Best movies like Orphan Train

An American anthropologist and his son benefit from their experiences with an East African tribe.

An elderly widow befriends an orphaned juvenile delinquent.

John, a 35-year-old window cleaner, has dedicated his life to bringing up his 4-year-old son, Michael, after the child's mother left them soon after giving birth. When John is given only a few months left to live, he attempts to find a new, perfect family for Michael, determined to shield him from the terrible reality of the situation.

A retired entertainer makes his living as a street musician on the streets of London. Two young children befriend the old musician, brightening his otherwise colorless life

Harry Habert, owner of a rent office has an original idea: To rent babies from a nearby orphanage to the local families. He rents the Ward brothers to his first customers...

Jane Eyre is an orphan cast out as a young girl by her aunt, Mrs. Reed, and sent to be raised in a harsh charity school for girls. There she learns to be come a teacher and eventually seeks employment outside the school. Her advertisement is answered by the housekeeper of Thornfield Hall, Mrs. Fairfax.

Jeremy is learning cello at an arts school in New York. At school he spots Susan, who practices for a ballet audition, and he falls in love.

The arrival of a newborn girl causes the gradual disintegration of the Cairn family; particularly for 9-year-old Joshua, an eccentric boy whose proper upbringing and refined tastes both take a sinister turn.

13-year-old Nate Foster has big Broadway dreams but there’s only one problem — he can’t even land a part in the school play. When his parents leave town, Nate and his best friend Libby sneak off to the Big Apple for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to prove everyone wrong. A chance encounter with Nate’s long-lost Aunt Heidi turns his journey upside-down, and together they must learn that life’s greatest adventures are only as big as your dreams.

Documentary depicting the lives of child prostitutes in the red light district of Songachi, Calcutta. Director Zana Briski went to photograph the prostitutes when she met and became friends with their children. Briski began giving photography lessons to the children and became aware that their photography might be a way for them to lead better lives.

Poor Charlie Brown. He can't fly a kite, and he always loses in baseball. Having his faults projected onto a screen by Lucy doesn't help him much either. Against the sage advice and taunting of the girls in his class, he volunteers for the class spelling bee...and wins!

This animated take on Oliver Twist re-imagines Oliver as an adorable orphaned kitten who struggles to survive in New York City and falls in with a band of canine criminals led by an evil human. First, Oliver meets Dodger, a carefree mutt with street savoir faire. But when Oliver meets wealthy Jenny on one of the gang's thieving missions, his life changes forever.

After destroying his older brother's motorbike in retaliation for his constant bullying, 11-year-old Krishna is sent to a traveling circus to earn money to pay for the bike's repairs, but soon winds up in the streets of Bombay's poorest slums. There, he befriends the drug dealer Chillum and young prostitute Sola Saal, while trying to make enough money at a neighborhood tea stall to repay his debt to his family.

World War II GIs adopt an Italian war orphan.

When her father enlists to fight for the British in WWI, young Sara Crewe goes to New York to attend the same boarding school her late mother attended. She soon clashes with the severe headmistress, Miss Minchin, who attempts to stifle Sara's creativity and sense of self-worth.

Some years after their son is killed in an accident, a married couple decide to adopt a child. One day a 7-year-old boy, Eli, unexpectedly arrives on their doorstep claiming to be from the adoption agency. Eli wears a suit every day and is very well-spoken for a child. He helps the adults to process their loss, which had stifled both their marriage and their toy business, and lets them embrace life again.

We're in an English village shortly before Dunkirk. "Mr. Tom" Oakley still broods over the death of his wife and small son while he was away in the navy during WWI, and grief has made him a surly hermit. Now children evacuated from London are overwhelming volunteers to house them. Practically under protest, Mr. Tom takes in a painfully quiet 10-year-old, who gradually reveals big problems.

Big Bird is sent to live far from Sesame Street by a pesky social worker. Unhappy, Big Bird runs away from his foster home, prompting the rest of the Sesame Street gang to go on a cross-country journey to find him.

Jane Osgood runs a lobster business, which supports her two young children. Railroad staff inattention ruins her shipment, so with her lawyer George, Jane sues Harry Foster Malone, director of the line and the "meanest man in the world".

A young girl is raised in a dysfunctional family constantly on the run from the FBI. Living in poverty, she comes of age guided by her drunkard, ingenious father who distracts her with magical stories to keep her mind off the family's dire state, and her selfish, nonconformist mother who has no intention of raising a family, along with her younger brother and sister, and her other older sister. Together, they fend for each other as they mature in an unorthodox journey that is their family life.

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.

A student must navigate issues of sexuality, identity and family amid Sri Lanka's social turmoil of the 1970s and 1980s.

Marcus is a kid on Manhattan's mean streets. He's turning 15, his father is dead, his mother is in prison for smuggling undocumented aliens. His grandmother is raising him. He has four close buddies who have a basement clubhouse; they shoplift and sell the wares to kids. One is moving toward selling drugs. Marcus wants to take a breather from the city and visit family in New Mexico. He also meets Melena, 14, a sweet kid who dreams of going to Alaska; her father is not just protective but angry and uncommunicative. The gang pressures Marcus to move up to burglary and car theft. He just wants to breathe open air. Can anything go right?

When their mother disappears, a group of siblings are forced to fend for themselves, and make their way on their own. They eventually meet their grandmother, a loner who is reluctant to take them in.

Identical 9-year-olds from very different backgrounds: orphaned Amanda and wealthy Alyssa meet at summer camp and decide to switch places -- and play matchmaker between Alyssa's dad, Roger, and the kind social worker who cares for Amanda.

Ten-year-old Gabe was just a normal kid growing up in Manhattan until Rosemary Telesco walked into his life, actually into his karate class. But before Gabe can tell Rosemary how he feels, she tells him she will not be going to public school any more. Gabe has a lot more to learn about life, love, and girls.

When Pollyanna is orphaned, she's sent to live with her crotchety Aunt Polly. Pollyanna discovers that many of the people in her aunt's New England hometown are as ill-tempered as her aunt. But Pollyanna's incurable optimism - exemplified by her "glad game", in which she looks for the bright side of every situation - brings a change to the staid old community.

This is a film about the life of Gus Edwards, a well known vaudeville composer, entertainer, and producer.

The story of a young boy in the Midwest is told simultaneously with a tale about a young girl in New York from fifty years ago as they both seek the same mysterious connection.

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...

Johnny and his young nephew forge a tenuous but transformational relationship when they embark on a cross-country trip to see life away from Los Angeles.

William 'Frank' Cavanaugh is a top football coach who gave up his career to enter WWI where he became a hero. After the war he went back to coaching where he ended up having one of the best winning percentages in football history.

LOVE ETC. is a witty, poignant and humorous exploration about the universal stages of love, depicted through five real stories over the course of one year in New York City. Young, old, gay, straight – everyone has experienced love – and the joy and frustration that come with it. From teen romance to a decades-long marriage; newlyweds to a recent divorcee, and even a bachelor so frustrated in his search that he chooses to have children without a partner, LOVE ETC. documents the intimate journeys of engaging characters aged 18-89 who reflect the city’s diversity, and takes an honest look at life's most challenging pursuit.

Abraham is a Puerto Rican single parent with two boys. He is becoming very worried about them living in their run down neighborhood when one day he notices that Cubans who escape are lionized and given exceptional benefits. He thinks up a plot to have his sons washed ashore as cuban immigrants who will be adopted by rich anglos.

The difficult relationship between a british postal officer and his adoptive son.

After directing him as the title character in Huckleberry Finn, William Desmond Taylor again used boy actor Lewis Sargent in this picture. His character, known merely as "the boy," has been raised in an orphanage where he has caused as much trouble as possible. He finally can't stand living there anymore and runs away. On the streets he finds a friend in Mike (Ernest Butterworth), a newsboy. Mike teaches him how to survive but inevitably the boy gets hauled into court. However, the judge sees potential in him and hands him over to be adopted by a young politician. The judge, incidentally, is played by Judge Ben Lindsey, who was famous in his day for his efforts to give delinquent boys a decent chance in life.

In postwar Germany, a displaced Czech boy, separated from his family during wartime, is befriended by an American GI while the boy's mother desperately searches for him.

Ethan Bortnick plays the leading role as Nathan,a young boy who's separated from his mother when she goes missing during a trip to Japan to help after the tsunami. The movie explores issues like homelessness, military family life and adoption. Ethan co-wrote the music with Grammy award winning songwriter and producer, Gary Baker and will also score the entire film. Ethan will become the youngest actor to co-write the soundtrack and play the leading role in a feature film. When Army lieutenant, MARGARET PETERS (Lacy Chabert) goes missing during a tsunami rescue mission in Japan, back in Detroit, her son, NATHAN (Ethan Bortnick), discovers that his father GEORGE (Jonathan Bennett) isn't his biological father. Learning that Child Care Services could take him away, Nathan runs away before his father can explain. While George goes on a frantic search, Nathan takes to the streets of Detroit where he meets CAPTAIN MILES, a homeless Iraqi war veteran. Captain Miles takes the boy under his ...

A coming-of-age story of a reluctant 13-year-old hustler named Nathan who will do whatever it takes to feel loved.

Loosely based on a '50's movie of the same name, it tells the story of two young orphan boys who travel by themselves from the Old country to join their father's family in Canada. There they encounter their stern disciplinarian grandfather who has alienated himself from some of his neighbors. There is particularly no love lost between the grandfather and his Dutch neighbors, who he generalizes as being responsible for his son's death in the Boor War. A side product of this animosity is that it is keeping apart the boy's aunt and her Dutch doctor suitor. The two boys change everything though when they find a young baby on the beach...

A journalist's wife insists on adopting an abandoned child.

The children of Barton United are trying to win the cup in their local football (soccer) league. Nasty councillor Mr Bates doesn't like them and wants the team his son plays for to win instead so he makes life as difficult as he can for them. But Barton United are offered help by the local professional team that just happens to be Manchester United with boss man Matt Busby.

A wealthy professional gay couple, who wish to adopt children, see their lives turned topsy turvy when they take in two misbehaving brothers.

A sequel to "A Cricket in Times Square," in this feature a musical cricket returns to his New York City home and his friends, a cat and a mouse, to discover the meaning of Christmas.

Four orphaned and homeless siblings happen upon an abandoned boxcar, which, they furnish with all the comforts of home. Fearful that they will be sent to live with their grandfather they have never met, the children keep their new home a secret.

A celebrated actress discovers six runaway children living on her country property.

A group of graduating students from a midwestern high school comes to New York City on a trip to celebrate the impending end of school. The students include: Roger Ellis, an ambitious teen aiming for success in big business; David, an aspiring rock star; Judy Matheson, a stagestruck coed actress wannabe; Denise, a free-spirited girl hoping to obtain a degree of sophistication; Fred, a lotharo looking for any Big City woman to be with; and Jon Lipton, a would-be artist hoping to make it big. Mickey Rooney also appears briefly as himself during the backstage scene at the musical "Sugar Babies."

A haunted soldier just back from war and a boy who has never known peace in his home life embark on a life-changing journey as they become unlikely friends — and one another’s last shot at redemption.

A prince finds his way to Queens during Christmas when a local woman enlists his help with a children's Christmas show.

A young hustler tries to get drug money by selling a boy to a middle-aged man; his plans are disrupted when the kid dies.