Best movies like I Was Born, But...

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like I Was Born, But... Starring Tatsuo Saitō, Tomio Aoki, Mitsuko Yoshikawa, Hideo Sugawara, and more. If you liked I Was Born, But... then you may also like: The War, Real Life, Record of a Tenement Gentleman, The Reformer and the Redhead, Baby Brother 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.

Two young brothers become the leaders of a gang of kids in their neighborhood. Ozu's charming film is a social satire that draws from the antics of childhood as well as the tragedy of maturity.

selected filters: Sort: Default

You may filter the list of movies on this page for a more refined, personalized selection of movies.

Still not sure what to watch click the recommend buttun below to get a movie recommendation selected from all the movies on this list

Know any good movies to watch like I Was Born, But... 1932. With a similar plot or stoyline. Suggest it.

The War

The son of a Vietnam War Veteran must deal with neighborhood bullies as well as his dad's post-traumatic stress disorder while growing up in the deep south in the 1970's.

Real Life

A pushy, narcissistic filmmaker persuades a Phoenix family to let him and his crew film their everyday lives, in the manner of the ground-breaking PBS series "An American Family".

Record of a Tenement Gentleman

An errant salaryman's son gets lost until a man from the Tokyo tenements brings him to vendor Tane, who's reluctant to let the kid board.

Baby Brother

Joe Cobb is a wealthy child who longs for a baby brother. His nursemaid takes him to the other side where he meets some kids his age (the rest of Our Gang) where Joe offers three dollars for a baby. Farina finds a fellow African-American neighbor woman who lets him mind her infant which he then paints white and sells to Joe. The rest of the gang has set an assembly-line system that washes, dries, rocks, and feeds male and female babies.

The Beautiful Country

After reuniting with his mother in Ho Chi Minh City, a family tragedy causes Binh to flee from Viet Nam to America. Landing in New York, Binh begins a road trip to Texas, where his American father is said to live.

Biography of a Bachelor Girl

Everyweek Newsmagazine editor Richard Kurt pursues famous free-spirited portrait artist Marion Forsythe on her return to the states from Europe, seeking to convince her to write her biography as a feature for his magazine. One of Marion's old beaus, now running for U.S. Senator from their home state, also comes calling.

Blank Check

Bullied by his siblings and nagged by his parents, 11-year-old Preston is fed up with his family -- especially their frugality. But he gets his chance to teach them a lesson when a money-laundering criminal nearly bulldozes Preston with his car and gives the boy a blank check as compensation. Preston makes the check out for $1 million and goes on a spending spree he'll never forget. Maybe now, his family will take him seriously!

Bowery Blitzkrieg

The East Side Kids discover that one of their own, Danny, is torn between staying and school and becoming a boxer, and is getting mixed up with gangsters.

Carbon Copy

A middle-aged married wealthy white corporate executive is surprised to discover that he has a working-class black teen-age son who wants to be adopted into the almost-exclusively-white upper-middle-class community of San Marino, California.

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids

The scientist father of a teenage girl and boy accidentally shrinks his and two other neighborhood teens to the size of insects. Now the teens must fight diminutive dangers as the father searches for them.

Serial Mom

She's the perfect all-American parent: a great cook and homemaker, a devoted recycler, and a woman who'll literally kill to keep her family happy.

Little Murders

Alfred Chamberlain, who suffers from an inability to feel or to be passionate about anything, meets Patsy Newquist, who takes it upon herself to mold him into "a strong, vital, self-assured man that I can protect and take care of."

Dog Days

A group of people in Los Angeles are brought together thanks to their canine friends.

Dominick and Eugene

Dominick and Eugene are twins, but Dominick is a little bit slow due do an accident in his youth. They live together, with Dominick working as garbage man to put Eugene through medical school. Their relationship becomes strained when Eugene must decide between his devotion to his brother, or his need to go away to complete his training. Things are also not helped by Dominick's co-worker, or Eugene's budding romance.

The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice

Takeo, a capricious wife from Tokyo high society, is bored by her dull husband, a quiet and reliable company executive raised in the country. After a crisis, she understands better his true value. A parallel sub-plot shows her niece rebelling against the tradition of arranged marriages.

Good Morning

A lighthearted take on director Yasujiro Ozu’s perennial theme of the challenges of inter­generational relationships, Good Morning tells the story of two young boys who stop speaking in protest after their parents refuse to buy a television set. Ozu weaves a wealth of subtle gags through a family portrait as rich as those of his dramatic films, mocking the foibles of the adult world through the eyes of his child protagonists. Shot in stunning color and set in a suburb of Tokyo where housewives gossip about the neighbors’ new washing machine and unemployed husbands look for work as door-to-door salesmen, this charming comedy refashions Ozu’s own silent classic I Was Born, But . . . to gently satirize consumerism in postwar Japan.

It's Not Me, I Swear!

During the summer of 1968, Leon, a 10-year-old boy, navigates the hardships of young love, his lunatic mother's whims, and his urges to vandalize the house of his neighbors.

Parents

Michael is a young boy living in a typical 1950s suburbanite home... except for his bizarre and horrific nightmares, and continued unease around his parents. Young Michael begins to suspect his parents are cooking more than just hamburgers on the grill outside, but has trouble explaining his fears to his new-found friend Sheila, or the school's social worker.

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

Dito Montiel, a successful author, receives a call from his long-suffering mother, asking him to return home and visit his ailing father. Dito recalls his childhood growing up in a violent neighborhood in Queens, N.Y., with friends Antonio, Giuseppe, Nerf and Mike.

Where the Red Fern Grows

Billy Coleman works hard and saves his earnings for two years to achieve his dream of buying two red-bone coonhound pups. He develops a new trust in life as he faces overwhelming challenges in adventure and tragedy roaming the river bottoms of Cherokee country with his dogs, Old Dan and Little Ann.

We the Animals

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.

The Point

Years ago, there was a place called The Land of Point, because everything in The Land of Point had one: the barns, the houses, the cars, everything, even the people. Everyone in The Land of Point had a point at the top of its head. Everyone, that is, except Oblio, who was born round-headed. Since he had no point, Oblio, along with his trusty dog, Arrow, was banished to the Pointless Forest. Join them to see what wonders await these two intrepid travelers as they make their way on their amazing, song-filled journey of discovery!

Late Autumn

A woman and her daughter are each forced to contend with an increasing pressure to marry, particularly from three men who knew her late husband.

Meet the Hollowheads

The Hollowheads are a strange, futuristic family that live in a Jetsons type world complete with many cool gadgets. Henry is hoping for a promotion at the slime factory in which he works and decides to bring his boss home for dinner and to meet the family. Henry's perverted boss doesn't know what he's up against when he tries to make advances with Mrs. Hollowhead

Metroland

After ten years absence Toni, Chris's best friend, suddenly reappears in London to bring chaos and doubt into Chris's calm, tranquil, slightly boring, predictable life. Chris starts to remember his carefree youth as a photographer in Paris when he lived with and enjoyed a torrid affair with Annick. It was also in Paris that he first met and fell in love with Marion. The temptations and pressure exerted on Chris by Toni to return to their former carefree life of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll soon starts to have an impact on Chris's marriage. He starts to question his values, his lifestyle choices and his relationship with Marion and even suspects her of starting an affair with Toni whom she dislikes! Eventually circumstances come to a head and Chris is forced to decide whether to follow Toni back to the hedonistic, irresponsible life of his youth or face the harsh realities of the present and stay with Marion.

Good Fences

Set in the 1970s, Tom Spader is an attorney who is determined to end what he has dubbed "the colored man's losing streak." When his winning of a high-profile case thrusts him into the limelight, he decides to moves his wife and their two kids out of their mixed lower-middle-class town and into the posh enclave of Greenwich, Connecticut.

The People Under the Stairs

Poindexter "Fool" Williams, his brother Leroy, and their family face eviction from their rented home in South Central Los Angeles. Their landlords are a greedy, uncaring couple who live in a mansion that's as huge as it is eerie. Leroy has a plan to burglarize the mansion, but what the boys find inside is not what they expected.

Stage Fright

Author Fawn Ochletree stages a charity performance of her latest play, a Romanesque epic. The gang and other neighborhood kids are forced into starring in the play, much to the chagrin of the gang. They are completely unable to remember their lines, and struggle with maintaing their composure during the more serious moments of the melodrama. Finally, Jackie sets off a slew of firecrackers as the finale, scaring all involved.

There Was a Father

Shuhei Horikawa, a poor schoolteacher, struggles to raise his son Ryohei by himself, despite neither money nor prospects.

Tokyo Chorus

Mr. Omura, a teacher, leads a group of male students in an outdoor drill. One slight, comic young man, Shinji Okajima, has no shirt under his jacket; he scratches at fleas and makes faces behind Omura's back. Jump ahead several years, Shinji is married with three children. He sells insurance, and on the company's annual bonus day, he protests when an older worker is fired. Shinji loses his own job as a result, and he and his wife must find ways to cope. Lassitude, pride, the demands and needs of young children, and relationships from bygone school days all play a part in the outcome of their struggle.

It Must Be Heaven

Filmmaker Elia Suleiman travels to different cities and finds unexpected parallels to his homeland of Palestine.

Paper Boys

A ragtag bunch of teenage door to door salesmen wreak havoc and spread the news of their coming of age in this summer before they begin their college lives. It centers around Sean, a sexually confused and drug afflicted teen who just can't seem to shake off his dysfunctional family history. Paper Boys is an adventure into the psychology of sales as a metaphor for life as these young "Glengarry Glen Ross" wannabes terrorize a suburban neighborhood near everyone!

Inheritance

The patriarch of a wealthy and powerful family suddenly passes away, leaving his wife and daughter with a shocking secret inheritance that threatens to unravel and destroy their lives.

Captain January

A little girl named Star lives with a lighthouse keeper who rescued her when her parents drowned. A truant officer decides she should go to boarding school but she's rescued by relatives.

The Adventures of Ociee Nash

Ociee Nash, a spirited nine-year-old from rural Mississippi, is sent to live with her Aunt Mamie to become a "young lady". Her true bravery, character, and spirit are put to the test.

Brothers by Blood

Peter and Michael, raised on the streets of Philadelphia, are the children of Irish mob members, forever linked by the crimes of their fathers. 30 years later, Michael now runs the criminal organization and lusts for more power, his dangerous antics frequently held in check by his cautious cousin Peter. Haunted by the death of his sister, whose passing destroyed both his parents, Peter is caught between the dreams of childhood and the realities of his life as an enforcer. His only reprieve is a local boxing gym, a sanctuary that is quickly threatened as Michael’s desire for control escalates.

I Wish

Twelve-year-old Koichi, who has been separated from his brother Ryunosuke due to his parents' divorce, hears a rumor that the new bullet trains will precipitate a wish-granting miracle when they pass each other at top speed.

Inuyashiki

A middle-aged office worker encounters aliens and is gifted with alien technology and limitless powers.

Divorce American Style

After 17 years of marriage in American suburbia, Richard and Barbara Harmon step into the new world of divorce.

The Christmas Star

Horace McNickle (Edward Asner) is a two-time felon serving prison time for counterfeiting. On the week before Christmas, he escapes from prison dressed as Santa Claus due to his uncanny resemblence to St. Nick resulting from his long white beard and heavyset features. McNickle hides out from the police in a nearby suburban neighborhood where he is befriended and helped by two local children who think he is the real Santa Claus. McNickle takes advantage of the kids naive ness to help him get his counterfeit money hidden somewhere in a local department store while he develops kind-hearted feelings for his two con victims that make him slowly understand the true nature of Christmas.

Put the Camera on Me

Before he went on to direct "Jawbreaker" and "Sparkler," Darren Stein grew up making videos. Along with his friend Adam Shell and the other neighborhood kids, these young film makers touched on such adult subjects as jealousy, cruelty, and sexuality.

The Grief of Others

The Ryries have suffered a loss: the death of a baby just fifty-seven hours after his birth. Without words to express their grief, the parents, John and Ricky, try to return to their previous lives. The couple's children, ten-year-old Biscuit and thirteen-year-old Paul, responding to the unnamed tensions around them, begin to act out in exquisitely idiosyncratic ways. But as the family members scatter into private, isolating grief, an unexpected visitor arrives, and they find themselves growing more alert to the hurt, humor, warmth, and burdens of others—to the grief that is part of every human life but that also carries within it the power to draw us together.

Secrets of the Pirate's Inn

A gang of kids helps a sea captain search for a pirate’s treasure that’s rumored to be hidden somewhere in the old dilapidated inn the sea captain just inherited from his dead brother. Along the way, they unravel a series of clues which lead to a variety of hidden passages and trap doors. But they are not alone in their quest for Jean Lafitte’s pirate goodies!

A Daughter of the Law

When Eddie, the son of a police officer, gets involved with a criminal gang, his sister tries to steer him away from crime.

Little Annie Rooney

A feisty little girl, the daughter of a beat cop, faces the challenges of growing up in a tough city neighborhood.

Passing Fancy

Two Tokyo co-workers come across a destitute young lady in search of a place to live.

Every-Night Dreams

In the formally ravishing Every-Night Dreams, set in the dockside neighborhoods of Tokyo, a single mother works tirelessly as a Ginza bar hostess to ensure a better life for her young son—until her long-lost husband returns.

South Park (Not Suitable for Children)

After it's discovered that a teacher at South Park Elementary has an OnlyFans page, Randy is compelled to take a closer look at the seedy underbelly of the world of online influencers.

More related lists

Sort results by:

X close
Default
Clear filters
...