20 best movies like Moonlight (2016)

Based on a stranger than fiction true story, King Cobra is a deliciously dark, twisted plunge into the behind-the-scenes world of the pornography industry. A young Sean Paul Lockhart (using the stage name 'Brent Corrigan') is a fresh-faced wannabe adult video performer. He is moulded into a star by Stephen (aka Bryan Kocis), a closeted gay porn mogul who runs the skin flick empire Cobra Video from his seemingly ordinary suburban home. But as Brent’s rise and demands for money put him at odds with his boss, he also attracts the attention of a rival producer, Joseph Kerekes, and his unstable lover, Harlow Cuadra, who will stop at nothing to squash Cobra Video and steal its number one star.

A couple is going through marital troubles made worse when a previously unknown grandson shows up.

An aimless teenager on the outer edges of Brooklyn struggles to escape his bleak home life and navigate questions of self-identity, as he balances his time between his delinquent friends, a potential new girlfriend, and older men he meets online.

Alan, Red, and Smitty spend high summer on the Jersey Shore roving the boardwalk and getting into trouble. But the discovery of good old fashioned treasure sets the friends on an escalating course of suspicion and violence in this atmospheric thriller.

Stevie is a sweet 13-year-old about to explode. His mom is loving and attentive, but a little too forthcoming about her romantic life. His big brother is a taciturn and violent bully. So Stevie searches his working-class Los Angeles suburb for somewhere to belong. He finds it at the Motor Avenue skate shop.

A destitute 14-year-old struggles to keep his life together despite harsh abuse at his mother's hands, harsher abuse at his father's, and a growing separation from his slightly older brother.

Summer, New York City. A college girl falls hard for a guy she just met. After a night of partying goes wrong, she goes to wild extremes to get him back.

An Indian Vietnam veteran trains five street punks in the Everglades to fight vice in Miami.

Nolan Mack, a soft-spoken bank employee, undoubtedly loves his wife Joy, though their cavernous empty house only underscores how disconnected they’ve always been from each other. Nolan finds himself drifting from his familiar present-day life in pursuit of lost time after meeting a troubled young man named Leo on his drive home. What begins as an aimless drive down an unfamiliar street turns into a life-altering series of events.

Two brothers and their wives meet up at a haute-cuisine restaurant to discuss what to do about a horrific crime that their sons committed together. As the quartet debate their options, the conversation reopens old wounds between the siblings.

A young Korean-American man works to reconcile his obligations to his struggling immigrant family with his burgeoning sexual desires in the underground world of gay hookups at Korean spas in Los Angeles.

A man forced to confront his past when he and his girlfriend end up entangled in a web of lies.

A pair of working-class brothers flee their Reno Motel after getting involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident.

Over the course of one day, a shy 13-year-old forms a bond with his troubled uncle.

High school athlete Cyd Loughlin lives alone with her depressive father in South Carolina, perpetually longing to get away from it all. When her aunt, famous novelist Miranda Ruth, agrees to host her for a few weeks during the summer, Cyd jumps at the opportunity. While there, she falls for a girl in the neighborhood, even as she and her aunt gently challenge each other in the realms of sex and spirit.

Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.

Too shy to make a proper introduction, a recent college grad devises to shoot a documentary about the NYC nightlife scene in order to meet the go-go guy he’s cyber-obsessed with.

When troubled teen Milo, who has a fascination with vampire lore, meets the equally alienated Sophie, the two form a bond that begins to blur Milo's fantasy into reality.

A wealthy couple from the Pacific Palisades discovers homeless young lovers have moved into their home.

Over a series of video chats, a teenage outcast reaches out to his childhood friend, but finds that behind the veneer of popularity and a seemingly perfect life, she hides a disturbing secret.

Pushed to the brink after losing her job, a woman struggles to survive. As the months pass and her troubles deepen, she embarks on a perilous and mysterious journey that threatens to usurp her life.

Tommy and his older brother Eric live in the midst of vast remote forests. The death of their friend pushes them close to the edge. Eric doesn’t know how to channel his energy. All at once, nature’s vastness feels stifling.

Lionel Essrog, a private detective living with Tourette syndrome, ventures to solve the murder of his mentor and best friend — a mystery that carries him from the gin-soaked jazz clubs of Harlem to the slums of Brooklyn to the gilded halls of New York's power brokers.

15-year-old Mia faces an overwhelming transformation which puts her entire existence into question. Her body is changing radically, and despite desperate attempts to halt the process, Mia is soon forced to accept that nature is far more powerful than she is.

New Jersey car mechanic Stacie Andree and her police detective girlfriend Laurel Hester both battle to secure Hester's pension benefits after she was diagnosed with a terminal illness.

A dispossessed, violent man's life is a disastrous attempt to exist outside the social order. Successively deprived of parents and homes and with few other ties, he descends to the level of a cave dweller and falls deeper into crime and degradation.

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.

FIVE DANCES, written and directed by Alan Brown, is a creatively adventurous narrative feature film set in the New York 'downtown' modern dance world. The story follows the rocky emotional journey of an 18-year old dancer (the amazing Ryan Steele) with talent to burn, who must choose between his responsibility to his broken family in the Midwest, and forging a life and career for himself. The film features five of New York's most gifted dancers acting on film for the very first time, and performing the choreography of internationally acclaimed choreographer Jonah Bokaer.

Madrid, Spain. The bedroom of Sofía, a luxury escort. Her new client, who has introduced himself as Hugo and appears to be an educated businessman, discovers that she has a name tattooed on her leg: Diana. Hugo cannot help asking her who Diana is.

Erin Bell is an LAPD detective who, as a young cop, was placed undercover with a gang in the California desert with tragic results. When the leader of that gang re-emerges many years later, she must work her way back through the remaining members and into her own history with them to finally reckon with the demons that destroyed her past.

After he and his first wife separate, journalist David Sheff struggles to help their teenage son, who goes from experimenting with drugs to becoming devastatingly addicted to methamphetamine.

A sweeping multigenerational story set against the backdrop of the raw, roaring New York City of the late 1980s; adoption, teen pregnancy, drugs, hardcore punk rock, the unbridled optimism and reckless stupidity of the young—and old—are all major elements in this heart-aching tale of the son of diehard hippies and his strange odyssey through the extremes of late 20th century youth culture.

A gauzy summer in South Brooklyn. Lila, an awkward adolescent girl, passes her time breaking into beach homes and tagging along on dates between her pretty friend Chiara and Chiara's new boyfriend, Patrick. Lila decides this will be the summer she loses her virginity, too—her interest is piqued when she meets Sammy, an older boy reputed to sleep with just about anyone. Yet Lila's attempts at sexual conquest risk taking her beyond her limits, and into dangerous uncharted territory. 

A homeless man is recruited by a bunch of rich kids to fight other impoverished people.

As single mom Grace juggles work, bills, and her affair with a married doctor, her daughter, Ansiedad, plots a shortcut to adulthood after finding inspiration in the coming-of-age stories she's reading for school.

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.

A group of friends come of age in the asphalt desert of the San Fernando Valley, as set to a blazing soundtrack and endless drinking, drugs and sex.

A young man returns to his family farm, after a long stay in ex-gay conversion therapy, and is torn between the expectations of his emotionally distant father, and the memories of a past, loving relationship he has tried to bury.

After his family is evicted from their home, proud and desperate construction worker Dennis Nash tries to win his home back by striking a deal with the devil and working for Rick Carver, the corrupt real estate broker who evicted him.

Pio Amato, a 14 year-old member of a small Romani community in southern Italian town of Gioia Tauro in Calabria, is in a hurry to grow up. Pio follows his older brother Cosimo everywhere and from him he learns how to hustle and how to navigate the streets of his hometown. One night Pio sets out to prove to his brother that he is as good or better than him but, when things go wrong, a series of events will forever change the way he sees the world.

In post-Katrina New Orleans, a disgraced detective encounters the ghost of a murdered woman who wants to help him identify her killer.

Billy is the self-designated leader of a group of teenagers living in a shelter. Jacob and Rae, Billy's oldest childhood friends, live there as well as part of "the family". Billy has an AIDs-like virus, which he has passed on to his blood brother Jacob. Billy and Rae are boyfriend and girlfriend, much to the dismay of Jacob who has always loved Rae from afar. Billy's philosophy of life, and how that interfaces with having a deadly virus, comes to a head when Billy and Jacob compete in a very unique game of "Tag", with the future of Rae and "the family" dependent upon the outcome.

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 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.

A young drug-addled writer approaching the bottom of his descent submits to two months of agonizing detox at a treatment center in Minnesota.

"Stonewall" is a drama about a young man in New York caught up during the 1969 Stonewall Riots, a pivotal event widely considered the starting point for the modern gay civil rights movement.

After running away from her abusive mother, a streetwise teen seeks refuge with her father, but he rejects her when he learns that she's pregnant.

Three years after his wife, acclaimed photographer Isabelle Reed, dies in a car crash, Gene keeps everyday life going with his shy teenage son, Conrad. A planned exhibition of Isabelle’s photographs prompts Gene's older son, Jonah, to return to the house he grew up in - and for the first time in a very long time, the father and the two brothers are living under the same roof.

When a brutal carjacking yields a videocamera, a teenage boy decides to document his life and the lives of his fellow gangbangers.

After an accidental drug overdose, a talented teenage DJ goes to live with his estranged father in a small Army town, where he gets to the bottom of his own pain and learns empathy for others.