Best movies like Finding the Way Home

Six extraordinary journeys to the place that matters most.

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Finding the Way Home . If you liked Finding the Way Home then you may also like: The Unloved, Unwelcome Stranger, Way Back Home, White Oleander, Richard Cardinal: Cry from a Diary of a Métis Child 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.

A look at the distressing circumstances for millions of children living in orphanages and other institutions around the world as J.K. Rowling's LUMOS foundation works to reunite them with family members or place them in foster homes.

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The Unloved

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.

Unwelcome Stranger

Horse-breeder Howard Chamberlain has many superstitious quirks but his primary one is that he believes orphans are bad luck and a jinx to be around. This is bad news when 'Gimpy", an orphan, shows up at Chamberlain's horse-ranch in search of a place to stay. But Howard's soft-hearted wife, Madeline, allows the young boy to stay on and work in the barn with the horses. And "Gimpy" breaks Chamberlain's "orphan-jinx" in a big way.

Way Back Home

A rural Maine farmer fights for custody of the boy who he's raised as his own.

White Oleander

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

Richard Cardinal: Cry from a Diary of a Métis Child

This short documentary is a moving tribute to Richard Cardinal, a Métis adolescent who committed suicide in 1984. Taken from his home at the age of 4 due to family problems, he spent the rest of his 17 short years moving in and out of 28 foster homes, group homes and shelters in Alberta. A sensitive, articulate young man, Richard Cardinal left behind a diary upon which this film is based.

Anne of Green Gables

A retelling of L.M. Montgomery's story of Anne Shirley, an orphan who is accidentally sent to a couple looking to adopt a boy instead

Black Girl

An aspiring dancer and her two wicked sisters resent their mother's love for a foster daughter.

I Am Somebody's Child: The Regina Louise Story

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.

Child's Play 2

When Andy’s mother is admitted to a psychiatric hospital, the young boy is placed in foster care, andChucky, determined to claim Andy's soul, is not far behind.

Lion

A five-year-old Indian boy gets lost on the streets of Calcutta, thousands of kilometers from home. He survives many challenges before being adopted by a couple in Australia; 25 years later, he sets out to find his lost family.

Foster Child

Gil Cardinal searches for his natural family and an understanding of the circumstances that led to his becoming a foster child. An important figure in the history of Canadian Indigenous filmmaking, Gil Cardinal was born to a Métis mother but raised by a non-Indigenous foster family, and with this auto-biographical documentary he charts his efforts to find his biological mother and to understand why he was removed from her. Considered a milestone in documentary cinema, it addressed the country’s internal colonialism in a profoundly personal manner, winning a Special Jury Prize at Banff and multiple international awards.

Free Willy

When maladjusted orphan Jesse vandalizes a theme park, he is placed with foster parents and must work at the park to make amends. There he meets Willy, a young Orca whale who has been separated from his family. Sensing kinship, they form a bond and, with the help of kindly whale trainer Rae Lindley, develop a routine of tricks. However, greedy park owner Dial soon catches wind of the duo and makes plans to profit from them.

Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine

When Steve Jobs died the world wept. But what accounted for the grief of millions of people who didn’t know him? This evocative film navigates Jobs' path from a small house in the suburbs, to zen temples in Japan, to the CEO's office of the world's richest company, exploring how Jobs’ life and work shaped our relationship with the computer. The Man in the Machine is a provocative and sometimes startling re-evaluation of the legacy of an icon.

Sleepwalking

When her boyfriend is arrested for marijuana possession, Joleen Reedy and her 11-year-old daughter, Tara, take refuge with Joleen's aimless brother, James. Joleen soon runs off with a truck driver, and James is unable to meet his responsibilities. After Child Protective Services takes possession of Tara, James abducts her from a foster home, and the two travel from California to Utah, where his abusive father lives.

The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things

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.

Instant Family

When Pete and Ellie decide to start a family, they stumble into the world of foster care adoption. They hope to take in one small child but when they meet three siblings, including a rebellious 15 year old girl, they find themselves speeding from zero to three kids overnight.

Lake City

In this searing Southern drama, a mother and son reunite under desperate circumstances years after a family tragedy drove them far apart.

Tom & Thomas

A young boy thinks he's got a lookalike around him, but nobody believes him. Then, he meets Thomas and they switch homes.

The Hollow Child

Samantha has lived her whole life in different foster homes. Now living in a small town, she never feels like she quite fits in, even with her own current foster family who might adopt her, or the boy who follows her around doing her classwork. So, it’s perhaps natural that she doesn’t know what to do with a curious tagalong little sister named Olivia. One day, Sam callously ditches Olivia, who wanders off into the woods on her own and disappears.

The Great Gilly Hopkins

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...

Open Road

Angie, a young Brazilian artist, abandons her old life and embarks on a journey around the country. Running from her past, and searching for her foundation in life, Angie finds not only herself but love in its many forms.

Green Chimneys

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

Goodbye, Norma Jean

Norma Jean Baker finds her way to Hollywood and is turned into sex symbol Marilyn Monroe.

Courage Mountain

At the beginning of World War I, a young Swiss girl is sent off to boarding school.

Schoolhouse Rocked: The Homeschool Revolution

A once reluctant homeschool family sells their home and everything in it, packs up in an RV and travels the country to tell the story of the millions of American families who are a part of the Homeschool Revolution. After talking with education experts, homeschooling pioneers, and regular families at every step in their home education journey, they learn come away convinced that it's time for America to bring their children home. The movie follows host, Yvette Hampton, as she travels the country with her family talking with education experts, curriculum developers, college and university faculty and administrators, and homeschooling families at every stage in the process, from kindergarten to college graduation and beyond. As viewers follow Yvette on this journey and share in her challenges and victories as a homeschool mom, they will gather the necessary resources and encouragement to homeschool their own children with excellence.

Somewhere Between

Questions of race, identity and heritage are explored through the lives of young American women growing up as adoptees from China. These four distinct individuals reflect on their experiences as members of transracial families.

56 Up

When a cross-section of seven-year-olds were interviewed for 7 Up in 1964 it was immediately evident that their social backgrounds influenced their attitudes towards life. While the upper class children were confident and self-assured, those from middle and working class backgrounds were resigned to a challenging life of hard work. This premise was put to the test every seven years when the same group were interviewed about the progression of their lives. 49 years in the making, the changes that occurred to the original 14 make for fascinating television and are in many ways the stories of all our lives. From success and disappointment, marriage and childbirth, to poverty and illness, nearly every facet of life has been captured on film. Now, at the age of 56, the group are once more brought together and, with the benefit of hindsight, assess whether their lives have been ruled by circumstance or self-determination.

Amish: A Secret Life

Miriam and Dave Lapp are a charming young couple with a brood of adorable children. Dave works in and part owns a construction company. They are also members of the 'Old Order' Amish community in Pennsylvania,whose church forbids all technology - though Dave gets lifts to work in a car and the couple,by allowing themselves to be filmed,risk the wrath of church elders. Having outlined their traditional life-style to camera Miriam persuades several friends to be happily filmed and it becomes clear that the Lapps and other,younger Amish,believe that,having been rebaptized to allow a more open evangelical approach - risking excommunication thereby - they feel the need for a change in the community. The film ends as the family consolidates its dream to own their own farm.

Lucy and Desi: A Home Movie

Emmy Award-Winning Special Desi and Lucy's daughter, Lucie Arnaz, hosts this emotional and honest glimpse at the extraordinary lives of her world-famous parents, highlighted by never-before-seen color family movies along with insightful interviews from family members, business associates and celebrity friends such as Bob Hope. Winner of the Emmy Award for Outstanding Informational Special, LUCY & DESI: A HOME MOVIE is a sensitive and absorbing documentary that details the circumstances which brought the immortal twosome together and ultimately drove them apart.

Age Out

Fresh out of foster care at age 18, a young drifter turns to petty crime to survive, and discovers an impossible love in an unlikely friend.

Sounds of Silence

In Los Angeles, photographer Peter Mitchell learns that he has inherited a palatial estate in Sweden from his unknown relative, Annie Holst. He, his girlfriend Sarah, and her deaf son Dennis, head overseas to decide whether to live in the property or to sell it. But when they arrive, they find the locals offer a chilly reception whenever Annie's name is mentioned. It turns out that Annie had lost her son some 50 years ago in a tragedy at the nearby orphanage where she had placed him temporarily, due to circumstances beyond her control. But she had continued to see her son even after his death. Now, young Dennis is drawn to the derelict orphanage, and to a new friend who only he can see. And Peter must solve a decades-old mystery of how the orphans died before his family faces a similar fate.

George's Island

After telling his class about the ghost of Captain Kidd and his buried treasure on George’s Island, George is placed in a foster home. George and another foster child, Bonnie, flee to the island on Halloween but when they’re followed by adults Captain Kidd’s ghost is awakened.

Wish Man

A motorcycle cop is still haunted by the traumatic separation from his father when he was a boy. After surviving a near-fatal accident and being framed for police brutality, his whole world falls apart. Unexpectedly, he finds hope in the shape of a terminally ill boy, who reunites him with his father after 28 years. To honor the boy, he creates the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

A Chance in the World

A Chance in the World is the unbelievable real life story of Steve, a wounded and broken boy destined to become a man of resilience and vision. From the day he is five-years-old and dropped off at his foster home of the next eleven years, Steve is mentally and physically tortured by Betty (his foster mother), Willie (her husband) and his foster siblings. Desperate for a sense of family and belonging, Steve searches for his biological parents, but no one in the system can help him. No one can tell him why, with obvious African-American features, he has the last name of Klakowicz.

My Way Home

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.

Twice Blessed

Stephanie and Terry are identical twins who have been raised separately since their parents divorced seven years earlier. Each envies the lifestyle of the other; and they decide, without telling Jeff or Mary, to switch families for a day or two. They soon find that it is harder to do what the other person is expected to do, and that looking alike is not enough. When they find that their charade may bring their parents back together, they agree to continue it. A major complication begins when Alice, Jeff's girlfriend and co-worker, finds out the real story.

Not Another Black Movie

Would you go to therapy with crazy family members to collect millions? It wouldn't be as easy as you think. - When the family matriarch, Big Mama, passes away, her dying wish is to make sure the family she raised address their personal demons. Now, her dysfunctional family must seek unconventional therapy in order to get a multi-million dollar inheritance. Chaos ensues as they are forced to deal with old rivalries, volatile marriages, and failed dreams.

Deadly Whispers

Tom Acton: a strict but loving father whose only wish is for a safe, kind world for his family. His main worry: his l9·year old daughter, Kathy, a pretty and flirtatious girl who thinks nothing of having an affair with a married man. Even worse, she suspects that an old boyfriend is stalking her. Then one day, Kathy goes missing. Tom and his wife, Carol, are convinced that Kathy has been abducted and are devastated when the police find a body, shot to death and horribly mutilated. The Actons refuse to believe it could be Kathy, but as the police detective assigned to the case begins to dig deeper, he confronts Carol with a terrible possibility, that the truth behind the killing could lie very close to home.

Hostile Territory

Former P.O.W. Jack Calgrove moves Heaven and Earth to be reunited with his children following the Civil War. After returning home, Jack discovers that his wife has tragically died and his children, presumed to be orphans, are heading deep into the West on a train crossing enemy lines, with the intent of being placed into new homes. Calgrove and another soldier team up with a troop of Native American sharpshooters and a freed slave as they try to stop the train.

Daddy's Perfect Little Girl

A 12-year-old girl becomes jealous when her adoptive father develops a budding relationship with a woman and her teenage son.

The Reluctant Nanny

IT guru Libby gets more than she bargained for when, after losing her job, she reluctantly agrees to help a cop with fostering two abandoned kids.

The Orphanage

After a fatal accident occurs, Nathan Perry is assigned to the Milwood facility for young adults. During his time at Milwood, Nathan becomes a victim of unforeseen terror and unusual behavior.

The Children Nobody Wanted

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.

Family Sins

Based on the true story of the Burt family who seemed normal, upstanding members of the community but were actually deeply embedded in crime. The matriarch took in foster children who were subsequently molested and abused by her husband and children and she kept a woman enslaved and imprisoned in the basement for over twenty years until the woman's daughter managed to get to Rhode Island Attorney General David Morwitz and expose the horrors taking place in the Burt household.

Golden Stripes

Young Tyrone embarks on a fulfilling journey as an artist following a tumultuous start in life, subjected to horrific abuse in a foster home that violated their duty of care.

The First of May

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.

Last Man Club

A WW2 veteran destined for life in a retirement home escapes his difficult family situation and embarks on a cross country adventure to find the last remaining members of his B-17 bomber crew with the help of a beautiful accomplice.

Ordinary Miracles

A tough judge takes in a foster child with nowhere to go. Attempts to reunite child with long lost father end badly with the rebellious child running away.

Iris Warriors

England, 1940: When falling bombs trap eight children in the cellar of their orphanage, their teacher, Miss Shaw starts to read them a story. As the tale unfolds, they are magically transported to a timeless, mythical island, where they witness the story of Darkness and Light...

Let's Sing Again

An orphan (Eight-year-old boy soprano Bobby Breen) gets a chance to sing opera in New York.

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