Adopt a HighwayMovies like Adopt a Highway
- Key Features:
- Redemption, Ex-convict, Finding family, Father-child relationship, Second chance, Social alienation, Coming-of-age, Modern life, Character study, Quiet intensity
- Tone:
- serious, restrained, earnest
- Target Audience:
- Indie film enthusiasts, Character-driven drama fans, Redemption story seekers
- Emotional Arc:
- Isolation → Hope
Adopt a Highway

Russ Millings has just been released from prison after serving 21 years for a 3rd strike conviction for possessing an ounce of marijuana. As he tries to adapt to a world he doesn’t recognize – including trying to learn how to use the internet – he finds an abandoned baby in a dumpster behind the fast food restaurant where he works as a dishwasher. Unsure of what to do, and caught between impulses of kindness and panic, Russ soon realizes this could be his chance at redemption.
Adopt a Highway
A beautiful and naive college freshman discovers that her entire life is a lie and sets out on a road trip with a host of misfits to discover herself and the answers she craves.

Ex-con Russell Gaines is attempting to rebuild his life with the help of his father, Mitchell. However, the arrival of Maben sends his new life into chaos, leading the pair to go on the run - as their violent pasts catch up to them, the pair must learn to trust each other if they hope to live out the rest of their days.

Freed after a lengthy term in a juvenile detention center, convicted child killer Jack Burridge finds work as a deliveryman and begins dating co-worker Michelle. While out on the road one day, Jack notices a distressed child, and, after reuniting the girl with her family, becomes a local celebrity. But when a local newspaper unearths his past, Jack must cope with the anger of citizens who fear for the safety of their children.

A disgraced former cop, fresh off a six-year prison sentence for attempted murder, returns home looking for redemption but winds up trapped in the mess he left behind.

Jack is caught with the wife of his employer, a Vegas thug. The thug sends goons after Jack, who convinces his best friend, Pilot, to flee with him. Pilot insists that they head for Seattle, but doesn't tell Jack why. The goons learn from Pilot's drug source where the youths are headed, and they follow, hell bent on breaking Jack's feet. On the road, Jack and Pilot give a ride to Cassie, a distressed young woman. She and Jack hit it off. They pick up an aging stoner headed to Seattle for Kurt Cobain's memorial, and they help a circus sideshow family. Why is Pilot so set on Seattle, will the goons catch Jack, and is there any way the friends' competing needs can be resolved?

Three years after her relationship with Giovanni, Monica is in prison and has to ask his ex for help.

Out on parole after 8 years inside Bill Hayward returns home to find his now 11 and 15 year old sons abandoned by their mother and fending for themselves. Unwilling to play Dad, an uncaring Bill is determined to move on.

Following his release from a brutal stretch in prison for crimes he didn't commit, Mo is struggling to adapt to life on the outside. When his world collides with Doris, a mysterious woman with a violent past, he decides to risk his newfound freedom to keep her in his life.

Lizzie's best friend, Andie, becomes pregnant and offers to give the baby to her. Lizzie's husband, Peter, reluctantly goes along with being the child's father, and Andie moves into the guest room for the remainder of the pregnancy.

A kidnapped boy strikes up a friendship with his captor: an escaped convict on the run from the law, headed by an honorable U.S. Marshal.

The rough-hewn boss of a lumber crew courts trouble when he steps in to protect the youngest member of his team from an abusive father.

Sang-hyun is always struggling from debt, and Dong-soo works at a baby box facility. On a rainy night, they steal the baby Woo-sung, who was left in the baby box, to sell him at a good price. Meanwhile, detectives were watching, and they quietly track them down to capture the crucial evidence.

After twenty years in prison, Foley is finished with the grifter's life. When he meets an elusive young woman named Iris, the possibility of a new start looks real. But his past is proving to be a stubborn companion.

After serving time in prison for his brother's crime, a man warily reunites with family, finding hope and healing in a life-changing bond with his niece.

While participating in a rehabilitation program training wild mustangs, a convict at first struggles to connect with the horses and his fellow inmates, but he learns to confront his violent past as he soothes an especially feisty horse.

Charlie and Rachel run away from home to get married in Las Vegas. But they get attacked by a zombie who takes Rachel with him to hell, where she will become one of Satan's brides

After ex-con Joe Braxton violates his probation, he is given a second chance. All he has to do is drive a group of special kids across the country.

A former convict discovers that his son has been adopted by a couple living on the mountains and tries to establish a contact with him

A man wanders out of the desert not knowing who he is. His brother finds him, and helps to pull his memory back of the life he led before he walked out on his family and disappeared four years earlier.

A family man convicted of killing an intruder must cope with life afterward in the violent penal system.

Arthur loses his fortune for staying with Linda, right as the two were preparing to adopt a child. As their marriage suffers, Arthur plans for a way to get his money back, but first he must sober up and get a real job.

A one-time rodeo star and washed-up horse breeder takes a job from an ex-boss to bring the man's young son home from Mexico.

Mike Kendall, a disgraced ex-cop, is fighting a losing battle with the bottle. When he finds a woman left for dead at the side of a road, Kendall turns private eye to track down her killers, taking one last shot at redemption.

Wael, a former street child, makes a living from small scams with his adoptive mother and partner-in-crime Monique. When this unconventional duo swindles the wrong guy, Victor, an old acquaintance of Monique now in charge of a support organization for troubled teens, they have no choice but to become his interim secretary and educator in order to redeem themselves.

Khaila Richards, a crack-addicted single mother, accidentally leaves her baby in a dumpster while high and returns the next day in a panic to find he is missing. In reality, the baby has been adopted by a warm-hearted social worker, Margaret Lewin, and her husband, Charles. Years later, Khaila has gone through rehab and holds a steady job. After learning that her child is still alive, she challenges Margaret for the custody.

Percy, upon being released from prison, goes to the small town of Gillead, to find a place where she can start over again. She is taken in by Hannah, to help out at her place, the Spitfire Grill. Percy brings change to the small town, stirring resentment and fear in some, and growth in others.

After 12 years in prison, former high school football star Eddie Palmer returns home to put his life back together—and forms an unlikely bond with Sam, an outcast boy from a troubled home. But Eddie's past threatens to ruin his new life and family.

Yusuf is released from prison after serving a ten year sentence. Because of unexpected problems at his sister’s house, he finds himself in a cheap hotel where he meets a man, a woman, and a child who will change his life in unexpected ways…

A corrupted border agent decides to clean up his act when an impoverished woman's baby is put up for sale on the black market.

A pistol-packing teen meets an unstable rebel and a cocaine-snorting drifter as she hitchhikes her way out West.

When Pete and Ellie decide to start a family, they stumble into the world of foster care adoption. They hope to take in one small child but when they meet three siblings, including a rebellious 15 year old girl, they find themselves speeding from zero to three kids overnight.

A titan of industry is sent to prison after she's caught for insider trading. When she emerges ready to rebrand herself as America's latest sweetheart, not everyone she screwed over is so quick to forgive and forget.

Two strangers are drawn together under incredible circumstances. What starts as an unforeseen encounter over a long holiday weekend soon becomes a second chance love story.

AJ Manglehorn is an aging, ordinary guy in a small town. He nurses his sick cat, squeezes out a conversation with the local bank teller every Friday, and eats at the same place every day. But there is more to Manglehorn than meets the eye: he’s an ex-con who, 40 years ago, gave up the woman of his dreams for a big ‘job’. After a dramatic effort to start over, Manglehorn faces a terrifying moment and is unmasked as a guy with a very, very dark past.

After she ends up in prison and loses custody of her son, a woman struggles to assimilate outside her former life and remain clean long enough to regain custody of her son.

When her boyfriend is arrested for marijuana possession, Joleen Reedy and her 11-year-old daughter, Tara, take refuge with Joleen's aimless brother, James. Joleen soon runs off with a truck driver, and James is unable to meet his responsibilities. After Child Protective Services takes possession of Tara, James abducts her from a foster home, and the two travel from California to Utah, where his abusive father lives.

After serving time in prison, former drug addict Sherry Swanson returns home to reclaim her young daughter from family members who have been raising the child. Sherry's family, especially her sister-in-law, doubt Sherry's ability to be a good mother, and Sherry finds her resolve to stay clean slowly weakening.

A young man turns from drug addiction and petty crime to a life redeemed by a discovery of compassion.

An ex-con struggling to readjust to life in his small town forms an intense bond with his former high-school teacher.

Tae-sik gets out of a prison after spending 10 years for killing a man and wishes nothing but an ordinary life. A local lady welcomes him into her household like a son and he gets a second chance in life. His former gang tries to destroy his new home in order to build a night club but he won’t let them destroy his new family.

Manuel Jordan is a man who is free after serving 23 years for killing a teenager during an attempted robbery. After nearly two decades of staring at his victim's face on a newspaper clipping in his cell, the newly paroled man seeks redemption. Instead, redemption—in the form of a mysterious minister and two needy women— finds him.

The lives of three women have a commonality: adoption. Karen is a physical therapist who regrets that, as a teenager, she gave up her daughter for adoption. Elizabeth was an adopted child and is now a successful lawyer, but her personal life lacks warmth. Lucy and her husband have failed to conceive and now hope to adopt a baby to make their family complete.

Released from prison with terminal cancer, Max tries to reconnect with his estranged daughter and the grandson he’s never known. When his daughter’s abusive, drug-addicted ex-husband reappears, Max’s violent past comes back to haunt them all.

In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.

A small time crook and a newly-orphaned teenage boy team up to perform a string of robberies.

After serving a 12-year sentence for killing the man that slept with his wife, a man ponders whether he should try and reconcile with his family, or take revenge on those who turned him in.

Following the arrest of her mother, Ramona, young Vanessa Lutz decides to go in search of her estranged grandmother. On the way, she is given a ride by school counselor Bob Wolverton. During the journey, Lutz begins to realize that Bob is the notorious I-5 Killer and manages to escape by shooting him several times. Wounded but still very much alive, Bob pursues Lutz across the state in this modern retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.

An ex-con reunites with his estranged wayward 16-year old daughter to protect her from drug dealers who are trying to kill her.

Right before her wedding, a young woman finds herself abducted and held for ransom. As the initial days pass, she begins to develop a strange bond with her kidnapper.

A hardened cop tries to unravel the past to discover whether a violent teenager was responsible for the murder of his family. A confused fifteen-year-old runaway becomes enthralled with the young man.

When Johnny is released from prison following a forgery charge, he quickly lands a job as a short-order cook at a New York diner. Following a brief fling with waitress Cora, he develops an attraction for Cora's friend and fellow waitress Frankie. While Frankie resists Johnny's charms initially, she eventually relents when her best friend, Tim, persuades her to give Johnny a chance.

Abandoned by her father, a young woman embarks on a thousand-mile odyssey through the backroads of America where she meets a disenfranchised drifter. But despite their best efforts, all roads lead back to their terrifying pasts and to a final stand that will determine whether their love can survive their otherness.

Ex-gang member John Henry is a quiet man with a violent past. When two immigrant kids on the run from his former South Los Angeles gang leader stumble into his life, John is forced to reconcile with his past in order to try and give them a future.

A Texan traveling across the wild West bringing the news of the world to local townspeople, agrees to help rescue a young girl who was kidnapped.

Desperate to be rid of her toddler, a dissatisfied Beverly Hills housewife hires a stranger to babysit and ends up getting much more than she bargained for.

Andy Goodrich's life is upended when his wife enters a rehab program, leaving him on his own with their young kids. Goodrich leans on his daughter from his first marriage, Grace, as he ultimately evolves into the father Grace never had.

Despite his dedication to the junior-high students who fill his classroom, idealistic teacher Dan Dunne leads a secret life of addiction that the majority of his students will never know. But things change when a troubled student Drey makes a startling discovery of his secret life, causing a tenuous bond between the two that could either end disastrously or provide a catalyst of hope.

A retelling of the biblical book of Hosea set against the backdrop of the California Gold Rush of 1850.

A truck driver has been forced to smuggle illicit cargo to save her brother from a deadly prison gang. With FBI operatives hot on her trail, Sally's conscience is challenged when the final package turns out to be a teenage girl.

After losing their baby, a married couple adopt 9-year old Esther, who may not be as innocent as she seems.

Prison inmate Colin Briggs is introduced to gardening, and when his thriving prison garden attracts the attention of flamboyant gardening expert Georgina Woodhouse, she offers to sponsor the inmates in an upcoming flower show. At the Hampton Court Flower Show, Colin meets Georgina's daughter and romance is in bloom.

The true story of Jimmy Adams, a V.P. of a $30 billion hedge fund, who loses his job and winds up working as a waiter at a waffle shop. Amidst the greasy madness of the 24-hour diner, Jimmy befriends Edward, an ex-con grill master who serves up hard lessons about life, finance, and grits.

Redemption tells the story of Stan "Tookie" Williams, founder of the Crips L.A. street gang. Story follows his fall into gang-banging, his prison term, and his work writing children's novels encouraging peace and anti-violence resolutions which earned him multiple Nobel Peace Prize nominations. After exhausting all forms of appeal, Tookie was executed by lethal injection.

An ex-con battles it out in the cage to pay for the operation that would save the daughter of his victim. Along the way he finds fatherly love, and friendship, in the most unlikely of places.

After their newly adopted daughter goes missing in a small town, Steven and Shannon will stop at nothing to uncover the truth behind her disappearance and the dangerous secret behind the adoption agency they trusted. Risking their own lives, they will discover just what being a parent means and how far they will go to get their child back.

Göran and Sven have been cleared for adoption and they have a possibility to adopt a swedish orphan, Patrik 1,5. But when Patrik arrives he turns out to be someone else, not the little boy they were expecting. A comma had been misplaced, and in comes a 15-year-old homophobic with a criminal past.

Looking to adopt a child and unable to conceive a child of their own, the Morrisons' lives are turned upside down when a seven-year-old boy unexpectedly shows up on their doorstep.

After serving six years for killing his schoolmate, a young man learns that someone is out for revenge.

Rowe McDonald is a headstrong missionary who has life after his mission all figured out. When a fatal car crash interrupts his plans, he is given sixty days to return to life and finish his work. Now he must choose whether to lead the life he planned, or reach beyond himself to change the lives of others. What will he do? Who will he touch? How will he prepare to leave it all behind?

A former teenage getaway driver gets dragged back into her unsavory past when a former employer offers her a chance to save the life of her chronically unreliable ex-boyfriend.

An urgent phone call pulls a Yale Law student back to his Ohio hometown, where he reflects on three generations of family history and his own future.

The incredible true story of how an orphaned Jamaican baby, adopted by an elderly white couple and brought up in an all white area of London, became one of the most feared and respected men in Britain.

Tonny is released from prison - again. This time he has his mind set on changing his broken down life, but that is easier said than done.

Utah and his girlfriend Opal, are drug addicts living on the streets in rural Ohio. After getting recruited by body broker Wood and offered treatment in Los Angeles, Wood takes Utah under his wing and introduces him to treatment center mogul Vin. Wood and Vin bring Utah in on their lucrative and illegal dealings, where saving lives comes second to the bottom line.

An abandoned child steals to survive and has problems when he decides to steal from the priest who helps him.

When Lenny and his wife, Amanda, adopt a baby, Lenny realizes that his son is a genius and becomes obsessed with finding the boy's biological mother in hopes that she will be brilliant too. But when he learns that Max's mother is Linda Ash, a kindhearted prostitute and porn star, Lenny is determined to reform her immoral lifestyle. A Greek chorus chimes in to relate the plot to Greek mythology in this quirky comedy.

Clay Lomax, a bank robber, gets out of jail after an 7 year sentence. He is looking after Sam Foley, the man who betrayed him. Knowing that, Foley hires three men to pay attention of Clay's steps. The things get complicated when Lomax, waiting to receive some money from his ex-lover, gets only the notice of her death and an 7 year old girl, sometimes very annoying, presumed to be his daughter.

Luke Wilson plays a good-hearted ex-con who gets a job in a retirement hotel. Three elderly residents help him win back his girlfriend as he lends them a hand in fighting hotel corruption.

Pressured by his late mother's ghost to return home to the family he abandoned, a former addict grabs a bag of pills and a sack of marijuana and hits the road to Shreveport.

A withdrawn young man, Leland Fitzgerald is imprisoned for the murder of a mentally disabled boy, who also happened to be the brother of his girlfriend, Becky. As the community struggles to deal with the killing, Pearl Madison, a teacher at the prison, decides to write about Leland's case. Meanwhile, others affected by the murder, including Becky and her sister, Julie, must contend with their own problems.

An ex-convict gets tangled up with a gang after his car is hijacked with his son inside.

Mina has everything going for her, but her world is turned upside down when work sends her to her hometown in Tennessee where she must convince an old, stubborn restaurant owner to sell his property. There is just one problem- the restaurant is now owned by her ex-boyfriend Clay, who claims he will never sell. He resists her negotiations every step of the way, and all the while sparks fly.

A gritty coming of age thriller about a young girl sent to juvenile prison for the murder of her abusive step father. The film follows Anna Nix's journey into the dark world of an all girls jail where she discovers complex relationships, drugs, mental illness and her eventual search for redemption.

Aaron Quicksilver is a mysterious storyteller whose listeners invariably end up as the subjects of his gruesome, grisly tales. He tells a new bride stranded on a desert highway a horrifying account of a set of carnivorous toy teeth, then entrains a pickpocket with the spine chilling story of an army of murderous, disembodied hands.

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind and water. It is cold enough to crack stones and, when the snow falls, it is gray. Their destination is the warmer south, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there.

Paul Rivers, an ailing mathematician lovelessly married to an English émigré; Christina Peck, an upper-middle-class suburban housewife and mother of two girls; and Jack Jordan, a born-again ex-con, are brought together by a terrible accident that changes their lives.

Faced with an unplanned pregnancy, sixteen year old high-schooler, Juno MacGuff, makes an unusual decision regarding her unborn child.

Buddy Amaral, a successful and self-absorbed Los Angeles advertising executive, switches airline tickets with a stranger just before boarding a long-delayed flight so that he might enjoy an overnight fling with a pretty Dallas businesswoman. When the plane goes down, killing all aboard, Buddy's guilt soon turns into an alcohol problem. As part of his 12-step program, Buddy seeks atonement and decides to seek out the woman he thinks he's left a widow.

In New York City, Thom is broke and jobless, illegally working as a taxi driver. Claire is a successful business-woman, but personally she's in shambles - then comes the phone call that her estranged father is in the hospital. Not knowing what to do, Claire hops in Thom's cab and orders him to just drive and so he does. They find themselves in Pennsylvania and Claire makes the rash decision to drive across the country to California. On the road, there are many detours as the obstacles and secrets force them to learn about themselves and each other.

When a man is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he takes custody of his misanthropic teenage son, for whom quality time means getting high, engaging in small-time prostitution, and avoiding his father.

Set in Middle America, a group of teens receive an online invitation for sex, though they soon encounter Christian fundamentalists with a much more sinister agenda.

Disgraced ex-England football captain, Danny 'Mean Machine' Meehan, is thrown in jail for assaulting two police officers. He keeps his head down and has the opportunity to forget everything and change the lives of the prisoners. When these prisoners have the chance to put one over the evil guards during a prison football match, Danny takes the lead.

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.

Newly widowed Frank Fogle embarks on a journey to Ireland to scatter his late wife’s ashes. His estranged son, Sean, recently released from prison, agrees to join only when his father promises that they’ll never see each other again following the trip. After revelations surface about an old flame of Frank’s wife and a charming hitchhiker with plans of her own intervenes, father and son find themselves drawn together in unexpected ways.

In the late 1970s, when a mentally handicapped teenager is abandoned, a gay couple takes him in and becomes the family he's never had. But once the unconventional living arrangement is discovered by authorities, the men must fight the legal system to adopt the child.

An English teacher and struggling single mother has her life disrupted when the father who abandoned her as a child comes back into her life.

Suburbanite Ron is spoiled, young and not overly worried about the marijuana charges leveled against him. But, after being made out to be a drug dealer, he faces a five-year jail sentence in San Quentin State Prison. Physically frail and unaccustomed to his rough surroundings, Ron is primed to fall victim to sexual predators and bullying guards – that is, until he's befriended by Earl, a veteran inmate who finds meaning in protecting the vulnerable new kid.

A young man released from prison visits the widow of the man he killed drunk-driving and becomes infatuated with his cerebral palsy-stricken daughter.

