20 best movies like My Son (2006)

Fifteen-year-old Céline knows more about life than is appropriate for her age. She wanders the streets, surviving, with the help of her boyfriend Romain, thanks to her defiance and ruthless practicality. She secretly sleeps in the garden house of a luxury villa, where one evening she is discovered by the owner, Judge Henri van Eyck. Despite his wife Nathalie's reticence, he takes the girl in and Céline gradually gains their goodwill and affection. The fragile balance of their mutual trust, however, comes in serious jeopardy when the web of lies the girl has told her protectors begins to unravel, revealing her real motives.

Bruno and Sonia, a young couple living off her benefit and the thefts committed by his gang, have a new source of money: their newborn son.

Igor, aged 15, and his father Roger deal in housing and peddling illicit labor in the outlying districts of Liege, Belgium. Scams, lies and swindling rule their lives. When one of his father’s illegal workers gets injured on the job and asks Igor to promise to take care of his wife and baby, Igor finds himself at a crossroad. He wants to keep the promise, but the price would be to betray his father.

Sarah tells Paul that she wants out of their marriage; the next day she disappears. A year later and Paul along with their children return to his childhood town to start anew after the loss of his wife and their mother.

Redheaded teen Remy is bullied by his soccer teammates and drawn into fights with his younger sister and mother in their cramped apartment. After a flare-up of domestic violence, he flees home and is tracked down by a bitter guidance counselor, Patrick, also a redhead. Patrick looks upon Remy’s sullen insolence with both sympathy and disdain and decides to toughen him up...

Paul de Marseul, a prestigious wine-maker and owner of a renowned chateau and vineyard in Saint-Emilion, is disheartened by the notion of his son Martin taking over the family business. Martin does not seem to have inherited the qualities that Paul esteems in a wine-maker: persistence, creative insight and technical prowess matched with passion for the job and the product, and Paul frequently reminds him of this, whether explicitly or in subtle gestures. When Philippe, the son of his manager, appears at the vineyard, Paul leaps at the chance to name him as his successor, neglecting the wishes of his own son...

The story of an adult and a teenage couple during a brief summer holiday by the sea. While Nic's parents remain trapped in a precarious mutual dependency despite repeated attempts at reconciliation, their 12-year-old son tries to come to terms with his father's traumatizing violent outbursts in games with other children. He tries to teach Marie, who is of his age and suffers from her own relationship with her father, to feel nothing. In fact, both of them are transformed by their experience of the joys and pains of first love.

Meeting his handicapped son for the first time, a young father attempts to forge a relationship with the teenager.

Nono, a Dutch kid lacking two days being thirteen, runs away from problems at home and, disguised as a girl, takes up with the world's cleverest thief, who unbeknownst to Nono, may hold the bizarre key to his true identity.

This is a film about a troubled teen, Sean Randall, who is falsely accused of planning a Columbine shooting scenario. It all begins when an unlikely bond forms between Sean (Connor Jessup) and a preppy teenage girl named Deanna Roy (Alexia Fast). Deanna's boyfriend is deeply threatened by Sean and Deanna's friendship, resulting in a violent confrontation. Seeking to protect himself, Sean issues a death threat online - and is swiftly arrested. When the police raid Sean's home, they find rifles, shotguns, knives and ammunition - all property of Sean's father Ricky (Michael Buie), an avid hunter. They also find a supposed "hit list" with twenty names of people who have tormented Sean. The authorities and the media proclaim another Columbine has been narrowly averted, and soon Sean faces a terrifying imprisonment in a youth detention facility. Sean's only hope is to overcome his dark image, and prove his innocence to Deanna and to his community.

In a godforsaken Kazakh village four adolescent teenagers try to find their place in the world...

A troubled and emotionally fragile woman finds herself at the center of a firestorm, in this gut-wrenching psychological drama.

Born out of wedlock early in the last century, Violette Leduc meets Simone de Beauvoir in postwar Saint-Germain-des-Près. An intense lifelong relationship develops between the two women authors, based on Violette's quest for freedom through writing and on Simone's conviction that she holds in her hands the destiny of an extraordinary writer.

An innocent young man becomes enamored with a mysterious girl. He is lured into "Black Hole" - a dark, obscure video game world of avatars with deadly serious intentions in the real world.

Beth, Calvin, and their son Conrad are living in the aftermath of the death of the other son. Conrad is overcome by grief and misplaced guilt to the extent of a suicide attempt. He is in therapy. Beth had always preferred his brother and is having difficulty being supportive to Conrad. Calvin is trapped between the two trying to hold the family together.

An outer suburb of Paris, 1972. Gilles and Christine, both sixteen, are classmates and lovers who have become frustrated with the aloofness of their families and the general monotony of their lives. When the pair are caught shoplifting, Christine's father ships her off to a home for emotionally disturbed children, temporarily putting space between her and Gilles. Luckily for them, though, she escapes and the couple contemplate running away together.

An elderly gentleman and his dog find themselves out of a home with little means.

Malik has a lot on his plate when he returns home to Tunisia after living in France. He's processing his father's death, he can't come out to his mother, and his childhood anxieties have resurfaced. But all of Malik's problems seem to fade away when he falls for Bilal, the dreamy houseboy at his mother's bourgeois estate.

A union pensioner and his wife are robbed, but find that merely getting the assailants brought to justice is not enough for their consciences.

Bored and restless, Alice spends much of her time lusting after Jim, a local sawmill worker. When not lusting after him, Alice fills the hours with such pursuits as writing her name on a mirror with vaginal secretions and wandering the fields with her underwear around her ankles. And, in true teenaged tradition, she spends a lot of time writing in her diary.

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.

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

A young girl living in the French countryside suffers constant indignities at the hand of alcoholism and her fellow man.

During the 1970s a student named Gilles gets entangled in contemporary political turmoils although he would rather just be a creative artist. While torn between his solidarity to his friends and his personal ambitions he falls in love with Christine.

Vincent, a former air rifle champion lives a quiet life with his wife and his daughter. Despite his happy family life he ends up with economic problems. One day at the shooting range he meets the mysterious Renaud who promises him a solution to his problems by offering him an unusual job. Suddenly Vincent finds himself in a very dangerous spiral which turns out to be even harder to get out of than finding a solution to his economic problems.

Au revoir les enfants tells a heartbreaking story of friendship and devastating loss concerning two boys living in Nazi-occupied France. At a provincial Catholic boarding school, the precocious youths enjoy true camaraderie—until a secret is revealed. Based on events from writer-director Malle’s own childhood, the film is a subtle, precisely observed tale of courage, cowardice, and tragic awakening.

After 11-year-old Zachary Cowan strikes his classmate across the face with a stick after an argument, the victim's parents invite Zachary's parents to their Brooklyn apartment to deal with the incident in a civilized manner.

On the edge of a crumbling city, 11-year-old Alexander lives in a sequestered commune alongside other children, their mothers, and charismatic leader, Gregori. Gregori teaches the children how to raise livestock, grow vegetables, work as a community - and how to kill. With the birth of a new baby brother weighing on his mind, Alexander begins to question Gregori’s overpowering influence on the children and their training to become assassins. Threatened by his increasing unwillingness to fall in line, Gregori’s behavior turns erratic and adversarial toward the child he once considered a son. With the two set dangerously at odds and the commune’s way of life disintegrating, the residents fear a violent resolution is at hand.

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.

A drama set at a Swiss ski resort and centered on a boy who supports his sister by stealing from wealthy guests.

Thomas, a father in his fifties, returns by chance to the town where he grew up. He collapses and wakes up forty years earlier in the body of his teenage self. Thrown back into his past, Thomas will not only have to re-live his first love, but also try to understand the reasons for his father’s mysterious departure. Can you change the past by living it again?

Along with her husband and three children, Marthe lives in an eden of her own creation, nearly isolated from the rest of the world. The arrival of a construction vehicle, however, pierces their tranquil, hermetic existence—before long a disused highway has been re-opened, and the family finds their home situated in the midst of rush-hour traffic. While the privileges of clean air, quietude and privacy are thus denied them, Marthe remains determined to stay no matter the cost.

As we follow a mother and her son, we delve into a past marred by an accident that tears them apart. She will become a renowned artist and healer, and he will grow into his own and a peculiar falconer who bears the marks of a double absence. In the present, a young journalist will bring about an encounter between the two that puts the very meaning of life and art into question, so that we may contemplate the possibility of living life to its fullest, despite the uncertainties littering our paths.

A look inside an offbeat boarding school for young girls.

Charlie, a 17-year-old girl tortured by doubt, is thrilled when she becomes friends with Sarah, but when Sarah tires of Charlie and looks for a new friend, their relationship takes an ominous turn.

A joinery instructor at a rehab center refuses to take a new teen as his apprentice, but then begins to follow the boy through the hallways and streets.

Julien, 17, is wheelchair-bound due to cerebral palsy. Despite their love for him, his family is gradually falling apart under the strain of dealing with his disability. In a bid to bond with his father, Julien challenges him to participate with him in the Ironman race in Nice (French Riviera), a triathlon in which his father has previously competed.

François returns to his village after a long absence. He finds his friend Serge who has married Yvonne, and has developed an alcohol problem after the death of their stillborn child. Serge has become an angry, bitter figure not unlike the roles of James Dean, refusing to face reality and adulthood and François must help him.

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

A haunting erotic fairytale about Lucy, a young University student drawn into a mysterious hidden world of beauty and desire.

Sebastien Nicolas is a reclusive realtor leading a double life – in his spare time he creates complex disguises based on acquaintances. Combined with minutely studied and rehearsed impersonations, Sebastien can disappear completely into other people's lives. Things spiral out of control after he impersonates the wrong man.

Alejandra and her dad Roberto have just moved to town. She is new at school, he has a new job. Starting over is sometimes complicated when you have left so much behind.

A man leaves prison after a 15-year sentence and returns to his home district to find that it has changed completely, almost beyond recognition. He will find it hard to adjust to a world that is governed by a totally different set of rules...

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.

Two young boys, Victor and Rainer, take the commuter train to spend the evening in Paris. In a nightclub on the banks of the Seine they go from one disappointment to another, from failed chat ups to street brawls. But as they get carried away by the night, they leave the city for the forest. In the silence of the moonlight nature, the desire between the two friends becomes increasingly vibrant. A new day is born from their friendship.

A chilling real-time thriller featuring a teenager, Casey, battling with an anonymous cyber-stalker.

Despite his age and general weariness, Gebo keeps on working as an accountant to provide for his family. He lives with his wife, Doroteia, and his daughter-in-law, Sofia, but it is the absence of João, son and husband, that worries them.Gebo seems to be hiding something, especially to Doroteia, who is anxiously waiting to see her son again. Sofia is also waiting for her husband to come home, and yet she fears him. All of a sudden, João arrives and everything changes.

Three suburban English families' lives intertwine with tragic consequences.

A teenage girl helps an escaped fugitive flee Germany into France, after extracting a promise that he will help her commit suicide.

A thrilling and raw crime drama following a gang of drug dealers in Hackney, London - an honest and gripping rendition of inner-city drug and gang culture.