellen Burstyn) who plots to take away Arlene's baby -- have other plans. This made-for-TV drama is based on Marsha Norman's off-Broadway play.
What Makes a Family
Janine and Sandy are a lesbian couple who decide to have a baby, but after a few years Sandy dies. This tragedy is exploited by Sandy's parents to snatch the girl from Janine's care. But then, and despite having the laws against her, Janine decides to fight in order to regain custody of her daughter.
Magnificent 7
Inspired by the life of Jacqui Jackson, the story follows a self-sacrificing mother of seven children, four of whom are, in one form or another, autistic.
The Levelling
Clover is finishing a veterinary course when her brother dies and she is called home to her family's struggling Somerset farm.
Andy's Rainbow
While doing community service at a special needs home, a rebellious teenage girl develops an unlikely friendship with a young mentally handicapped man who lives there.
Profoundly Normal
Donna Lee Shelby, a mentally challenged girl who lives in Forest Haven, an institution for the developmentally disabled, meets Ricardo Thornton, a fellow resident. When Forest Haven is closed by a court order, Donna and Ricardo venture into the real world on their own.
Different
A young woman was left mentally disabled after a car crash twenty years previously, a condition which her mother has never come to accept. Thus she favors her other "normal" daughter and basically tolerates the other daughter's existence. It also doesn't help that her husband also has some mental disabilities. As the family slowly divides, the older daughter's unconditional love rises.
Walter
A man with learning difficulties suffers neglect and ill-treatment, and this is only exasperated when his parents die and nobody seems to know what to do with him. A sequel to this film, titled "Walter and June", was released in 1983 and set 19 years later in time. In the United States, these two are sometimes bundled together under the title "Loving Walter".