American WomanMovies like American Woman
- Key Features:
- Missing person, Family drama, Small town, Grief, Resilience, Motherhood, Grandmother, Unsolved mystery, Community, Hope, Trauma
- Tone:
- serious, restrained, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Drama enthusiasts, Viewers interested in family stories, Fans of independent films, Those who appreciate character-driven narratives
- Emotional Arc:
- Anxiety → Endurance
American Woman

A young grandmother in a small Pennsylvania town raises her daughter's child after the girl disappears. All the while, a desperate search for her continues.
American Woman
A mother, enduringly traumatized by the disappearance of her three-year old daughter 15 years ago, has cut herself off from her ex-husband and son. However, when a troubled young woman with a checkered past enters her life, old psychic wounds painfully resurface, as does the illogical and increasingly irrational hope that the young woman may be the daughter she lost so long ago.

When a young mother's home birth ends in unfathomable tragedy, she begins a year-long odyssey of mourning that fractures relationships with loved ones in this deeply personal story of a woman learning to live alongside her loss.

An ordinary suburban girl faces the biggest battle of her life when her sudden disappearance for a brief period leads to a desperate search by her loved ones.

Told from the woman's perspective, the story of a couple trying to reclaim the life and love they once knew and pick up the pieces of a past that may be too far gone.

Nancy becomes increasingly convinced she was kidnapped as a child. When she meets a couple whose daughter went missing thirty years ago, reasonable doubts give way to willful belief.

Together for 20 years, a couple that has grown apart over time receives difficult news that will impact the entire family. As they try to make sense of the changes, they end up rediscovering their love for one another.

A Pulitzer-winning writer grapples with being a widower and father after a mental breakdown, while, 27 years later, his grown daughter struggles to forge connections of her own.

The story of a young mother who loses her husband in Afghanistan and struggles to raise their young daughter in his absence.

Time passes and tension mounts in a Florida police station as an estranged interracial couple awaits news of their missing teenage son.

When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.

Teenagers Rose and Bennett were in love, and then a car crash claimed Bennett's life. He left behind a grieving mother, father and younger brother, and Rose was left all alone. She has no family to turn to for support, so when she finds out she's pregnant, she winds up at the Brewer's door. She needs their help, and although they can't quite admit it, they each need her so they can begin to heal.

When Mari Gilbert's daughter disappears, police inaction drives her own investigation into the gated Long Island community where Shannan was last seen. Her search brings attention to over a dozen murdered prostitutes.

Self-described misanthrope Elle Reid has her protective bubble burst when her 18-year-old granddaughter, Sage, shows up needing help. The two of them go on a day-long journey that causes Elle to come to terms with her past and Sage to confront her future.

In the aftermath of her husband's death, widow Ramona's struggle to raise her two kids is hindered by the arrival of a mysterious woman with supernatural abilities.

An odyssey through time and memory, centered on a place in New Jersey where—from wilderness, and then, later, from a home—love, loss, struggle, hope and legacy play out between couples and families over generations.

Back from a tour of duty, Kelli struggles to find her place in her family and the rust-belt town she no longer recognizes.

A young woman is returned home to her biological parents after living with her abductor for 17 years.

When rancher and single mother of two Maggie Gilkeson sees her teenage daughter, Lily, kidnapped by Apache rebels, she reluctantly accepts the help of her estranged father, Samuel, in tracking down the kidnappers. Along the way, the two must learn to reconcile the past and work together if they are going to have any hope of getting Lily back before she is taken over the border and forced to become a prostitute.

After a bad breakup with his girlfriend leaves him heartbroken, Carter Webb moves to Michigan to take care of his ailing grandmother. Once there, he gets mixed up in the lives of the mother and daughters who live across the street.

Cara Rudland thought she’d left her Southern roots and troubled family far behind, but returns to the scenic Lowcountry of her childhood summers after losing her job in Chicago. There, she reconnects with her mother Lovie, who has been caring for her young, pregnant friend Toy in her charming beach house.

Life for a happy couple is turned upside down after their young son dies in an accident.

Struggling to provide her daughters with a safe, happy home, Sandra decides to build one - from scratch. Using all her ingenuity to make her ambitious dream a reality, Sandra draws together a community to lend a helping hand to build her house and ultimately recover her own sense of self.

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.

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.

Told from the man's perspective, the story of a couple trying to reclaim the life and love they once knew and pick up the pieces of a past that may be too far gone.

A New York couple's relationship is tested after the loss of their child. This film is the wide-released combination of the original two :him and :her volumes that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

The Amish farming community of Painter’s Mill, Ohio, is shattered when a series of brutal murders leaves the town with a sense of frailty and loss of innocence. Among the most affected by the tragedy was Kate Burkholder, a young girl who survived the terror and, as a result, left the Amish life behind. Fifteen years later, Kate returns to Painter’s Mill as its Chief of Police. Certain she’s come to terms with her past, Kate’s renewed life in her hometown is shattered when a murder investigation triggers deep-seated emotions from her childhood and exposes a dark secret that could destroy her.

Following the death of the Leigh family matriarch, Annie and her children uncover disturbing secrets about their heritage. Their daily lives are not only impacted, but they also become entangled in a chilling fate from which they cannot escape, driving them to the brink of madness.

A family of Irish immigrants adjusts to life on the mean streets of Hell's Kitchen while also grieving the death of a child.

Samantha Crawford is living a storybook life: she’s happily married, she lives on a ranch where she keeps her beloved horse, and the stories she’s told and illustrated since childhood have become published books. When her husband Billy is killed in a senseless act of violence, Sam loses her faith and her will to live. But a death-defying encounter with two children leads to a reunion with Joe, her oldest friend. As Sam watches “Papa” Joe care for and love the kids in his under-resourced neighborhood, she begins to realize that no matter life’s circumstances, the love of God is always reaching out to us.

Afflicted with a mysterious disease after surviving an overdose, a woman returns to her childhood home to confront her personal demons but instead discovers a real one.

Set in postwar America, a man watches his seemingly perfect life fall apart as his daughter's new political affiliation threatens to destroy their family.

After 8-year-old So-won narrowly survives a brutal sexual assault, her family labors to help her heal while coping with their own rage and grief.

After the death of her abusive husband, Matilde finds her new best friend in Miguel, her young, insecure, and disoriented neighbor.

Tricia's husband has been missing for seven years. Her younger sister Callie comes to live with her as the pressure mounts to finally declare him 'dead in absentia'. Tricia is reluctant, always holding out hope, but Callie is practical and wants her to move on. As Tricia sifts through the wreckage and tries to move on with her life, Callie finds herself drawn to an ominous tunnel near the house.

With their father away as a chaplain in the Civil War, Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy grow up with their mother in somewhat reduced circumstances. They are a close family who inevitably have their squabbles and tragedies. But the bond holds even when, later, male friends start to become a part of the household.

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.

When Krisha returns to her estranged family for Thanksgiving dinner, past demons threaten to ruin the festivities.

Since losing her husband, Sophie has struggled to manage grief, a full-time job, and parenting her devastated daughter, but when a former physicist reveals a secret time-bending machine, Sophie will be faced with an impossible choice.

Amanda and her daughter live a quiet life on an American farm, but when the remains of her estranged mother arrive from Korea, Amanda becomes haunted by the fear of turning into her own mother.

When elderly mother Edna inexplicably vanishes, her daughter rushes to the family's decaying home, finding clues of her increasing dementia scattered around the house in her absence.

A pregnant woman and her husband are taken in by a farmer and his wife after crashing their car in the Scottish countryside. Once inside, they realize their hosts’ daughter is a missing child from the news years earlier. Things take a sinister twist when the farmer and his wife inform the couple they intend to keep their baby once born.

One clear summer day in a Baltimore suburb, a baby goes missing from her front porch. Two young girls serve seven years for the crime and are released into a town that hasn't fully forgiven or forgotten. Soon, another child is missing, and two detectives are called in to investigate the mystery in a community where everyone seems to have a secret.

A woman must fly back to her hometown when her Alzheimer's-stricken mother wanders into a blizzard. The return home forces her to confront her past.

In the hazy aftermath of an unimaginable loss, Sarah and Phil come unhinged, recklessly ignoring the repercussions. Phil starts to lose sight of his morals as Sarah puts herself in increasingly dangerous situations, falling deeper into her own fever dream.

After learning that his terminally ill wife has six months to live, a man welcomes the support of his best friend who moves into their home to help out.

Sue Ann is a loner who keeps to herself in her quiet Ohio town. One day, she is asked by Maggie, a new teenager in town, to buy some booze for her and her friends, and Sue Ann sees the chance to make some unsuspecting, if younger, friends of her own.

A couple facing marital problems after losing their child finds their life together further complicated by a mysterious visitor.

When her mother disappears while on vacation in Colombia with her new boyfriend, June’s search for answers is hindered by international red tape. Stuck thousands of miles away in Los Angeles, June creatively uses all the latest technology at her fingertips to try and find her before it’s too late. But as she digs deeper, her digital sleuthing raises more questions than answers... and when June unravels secrets about her mom, she discovers that she never really knew her at all.

When a young woman unexpectedly arrives at an older man's workplace, looking for answers, the secrets of the past threaten to unravel his new life.

Liz McAdams is haunted by the memories of a tornado that destroyed her home 25 years ago. Now a professional storm tracker, she and her family are in danger once again as another devastating twister rapidly gains momentum. Caught in the path of destruction, Liz and her estranged husband struggle to save those they love...

Lauren wants to rebuild her community, including her family home, in the aftermath of a devastatingly disastrous storm.

Keller Dover is facing every parent’s worst nightmare. His six-year-old daughter, Anna, is missing, together with her young friend, Joy, and as minutes turn to hours, panic sets in. The only lead is a dilapidated RV that had earlier been parked on their street.

School nurse Alice Goodwin lives with her husband and two daughters on a dairy farm in a small Wisconsin community. After an accident on her property involving a friend's child, the town turns against her and Alice finds herself fighting charges of child abuse.

A modern day train hopper fighting to be a successful musician and a single mom battling to maintain custody of her daughter defy their circumstances by coming together in a relationship that may change each others lives forever.

An inner-city high school teacher discovers she is pregnant at the same time as one of her most promising students and the two develop an unlikely friendship while struggling to navigate their unexpected pregnancies.

When an 8-year-old girl mysteriously vanishes on Caddo Lake, a series of past deaths and disappearances begin to link together, forever altering a broken family’s history.

Agnes feels stuck. Unlike her best friend, Lydie, who’s moved to New York and is now expecting a baby, Agnes still lives in the New England house they once shared as graduate students, now working as a professor at her alma mater. A ‘bad thing’ happened to Agnes a few years ago and, since then, despite her best efforts, life hasn’t gotten back on track.

Edee, in the aftermath of an unfathomable event, finds herself unable to stay connected to the world she once knew and in the face of that uncertainty, retreats to the magnificent, but unforgiving, wilds of the Rockies. After a local hunter brings her back from the brink of death, she must find a way to live again.

A young mother’s mysterious death and her son’s subsequent kidnapping blow open a decades-long mystery about the woman’s true identity, and the murderous federal fugitive at the center of it all.

Emilia, a law-school graduate, falls in love with her married boss, Jack. After Emilia marries Jack, her happiness turns unexpectedly to grief following the death of her infant daughter. Devastated, Emilia nonetheless carries on, attempting to forge a connection with her stepson William and to resist the interference of Jack's jealous ex-wife.

When 11-year-old Gitty discovers that her father, Abe, a good and beloved farmer, is holding a wealthy man hostage in their abandoned silo in order to save their suffering farm, she befriends the captive in secret. As the truth unfolds about who he is and what will happen if he escapes, Gitty chooses to confront the thin line between reality and fiction.

A girl who went missing after an accident returns 10 years later and reunites with her grandmother.

Everyone knows everyone in the southern town of Baymont. So when tattooed, sweet-talking Josie struts into town, heads turn. Striking up relationships with young punk Gator and loner Hank, she quickly becomes a hot topic of local gossip.

While investigating the global phenomenon of caste and its dark influence on society, a journalist faces unfathomable personal loss and uncovers the beauty of human resilience.

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.

On the outside, Helen has it all – a loving family and a successful career – but when her suppressed mental illness resurfaces, the world crumbles around her. Crippled by depression, Helen finds solace through her friendship with Mathilda, a kindred spirit struggling with bipolar disorder.

Fourteen-year–old Megan and her best friend Amy spend a lot of time on the internet, posting videos of themselves and chatting with guys online. One night Megan chats with a guy named Josh who convinces her to meet him for a date. The next day, Megan is missing—forever. Based on actual cases of child abduction.

Kate and her daughter Beth live alone in an isolated farmhouse in the woods, but when Kate slowly begins to suspect that something sinister is happening, her motherly instincts are put to the test.

A woman's seaside vacation takes a dark turn when her obsession with a young mother forces her to confront secrets from her past.

Leah, 10, has terrible nightmares. Her mother seems distant somehow, lost in her thoughts. A small, nightly visitor brings Leah comfort, but soon Leah will realize that her little visitor offers knowledge that might be very, very dangerous.

The true story of suburban housewife Gertrude Baniszewski, who kept a teenage girl locked in the basement of her Indiana home during the 1960s.

Wang Tiemei, a single mother, loses her job and moves, befriending neighbor Xiaoye who appears cheerful but is depressed. Their bond grows as Tiemei navigates relationships with her ex-husband causing trouble.

A successful woman in New York City finds her life upended when she is forced to confront a dark truth that threatens to unravel her meticulously crafted life.

June is different from all other nine-year old girls. She is an orphan hiding a secret. Bad things happen when she gets upset, supernatural things. June has been in many foster homes usually leaving them destroyed. But this time it will be different. June has a new foster home and she really likes her new parents. She will have to face the force within her to protect her new parents and to save herself.

A woman in her sixties embarks on a journey through the western United States after losing everything in the Great Recession, living as a van-dwelling modern-day nomad.

A teen girl disappears after trying to meet men online in order to escape her small town. Apparently, only her best friend worries enough to investigate the mystery.

Drama about a father and son who set out to find their missing daughter/sister with the help of an American headhunter.

When a rare Lakota Ghost Shirt falls into the black market in a small town in South Dakota, the lives of local outsiders and outcasts violently intertwine.

Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children, is a renowned linguistics professor who starts to forget words. When she receives a devastating diagnosis, Alice and her family find their bonds tested.

Hoping to find a sense of connection to her late mother, Gorgeous takes a trip with her friends to visit her aunt's ancestral house in the countryside. The girls soon discover that there is more to the old house than meets the eye.

A young girl is kidnapped during a powerful storm. Her mother joins forces with her mysterious neighbour to set off in pursuit of the kidnapper. Their journey will test their limits and expose the dark secrets of their past.

A married woman with an unwanted pregnancy lives in a time in America where she can't get a legal abortion and works with a group of suburban women to find help.

A grieving widower is drawn into a custody battle over his granddaughter, whom he helped raise her entire life.

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.

After a blow to the head, Abby decides she can't do it anymore. Her life just can't be only about the house, the kids and the wife. She needs more: she needs to be Eleanor.

Rebellious, uncontrollable teenager, Rachel is hauled off by her dysfunctional mother to spend the summer with her estranged grandmother, Georgia. Her journey will lead all three women to revelations of buried family secrets and an understanding that - regardless what happens - the ties that bind can never be broken.

Sylvia is a social worker who leads a simple and structured life: her daughter, her job, her AA meetings. This is blown open when Saul follows her home from their high school reunion. Their surprise encounter will profoundly impact both of them as they open the door to the past.

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.

Jamie Fitzpatrick and Nona Alberts are two women from opposites sides of the social and economic track, but they have one thing in common: a mission to fix their community's broken school and ensure a bright future for their children. The two women refuse to let any obstacles stand in their way as they battle a bureaucracy that's hopelessly mired in traditional thinking, and they seek to re-energize a faculty that has lost its passion for teaching.

William Keane is barely able to cope. It has been six months since his six-year-old daughter was abducted from New York City’s Port Authority Bus Terminal while traveling with him. Repeatedly drawn to the site of the abduction, Keane wanders the bus station, compulsively replaying the events of that fateful day, as if hoping to change the outcome.

In a suburban community, moms and dads, one after the other, mysteriously feel the irresistible impulse to attack and kill their own offspring.

Three strong-willed women strive to forge their own paths amidst the wide-open plains of the American Northwest: a lawyer forced to subdue a troubled client; a wife and mother whose plans to construct her dream home reveal fissures in her marriage; and a lonely ranch hand who forms an ambiguous bond with a young law student.

When tragedy strikes the community surrounding a cafe in West Philadelphia, the cafe's regulars come to realize how intertwined their lives truly are.

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.




