Best movies like Capernaum

Yann, a cook, and Nadia, a waitress and mother of 9-year-old child, decide to risk everything on the purchase of a restaurant. With plenty of talent, energy, love and dreams, but no finance of their own, they find themselves forced into a jungle of financing and bank loans that quickly overwhelms them. To bail them out, Nadia has to take a job in Canada, while Yann is forced to stay behind to save the restaurant. Together, he and the child confront a relentless avalanche of creditors, an uncaring system and the daily grind from which there is no respite… Yann finally understands that his only chance of salvation lies in joining his lover – as well as reuniting mother and child – by following Nadia to Canada and a better life.

Steven Lidz, unhappy with his home life since his mother became sick, moves in with his two eccentric uncles. As Steven grows closer to his uncles, he learns how to cope with his emotions and to value his own uniqueness.

An enterprising Saudi girl signs on for her school's Quran recitation competition as a way to raise the remaining funds she needs in order to buy the green bicycle that has captured her interest.

Somewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa, Komona a 14-year-old girl tells her unborn child growing inside her the story of her life since she has been at war. Everything started when she was abducted by the rebel army at the age of 12.

Zoë is a single mother who lives with her four children in Dartford. She is poor and can't afford to buy food. One day her old flame drives by and asks her to go on a date with him. Scared that he doesn't want to go out with her, she lies and tells him that she is just babysitting the kids. This will be her first date in years.

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.

Held captive for 7 years in an enclosed space, a woman and her young son finally gain their freedom, allowing the boy to experience the outside world for the first time.

Young, impulsive Rosetta lives a hard and stressful life as she struggles to support herself and her alcoholic mother. Refusing all charity, she is desperate to maintain a dignified job.

A young, English working-class boy finds a kestrel and decides to train it.

An immigrant boy faces difficulty growing up in Toronto's apartment slums.

Based on the Depression-era bildungsroman memoir of writer A. E. Hotchner, the film follows the story of a boy struggling to survive on his own in a hotel in St. Louis after his mother is committed to a sanatorium with tuberculosis. His father, a German immigrant and traveling salesman working for the Hamilton Watch Company, is off on long trips from which the boy cannot be certain he will return.

Ali, Kwita, Omar and Boubker are street kids. The daily dose of glue sniffing represents their only escape from reality. Since they left Dib and his gang, they have been living on the portside of Casablanca. They live in constant fear of Dib's revenge. Ali wants to become a sailor - when he was living with his mother, a prostitute, he used to listen to a fairy tale about the sailor who discovered the miracle island with two suns. Instead of finding his island in the dream, Ali and his friends are confronted with Dib's gang. Matters are getting serious.

After twelve years of imprisonment by their own parents, two sisters are finally released by social workers to face the outside world for the first time.

Documentary depicting the lives of child prostitutes in the red light district of Songachi, Calcutta. Director Zana Briski went to photograph the prostitutes when she met and became friends with their children. Briski began giving photography lessons to the children and became aware that their photography might be a way for them to lead better lives.

Freed after a lengthy term in a juvenile detention center, convicted child killer Jack Burridge (Andrew Garfield) finds work as a deliveryman and begins dating co-worker Michelle (Katie Lyons). While out on the road one day, the young Englishman notices a distressed child, and, after reuniting the girl with her family, becomes a local celebrity. But, when a local newspaper unearths his past, Jack must cope with the anger of citizens who fear for the safety of their children.

After destroying his older brother's motorbike in retaliation for his constant bullying, 11-year-old Krishna is sent to a traveling circus to earn money to pay for the bike's repairs, but soon winds up in the streets of Bombay's poorest slums. There, he befriends the drug dealer Chillum and young prostitute Sola Saal, while trying to make enough money at a neighborhood tea stall to repay his debt to his family.

The story of a precocious six year-old and her ragtag group of friends whose summer break is filled with childhood wonder, possibility and a sense of adventure while the adults around them struggle with hard times.

After running away from her abusive mother, a streetwise teen seeks refuge with her father, but he rejects her when he learns that she's pregnant.

Amy, an 11-year-old girl, joins a group of dancers named “the cuties” at school, and rapidly grows aware of her burgeoning femininity—upsetting her mother and her values in the process.

In a Turkish village, five orphaned sisters live under strict rule while members of their family prepare their arranged marriages.

Jo is a neglected 16-year-old girl whose promiscuous mother marries a dandy. Jo gets pregnant after a tryst with a black cook, who leaves her over his impending responsibilities of fatherhood, and she only finds support in a gay male friend.

Manny, Joel and Jonah tear their way through childhood and push against the volatile love of their parents. As Manny and Joel grow into versions of their father and Ma dreams of escape, Jonah, the youngest, embraces an imagined world all his own.

Based on one of the most beloved Young Adult novels of all time: Two kids are stripped naked and left together on an island in a lake - victims of a vicious summer camp prank; But rather than have to return to camp and face the humiliation, they decide to take off, on the run together. What follows is a three day odyssey of discovery and self-discovery.

Marcus is a kid on Manhattan's mean streets. He's turning 15, his father is dead, his mother is in prison for smuggling undocumented aliens. His grandmother is raising him. He has four close buddies who have a basement clubhouse; they shoplift and sell the wares to kids. One is moving toward selling drugs. Marcus wants to take a breather from the city and visit family in New Mexico. He also meets Melena, 14, a sweet kid who dreams of going to Alaska; her father is not just protective but angry and uncommunicative. The gang pressures Marcus to move up to burglary and car theft. He just wants to breathe open air. Can anything go right?

A schoolboy Nicholas always worries about something. When he goes on a school skiing trip, all his visions and nightmares take him over.

Torn straight from the headlines, Michael Winterbottom's compelling and prescient 'In This World' follows young Afghan Jamal and his older cousin Enayat as they embark on a hazardous overland trip from their refugee camp at Peshawar, north-west Pakistan. Entering Turkey on foot through a snowy, Kurdish-controlled pass, the pair again take their lives into their hands and face suffocation when they are locked in a freight container on a ship bound for Italy. From there they plan to travel on to Paris, the Sangatte refuge centre and ultimately asylum in London.

The South African multi-award winning film about a young South African boy from the ghetto named Tsotsi, meaning Gangster. Tsotsi, who left home as a child to get away from helpless parents, finds a baby in the back seat of a car that he has just stolen. He decides that it his responsibility to take care of the baby and in the process learns that maybe the gangster life isn’t the best way.

Grace, a compassionate young supervisor at a foster care facility, helps at-risk teens. But when a new charge dredges up memories of her own troubled past, Grace's tough exterior begins eroding.

A drama set at a Swiss ski resort and centered on a boy who supports his sister by stealing from wealthy guests.

In post-Taliban Kabul, two lost children, brother and sister whose parents are in prison, try to survive every day by scavenging for food. At night, they join their imprisoned mother.

Desperate to be rid of her toddler, a dissatisfied Beverly Hills housewife hires a stranger to babysit and ends up getting much more than she bargained for.

An abused 15 year old is charged with a murder that carries the death penalty in this fact-based story.

Ricky and his family have been fighting an uphill struggle against debt since the 2008 financial crash. An opportunity to wrestle back some independence appears with a shiny new van and the chance to run a franchise as a self-employed delivery driver. It's hard work, and his wife's job as a carer is no easier. The family unit is strong but when both are pulled in different directions everything comes to breaking point.

Maggie has had four children, by four different fathers, removed by social services because of a previous violent relationship. When she meets Jorge, a gentle Latin American refugee, she gradually sees her chance for happiness, but her history still haunts her.

Alejandro, a tough and ambitious Latino street orphan on the verge of adolescence, lives and works in an auto-body repair shop in a sprawling junkyard on the outskirts of Queens, New York. In this chaotic world of adults, young Alejandro struggles to make a better life for himself and his 16-year-old sister, Isamar.

Oliver Twist the modern filmed version of Charles Dickens bestseller, a Roman Polanski adaptation. The classic Dickens tale, where an orphan meets a pickpocket on the streets of London. From there, he joins a household of boys who are trained to steal for their master.

Sandro was a boy who loved to sing rap, to kiss, to stare the statue of Christ the Redeemer and dreamed to go visit Copacabana. Growing up on streets, the story culminates at the infamous episode of 12th June 2000, when Sandro hijacked bus 174.

Antonio, a policeman (carabiniere), has an order to take two children (Rosetta and her brother Luciano) from Milan to Sicily to an orphanage. Their mother has been arrested for forcing Rosetta (11 years old) to work as a prostitute. First the relation between Antonio and the children is tough, but it relaxes so they become temporary friends.

In Seoul, Korea, two sisters must look after each other when their mother leaves them to search for their estranged father.

It focuses on how youngsters in capitalist Russia turn to crime. Either they thrive at their game or they get locked up. In any case they're trapped. The portrayed kids are old men, acting wise and tough while in fact they're victims.

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.

A 12-year-old boy and his single mother live separate lives. The boy spends his days alone while his mother works and goes out with her friends. The boy’s solitude is both a source of freedom and a cause for grief. His explorations slowly bring to light the dark contrast between the rules of society and the laws of nature. And before long, the delicate balance of his inner world becomes shattered by unforeseen events.

Talia runs away from home taking her beloved dog with her. When her dog is stolen Talia enlists the help of a gang of boys to help her find her pet.

In a small town plunged into darkness, two children, Kyona and Adriel, are separated from their parents and, facing the path of exile alone, embark on a heroic journey that will take them from childhood to adolescence, in search of refuge, peace and the hope of finding their family.

A chain-wallah from Delhi travels across India in search of his missing son, in the hopes that whoever took him, returns him unharmed.

A badly abused girl of 6 is saved from having to be admitted to an institution by a dedicated Special Education teacher whose class she's been placed in until there is an opening in the hospital. In that time they form a strong bond and the child begins to heal. The teacher begins to think an institution is not what this child needs.

Three homeless teenage rejects struggle to survive together. Of them, Andreia is pregnant, while Pedro and Ricardo hustle, steal and are exploited by a pornographer.

Johnny, the megalomaniac leader of a group of squeegee kids, finds a video camera and pushes his followers into "acting" out increasingly dangerous "scenes".

Children Underground follows the story of five street children, aged eight to sixteen who live in a subway station in Bucharest, Romania. The street kids are encountered daily by commuting adults, who pass them by in the station as they starve, swindle, and steal, all while searching desperately for a fresh can of paint to get high with.