Best movies like Breaking Home Ties

Leaving is never easy. Coming home can be even harder.

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Breaking Home Ties Starring Jason Robards, Eva Marie Saint, Claire Trevor, Doug McKeon, and more. If you liked Breaking Home Ties then you may also like: 50/50, When Andrew Came Home, Off the Map, Buffalo Dreams, Christmas Cottage 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.

Inspired by a Norman Rockwell painting, this 1950s coming of age drama centers on a young man leaving home to attend college, where he will learn the lessons in becoming a man. While his family must deal with a life threatening illness.

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50/50

Inspired by a true story, a comedy centered on a 27-year-old guy who learns of his cancer diagnosis and his subsequent struggle to beat the disease.

When Andrew Came Home

A mother searches for five years to find her kidnapped son in this fact-based drama. Unexpectedly the boy is found, but the reunion is not as she hoped. She now has to deal with five years of abuse that the boy suffered at the hands of his kidnappers.

Off the Map

An 11-year-old girl watches her father come down with a crippling depression. Over one summer, she learns answers to several mysteries and comes to terms with love and loss.

Buffalo Dreams

Josh Townsend finds himself living in New Mexico after his father's new job requires the family to move from their home in Utah. While acclimating to his new surroundings, Josh becomes involved with a group of teens attempting to preserve the buffalo and Navajo traditions. Along the way he makes friends and learns important lessons about life in this Disney Channel Original movie.

Christmas Cottage

Inspired by the picturesque paintings of Thomas Kinkade, The Christmas Cottage tells the semi-autobiographical tale of how a young boy is propelled to launch a career as an artist after he learns that his mother is in danger of losing the family home.

Circle of Friends

Three girlhood friends now at college share first loves, first kisses and first betrayals. At the center of it all is the best-looking boy on campus. Can a self-conscious dreamer hook the biggest fish in the pond?

Terms of Endearment

Aurora, a finicky woman, is in search of true love while her daughter faces marital issues. Together, they help each other deal with problems and find reasons to live a joyful life.

In the Bedroom

Summertime on the coast of Maine, "In the Bedroom" centers on the inner dynamics of a family in transition. Matt Fowler is a doctor practicing in his native Maine and is married to New York born Ruth Fowler, a music teacher. His son is involved in a love affair with a local single mother. As the beauty of Maine's brief and fleeting summer comes to an end, these characters find themselves in the midst of unimaginable tragedy.

Fraternity Row

Zac is an idealistic student who, after arriving at college, decides to pledge the Gamma Nu Pi fraternity. Unhappy with what he sees as the bigotry and abusiveness of the hazing process, he tries to reform the system, even though his steady girl, Jennifer, doesn't approve. Zac eventually finds an ally in his pledgemaster, but the head of the fraternity proves cruelly inflexible about preserving the uglier rituals.

Tyson's Run

When fifteen-year-old Tyson attends public school for the first time, his life is changed forever. While helping his father clean up after the football team, Tyson befriends champion marathon runner Aklilu. Never letting his autism hold him back, Tyson becomes determined to run his first marathon in hopes of winning his father's approval. With the help of an unlikely friend and his parents, Tyson learns that with faith in yourself and the courage to take the first step, anything is possible.

Shithouse

Lonely college freshman Alex has closed himself off from his peers, who all appear to have this whole "college thing" figured out. But everything changes one night when Alex takes a leap and attends a party at Shithouse - a legendary party fraternity - where he forges a strong connection with Maggie.

Liberty Heights

This semi-autobiographical film by Barry Levinson follows various members of the Kurtzman clan, a Jewish family living in suburban Baltimore during the 1950s. As teenaged Ben completes high school, he falls for Sylvia, a black classmate, creating inevitable tensions. Meanwhile, Ben's brother, Van, attends college and becomes smitten with a mysterious woman while their father tries to maintain his burlesque business.

Dr. Alien

When the mysterious and sexy Ms. Xenobia takes over the biology class at the local college, the dating life of supergeek Wesley Littlejohn takes a serious turn. Littlejohn agrees to be a lab rat for the professor's unusual vitamin research study. Now, thanks to some out-of-this-world supplements, he's been transformed into the campus stud. But Xenobia has ulterior extraterrestrial motives in this sci-fi sex comedy.

Local Color

A successful artist looks back with loving memories on the summer of his defining year, 1974. A talented but troubled 18-year-old aspiring artist befriends a brilliant elderly alcoholic painter who has turned his back on not only art but life. The two form what appears to be at first a tenuous relationship. The kid wants to learn all the secrets the master has locked away inside his head and heart. Time has not been kind to the old master. His life appears pointless to him until the kid rekindles his interest in his work and ultimately gives him the will to live. Together, they give one another a priceless gift. The kid learns to see the world through the master's eyes. And the master learns to see life through the eyes of innocence again. This story is based on a real life experience.

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.

Indian Paint

Nishko is a chief's son in the Great Plains, before Europeans arrive. During his rite of passage, he's determined to tame a painted pony. He approaches manhood while his peaceful clan is set upon by a nearby tribe willing to break a treaty. He must also contend with the kidnapping of three young women from his village, his pony's illness behind enemy lines, his mother's coma after a rattlesnake bite, the medicine man's urging that he sacrifice what he loves best, the attack of a cougar and of wolves, and his own injury while alone in the woods. His kindness, bravery, and quick thinking serve him well, but rescue come from an unexpected source.

Hoosiers

Failed college coach Norman Dale gets a chance at redemption when he is hired to coach a high school basketball team in a tiny Indiana town. After a teacher persuades star player Jimmy Chitwood to quit and focus on his long-neglected studies, Dale struggles to develop a winning team in the face of community criticism for his temper and his unconventional choice of assistant coach: Shooter, a notorious alcoholic.

My Son John

In this Cold War drama, a woman suspects her son is a Communist spy.

Palo Alto, CA

On their last night of Thanksgiving break, four old friends, now all college freshmen, realize their small town has more meaning than they ever imagined.

The Plastic Age

Hugh Carver is an athletic star and a freshman at Prescott College. He falls in love with Cynthia Day, a popular girl who loves to party, and finds that it's impossible to please her and still keep up with his studies and athletic training. Soon the two face some difficult decisions.

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".

Hook, Line and Sinker

Told he is terminally ill, an insurance executive goes on a credit-card spending spree--and then learns his medical diagnosis was a mistake.

Some Things That Stay

A coming-of-age story of a teenage girl from a liberal upbringing who moves to a conservative baptist community in rural 1950s America.

Leave No Trace

In February 2022, The Boy Scouts Of America reached a $2.7 billion agreement over sex abuse claims, the largest such settlement in history. Leave No Trace explores how this all-American institution went so horrifyingly wrong.

Hail, Hero!

Carl Dixon decides to quit school and enlist in the Army, even though he's already run afoul of the law as a Vietnam protestor. It is our hero's intention to use love, rather than bullets, to combat the Viet Cong. Needless to say, his idealism is no match for the harsher realities of war.

The Shadow on the Window

Three delinquents murder a prosperous farmer at an isolated farm house. One witness to the crime - the dead man's secretary - is then taken hostage. The other witness - her young son - is thrown into state of shock. Can he recover soon enough to help the police - and his father - rescue his mother before it's too late?

Canvas

A woman's schizophrenia affects her relationships with her husband and son.

...And the Earth Did Not Swallow Him

Twelve-year-old Mexican-American Marcos (Jose Alcala) recalls the hardships of the previous year, reflecting on the arduous trek his migrant-worker family made from Texas to the Midwest during harvest season. Along the way, Marcos learns plenty about the harsh realities of bigotry and the power of family in America of the 1950s. The coming-of-age Chicano drama is based on Tomas Rivera's semiautobiographical 1971 novella.

Double Parked

A resourceful and high-spirited woman deals with financial distress and her asthmatic thirteen-year-old son when his life is gravely complicated by a new friendship with the son of her former drunken and abusive husband.

Heart Full of Rain

A young man returns to the family farm after being gone for six years. But it is not until he fights shoulder to shoulder with his father to save the farm from a flood that his father finally forgives him for leaving.

A Painted House

A young boy, his family, and the migrant workers they hire to work their cotton farm struggle against difficult odds to raise and sell the crop. Meanwhile, the boy dreams of living in better conditions. However, with this particularly tough farming season, the boy learns that his challenges guide him in discovering who he really is.

Madeline & Cooper

Madeline and Cooper are college students living in the same building, but met outside a party house mile away. After an awkward attempt at sex, Madeline asks Cooper to stay over leading them to become friends over next 2 days.

Old Man Rhythm

Romantic rivalries between father and son enrolled at the same college.

The Sound of the Spirit

Beautiful and precocious Rivka is a twelve-year-old Jewish girl who believes in Jesus. She and her father attend a Messianic Jewish congregation in their community. But when her father suddenly dies, Rivka's life changes forever. She ends up moving in with her traditional Jewish relatives and attending their synagogue. From her stormy relationship with her uncle, to a meeting with the synagogue’s senior rabbi, to the attention of the cutest boy in the synagogue, Rivka learns life lessons that stir her faith to new levels, touching the hearts of those whose lives she has reluctantly impacted. "The Sound of the Spirit" is the never-before-told story of a young girl caught in the crossfire of strong feelings between two faith communities. It’s told with humor, compassion, and grace.

Lucky Life

A group of friends travels to the beach to encourage Jason, recently diagnosed with terminal cancer. The journey is rooted in nostalgia and desire for a meaningful farewell, although the friends avoid the subject of Jason's illness. Some time later, as Mark and Karen plan to have a child, the beach trip lingers as a haunting memory in their new phase of life... Inspired by the poetry of Gerald Stern.

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