Best movies like Dustbin Baby

Lucy is eleven years old. Having been neglected by her estranged mother and father, she is placed in a children's home. Through her eyes, we follow her struggle to cope with the system; her only saving being her self-belief and certainty that she is being watched over and protected by the holy spirit.

An American girl, Daphne, heads to Europe in search of the father she's never met. But instead of finding a British version of her bohemian mother, she learns the love of her mom's life is an uptight politician. The only problem now is that her long-lost dad is engaged to a fiercely territorial social climber with a daughter who makes Daphne's life miserable.

A teenager journeys through a series of foster homes after her mother goes to prison for committing a crime of passion.

John, a 35-year-old window cleaner, has dedicated his life to bringing up his 4-year-old son, Michael, after the child's mother left them soon after giving birth. When John is given only a few months left to live, he attempts to find a new, perfect family for Michael, determined to shield him from the terrible reality of the situation.

As seen in flashback, this is the story of 43-year-old Julie a beautician who when 15 was forced by her mother to give up her baby for adoption. Her son, now 28, a minister, with his wife expecting, begins to search for his biological mother to find out his family medical history. She hears of his search and reunites.

Hal is a 15-year-old high-school student with a minor yet socially alienating (and painful) disability: he stutters uncontrollably. Determined to work through the problem, Hal opts for an extreme route – he joins the school debating team, which sends him on a headfirst plunge into breakneck speech competitions and offers a much-needed boost toward correcting the problem.

Faced with an unplanned pregnancy, an offbeat young woman makes an unusual decision regarding her unborn child.

Paula Consodine comes to Los Angeles in search of her missing sister. Newspaperman Mark Sitko, investigating on Paula's behalf, discovers that the sister is dead, a supposed suicide. The whole thing seems a bit fishy to Sitko, and indeed it is: the girl's death was engineered by a black-market adoption racket, headed by one DeCola.

In "America," Dr. Maureen Brennan, a psychiatrist at a youth treatment center, encounters her newest patient, a bi-racial boy named America. Through their sessions, Dr. Brennan helps America come to terms with his roller-coaster life, which began when he was taken by authorities from his crack-addicted mother, and placed into foster care as an infant. The short time of stability in his life occurred when America lived with Mrs. Harper, the elderly nanny to one of his foster families. Later reunited with his mother, she soon abandons America and he is again placed into foster care. Lagging behind in school and full of anger, America retreats further away from society after years of sexual abuse. After attempting suicide, America is placed in a treatment center where Dr. Brennan helps him open up about his painful past and discover the support and courage he needs to get his life back on track.

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.

Inspired by the true story of teenagers at Gloucester High School who agreed to get pregnant at the same time.

Inspired by a true story, Girl Fight recounts the harrowing story of a 16-year-old, stellar high school student whose life spirals downward when her former friends conspire to upload onto the Internet a shocking video of them beating her up.

The journey of a young African American girl who navigated over 30 foster homes and psychiatric facilities before age 18, and the one woman, Jeanne, who believed in her. After Jeanne’s unsuccessful attempt to adopt Regina due to a racially motivated ruling, their bond is forced apart.

Pregnant sixteen year old Jacey's well-meaning mother forces her to keep the birth a secret and decides to raise the baby as her own.

Based on a true story, 15 year old Tina Spangler discovers she is pregnant. Her choices are abortion, adoption, or a lonely, exhausting life as a single parent. Abandoned by her boyfriend, she turns to her mother. Tina discovers although it has torn her world apart, her pregnancy could re-unite her shattered family and help her find her true purpose in life.

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.

We're in an English village shortly before Dunkirk. "Mr. Tom" Oakley still broods over the death of his wife and small son while he was away in the navy during WWI, and grief has made him a surly hermit. Now children evacuated from London are overwhelming volunteers to house them. Practically under protest, Mr. Tom takes in a painfully quiet 10-year-old, who gradually reveals big problems.

Big Bird is sent to live far from Sesame Street by a pesky social worker. Unhappy, Big Bird runs away from his foster home, prompting the rest of the Sesame Street gang to go on a cross-country journey to find him.

Khaila Richards, a crack-addicted single mother, accidentally leaves her baby in a dumpster while high and returns the next day in a panic to find he is missing. In reality, the baby has been adopted by a warm-hearted social worker, Margaret Lewin, and her husband, Charles. Years later, Khaila has gone through rehab and holds a steady job. After learning that her child is still alive, she challenges Margaret for the custody.

A pregnant single mother, with two children in foster care, embraces her Bay Area community as she fights to reclaim her family.

Young Jeremiah lives in a stable environment with loving foster parents until the day his troubled mother, Sarah, returns to claim him. Jeremiah becomes swept up in his mother's dangerous world of drugs, seedy hotels, strip joints and revolving lovers. Salvation comes in the form of the boy's ultrareligious grandparents, but soon Jeremiah's mother returns. Maternal love binds the pair together on the road until Sarah's desperate and depraved lifestyle finally consumes her.

Fox Rich, indomitable matriarch and modern-day abolitionist, strives to keep her family together while fighting for the release of her incarcerated husband. An intimate, epic, and unconventional love story, filmed over two decades.

When she can't support her illegitimate child, an abandoned young woman puts her up for adoption and pursues a career as a torch singer. Years later, she searches for the child she gave up.

Wisecracking, gum-chewing 12-year-old Gilly is well known in the foster system. Totally unmanageable, she has stayed with more families than she can remember and has outwitted them all. After all, how can she settle down when her real mother, the beautiful and glamourous Courtney, might be out there waiting for her? When Gilly is sent to live with the Trotters, the weirdest family yet, she isn’t planning to stick around. But cheerful, affectionate Maime Trotter isn’t giving up on Gilly just yet...

Sheridan O'Connor and Riccardo Rossi were destined to meet on the set of their first big movie together when barely out of their teens. What they didn't know was that their on-screen chemistry would translate into a hot and heavy off-screen romance destined only for disaster. Now, living continents apart and a lifetime later, expecting their paths never to cross again, they are thrown back together to star in an updated version of their original film. The studio has high hopes that they will be able to attract the same audience who loved them the first time around. But working together again could demand greater acting skills than either ever imagined: long hours filming awkward romantic scenes, reliving the past and coming face to face with what fate has in store for them. Only slightly shaken and gently stirred by family and friends, Sheridan and Riccardo must find a way to make the perfect martini out of life so as not to waste a single drop of happiness.

In 1970, hundreds of hippies followed Stephen Gaskin on a journey from San Francisco to Tennessee, where they founded a legendary commune known as the Farm. Within this self-sustaining society based on non-violence, vegetarianism and respect for the earth, members willingly took a vow of poverty, lived in converted buses, grew their own food and home-delivered babies. Born and raised in this alternative community, filmmakers and sisters Rena and Nadine return for the first time since leaving in 1985. Finally ready to face the past after years of hiding their upbringing, they chart the rise and fall of America’s largest utopian socialist experiment and their own family tree. The nascent idealism of a community destroyed, in part, by its own success is reflected in the personal story of a family unit split apart by differences. American Commune finds inspiration in failure, humour in deprivation and, most surprisingly, that communal values are alive and well in the next generation.

Green Chimneys follows three young boys living at Green Chimneys, a residential treatment center for children with emotional, behavioral, social and learning challenges.

When 20-year old Nathan loses his career and his girlfriend, he questions his purpose in life. Compounding his struggle, Nathan grew up in a foster home and never met his birth mother. He sets out on a quest to find his mother and somehow come to terms with her rejection of him. His journey begins by flying to the city where he was born. Upon his arrival, Nathan checks into a hotel and meets Mave the hotel's housekeeper. Encouraged by Mave's wisdom and the help of hotel guest Shelly, Nathan finds the address of his mother, Linda. Linda is a social worker who agonizes over the decision she made with Nathan 20 years ago. In an effort to admonish the guilt of giving up her son, Linda is caught up in the life of a teenage mother-to-be, Tori, who is conflicted by the decision to abort her baby. When Nathan gathers the courage to meet his mother, he uncovers a terrible secret that totally redefines what was meant to be for his life.

Through interviews with both victims and instigators, Nanfu Wang, a first-time mother, breaks open decades of silence on a vast, unprecedented social experiment that shaped — and destroyed — countless lives in China.

A journalist's wife insists on adopting an abandoned child.

After his foster mother dies, sixteen-year-old Mark goes on the run with his foster brother Tristan, a young boy with Autism and PTSD in order for them to stay together and not become separated by the system. However, Mark finds out that keeping him and his brother together is going to be harder than it looks ...

Jamie leaves the children's home to live with his paternal grandmother. After working in a mine and in a tailor's shop, he is conscripted into the RAF, and goes to Egypt, where he is befriended by Robert, whose undemanding companionship releases Jamie from self-pity.

True story of Tom Butterfield and his crusade to provide family life for homeless children, becoming not only the first bachelor caretaker, but the youngest single adult to become a legal foster parent in the state of Missouri.

Cory (Dan Byrd) is a foster child nobody wants. Carlotta (Academy Award-nominee Julie Harris) is an elderly woman the world has forgotten. Together, they find friendship and family when they join a traveling circus. Also features Mickey Rooney and Joe DiMaggio, in his last screen appearance.

From practicing barefoot on the streets of Lagos to performing on stage in England, twelve year old Anthony Madu leaves his home in Nigeria to study at one of the most prestigious ballet schools in the world. Anthony, who had barely left his neighborhood in Lagos, finds himself thrust into a new world where his wildest dream is suddenly within reach. His journey is a story of extraordinary obstacles, courage, growth, and ultimately, his search for belonging.