20 best movies like 12 and Holding (2005)

List of the best movies like 12 and Holding (2005): This Boy’s Life, Grand Canyon, A Map of the World, Under the Same Moon, Mud, The Slaughter Rule, Lymelife, The Myth of the American Sleepover, Ilo Ilo, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.

Tags: movies similar to 12 and Holding (2005) - full list

Markimdb: 7.3
Genredrama, biography
CountryUSA
Duration01:55

In 1957, a son and mother flee the East and an abusive boyfriend to find a new life, and end up in Seattle, where the mother meets a polite garage mechanic. The boy continually gets into trouble by hanging out with the wrong crowd. The mom marries the mechanic, but they soon find out that he's an abusive and unreasoning alcoholic, and they struggle to maintain hope in an impossible situation as the boy grows up with plans to escape the small town by any means possible. Based on a true story by Tobias Wolff.

Markimdb: 6.9
Genredrama, crime
CountryUSA
Duration02:14

Grand Canyon revolved around six residents from different backgrounds whose lives intertwine in modern-day Los Angeles. At the center of the film is the unlikely friendship of two men from different races and classes brought together when one finds himself in jeopardy in the other's rough neighborhood.

Markimdb: 6.5
Genredrama
CountryUSA, Germany
Duration02:05

School nurse Alice Goodwin lives with her husband and two daughters on a dairy farm in a small Wisconsin community. After an accident on her property involving a friend's child, the town turns against her and Alice finds herself fighting charges of child abuse.

Markimdb: 7.2
Genredrama, adventure
CountryMexico, USA

Tells the parallel stories of nine-year-old Carlitos and his mother, Rosario. In the hopes of providing a better life for her son, Rosario works illegally in the U.S. while her mother cares for Carlitos back in Mexico.

Markimdb: 7.4
Genredrama, crime
CountryUSA
Duration02:11

Two boys find a fugitive hiding out on an island in the Mississippi River and form a pact to help him reunite with his lover and escape.

Markimdb: 5.9
Genredrama, sport
CountryUSA
Duration01:02

A young man finds solace with a young woman, his mother, and a high-school football coach who recruits him to quarterback a six-man team.

Markimdb: 6.8
Genremelodrama, drama
CountryUSA
Duration01:34

A coming of age dramedy where infidelity, real estate, and Lyme disease have two families falling apart on Long Island in the early eighties. Scott, 15, is at the point in his life when he finds out that the most important people around him, his father, his mother, and his brother, are not exactly who he thought they were. They are flawed and they are human.

Markimdb: 6.3
Genrecomedy, melodrama, drama
CountryUSA
Duration01:36

Four young people navigate the suburban wonderland of metro-Detroit looking for love and adventure on the last weekend of summer.

Markimdb: 7.2
Genredrama
CountrySingapore, Japan, Taiwan, France
Duration01:39

Set in the mid 1990s in Singapore, ILOILO chronicles the relationship between a family and their maid from Ilo Ilo, a province in the Philippines.

Markimdb: 7.7
Genrecomedy, drama
CountryUSA
Duration02:30

Greg is coasting through senior year of high school as anonymously as possible, avoiding social interactions like the plague while secretly making spirited, bizarre films with Earl, his only friend. But both his anonymity and friendship threaten to unravel when his mother forces him to befriend a classmate with leukemia.

Markimdb: 5.9
Genredrama
CountryFrance, USA, Iran

A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager's growing sexual rebellion and her brother's newfound conservatism.

Markimdb: 7.2
Genredrama
CountryUSA
Duration02:03

A River Runs Through is a cinematographically stunning true story of Norman Maclean. The story follows Norman and his brother Paul through the experiences of life and growing up, and how their love of fly fishing keeps them together despite varying life circumstances in the untamed west of Montana in the 1920's.

Markimdb: 6
Genredrama
CountryUSA
Duration01:52

Set in suburban New Jersey in the 1960s, a group of friends form a rock band and try to make it big.

Markimdb: 6.3
Genredrama
CountryUSA
Duration01:29

Genie, a Chinese-American teenager, develops feelings for a charming African-American DJ, but her grandmother forbids their romance forcing Genie to choose between family and love.

Markimdb: 6.5
Genremelodrama, drama
CountryAustralia, Germany, USA
Duration01:45

For many years, four teenage orphans at an Australian outback convent have watched their younger comrades find new parents, and realize that they may never be adopted. The Reverend Mother sends the four boys away on a seaside vacation, where they meet Teresa and Fearless, a couple who would make perfect parents. The youths compete with one another to be the one Teresa and Fearless decide to adopt.

Markimdb: 7.9
Genremelodrama, drama
CountryJapan

When exchanging letters two women discover new things about a deceased man they used to know.

Markimdb: 7.8
Genredrama, military, history
CountrySouth Korea
Duration02:06

Korea, 1950. A child's vow to take care of his family marks the beginning of a lifelong promise spanning sixty years.

Markimdb: 6.6
Genredrama
CountryUSA

OCTOBER BABY is the coming of age story of a beautiful and naive college freshman who discovers that her entire life is a lie and sets out on a road trip with a host of misfits to discover herself and the answers she craves.

Markimdb: 7.2
Genredrama
CountryUSA
Duration01:26

A Brooklyn teenager juggles conflicting identities and risks friendship, heartbreak, and family in a desperate search for sexual expression.

Markimdb: 6.6
Genredrama
CountryUSA
Duration01:51

Willard Young is a 10-year-old boy who is sent by his mother to stay with her best friend Lily Reed, who lives in the Delta shrimp-fishing country in a town called Paradise. Lily and her husband Ben have been living in an unmentioned emotional vacuum since the death of their own three year old boy. Willie makes friends with the local 9-year-old tomboy Billie Pike, who teaches him to be comfortable with himself. When Willard gains a handle on his own emotions, he can now help Lily and Ben to connect, overcome grief and rediscover themselves.

Markimdb: 6.6
Genremelodrama, drama, adventure, family
CountryUnited Kingdom, USA
Duration01:28

The fates of horses, and the people who own and command them, are revealed as Black Beauty narrates the circle of his life.

Markimdb: 7.2
Genrecomedy, melodrama, drama
CountryGermany, USA
Duration02:26

Leelee Sobieski is brash, abrasive and vulnerable as a teenage child of divorce who hides her pain behind a mask of hard-edged gothic rebellion. Albert Brooks plays a man who is her total opposite, a precise and well-ordered menswear store owner of forty-nine who manages limited expectations and protects lonely secrets with pleasant ritual and quiet, ironic reserve. These two total opposites collide in conflict then come together in a surprising alliance, changing each other's lives forever.

Markimdb: 6.2
Genredrama, sport
CountryUSA

A teenager overcomes odds to run a 4-minute mile race.

Markimdb: 7.2
Genredrama, military
CountryUSA
Duration02:00

Two young men are seriously affected by the Vietnam war. One of them has always been obsessed with birds - but now believes he really is a bird, and has been sent to a mental hospital. Can his friend help him pull through?

Markimdb: 7.6
Genredrama, military
CountrySpain
Duration01:36

The film centres on Moncho and his coming-of-age experience in Galicia in 1936. Moncho develops a close relationship with his teacher Don Gregorio who introduces the boy to different things in the world. While the story centres on Moncho's ordinary coming-of-age experiences, tensions related to the looming Spanish Civil War periodically interrupt Moncho's personal growth and daily life.

Markimdb: 6.3
Genremelodrama, drama
CountryFrance

Annecy is no tourist destination for three working-class Algerian brothers and their father, in the months after their mother has died. Marc is deeply troubled: he tries to stiff drug dealers and then plots revenge. Christophe is released from jail, lands a job, and must overcome various temptations in order to keep it. Olivier, nearing 18, may be falling in love with Hicham...

Markimdb: 6.8
Genrecomedy, drama, family
CountryUSA
Duration01:54

Simon Birch and Joe Wenteworth are boys who have a reputation for being oddballs. Joe never knew his father, and his mother, Rebecca, is keeping her lips sealed no matter how much he protests. Simon, meanwhile, is an 11-year-old dwarf whose outsize personality belies his small stature. Indeed, he often assails the local reverend with thorny theological questions and joins Joe on his quest to find his biological father.

Markimdb: 6.1
Genredrama
CountryUSA
Duration01:48

David is a teenager whose parents are in a deteriorating marriage after their infant daughter dies. Clara is a chambermaid at a Jamaican resort who's hired to be a housekeeper. She and David develop a close bond, opening his eyes and heart to new experiences, and eventually leading to a disturbing secret in Clara's past.

Markimdb: 7.5
Genredrama
CountryUSA

Coming of age story about two inner city youths, who are left to fend for themselves over the summer after their mothers are taken away by the authorities.

Markimdb: 6
Genremelodrama, drama
CountryUnited Kingdom, Sweden, Cayman Islands
Duration01:34

A man moves his two daughters to Italy after their mother dies in a car accident, in order to revitalize their lives. Genoa changes all three of them as the youngest daughter starts to see the ghost of her mother, while the older one discovers her sexuality.

Markimdb: 7.2
Genredrama
CountryUSA
Duration01:50

Set in South Carolina in 1964, this is the tale of Lily Owens a 14 year-old girl who is haunted by the memory of her late mother. To escape her lonely life and troubled relationship with her father, Lily flees with Rosaleen, her caregiver and only friend, to a South Carolina town that holds the secret to her mother's past.

Markimdb: 6.3
Genredrama, history
CountryFrance, Israel, Italy, India, USA
Duration01:52

A drama centered on an orphaned Palestinian girl growing up in the wake of the first Arab-Israeli war who finds herself drawn into the conflict.

Markimdb: 7.4
Genredrama
CountryUSA
Duration02:04

    A man who lost his family in the September 11 attack on New York City runs into his old college roommate. Rekindling the friendship is the one thing that appears able to help the man recover from his grief.

    Markimdb: 7.4
    Genredrama, biography
    CountryKenya, India, USA, Canada, South Africa
    Duration01:50

    A young refugee of the Sudanese Civil War who wins a lottery for relocation to the United States with three other lost boys. Encountering the modern world for the first time, they develop an unlikely friendship with a brash American woman assigned to help them, but the young man struggles to adjust to this new life and his feelings of guilt about the brother he left behind.

    Markimdb: 7.6
    Genredrama, family
    CountryUSA

    Welcome to Fuller Junction, Wisconsin, a friendly small town settled by Norwegian farmers. Here we see the exploits of two young cousins, Selma and Arnold, who learn about their world and experience the ups and downs of life as the season pass.

    Markimdb: 6
    Genremelodrama, drama
    CountryUSA

    A 17 year old finds out that his girlfriend is dying, so he sets out to give her an entire life, in the last year she has left.

    Markimdb: 7.1
    Genremelodrama, drama
    CountryUnited Kingdom, France, USA
    Duration01:43

    A girl dying of leukemia compiles a list of things she'd like to do before passing away. Topping the list is her desire to lose her virginity.

    Markimdb: 7.4
    Genredrama
    CountryUSA
    Duration01:51

    In 1930s Texas, a widow and her family fight to save their home by harvesting cotton.

    Markimdb: 7.3
    Genredrama
    CountryUSA
    Duration01:43

    A drama centered on a classical pianist who has been diagnosed with ALS and the brash college student who becomes her caregiver.

    Markimdb: 6.3
    Genremelodrama, drama
    CountryRepublic of Ireland, USA
    Duration01:49

    An Irish lad (Matt Keeslar) who fled from his oppressive, widowed father (Albert Finney) falls for a girl (Victoria Smurfit) from an affluent family.

    Markimdb: 6.4
    Genredrama
    CountryUSA
    Duration01:46

    Michelle Pfeiffer is ferocious in the role of a desperate mother whose 3-year-old son disappears during her high school reunion. Nine years later, by chance, he turns up in the town in which the family has just relocated. Based on Jacquelyn Mitchard's best-selling novel (an Oprah book club selection), the movie effectively presents the troubling dynamics that exist between family members who've suffered such an unsettling loss.

    Markimdb: 6.4
    Genredrama
    CountryUSA
    Duration01:35

    A vivid, dynamic Southern coming-of-age drama, takes place in the transitional space between high school and college, when life seems to be all questions and no answers, and the future is scarily wide open. Set in and around a Charleston, SC Baptist church, weaving through this ensemble piece are three main characters - Brea, an introspective pastor's daughter experiencing debilitating doubt, the hyperactive Laura, Brea's best friend and a devout believer, and Tim, the open-hearted son of a single father, confronting his homosexuality for the first time. Tensions and buried feelings abound, as colleges are chosen and adults behave badly, as Brea, Laura and Tim attempt to hang onto what they have, all the while yearning to break free.

    Markimdb: 7.3
    Genrecomedy, drama
    CountryUnited Kingdom, USA
    Duration02:09

    Mike Leigh’s much praised 2010 tragicomical drama. During a year, a very content couple approaching retirement are visited by friends and family less happy with their lives.

    Markimdb: 5.6
    Genredrama
    CountryUSA

    In seeking her own redemption from the one man of whom she is most afraid, 10-year-old Cadi Forbes discovers a secret sin haunting her community of Welsh immigrants in 1850s Appalachia.

    Markimdb: 6.6
    Genredrama
    CountryRepublic of Ireland, United Kingdom

    Centred around greyhound racing in a Catholic community after the "Troubles" have ended but where their legacy remains strong. Donal is a 14-year old who works in a greyhound racing kennel owned by Good Joe. If Donal's favourite greyhound, The Mighty Celt, wins three races in a row, Good Joe has promised him full ownership.

    Markimdb: 7.1
    Genredrama, adventure
    CountryUnited Kingdom, USA
    Duration01:30

    Based on Anne Holm's acclaimed young adult novel North to Freedom, I Am David chronicles the struggles of a 12-year-old boy who manages to flee a Communist concentration camp on his own -- through sheer will and determination. All he has in his possession is a loaf of bread, a letter to deliver to someone in Denmark and a compass to help get him there.

    Markimdb: 5.9
    Genrecomedy, melodrama, drama
    CountryUSA
    Duration01:46

    Jake and Kristy Briggs are newlyweds. Being young, they are perhaps a bit unprepared for the full reality of marriage and all that it (and their parents) expect from them. Do they want babies? Their parents certainly want them to. Is married life all that there is? Things certainly aren't helped by Jake's friend Davis, who always seems to turn up just in time to put a spanner in the works.

    Markimdb: 6.3
    Genremelodrama, drama, music
    CountryUSA
    Duration01:31

    David Sinclair seems to have everything going for him: he's smart, musically talented, and very successful. To top off his senior year in high school, his band is trying to get a recording session. Therefore, David's suicide leaves everyone, especially his best friend and band-mate, Chris, with a lot of questions.

    Markimdb: 5.3
    Genrecomedy, drama, musical, family
    CountryUSA
    Duration01:58

    Ever since her parents left her as a baby, little Annie has led a hard-knock life with her calculating foster mother, Miss Hannigan. However, all that changes when hard-nosed billionaire and mayoral candidate Will Stacks takes her in on the recommendation of his advisers. Stacks believes that he's Annie's guardian angel, but the plucky youngster's confidence and sunny outlook may mean that Annie will save Will instead.

    Markimdb: 7.2
    Genrecomedy, drama
    CountryUSA
    Duration01:40

    This tells the story of a strong friendship between a young boy with Morquio's syndrome and an older boy who is always bullied because of his size. Adapted from the novel, Freak the Mighty, the film explores a building of trust and friendship. Kevin, an intelligent guy helps out Maxwell to improve his reading skills. In return, Kevin wants Maxwell to take him out places since he is not allowed out unauthorized. Being the social outcasts of the town, Kevin and Maxwell come to realize that they are similar to each other and accept that they are "freaks" and nothing will stop them.




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