Best movies like I Wish
They wished for a miracle.
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like I Wish Starring Koki Maeda, Oshiro Maeda, Nene Otsuka, Joe Odagiri, and more. If you liked I Wish then you may also like: The Yearling, You're a Big Boy Now, Unstrung Heroes, The Way Way Back, The Neon Bible 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.
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.
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You're a Big Boy Now
Post-teen virgin moves to New York City, falls for a cold-hearted beauty, then finds true love with a loyal lass.
Unstrung Heroes
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.
The Way Way Back
Shy 14-year-old Duncan goes on summer vacation with his mother, her overbearing boyfriend, and her boyfriend's daughter. Having a rough time fitting in, Duncan finds an unexpected friend in Owen, manager of the Water Wizz water park.
The Neon Bible
While on a train, a teenage boy thinks about his life and the flamboyant aunt whose friendship acted as an emotional shield from his troubled family. This film evokes the haunting quality of memory while creating a heartfelt portrait of a boy's life in a rural 1940s Southern town.
Night Has Settled
In 1983, Oliver Nicholas, at thirteen, is well-poised to enter the precocious teenage world of first-sex, vodka and possible-love in New York City when he is traumatized by the stroke of his housekeeper (and only true maternal figure), a sixty-five-year-old Chilean woman named Aida. What was supposed to be an exhilarating and somewhat fearful rite of passage - diving into the exciting, fast-paced world of first experiences - quickly becomes skewed by an incomprehensible depression, and a house of interior horrors. Surrounded by women - his untraditional, Spanish, photographer mother (more interested in the role of confidante than mother) his sister, a comedic, door-slamming tormentor, marked by her parent's divorce; and Aida, his silver-haired emotional focal point on the verge of death in Lenox Hill Hospital - Oliver struggles to maintain his role as "man of the house" and his sanity.
Nobody Knows
In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.
One Christmas
Based on Truman Capote's bittersweet tale of a young boy's adventures with the father he's never known in New Orleans in the 1930s..
Radio Flyer
A father reminisces about his childhood when he and his younger brother moved to a new town with their mother, her new husband and their dog, Shane. When the younger brother is subjected to physical abuse at the hands of their brutal stepfather, Mike decides to convert their toy trolley, the "Radio Flyer", into a plane to fly him to safety.
Josh and S.A.M.
Josh and Sam are two brothers facing change, their mother is about to marry a French accountant and the kids are sent to go live with their father in Florida. Meanwhile, Josh tells Sam that he is a "S.A.M." that is going to be sent to Africa to fight in a war and that Canada is a safe haven for any S.A.M. unwilling to fight. Will Josh & S.A.M. make it to Canada or will they wish they should have never left home?
Killer of Sheep
An African-American man working at a slaughterhouse in the Watts area of Los Angeles leads a dissatisfied and listless existence.
King of the Hill
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.
Accidents Happen
There are dysfunctional families... and then there are the Conways. After a family tragedy, 15-year-old Billy Conway has become the de facto glue between his bitter mom, distant brother, and stoic dad. But when Billy starts to act out, everything changes for him and his family
American Heart
An ex-convict is tracked down by his estranged teenage son, and the pair try to build a relationship and life together in Seattle.
The Beaver
Suffering from a severe case of depression, toy company CEO Walter Black begins using a beaver hand puppet to help him open up to his family. With his father seemingly going insane, adolescent son Porter pushes for his parents to get a divorce.
Too Young to Be a Dad
When 15-year-old Matt Freeman gets his girlfriend, Francesca, pregnant, her family decides to put the unborn baby up for adoption. Matt agrees to the decision, but begins to rethink it. This movie is taken from the father's point of view.
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.
Fireflies in the Garden
The semi-autobiographical story centers on the complexities of love and commitment in a family torn apart when faced by an unexpected tragedy.
Firstborn
Because he's the oldest, Jake has been the man of the house, since his parents divorce. When Mom starts seeing Sam, who always seems to be trying some new way to get rich quick, and declares he's the man of the house now, Jake puts up with it. Until he discovers Sam's illegal activities.
Giovanni's Island
In the aftermath of the most devastating conflict mankind had ever experienced, the tiny island of Shikotan became part of the Sakhalin Oblast... and on the unhealed border in this remote corner of the world, friendship among children from two different countries timidly blossomed, striving to overcome language barriers and the waves of history. Inspired by true events.
The Bullet Train
A Japanese bullet train is threatened with a bomb that will explode automatically if the train slows below 80 km/h, unless a ransom is paid. Police race to find the bombers so the train crew can learn how to defuse the bomb.
The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet
A 10-year-old child prodigy cartographer secretly leaves his family's ranch in Montana where he lives with his cowboy father and scientist mother and travels across the country on board a freight train to receive an award at the Smithsonian Institute.
Leave It to Beaver
Cleavers are an all-American family living in Ohio - wise father Ward, loving mother June, teen-age son Wally and 8-year-old "Beaver" Theodore. Beaver hopes to get a bike as a gift from his father and to please him tries out for his school football team and he makes it, only to be embarrassed. The bike he gets is quickly stolen. Meanwhile Wally is trying to help his friend Eddie Haskell to get the heart of pretty classmate Karen, but Karen seems to like Wally more, and that leads to tensions between the friends.
Parenthood
The story of the Buckman family and friends, attempting to bring up their children. They suffer/enjoy all the events that occur: estranged relatives, the 'black sheep' of the family, the eccentrics, the skeletons in the closet, and the rebellious teenagers.
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.
Stealing Home
Billy Wyatt (Harmon), a former high school and minor-league baseball baseball player receives a telephone call from his mother revealing that his former child-sitter, and later in his teens, his first love, Katie Chandler (Foster), has died. Wyatt returns home to deal with this tragedy reminescing over his childhood growing up with his father, Katie and best friend Alan Appleby.
That Night
A coming-of-age story about an eleven-year-old girl who idolizes her troubled sixteen-year-old neighbor.
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.
Dummy
A coming of age drama about two young brothers whose lives are thrown into turmoil when their mother dies suddenly, leaving them to fend for themselves. While Danny loses himself in music, sex and drugs, his younger brother Jack transforms a life size mannequin into a brand new mum for him to talk to. Jack's obsession leads to both comic misunderstandings and bitter antagonism as the pair battle through grief, anger and denial.
Still Walking
Twelve years after their beloved eldest son, Junpei, drowned while saving a stranger's life, Kyohei and Toshiko welcome their surviving children home for a family reunion. Younger son Ryota still feels that his parents resent that he isn't the one who died; his new wife, Yukari, is awkwardly meeting the rest of the family for the first time. Daughter Chinami strains to fill the uncomfortable pauses with forced cheer.
Begin Again
Gretta, a budding songwriter, finds herself alone after her boyfriend Dave ditches her. Her life gains purpose when Dan, a record label executive, notices her talent.
Table for Five
J.P. Tannen (Jon Voight) wants a second chance to be a father to his children ... but someone else has taken his place. Determined not to just be a friendly 'uncle' in their lives, he gets permission from his ex-wife Kathleen (Millie Perkins) and her new husband (Richard Crenna) to take the kids on a Mediterranean cruise. On the journey he comes to realise it's not that easy and, feeling overwhelmed, begins to doubt his abilities until a tragedy back home forces him to become the father he always hoped to be.
Like Father, Like Son
Ryota Nonomiya is a successful businessman driven by money. He learns that his biological son was switched with another child after birth. He must make a life-changing decision and choose his true son or the boy he raised as his own.
Second Best
The difficult relationship between a british postal officer and his adoptive son.
Black Irish
In South Boston, where Irish roots run deep and Catholic tradition reigns, two brothers face similar hardships but lead far different lives. While older brother Terry descends into drugs and crime, 16-year-old Cole vies to make the state baseball championships - but must struggle to withstand his brother's destructive influence.
Boy
A family of four lives off of scams in which they pretend to be injured by automobiles. After suffering an injury during the war, the father believes he is an invalid. He and his wife have a 10-year-old boy and another, younger boy. The adults pretend to be injured by autos in crowded traffic, blackmailing the fearful motorists with threats to call in the police.
The Autumn Heart
When a school bus driving woman (Tyne Daly) has a heart attack, she makes one request of her three daughters (Ally Sheedy, Marla Sucharetza, Marceline Hugo) - she wants them to find their long lost brother, who was taken away by their father (Jack Davidson) 16 years ago. What they discover is that while they have struggled, their father has become a wealthy man and their brother is in school at Harvard.
Be Sure to Share
Shiro's struggle with his father's cancer and impending death leads to a realization that he must communicate his love and admiration for him before it's too late. A series of flashbacks reveals their relationship over time, and the trouble Shiro faced connecting to his strict father who was also his teacher and soccer coach. With a consuming secret of his own, Shiro, now in his late twenties and about to get engaged, must eventually learn how to share the pain of it with his loved ones.
Personally Yours
Susannah and Jesse Stanton divorced two years prior with three children. When Susannah starts dating a lawyer, the children decide to find someone for their father, sending a letter to a popular magazine called Alaskan Love. He receives a large number of responses, but the children later feel that his perfect match is Susannah, and they try to arrange a plan to bring them together.
Twelve Mile Road
A divorced farmer takes in his troubled teenage daughter for the summer, a summer which changes the lives of the two of them, and their friends and family.
Go Toward the Light
A young couple faces the realities of life with their child who is diagnosed with AIDS.
A Home of Our Own
The story is located in Los Angeles in the sixties. An energetic widow, Frances Lacey, with her six children try to make a dream of theirs come true: to have a home of their own. Therefore they leave Los Angeles and head for the countryside, while facing all kinds of difficulties during their journey.
A Soldier's Love Story
Ten year old Jared Marshall's life crumbled down after his parents' divorce a year ago. Not only does his dad put his job first since, mother uproots him from Iowa by moving in with her ma so she can take a job in California. When Jared's class writes letters to US troops in Bosnia from the nearest base, kindhearted Sergeant First Class Vince Carerra, who grew up fatherless and got divorced because his wife wasn't faithful while he was on tour of duty, takes to the kid and starts a correspondence with 'fatherly' advice. Once his unit returns to Fort Sebastian, Vince calls on Jared's home, warmly welcomed. Vince becomes Jared's personal baseball coach and after some Cupid encouragement, his mother's boyfriend, but on an understanding not to commit because he's likely to be redeployed.
Carry Me Home
A widow named Harriet and her two children Carrie and Brian are living in rural New York in 1947 and are still recovering from the death of Harriet's husband killed in World War II. Carrie is a tomboy and hangs around with boys and they have their own clubhouse. Carrie and her friends make mischief and taunt their mentally challenged neighbor Charlie by stealing one of his puppies. Harriet meets a man named Bernard and begin a courtship, but Carrie is furious that her mother is dating Bernard and wants it to stop. The jealousy and anger of Carrie raises to a fever pitch when Carrie and her friends destroy their neighbor Mr. Grizzle's garden and pour sugar into his tractor. Grizzle then takes Charlie's other puppies away from him and then Grizzle's barn is destroyed by fire. Carrie learns it's time for her to grow up and make amends with her mother and her neighbors for the grief and pain she caused them.
Dad's Home
When a widower loses his job, he must become a full-time housekeeper and stay-at-home dad. He gains a new perspective as he gets to know his two kids better and struggles with the household chores, but faces losing it all when he gets a job offer in another city.
The Yearling
In 1870s Florida, a rural family struggles to survive. A lonely twelve-year-old son, Jody (Wil Horneff), the lone surviving child, against his mother's better judgment eventually persuades his parents to allow him a pet fawn, which Jody grows to love deeply. Tragic conflict arises when the fawn begins eating the family's food crops.