20 best movies like Custody (2007)

Based on the Henry James novella, the story frames on 7-year-old Maisie, caught in a custody battle between her mother – a rock and roll icon – and her father. What Maisie Knew is an evocative portrayal of the chaos of adult life seen entirely from a child’s point of view.

A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.

A compelling drama that explores the different meanings of being a parent through the gritty, realistic lives of a struggling family, and a privileged family. Their lives intersect, intertwine and collide, all for the love of a little boy. This film bravely exposes the humanity in each character reminding us that we each have the potential to be the best and worst versions of ourselves at any time.

When a college piano prodigy tries to check his mother into rehab, he is taken hostage by her drug dealer and swept along on a wild adventure.

Hushpuppy, an intrepid six-year-old girl, lives with her father, Wink in 'the Bathtub', a southern Delta community at the edge of the world. Wink’s tough love prepares her for the unraveling of the universe—for a time when he’s no longer there to protect her. When Wink contracts a mysterious illness, nature flies out of whack—temperatures rise, and the ice caps melt, unleashing an army of prehistoric creatures called aurochs. With the waters rising, the aurochs coming, and Wink’s health fading, Hushpuppy goes in search of her lost mother.

After an overnight long-distance drive, Joby has a special meeting—with lawyers and his ex-wife. A struggling musician with the prerequisite tattoos, slimy hair, goatee, and his head firmly floating in the clouds, Joby hasn’t been around to be a dad. Now is his last chance to fight for shared custody of his daughter, Ellen.

A teenager transitions from female to male, and his family must come to terms with that fact.

North Carolina mountains at the end of the 1920s – George and Serena Pemberton, love-struck newly-weds, begin to build a timber empire. Serena soon proves herself to be equal to any man: overseeing loggers, hunting rattle-snakes, even saving a man’s life in the wilderness. With power and influence now in their hands, the Pembertons refuse to let anyone stand in the way of their inflated love and ambitions. However, once Serena discovers George’s hidden past and faces an unchangeable fate of her own, the Pemberton’s passionate marriage begins to unravel leading toward a dramatic reckoning.

Joan Jett and Cherie Currie, two rebellious teenagers from Southern California, become the frontwomen for the Runaways -- the now-legendary group that paved the way for future generations of female rockers. Under the Svengalilike influence of impresario Kim Fowley, the band becomes a huge success.

1921 New York. An immigrant woman is tricked into a life of burlesque and vaudeville until a dazzling magician tries to save her and reunite her with her sister who is being held in the confines of Ellis Island.

Gloria finds a power she never knew she had when she is drawn into a dangerous world of cross-border crime. Surviving will require all of her cunning, inventiveness, and strength.

In 1919, Australian farmer Joshua Connor travels to Turkey to discover the fate of his three sons, reported missing in action. Holding on to hope, Joshua must travel across the war-torn landscape to find the truth and his own peace.

Survivors of a nuclear attack are grouped together for days in the basement of their apartment building, where fear and dwindling supplies wear away at their dynamic.

Ivan Locke has worked hard to craft a good life for himself. Tonight, that life will collapse around him. On the eve of the biggest challenge of his career, Ivan receives a phone call that sets in motion a series of events that will unravel his family, job, and soul.

When a young man learns that his overbearing father is having an affair, he tries to stop it, only to be seduced by the older woman as well.

A service which creates holographic projections of late family members allows an elderly woman to spend time with a younger version of her deceased husband.

A stock car racing legend is drawn back to the dirt track when his son, an aspiring driver, joins a rival racing team.

A gripping anthological relationship thriller series exploring the emotional fallout of a child's abduction not only on the family but on the wider community, told over two time frames.

The true story of pilot Barry Seal, who transported contraband for the CIA and the Medellin cartel in the 1980s.

In New York, a Pakistani native finds that his American Dream has collapsed in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

A revealing drama that focuses on the 16th President's tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come.

Maurice, a reticent young homeless man, somehow manages to get by in Brooklyn; he spends his nights in parked cars until he finds himself at Bizarre, an underground club renowned for its burlesque shows. Maurice is fascinated by the club’s playful revues celebrating self-determined sexuality and creative otherness, and the two female club owners both adore him. He soon becomes a part of their self-selected family, and begins to bond with introverted Luka. But Maurice turns his back on Luka’s growing affection. Running away from his true emotions he drifts aimlessly through the city. He tries to find his feet at a boxing club, where he meets Charlie. Unable to withstand the pressure of his repressed feelings, Maurice unleashes a mounting foment of emotions, pervaded by tenderness and menace.

A pro ball player with a substance abuse problem is forced into rehab in his hometown, finding new hope when he gets honest about his checkered past, and takes on coaching duties for a misfit Little League team

Four Navy SEALs on a covert mission to neutralize a high-level al-Qaeda operative must make an impossible moral decision in the mountains of Afghanistan that leads them into an enemy ambush. As they confront unthinkable odds, the SEALs must find reserves of strength and resilience to fight to the finish.

A chronicle of James Brown's rise from extreme poverty to become one of the most influential musicians in history.

Depressed single mom Adele and her son Henry offer a wounded, fearsome man a ride. As police search town for the escaped convict, the mother and son gradually learn his true story as their options become increasingly limited.

The classic story of Emma Bovary, the beautiful wife of a small-town doctor in 19th century France, who engages in extra marital affairs in an attempt to advance her social status.

14-year-old basketball phenom Terron Forte has to navigate the under-the-table world of amateur athletics when he is recruited to an elite NCAA prep school.

A broken family finds their relationships to one another changed by a new arrival in the household.

Naomi Watts stars as Susan, a single mother of two, working as a waitress in a small town. Her son, Henry, is an 11-year-old genius who not only manages the family finances but acts as emotional support for his mother and younger brother. When Henry discovers that the girl next door has a terrible secret, he implores Susan to take matters into her own hands in this imaginative and emotional drama.

As the Japanese surrender at the end of WWII, Gen. Fellers is tasked with deciding if Emperor Hirohito will be hanged as a war criminal. Influencing his ruling is his quest to find Aya, an exchange student he met years earlier in the U.S.

The story of French high-wire artist Philippe Petit's attempt to cross the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in 1974.

Yale University, 1961. Stanley Milgram designs a psychology experiment that still resonates to this day, in which people think they’re delivering painful electric shocks to an affable stranger strapped into a chair in another room. Despite his pleads for mercy, the majority of subjects don’t stop the experiment, administering what they think is a near-fatal electric shock, simply because they’ve been told to do so. With Nazi Adolf Eichmann’s trial airing in living rooms across America, Milgram strikes a nerve in popular culture and the scientific community with his exploration into people’s tendency to comply with authority. Celebrated in some circles, he is also accused of being a deceptive, manipulative monster, but his wife Sasha stands by him through it all.

A woman searches for her adult son, who was taken away from her decades ago when she was forced to live in a convent.

An adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Long Island-set novel, where Midwesterner Nick Carraway is lured into the lavish world of his neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Soon enough, however, Carraway will see through the cracks of Gatsby's nouveau riche existence, where obsession, madness, and tragedy await.

A woman with a tragic past decides to start her new life by hiking for one thousand miles on the Pacific Crest Trail.

Thanks to a strict Muslim upbringing that largely shielded him from the outside world, Tariq's first year of college proves transformative. That is, until the 9/11 terrorist attacks invite growing suspicion and distrust from his angry classmates.

A talented and successful actor retires at a young age due to a perceived mental illness. Now living in a small town with his deranged sister and his best friend, we watch as their Maladies intertwine.

Aibileen Clark is a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children and has recently lost her only son; Minny Jackson is an African-American maid who has often offended her employers despite her family's struggles with money and her desperate need for jobs; and Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is a young white woman who has recently moved back home after graduating college to find out her childhood maid has mysteriously disappeared. These three stories intertwine to explain how life in Jackson, Mississippi revolves around "the help"; yet they are always kept at a certain distance because of racial lines.

Interwoven stories of what it is to be a mom seen through the lens of photographer Rigby Gray.

Dane Jensen is a driven, Chicago-based headhunter, working at a cut-throat job placement firm. When Dane's boss announces his retirement, he pits Dane against Lynn Vogel, Dane's equally driven but polar-opposite rival at the firm, in a battle for control over the company.

A famous country singer set to marry a glamorous Hollywood actress returns to his small town roots. When he crosses paths with his childhood sweetheart and finally feels inspired to write songs again he reevaluates his life, his values and his opinion of true love. As his wedding day approaches, he must decide if he has chosen the right woman to be his wife.

Mary Surratt is the lone female charged as a co-conspirator in the assassination trial of Abraham Lincoln. As the whole nation turns against her, she is forced to rely on her reluctant lawyer to uncover the truth and save her life.

This film is based on the actual events that took place in 1971 when Stanford professor Dr. Philip Zimbardo created what became one of the most shocking and famous social experiments of all time.

No one seemed to care about Jamie Marks until after his death. Hoping to find the love and friendship he never had in life, Jamie’s ghost visits former classmate Adam McCormick, drawing him into the bleak world between the living and the dead.

A former gunslinger is forced to take up arms again when he and his cattle crew are threatened by a corrupt lawman.

Fledgling screenwriters retreat to a quiet country manor to work on their script, but a constellation of needy characters produces constant interruptions.

Harvey, the arrogant and spoiled son of an indulgent absentee-father, falls overboard from a transatlantic steamship and is rescued by a fishing vessel on the Grand Banks. Harvey fails to persuade them to take him ashore, nor convince the crew of his wealth. The captain offers him a low-paid job, until they return to port, as part of the crew that turns him into a mature, considerate young man.

A grieving widower is drawn into a custody battle over his granddaughter, whom he helped raise her entire life.

At the turn of the century in a Welsh mining village, the Morgans (he stern, she gentle) raise coal-mining sons and hope their youngest will find a better life.