Best movies like Ben Is Back
One family. One day.
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Ben Is Back Starring Julia Roberts, Lucas Hedges, Courtney B. Vance, Kathryn Newton, and more. If you liked Ben Is Back then you may also like: What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Nil by Mouth, Not My Kid, Beautiful Boy, The Good Mother 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.
19-year-old Ben Burns unexpectedly returns home to his family's suburban home on Christmas Eve morning. Ben's mother, Holly, is relieved and welcoming but wary of her son staying clean. Over a turbulent 24 hours, new truths are revealed, and a mother's undying love for her son is tested as she does everything in her power to keep him safe.
Ben Is Back
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Nil by Mouth
The family of Raymond, his wife Val and her brother Billy live in working-class London district. Also in their family is Val and Billy's mother Janet and grandmother Kath. Billy is a drug addict and Raymond kicks him out of the house, making him live on his own. Raymond is generally a rough and even violent person, and that leads to problems in the life of the family.
Not My Kid
A teenaged drug addict is sent to Dr. Royce's controversial drug intervention program where the addicts in the program confront each other in supervised group meetings. Also, in evening meetings, the addicts are confronted by their families. The girl's parents want to remove her from the program because it upsets them that their daughter is being forced to associate with addicts who admit to stealing and trading sex for drugs.
Beautiful Boy
After he and his first wife separate, journalist David Sheff struggles to help their teenage son, who goes from experimenting with drugs to becoming devastatingly addicted to methamphetamine.
The Good Mother
After her best friend dies, a teen discovers that the girl's mother deliberately made her sick.
The Secret Life of Zoey
Marcia always thought her overachieving daughter Zoey was the dream child. But then she discovers that her perfect teen has a not-so-perfect drug addiction. Marcia and her ex-husband go through plenty of denial as their daughter spirals out of control. It's a true-to-life tale that parents and their kids should watch together.
Clean and Sober
Hotshot real estate salesman Daryl has a bad cocaine habit. After embezzling his company's money, he wakes up next to a girl who overdosed. To hide from the police, he checks into a rehabilitation program guaranteeing anonymity. Under the mentorship of counselor Craig, Daryl accepts that he has a substance abuse problem. As he falls in love with fellow patient Charlie, Daryl begins committing to a newly sober life.
Four Good Days
A mother helps her daughter work through four crucial days of recovery from substance abuse.
The Gathering
When Adam Thornton learns that he only has a little time left, he decides that he wants to make peace with his family. Only problem is that most of his family are not exactly fond of him because he walked out on his wife and of his stubborn nature and he hasn't spoken to his youngest son after having an argument with him which he was in the wrong but only realize after his son left and has not been heard from since. But he goes to her to help him find him. But when his doctor says that it won't be good for him to travel, she suggests that they invite them all for Christmas. While most of them come, Adam's attempt at reconciliation won't be easy.
Being Charlie
Charlie is a troublesome 18-year-old who breaks out of a youth drug treatment clinic, but when he returns home to Los Angeles, he's given an intervention by his parents and forced to go to an adult rehab. There, he meets a beautiful but troubled girl, Eva, and is forced to battle with drugs, elusive love and divided parents.
Mickey and the Bear
In Anaconda, Montana, a strong-willed teenage girl navigates a loving but volatile relationship with her veteran father. In a desperate search for independence and her own identity, she risks family, heartbreak, and her standing in the only place she can call home.
Prancer
Jessica, the daughter of an impoverished apple farmer, still believes in Santa Claus. So when she comes across a reindeer with an injured leg, it makes perfect sense to her to assume that it is Prancer, who had fallen from a Christmas display in town. She hides the reindeer in her barn and feeds it cookies, until she can return it to Santa. Her father finds the reindeer an decides to sell it to the butcher, not for venison chops, but as an advertising display.
Thirteen
Tracy is a normal 13-year-old trying to make it in school. After befriending the most popular girl at school, Evie, Tracy's world is turned upside down when Evie introduces her to a world of sex, drugs and cash. But it isn't long before Tracy's new world and attitude finally takes a toll on her, her family, and old friends.
The Winter Lake
When Holly’s dark secret is accidentally uncovered by her new emotionally unstable neighbor Tom, they are pulled into a violent confrontation with her father, who will do anything to keep the secret hidden.
Sweet Sixteen
Determined to have a normal family life once his mother gets out of prison, a Scottish teenager from a tough background sets out to raise the money for a home.
The Long Day Closes
Bud is a lonely and quiet boy whose moments of solace occur when he sits in rapture at the local cinema, watching towering and iconic figures on the movie screen. The movies give Bud the strength to get through another day as he deals with his oppressive school environment and his burgeoning homosexuality.
Crisis
Three stories about the world of opioids collide: a drug trafficker arranges a multi-cartel Fentanyl smuggling operation between Canada and the U.S., an architect recovering from an OxyContin addiction tracks down the truth behind her son's involvement with narcotics, and a university professor battles unexpected revelations about his research employer, a drug company with deep government influence bringing a new "non-addictive" painkiller to market.
Ice Quake
As the permafrost melts in Alaska, underground rivers of volatile liquid methane form which sets off a series of devastating earthquakes. Forced apart by this violent occurrence, one family must find each other during the holidays and work to stop the deadly rivers that could cause a worldwide catastrophy.
A Family Circus Christmas
The family is decorating their tree when Daddy notices the star his father made is missing. When Billy asks Mommy why this made Daddy sad, she tells him it's because the star was made by his father, their Granddad, who is in Heaven. Jeffy then has a vivid dream about Santa, and asks him in the dream to bring Granddad home from Heaven for Christmas to make Daddy happy again. When Billy learns that Jeffy thinks this really will happen, he is afraid that Jeffy's Christmas will be ruined, since Santa can't do that. Mommy tries to explain why it's not possible to Jeffy after Dolly tells her what Jeffy thinks, but he gets upset and doesn't want to hear it. That night, he gets a visit from Santa, and Granddad.
100 Streets
Three people, three extraordinary stories. All lived out within a hundred London streets.
Someone Else's America
This tale takes place in a bar. The Spanish Alonso and his blind mother run this place. Bay, who is Alonso's friend live here too. This story tells something about Alonso and Bay and the "American Dream".
Zoey's Extraordinary Christmas
On her first holiday without her father, Zoey attempts to create a magical Christmas for her family just like the ones Mitch used to do.
Paper Boys
A ragtag bunch of teenage door to door salesmen wreak havoc and spread the news of their coming of age in this summer before they begin their college lives. It centers around Sean, a sexually confused and drug afflicted teen who just can't seem to shake off his dysfunctional family history. Paper Boys is an adventure into the psychology of sales as a metaphor for life as these young "Glengarry Glen Ross" wannabes terrorize a suburban neighborhood near everyone!
Christmas at Maxwell's
A successful American family retreat to their summer home on the banks of Lake Erie to find meaning in life, illness, loss, and change this Christmas. With a successful career in the wine business, and two amazing children, what more can a family ask for. But this Christmas will change the Austin family forever with Suzie falling ill. With Andrew struggling over his wife's ill health and the children trying to find peace and solace on their own, only a miracle can help them through this Christmas.
Purgatory House
An inside glimpse of how it feels to be a teen in today's disconnected world. PURGATORY HOUSE chronicles the after-life journey of Silver Strand: a lonely teen who abandons her life of turmoil and drug addiction, only to find herself caught somewhere between heaven and hell. There, she must choose whether she will accept her drab existence or discover within herself the power to change.
Exhibit A
Exhibit A tells the timely story of a normal family disintegrating under financial pressure. All is not as it seems as the King family go about their day-to-day lives oblivious of the horror to come. Dad Andy (Bradley Cole) is nursing a secret that ultimately leads to terrible consequences for them all. We witness these chilling events unfold through daughter Judith's video camera, which subsequently becomes Exhibit A.
Recovery Boys
In the heart of America's opioid epidemic, four men try to reinvent their lives and mend their broken relationships after years of drug abuse.
Crutch
An autobiographical film taken from the experiences of writer-director Rob Moretti, CRUTCH is a coming-of-age tale about a young man's struggle with family problems and substance abuse. Behind a facade of suburban middle class perfection, David's home life is falling apart. As he tries to cope with the impossible situation, the troubled and impressionable teenager falls under the spell of Kenny, a georgous, thirty-something, has-been actor turned theatre coach. When Kenny's "support" escalates into seduction, David slowly decends into an abyss of drinking and drug addition from which he must escape if he is to survive. CRUTCH is a dramatic tale of the confusion of youth and the difficulties in finding oneself.
Memory Box
Maia, a single mother, lives in Montreal with her teenage daughter, Alex. On Christmas Eve, they receive an unexpected delivery: notebooks, tapes, and photos Maia sent to her best friend from 1980’s Beirut. Maia refuses to open the box or confront its memories, but Alex secretly begins diving into it. Between fantasy and reality, Alex enters the world of her mother’s tumultuous, passionate adolescence during the Lebanese civil war, unlocking mysteries of a hidden past.
Sweet Nothing
Angel celebrates the birth of his daughter by taking his first hit of crack cocaine. With the hesitant support of his wife, Monika, he joins a friend of his to deal drugs for a short time--enough time to get out of debt and buy some nice things for the family. Three years later, Angel is still dealing, and has not saved any money, instead spending it on crack. His addiction grows, straining his friendship and his family life, and he gradually loses control.
The Town Christmas Forgot
An urban family that can’t seem to get along gets stranded in a remote, impoverished lumber town two days before Christmas. When they become involved in the town’s home-grown Christmas pageant, they not only help solve the town’s problems but learn to connect with each other just in time for the holidays.
A Christmas Visitor
The Boyajian family learned of 18-year-old John's death in the Persian Gulf War on Christmas Eve eleven years earlier and have not celebrated Christmas since. They have been so consumed by his death that they have forgotten the joys of the holidays, until a mysterious visitor enters their lives and rekindles the spirit of the season.
A Hero Ain't Nothin' But a Sandwich
A troubled boy becomes addicted to heroin, and his mother and foster father help him fight it.
Go Ask Alice
A 14-year-old girl in late 1960's America is inadvertently sucked into an odyssey of sex and drugs. She eventually seeks help.
Christmas in Montana
Before the holidays, Sara goes to Montana to help resistant Travis save his ranch. Can time on the ranch help restore her faith in Christmas in time for a miracle?
It's Christmas, Eve
Interim school superintendent Eve Morgan finds herself in a tough spot when she is assigned to shut down a school's failing music program and must come to terms with her musical past.
Augusta, Gone
Martha is a businesswoman and divorced mother of two children - Augusta and Jack. However, when docile Augusta becomes a teenager, feelings of anger and self-hate cause her personality to undergo a scary transformation, and Martha realizes that this is not just typical teen angst. Augusta begins doing drugs, drinking, and ends up on the streets. Her concerned mother and father reach out to an educational consultant, who advises them to send Augusta to a strict wilderness camp for troubled teens. However, even the institution's experienced and tough administrators find Augusta a difficulty to keep under control. Martha comes to realize that there is no answer to her daughter's behavior.
Down to the Bone
A woman stuck in a stale marriage struggles to raise her children and manage her secret drug habit. But when winter comes to her small town, her balancing act begins to come crashing down.
A Very Corgi Christmas
All Lauren Bradley, a single mom and confirmed workaholic, wants this holiday is a much deserved break. Those hopes are dashed when she runs into fellow single dad Ben who enlists her help in taking care of a cute and cuddly christmas present he plans to give his daughter. Through all the chaos and calls from work, Lauren just might get the best gift of all, the holiday spirit.
Are You Here
When Steve Dallas, a womanizing local weatherman, hears that his off-the-grid best friend Ben Baker has lost his estranged father, the two return to Ben's childhood home. Once there, they discover Ben has inherited the family fortune, and the ill-equipped duo must battle Ben's formidable sister and deal with his father's gorgeous 25-year old widow.
Snowmageddon
A seemingly-harmless snow globe unleashes a devastating winter storm on a peaceful mountainside community, prompting one family on a race to save their town from certain destruction. As night falls on Christmas Eve, the Miller family finds a gift-wrapped snow globe just outside their door. Inside is an exact replica of their town - right down to the smallest detail. But this isn't your typical holiday decoration, because every time it's shaken, a blank of snow a blizzard blasts through town. Later, when the buttons on the globe plunge the town into total chaos, the Miller's must find a way to stop the destruction once and for all.
6 Balloons
Over the course of one night, a woman drives across LA with her heroin addict brother in search of a detox center, with his two-year-old daughter in tow.
A Song for Christmas
Pop superstar Adelaide Kay is so fed up with her controlling manager that she sneaks off the tour bus after their latest squabble. Though exhilarated to be free, she finds herself stranded in the freezing cold of a Pennsylvania winter, with no money and no plan. A local family, the Lapps, take her in. They know the true meaning of the season, even if they’re close to losing their dairy farm. No one in the family recognizes Adelaide except Dillon, the oldest son. He figures she’s the ticket to fast cash and plots to snap photos of Adelaide around the farm and sell them to the tabs. What he doesn’t plan, however, is their mutual attraction.
Our Christmas Love Song
When country star Melody Jones is accused of plagiarizing her holiday single, she returns home to spend Christmas with her estranged family and old flame and learns what is important in life.
What's Eating Gilbert Grape
Gilbert Grape is a small-town young man with a lot of responsibility. Chief among his concerns are his mother, who is so overweight that she can't leave the house, and his mentally impaired younger brother, Arnie, who has a knack for finding trouble. Settled into a job at a grocery store and an ongoing affair with local woman Betty Carver, Gilbert finally has his life shaken up by the free-spirited Becky.