Best movies like My Friend Joe

Best friends find you when you least expect it.

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like My Friend Joe Starring Schuyler Fisk, John Cleere, Stephen McHattie, Stanley Townsend, and more. If you liked My Friend Joe then you may also like: The Way Way Back, Ways to Live Forever, Napoleon and Samantha, North Shore, Now and Then 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.

During the course of one summer, a young Irish lad named Chris befriends an American boy named Joe. The two couldn't be more different, yet they become inseparable. Things turn horribly wrong however, when Chris discovers his new best friend isn't a he, but a she. The sadness only begins as Chris learns why Joe's gender must be kept a secret.

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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.

Ways to Live Forever

Sam loves facts. He wants to know about UFOs and horror movies and airships and ghosts and scientists, and how it feels to kiss a girl. And because he has leukemia he wants to know the facts about dying. Sam needs answers to the questions nobody will answer.

Napoleon and Samantha

Two young children, who, rather than part with an old pet lion who was once a circus performer, go on a perilous mountain trek to stay with a recluse friend.

North Shore

On a small stretch of coastline as powerful as a man's will, Rick Kane came to surf the big waves. He found a woman who would show him how to survive, and a challenge unlike any other.

Now and Then

Waxing nostalgic about the bittersweet passage from childhood to puberty, four childhood girlfriends — Teeny, Chrissy, Samantha and Roberta — recall the magical summer of 1970. During their walk down memory lane, they reconcile experiences with boys, secrets, bullies and more.

Old Enough

The 12 years old well-bred Lonnie meets the impudent Karen on the street. They spend some time together and Karen teaches Lonnie some of her favorite occupancies, like make-up, shoplifting, skipping school and lying to the parent about it, but confessing to the priest later. But Karen also learns some honesty from Lonnie. A film about social differences and growing up.

5.9 / 10 1998 Family
suggested by: user941wmcalbzv

Owd Bob

Recently orphaned David must move to the Isle of Man to live with his grandfather, Adam, who's a sheep farmer. Both long for the end of the summer, having nothing in common but their love for dogs, notably Adam's precious champion sheepdog Bob. David strikes a friendship with Maggie, the sassy daughter of friendly neighbor Keith Moore, but Adam hates that family on account of an old canine competition-related tragedy. Other neighbors suspect Bob and the Moore's dog of the recent series of nocturnal sheep-kills.

Rascal

A comedy filled with tenderness as a baby raccoon snuggles his way into the life of a lonely boy. He becomes the boy's only companion during his father's frequent absences. Because of Rascal, both father and son realize their responsibility to each other

Rich Kids

Two 12-year-olds, the products of Upper West Side broken homes, struggle to make sense of their parents lives and their own adolescent feelings.

Jinx

The circus comes to town, and the town's orphans are treated to a day at the circus. The circus troupe's 'Jinx' girl causes so many problems for the performers and performances that, to escape punishment, she has to run away. She mingles with the orphans and runs away to join an orphanage.

Just One of the Girls

Chris has to change school to attend a music program, but a bully named Kurt is going to make his life impossible so he decided to dress as a girl to avoid this. Taking advantage of his condition he became (girl-)friend with Marie, and fell in love with her.

Aquamarine

Two teenage girls discover that mermaids really do exist after a violent storm washes one ashore. The mermaid, a sassy creature named Aquamarine, is determined to prove to her father that real love exists, and enlists the girls' help in winning the heart of a handsome lifeguard.

The Baby-Sitters Club

Seven junior-high-school girls organize a daycare camp for children while at the same time experiencing classic adolescent growing pains.

Bambi II

Return to the forest and join Bambi as he reunites with his father, The Great Prince, who must now raise the young fawn on his own. But in the adventure of a lifetime, the proud parent discovers there is much he can learn from his spirited young son.

Bogus

Recently orphaned, a young boy is taken in by his godmother who is shocked to realize that she can see the boy's imaginary friend: a flamboyant, French magician named Bogus.

Circle of Friends

Three girlhood friends now at college share first loves, first kisses and first betrayals. At the center of it all is the best-looking boy on campus. Can a self-conscious dreamer hook the biggest fish in the pond?

Steal Me

Chasing his wayward mother to Montana, fifteen year old Jake finds the picture perfect Tucker family instead who photoshop him into their lives, despite his questionable past. Too bad Jake can not stop himself from stealing, being seduced by the sexy next door neighbor, courting the mother of the house, encouraging the son in his first love affair, and leading the neighborhood boys in an ever escalating series of pranks. A drama about stealing radios, cars, and hearts

Dating Amber

Eddie and Amber decide to stage a relationship in order to stop everyone speculating about their sexuality. Eddie is keen to follow his dad into the military, while Amber dreams of moving to the liberal hub of London. The plan seems solid, but as their arrangement begins to fall apart, Eddie’s denial gets deeper as Amber realizes that a perilous future awaits her best friend unless she intervenes.

Children on Their Birthdays

Havoc is created in a small Southern community when a 12-year-old shows up, causing a couple 13-year-old friends to fall in love with her, thus possibly jeopardizing their friendship.

7.1 / 10 2015 Adventure Family
suggested by: user258cxtns34x

Heidi

Heidi, is an eight-year-old Swiss orphan who is given by her aunt to her mountain-dwelling grandfather. She is then stolen back by her aunt from her grandfather to live in the wealthy Sesemann household in Frankfurt, Germany as a companion to Klara, a sheltered, disabled girl in a wheelchair. Heidi is unhappy but makes the best of the situation, always longing for her grandfather.

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.

My Girl

Vada Sultenfuss is obsessed with death. Her mother is dead, and her father runs a funeral parlor. She is also in love with her English teacher, and joins a poetry class over the summer just to impress him. Thomas J., her best friend, is "allergic to everything", and sticks with Vada despite her hangups. When Vada's father hires Shelly, and begins to fall for her, things take a turn to the worse...

Lucas

A socially inept fourteen year old experiences heartbreak for the first time when his two best friends -- Cappie, an older-brother figure, and Maggie, the new girl with whom he is in love -- fall for each other.

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.

Paradise

A 10-year-old boy spends a summer in the country with a childless couple and a precocious girl.

Housekeeping

In the Pacific Northwest during the 1950s, two young sisters whose mother has abandoned them wind up living with their Aunt Sylvie, whose views of the world and its conventions don't quite live up to most people's expectations.

Alabama Moon

After the unexpected death of his survivalist father, an eleven year old boy raised in the Alabama wilderness must learn how to make a home in the modern world.

King Jack

Growing up in a rural town filled with violent delinquents, Jack has learned to do what it takes to survive, despite having an oblivious mother and no father. After his aunt falls ill and a younger cousin comes to stay with him, the hardened 15-year-old discovers the importance of friendship, family, and looking for happiness even in the most desolate of circumstances.

Bruno

The story of a unique young boy genius, Bruno, whose expression of his own individuality leads his family and community along an emotional journey.

Standing Up

Based on one of the most beloved Young Adult novels of all time: Two kids are stripped naked and left together on an island in a lake - victims of a vicious summer camp prank; But rather than have to return to camp and face the humiliation, they decide to take off, on the run together. What follows is a three day odyssey of discovery and self-discovery.

Spork

A frizzy-haired, pink-cheeked outcast named Spork navigates her way through the annals of junior high.

Misty

Every year the Chincoteague fire department rounds up the wild ponies of Assateague Island and holds an auction to thin out the herd. The young children set out to raise enough money in hopes that the Phantom will be caught in this years round up. They soon realize they will get more than they bargained for when the Phantom has a surprise for everyone: a foal named Misty.

Stolen Summer

Pete, an eight-year-old Catholic boy growing up in the suburbs of Chicago in the mid-1970s, attends Catholic school, where as classes let out for the summer, he's admonished by a nun to follow the path of the Lord, and not that of the Devil. Perhaps taking this message a bit too seriously, Pete decides it's his goal for the summer to help someone get into heaven - by trying to convert a Jew to Catholicism.

The Tracey Fragments

Tracey Berkowitz, 15, a self-described normal girl, loses her 9-year old brother, Sonny. In flashbacks and fragments, we meet her overbearing parents and the sweet, clueless Sonny. We watch Tracey navigate high school, friendless, picked on and teased. She develops a thing for Billy Zero, a new student, imagining he's her boyfriend. We see the day she loses Sonny and we watch her try to find him.

Mommy Is at the Hairdresser's

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.

3.8 / 10 2006 Drama
suggested by: crossfit

Sonja

Sonja is struggling to deal with her parent separation, and find her feelings for her best friend might not just be a phase.

Honey Boy

The story of a child star attempting to mend his relationship with his law-breaking, alcohol-abusing father over the course of a decade, loosely based on Shia LaBeouf’s life.

Hellion

When motocross and heavy metal obsessed, 13-year-old Jacob's delinquent behavior forces CPS to place his little brother Wes with his aunt, Jacob and his emotionally absent father must finally take responsibility for their actions and each other in order to bring Wes home.

A Shine of Rainbows

An orphaned boy named Tomás is adopted by Maire O’Donnell to live on a whimsical Irish isle filled with new friends, secret caves and a lost baby pup seal stranded on the coast. But when Maire's reluctant husband Alec refuses to accept Tomás as his own son, the boy drifts down a fateful path of adventure and self-discovery, illuminating how rainbows can shine around - and within - us all.

Normal

A Midwestern husband and father announces his plan to have a sex change operation.

Swallows and Amazons

On holiday with their mother in the Lake District in 1929 four children are allowed to sail over to the nearby island in their boat Swallow and set up camp for a few days. They soon realise this has been the territory of two other girls who sail the Amazon, and the scene is set for serious rivalry.

5.9 / 10 2003 Family Drama
suggested by: happylittlecloud

Spin

"Spin" tells the story of a boy who loses his parents in a plane crash, is taken in by his uncle (Tucci), who then leaves him for ten years in the care of his Hispanic ranch hand (Blades) and his wife (Delany). Once in high school, Eddie (Merriman) reconnects with a girl from his past (Garces), and their growing interracial relationship teaches the sometimes-sullen Eddie to think of others before himself.

Tom Sawyer

Tom Sawyer has a head full of pranks and drives when he invents is not just a new adventure, preferably around with his best buddy Huck Finn - much to the chagrin of his Aunt Polly with Tom and his half-brother Sid in the town of St. Petersburg on the Mississippi river.

Saving Shiloh

In this third movie about Shiloh, Judd Travers is accused of killing a man he once fought in a bar. Everyone in the town consider Judd to be guilty except Marty Preston, but even him has some doubts. Trying to clear Judd's name Marty and his friend searches the woods to find the criminal.

How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer

Three generations of women in a Mexican American family experience sexual awakenings over the course of a summer.

7.8 / 10 2003 Drama Family
suggested by: gamingpro

Pollyanna

Pollyanna Whittier goes to live with her wealthy but bitter aunt after the tragic death of her father. Pollyanna shares a game her father taught her -- the 'Glad Game' -- in which everyone can find a silver lining in even the darkest cloud, and her sunny nature, good humor and determination to look on the bright side of life prove to have an astonishing effect on those around her. With the help of her orphaned friend, Jimmy Bean, she casts her spell on the grumpiest townsfolk of Beldingsville -- including the cynical shut-in Mrs. Snow, the morose millionaire Mr. Pendleton and the enigmatic Dr. Chilton. And Pollyanna masterminds the romance between her Aunt's maid, Nancy, and the handyman, Tim. It is only Aunt Polly, who cannot bring herself to embrace Pollyanna's innocence and joy. But all is not straightforward in Pollyanna's war against pessimism, since she must overcome a personal tragedy that threatens to banish "glad" from her vocabulary forever.

The Christmas Bunny

The Christmas Bunny tells the story of a lonely foster child (Sophie Bolen) who finds a lost, injured rabbit in the woods on Christmas Eve. The rabbit is nursed back to health by The Bunny Lady (Florence Henderson), who runs a rabbit rescue in an old barn behind her Michigan farmhouse.

Zelly and Me

A young orphan who lives with her grandmother in a large Virginian home infatuates herself with the voices of Joan d'Arc. Her French nanny seeks out the help of a rich suitor to take her and the orphan away when she realizes that the grandmother cannot offer the orphan the love that she needs.

When I Find the Ocean

A little girl leaves home with her pet dog and rabbit to escape abuse and find the ocean in the hopes of feeling closer to her father who has passed away.

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