Best movies like God's Sandbox

Axl wants to find his long-lost father and rediscover his past. Vera just wants to forget hers as she tries to move on from heartbreak. Their stories come together in the melting-pot of 21st century London.

After fifteen years of traveling around the world, Gussie (Spacek), a famous photographer, returns to the Maryland coastal resort where she grew up. She meets her high school sweetheart Henry (Kline), now married and running the local newspaper he's inherited from his father. An awkward and tension-filled romance ensues.

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.

When James admits to his mother that he is gay it strains her liberal attitude. A San Diego businesswoman, Audrey believes she is a modern, open-minded mother, but the news sends her reeling. However, the real shock comes when James asks her to travel to Arkansas and inform his lover's estranged mom, Luanne, that her son has AIDS. As Audrey and Luanne learn to put aside their prejudice toward each other, they soon discover how to share their thoughts, hopes and fears for their sons.

Nita, a divorced mother of two boys, is stuck working as a telephone operator in a small Texas town in World War II. Her friendship with a sailor on leave causes tongues to wag in town.

A Roman Catholic teenage boy in Glace Bay, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia during the 1930s faces various growing-up problems: Should be become a priest? What should he do about the murder he witnessed, committed by a local cop and upstanding parishioner? And how far should he go with his girl friend, who happens to be the murderer's daughter?

Joanna, recently divorced, decided to return with her daughter to the town where she was born. There, she confronts the memories of the past when he meets his former lover, now married.

The strain of juggling her responsibilities as wife, mother, and successful paralegal have worn Emma Burke out. Thus it is that Emma welcomes the opportunity to briefly take leave of her Boston home and head for sunny Hawaii. It is not, however, a pleasure trip: Having promised to honor the dying wishes of her Hawaiian-born surrogate mother. Leaving her husband, Mike, behind to care for their two children, Emma arrives in Hawaii for the first time since childhood, where she is reunited with her childhood friend Kala, the handsome son of her late surrogate parent.

A drama centered on a rebellious girl who is sent to a Southern beach town for the summer to stay with her father. Through their mutual love of music, the estranged duo learn to reconnect.

For 16 years Miss Bentley has been spending April at an elegant hillside villa on Lake Como. This year, 1937, her London society artist father has recently died and the only other English-speaking guests are brash Americans. Then Major Wilshaw arrives. He suggests they meet for cocktails and Miss Bentley stands him up -- not even thinking about it -- as she helps the new nanny of an Italian family settle in. Miss Beaumont, a tall, young American who has dropped out of finishing school in Switzerland, is bored and finds some amusement in flirting with the major, whose libido is awakened for the first time since before the great war. And Miss Bentley now finds more about the major to admire than his ears.

A young refugee travels from Russia to America in search of her lost father and falls in love with a gypsy horseman.

An aging Southern belle's preoccupation with her past and her dreams for her children's futures threaten to smother her painfully shy daughter and her aspiring writer son.

An awkward 13-year-old leaves her cranky grandfather in rural Texas, to live with her mother in Fort Worth.

In 1972, disenchanted about the dreary conventions of English life, 25-year-old Julia heads for Morocco with her daughters, six-year-old Lucy and precocious eight-year-old Bea.

Oscar-winner Colin Firth stars in this heart-warming cross-cultural romantic comedy set in the idyllic South of France. Nimi, a beautiful Nigerian single mother to son Sammy, is under pressure from her family to find a suitable husband and who better than the local Reverend? After making friends with Matthew, a British comic-book writer and one of his heros, Sammy has other ideas. He successfully plots to get them together but they've still a few obsticles to overcome. (from Amazon)

This film concerns two mysterious characters who meet on a Sunday in Queens. Madeleine the most unsettling creature of that name since "Vertigo" is a middle-aged, moderately successful actress. Oliver/Matthew is either a homeless man or a famous film director or both. Madeleine hails him on the street as the latter, launching a bizarre chain of events that includes a conversation in a diner, a very unromantic sexual encounter, the arrival of Madeleine's odd husband and unsuspecting daughter, and a child's birthday party. The film also compassionately tracks the daily rounds of Oliver/Matthew's fellow denizens of the homeless shelter, some of whom will be recognizable to New York audiences.

Saga returns to his village after an extended absence to discover that his father has taken Nogma, Saga's promised bride, for himself. Still in love with each other, the two begin an affair, although it would be considered incestuous.

A new woman comes between a widower and his adult son.

Jade Li is a feisty, 20-something Chinese Canadian, trying to achieve that happy medium between giving in to her parent's wishes and fulfilling her own needs and desires - double happiness. Naturally, something's got to give and when love beckons in the shape of Mark, a white university student, the facade of the perfect Chinese daughter begins to slip.

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

in the summer of 1966, in Beloeil, Québec, where a young girl named Élise is enjoying summer vacation. Summer 1966. It's time to enjoy the summer holiday, total freedom. Suddenly her mother leaves her family to pursue her journalism career in London. Her urge to leave is triggered when she coincidentally listens in on a conversation between her husband and his male lover. Her brother Coco seeks solace in the garage, building a super racing car. Her youngest brother Benoît throws himself into his own inner world. The father seems absolutely knocked out by the situation. Élise decides to take control of her family, in an eloquent attempt to save them. With the assistance of flourishing nature around her, she stands on the threshold of an incomparable summer.

Death in Love is a psychosexual-thriller about a love affair between a Jewish woman and a doctor overseeing human experimentation at a Nazi German concentration camp, and the impact this has on her sons' lives in the 1990s.

A New Jersey teen faces her impending adulthood, dreaming of a life as a successful New York artist. But when she gets caught up in the carefree sport of pre-AIDS sex and drugs, her future becomes less certain.

Family members struggle to heal their emotional wounds after an incident of sexual abuse.

Falling Like This showcases compelling performances by two young actors, Brian Vaughan and Megan Wilson. Writer/Director Dani Minnick has crafted a compassionate examination of the ragged edge of suburban life as characterized by Boyd, a charming, vulnerable and inveterate juvenile delinquent whose love nearly derails the life of a middle-class teenage girl. The understated themes of adolescent rebellion, adult responsibility and the redemptive power of love are woven elegantly into this dream-like film.

The story of three women who live in a North Carolina town and defy the traditional roles set forth for them by society.

Two teenage girls must come to terms with their stepfather when their mother is struck by illness.

The feisty aging Hagar Shipley has lived an unconventional life. Her rebellious heart has always ruled and her choices have put her at odds with family and friends. Faced with her own mortality, and desperate to find solace, she goes on the run. In both the past and the present, she is forced to come to terms with the pain and pleasure, the disappointments and the exhilarations of her life.

A man endeavors to collect memories of his grandparents who died in a concentration camp during the Holocaust.

Expecting Amish tells the story of 18-year-old Hannah Yoder, who is ready to join the Amish Church and marry her boyfriend Samuel. But things change when she goes to Hollywood and gets a glimpse of the world beyond.

In 1971, in the small town of Shirley Falls, in Maine, the odd and lonely secretary Isabelle Goodrow raises her teenager daughter Amy alone. She has only two friends in her job among her gossiper colleagues. When her overprotected daughter is seduced by her mathematic teacher Peter Robertson, the world of Isabelle falls apart. She becomes lost and loses her confidence on Amy, spoiling their relationship. Their bond gets tied again when Isabelle discloses her inner secrets from the past to Amy.

Mary Faith Rapple, a bright high school senior, has never been part of the "in crowd." She teaches a night class, cares for her widowed father and pretty much keeps to herself. When a fellow loner moves to Due East, she finds herself in a relationship for the first time, leading to a small town scandal that changes her life forever.

Isaac Geldhart is a Holocaust survivor who, overcome by grief at the recent death of his wife, seems determined to run his publishing firm into the ground by printing books that have no hope of financial success. His son Aaron, who also works at the company, grows frustrated with Isaac's emotional decline and attempts to take over the firm. The resulting crisis involves Isaac's other two children, his daughter Sarah and his dying son Martin.

A woman with a hearing problem tries to get het life back together after a car accident that killed her husband.

Life on the Rock never seemed easy, but for Mitsy it is especially rough. The teenager has been abandoned by her mother, a particularly unfit parent prone to both the bottle and the sex trade. She is left to be brought up by her mercurial grandmother Bride, who is well-meaning but oppressively suffocating. Mitsy's dreams for the future hinge on her desire to be a hairdresser, but her current emotional well-being revolves around a wee dog named Sparky, an unwanted canine misfit to whom she becomes hopelessly attached. After Bride agrees to let Mitsy take the dog in as a pet, the teen tries desperately to create a happy, safe place for Sparky to thrive.