20 best movies like Stand by Me (1986)

List of the best movies like Stand by Me (1986): Kes, A River Runs Through It, You & Me, Tibetan Dog, Mud, Trash, Under the Same Moon, Hearts in Atlantis, Au Revoir les Enfants, The Slaughter Rule.

Tags: movies similar to Stand by Me (1986) - full list

Markimdb: 7.9
Genredrama, family
CountryUnited Kingdom

A young, English working-class boy spends his free time caring for and training his pet falcon.

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: 6.9
Genredrama
CountryJapan
Duration00:45

Nakamura Aoi stars as a young aspiring manga artist who's able to deal with loneliness and separation from his family through the companionship of an American Shorthair cat named Gin-o-gou.

Markimdb: 6.7
Genrecartoon, anime
CountryJapan, China

Jiantan is a young boy who has to leave Xi'an after the death of his mother to go deep into the Tibetan prairies to start living with the father he barely remembers. His dad, LaGeBa, is a busy doctor who decided to depart from the city and reside in Tibet where he is the essential physician of the poor community he lives in. To help his father, Jiantan has to learn how to herd sheep. While trying to learn his new responsibility, he is saved by a stray gold-colored Tibetan Mastiff. Both Jiantan and the big dog help each other as they try to adjust to this new environment.

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: 7.1
Genrethriller, drama, adventure, crime, detective
CountryUnited Kingdom, Brazil, Germany
Duration01:54

Set in Brazil, three kids who make a discovery in a garbage dump soon find themselves running from the cops and trying to right a terrible wrong.

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: 6.9
Genredrama
CountryUSA
Duration01:41

A widowed mother and her son change when a mysterious stranger enters their lives.

Markimdb: 8
Genredrama, military
CountryFrance, West Germany, Italy
Duration01:44

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.

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: 7.8
Genremelodrama, drama, crime
CountryUSA
Duration02:01

Set in the Bronx during the tumultuous 1960s, an adolescent boy is torn between his honest, working-class father and a violent yet charismatic crime boss. Complicating matters is the youngster's growing attraction - forbidden in his neighborhood - for a beautiful black girl.

Markimdb: 6.7
Genrecomedy, melodrama, drama
CountryUSA
Duration01:40

Waxing nostalgic about the bittersweet passage from childhood to puberty in this tender coming-of-age tale, four childhood girlfriends -- Teeny, Chrissy, Samantha and Roberta -- recall the magical summer of 1970. During their walk down memory lane, they reconcile experiences with boys, secrets, bullies and more.

Markimdb: 5.8
Genreadventure, family
CountryUSA
Duration01:34

An update of the Lassie legend stars Thomas Guiry as a troubled city kid whose family retreats to the country, where he befriends the famous collie and changes for the better. Conflict develops when a ruthless sheep rancher causes trouble for everyone.

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: 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: 7
Genredrama, adventure
CountryUSA

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.

Markimdb: 7.5
Genredrama, adventure, family, detective
CountryUnited Kingdom, USA, France
Duration02:06

Orphaned and alone except for an uncle, Hugo Cabret lives in the walls of a train station in 1930s Paris. Hugo's job is to oil and maintain the station's clocks, but to him, his more important task is to protect a broken automaton and notebook left to him by his late father. Accompanied by the goddaughter of an embittered toy merchant, Hugo embarks on a quest to solve the mystery of the automaton and find a place he can call home.

Markimdb: 7.7
Genremelodrama, drama
CountryFrance
Duration02:42

Algeria, the 1930s. Younes is nine years old when he is put in his uncle's care in Oran. Rebaptized Jonas, he grows up among the Rio Salado youths, with whom he becomes friends. Emilie is one of the gang; everyone is in love with her. A great love story develops between Jonas and Emilie, which is soon unsettled by the conflicts troubling the country.

Markimdb: 6.6
Genredrama, adventure
CountryUSA, United Kingdom
Duration02:09

Teenage boys discover discipline and camaraderie on an ill-fated sailing voyage.

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: 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: 7.4
Genredrama, cartoon, anime
CountryJapan
Duration01:39

When Yadomi Jinta was a child, he was a central piece in a group of close friends. In time, however, these childhood friends drifted apart, and when they became high school students, they had long ceased to think of each other as friends.One of the friends from that group, Honma Meiko, now has a wish she asks Jinta to fulfil. The problem is, she can't remember what her wish is anymore. As Meiko won't cease to bother Jinta about it, he gives in and decides to try to grant this wish he knows nothing of; for that, however, the help of his other former friends, now all very estranged from himself and from each other, may turn out to be necessary. He hasn't spoken to Anjou Naruko, Matsuyuki Atsumu, Tsurumi Chiriko, or Hisakawa Tetsudou in a long time; as he struggles to grant Meiko's wish and gathers his old friends together in the process, all the old feelings that still exist between them and have long been stashed away are bound to come up again.

Markimdb: 6.7
Genrecomedy, melodrama, drama
CountryUSA
Duration01:48

Henry and Nicky are small town pals from blue collar families with only a short time before they ship off to World War II. Henry begins romancing new-to-town Caddie Winger, believing her to be wealthy. Mischievious and irresponsible, Nicky gets into trouble which forces the other two to become involved, testing their relationship, as well as the friendship between the boys.

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: 6.2
Genredrama, adventure
CountryUSA
Duration01:30

When the experienced guide Vic accompanies the city boy Alan and his three friends on their first wilderness experience, he not only hope to teach the four boys lessons about the wilderness, but about themselves. Vic pushes them to the limit. Soon after alienating the boys, Vic finds himself in desperate need of help and must rely on his students in order to survive.

Markimdb: 7.7
Genredrama, biography, history
CountryChile, Spain, United Kingdom, France

Santiago, capital of Chile during the Marxist government of elected, highly controversial president Salvador Allende. Father McEnroe supports his leftist views by introducing a program at the prestigious "collegio" (Catholic prep school) St. Patrick to allow free admission of some proletarian kids. One of them is Pedro Machuca, slum-raised son of the cleaning lady in Gonzalo Infante's liberal-bourgeois home. Yet the new classmates become buddies, paradoxically protesting together as Gonzalo gets adopted by Pedro's slum family and gang. But the adults spoil that too, not in the least when general Pinochet's coup ousts Allende, and supporters such as McEnroe.

Markimdb: 7.8
Genrefamily, documentary
CountryFrance

The documentary's title translates as "to be and to have", the two auxiliary verbs in the French language. It is about a primary school in the commune of Saint-Étienne-sur-Usson, Puy-de-Dôme, France, the population of which is just over 200. The school has one small class of mixed ages (from four to twelve years), with a dedicated teacher, Georges Lopez, who shows patience and respect for the children as we follow their story through a single school year.

Markimdb: 8
Genrefantastic, action, comedy, adventure, family, cartoon
CountryUSA
Duration01:26

In the small town of Rockwell, Maine in October 1957, a giant metal machine befriends a nine-year-old boy and ultimately finds its humanity by unselfishly saving people from their own fears and prejudices.

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: 7.5
Genredrama
CountryUSA
Duration01:30

Three pre-adolescents with virginal and eager-of-signals naivety, hit headlong against monstrous and inhospitable loneliness, in the incandescent fire among the ashes of their own inocence.

Markimdb: 5.4
Genredrama, adventure, family, sport
CountryUSA
Duration01:39

When courageous young Neera becomes separated from her family in the desert, she chances upon a wild colt. Together they find friendship, trust, and their way back home only to discover her family is about to lose everything!

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: 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: 5.3
Genreadventure, family
CountryUSA
Duration01:31

Sandy Ricks is sent by his mom to Coral Key, a rustic island in the Florida keys, to spend the summer with his uncle Porter Ricks. Sandy dislikes everything about his new environment until a new friend comes into his life, a dolphin named Flipper, that brings uncle and nephew together and leads Sandy on the summer adventure of a lifetime.

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: 6.7
Genrefantasy, comedy, drama, adventure, family, cartoon
CountryUSA
Duration02:22

An epic journey into the world of dinosaurs where an Apatosaurus named Arlo makes an unlikely human friend.

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
Genrefantasy, comedy, musical, adventure, family, cartoon
CountryUSA
Duration02:08

Pete, a young orphan, runs away to a Maine fishing town with his best friend a lovable, sometimes invisible dragon named Elliott! When they are taken in by a kind lighthouse keeper, Nora, and her father, Elliott's prank playing lands them in big trouble. Then, when crooked salesmen try to capture Elliott for their own gain, Pete must attempt a daring rescue.

Markimdb: 7.4
Genredrama
CountryFrance
Duration01:18

A French family with two daughters, 10-year-old Laure and 6-year-old Jeanne, moves to a new neighborhood during the summer holidays. With her tomboy ways, Laure is immediately mistaken for a boy by the local kids and passes herself off as Mickaël.

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: 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: 7.1
Genredrama
CountryRussia, Estonia, Finland, Kazakhstan, Belarus
Duration01:45

Anya, a young academic raised in an orphanage, is on the cusp of success when she’s accused of drug possession. While in limbo hiding from the police, she hits the road with Kristina, another orphan several years Anya’s junior, in search of her possibly mythical grandmother.

Markimdb: 6.5
Genrecomedy, drama
CountryUSA

Terri, a pajama-clad, disaffected high school student learns how to engage the world with the help of Mr. Fitzgerald, his assistant principal.

Markimdb: 7
Genreaction, comedy, drama, adventure, family
CountryUnited Kingdom, France, Germany, USA
Duration01:36

Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner) is looking for an escape from his family's stifling home life when he encounters Lee Carter (Will Poulter), the school bully. Armed with a video camera and a copy of "Rambo: First Blood", Lee plans to make cinematic history by filming his own action-packed video epic. Together, these two newfound friends-turned-budding-filmmakers quickly discover that their imaginative ― and sometimes mishap-filled ― cinematic adventure has begun to take on a life of its own!

Markimdb: 5.3
Genredrama
CountryFinland
Duration01:48

Summer begins, Aku graduates high school and faces a great emptiness. As his girlfriend, parents and friends all leave the city, it looks to be the dullest summer ever. Everything changes at Midsummer when Aku meets Juli, a beautiful, strange and wild girl. Juli asks Aku for a ride to eastern Finland. Aku agrees – without any idea what he's getting himself into.

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: 7.4
Genredrama
CountryCanada

Set in cold rural Quebec at Christmas time, we follow the coming of age of a young boy and the life of his family which owns the town's general store and undertaking business. Mon Oncle Antoine is Director Claude Jutra's masterpiece: A poignant, starkly honest, but humane film, shot through with authenticity from beginning to end. Realized with an unflagging artistic vision, Mon Oncle Antoine poetically portrays a young boy's coming of age, vividly capturing the Quebec mining town in which he lives.

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: 6.1
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: 5.5
Genrecomedy, adventure, family
CountrySpain

Zip and Zap, two mischievous twins, were placed in the Esperanza, a school where the games are prohibited. There will found the Club of Marble, child resistance to challenge the authority of adults. Thanks to her intelligence, her courage and her unwavering faith in friendship, Zip and Zap and the rest of the club will discover a mysterious secret that is hidden in the school and live the most exciting adventure of their lives.




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