20 best movies like Mustang (2015)

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.

In a small town in California's San Joaquin Valley, 14-year-old Homer Macauley is determined to be the best and fastest bicycle telegraph messenger anyone has ever seen. His older brother has gone to war, leaving Homer to look after his widowed mother, his older sister and his 4-year-old brother, Ulysses. And so it is that as spring turns to summer, 1942, Homer Macauley delivers messages of love, hope, pain... and death... to the good people of Ithaca. And Homer Macauley will grapple with one message that will change him forever - from a boy into a man. Based on Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Saroyan's 1943 novel, The Human Comedy, ITHACA is the quintessential wartime tale of the Home Front. It is a coming-of-age story about the exuberance of youth, the sweetness of life, the sting of death and the modesty and sheer goodness that lives in each and every one of us.

Eka and Natia leave their childhood behind and ignore societal customs to escape from their turbulent family lives.

Bucharest 1989 - the last year of Ceausecu's dictatorship. Eva lives with her parents and her 7 year old brother, Lalalilu. One day at school, Eva and her boyfriend accidentally break a bust of Ceausescu. They are forced to confess their crime before a disciplinary committee and Eva is expelled from school and transferred to a reformatory establishment. There she meets Andrei, and decides to escape Romania with him. Lalalilu becomes convinced that Ceausescu is the main reason for Eva's decision to leave. So with his friends from school he devises a plan to kill the dictator.

Instead of adhering to the norms of their South Central neighborhood, a group of skater boys opt to bus into Hollywood and Beverly Hills, where they attract local rich girls - and plenty of trouble with the police, jealous boyfriends, and nervous parents.

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.

Ayiva recently left his home in Burkina Faso in search of a way to provide for his sister and his daughter. He takes advantage of his position in an illegal smuggling operation to get himself and his best friend Abas off of the continent. Ayiva adapts to life in Italy, but when tensions with the local community rise, things become increasingly dangerous. Determined to make his new situation work he attempts to weather the storm, but it has its costs.

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.

During a medical examination, 13-year-old Aslan is humiliated in front of a load of his fellow pupils. The incident unleashes his latent personality disorder. Plagued by self-doubt, he strives for cleanliness and perfection and is obsessed with trying to control everything around him. His compulsion draws Aslan, who lives with his grandmother in a village in Kazakhstan, into increasingly difficult situations. He abhors the way most of his fellow pupils are held in the sway of a criminal scheme, in which Bolat, one of Aslan’s tormentors, is also involved. Bolat blackmails the younger children into paying him protection money; he has nothing but contempt for ostracised Aslan.

Elle Marja, 14, is a reindeer-breeding Sami girl. Exposed to the racism of the 1930s and phrenological examinations at her boarding school, she starts dreaming of another life. To achieve this other life she has to become someone else and break all ties with her family and culture.

Sinan is passionate about literature and has always wanted to be a writer. Returning to the village where he was born, he pours his heart and soul into scraping together the money he needs to be published, but his father’s debts catch up with him.

Jeffrey Dahmer struggles with a difficult family life as a young boy. During his teenage years he slowly transforms, edging closer to the serial killer he becomes.

Katja's life falls apart in the blink of an eye when two neo-Nazis kill her husband and 6-year-old son in a bomb attack. Her quest for justice soon pushes her to the edge as the two suspects stand trial for murder.

Bacurau, a small town in the Brazilian sertão, mourns the loss of its matriarch, Carmelita, who lived to be 94. Days later, its inhabitants notice that their community has vanished from most maps.

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.

Forced out of their apartment due to dangerous works on a neighboring building, Emad and Rana move into a new flat in the center of Tehran. An incident linked to the previous tenant will dramatically change the young couple’s life.

The film tells the story of Malony and his education as he grows from a six-year-old into an 18-year-old. A minors’ judge and a caseworker work tirelessly to try to save the young offender.

In 1987, during the austere days of Thatcher’s Britain, a teenager learns to live life, understand his family, and find his own voice through the music of Bruce Springsteen.

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.

The story of young Amos Oz, growing up in Jerusalem in the years before Israeli statehood with his parents; his academic father, Arieh, and his dreamy, imaginative mother, Fania.

A young boy finds a powerful otherworldly weapon, which he uses to save his older adoptive brother from a crew of thugs. Before long, the two of them are also pursued by federal agents and mysterious mercenaries aiming to reclaim their asset.

Biarritz. Sixteen-year-old George, the high school hottie, falls in love with Alex. To get his attention, she initiates a group game with Alex, Nikita, Laetitia and Gabriel. They will discover, test, and push the limits of their sexuality.

Thirteen-year-old Kayla endures the tidal wave of contemporary suburban adolescence as she makes her way through the last week of middle school — the end of her thus far disastrous eighth grade year — before she begins high school.

Oppressed by her family setting, dead-end school prospects and the boys law in the neighborhood, Marieme starts a new life after meeting a group of three free-spirited girls. She changes her name, her dress code, and quits school to be accepted in the gang, hoping that this will be a way to freedom.

Araf is the story of Zehra and Olgun whose lives are caught in a vacuum. The world in which they live and work is a place of throwaway culture and constant change. They too are waiting for a chance to change and escape from their empty, monotonous lives.

Set in the 1950s, a a group of young girls in upstate New York form their own gang.

19-year-old Billy Lynn is brought home for a victory tour after a harrowing Iraq battle. Through flashbacks the film shows what really happened to his squad - contrasting the realities of war with America's perceptions.

A young immigrant is shot down while illegally crossing the border. Terrified and in shock, wounded Aryan can now mysteriously levitate at will. Thrown into a refugee camp, he is smuggled out by Dr Stern, intent on exploiting his extraordinary secret. Pursued by enraged camp director Laszlo, the fugitives remain on the move in search of safety and money. Inspired by Aryan's amazing powers, Stern takes a leap of faith in a world where miracles are trafficked for small change...

The film captures the daily duality of three young Palestinian women in Tel Aviv, caught between hometown tradition and big city abandon, and the price they must pay for a lifestyle that seems obvious to many: the freedom to work, party, fuck, and choose.

Lucy, a small-town girl from Ohio, discovers the delightfully bizarre films of legendary filmmaker Federico Fellini and sets off on a journey across Italy to find him.

Sentaro runs a small bakery that serves dorayaki pastries filled with sweet red bean paste (“an”). When an old lady, Tokue, offers to help in the kitchen he reluctantly accepts. She will soon prove to have magic in her hands…

A headstrong Chinese-American woman returns to China when her beloved grandmother is given a terminal diagnosis. Billi struggles with her family's decision to keep grandma in the dark about her own illness as they all stage an impromptu wedding to see grandma one last time.

Based on the 1973 rock opera album of the same name by The Who, this is the story of 60s teenager Jimmy. At work he slaves in a dead-end job. While after, he shops for tailored suits and rides his scooter as part of the London Mod scene.

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...

When an aging matriarch starts showing signs of dementia, her dysfunctional family in Istanbul must navigate a minefield of unresolved issues to care for her.

Two sisters find their already strained relationship challenged as a mysterious new planet threatens to collide with Earth.

Claire is a midwife and has devoted her life to others. At a moment when she is preoccupied by the imminent closure of the maternity clinic where she works, her life is further turned upside down when Béatrice, her father's former mistress, turns up on the scene. Béatrice is a capricious and selfish woman, Claire's exact opposite.

In a small American coal town living in the shadow of a recent mining accident, the disappearance of a teenage boy draws three people together—a surviving miner, the lonely wife of a mine executive, and a local boy—in a web of secrets.

Set against the badlands of colonial Australia where the English rule with a bloody fist and the Irish endure, Ned Kelly discovers he comes from a line of Irish rebels—an uncompromising army of cross dressing bandits immortalised for terrorising their oppressors back in Ireland. Nurtured by the notorious bushranger, Harry Power and fuelled by the unfair arrest of his mother, Kelly recruits a wild bunch of warriors to plot one of the most audacious attacks of anarchy and rebellion the country has ever seen.

Baran, a war hero, becomes sheriff of the capital and refuses to bow down to a tribal chief.

One day, driving aimlessly around the outskirts of town after a trivial domestic quarrel, a writer named Tomas accidentally hits and kills a child. Will he be able to move on?

As her marriage dissolves, a Manhattan writer takes driving lessons from a Sikh instructor with marriage troubles of his own. In each other's company they find the courage to get back on the road and the strength to take the wheel.

During the marijuana bonanza, a violent decade that saw the origins of drug trafficking in Colombia, Rapayet and his indigenous family get involved in a war to control the business that ends up destroying their lives and their culture.

NEDs (Non Educated Delinquents) is the story of a young man’s journey from prize-winning schoolboy to knife-carrying teenager. Struggling against the low expectations of those around him, John McGill changes from victim to avenger, scholar to NED, altar boy to glue sniffer. When he attempts to change back again, his new reality and recent past make conformity near impossible and violent self determination near inevitable.

Musical film about the trials and tribulations of an idealistic drama teacher as she tries to put on the end of year show.

Based on a miraculous true story that drew the attention of the entire nation, is the dramatic, thrilling, and spiritual journey of Ashley Smith and Brian Nichols. After being taken hostage by Brian in her own apartment, Ashley turns to Rick Warren’s inspirational book, The Purpose Driven Life, for guidance. In reading from the book, Ashley not only finds purpose in her own life, but helps Brian find a more peaceful resolution to a harrowing situation.

A week in the life of a bus driver and poet named Paterson, and his supportive wife Laura.

Inspired by the 2005 riots in Paris, Stéphane, a recent transplant to the impoverished suburb of Montfermeil, joins the local anti-crime squad. Working alongside his unscrupulous colleagues Chris and Gwada, Stéphane struggles to maintain order amidst the mounting tensions between local gangs. When an arrest turns unexpectedly violent, the three officers must reckon with the aftermath and keep the neighborhood from spiraling out of control.

Tracy, a lonely college freshman in New York, is rescued from her solitude by her soon-to-be stepsister Brooke, an adventurous gal about town who entangles her in alluringly mad schemes. Mistress America is a comedy about dream-chasing, score-settling, makeshift families, and cat-stealing.

A runaway couple go on an unforgettable journey from Boston to Key West, recapturing their passion for life and their love for each other on a road trip that provides revelation and surprise right up to the very end.