Take Me to the RiverMovies like Take Me to the River
- Key Features:
- Family secrets, Coming-of-age, Family reunion, Small town, Cultural clash, Hidden truths, Naivete, Misunderstanding, Drama, Secrets, Tension, Ambiguity
- Tone:
- serious, restrained, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Indie film enthusiasts, Drama lovers, Coming-of-age story fans, Those interested in family dynamics
- Emotional Arc:
- Curiosity → Anxiety → Discomfort
Take Me to the River

A naive California teen plans to remain above the fray at his Nebraskan family reunion, but a strange encounter places him at the center of a long-buried family secret.
Take Me to the River
A young man abandons his family for a solitary life of fly-fishing. His goal was to find his own way in the fishing world and thereby find himself and love.

Teenagers living in small-town Oregon take a boat trip for a birthday celebration. When they get an idea to play a mean trick on the town bully, it suddenly goes too far. Soon they're forced to deal with the unexpected consequences of their actions.

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.

An aging, booze-addled father takes a trip from Montana to Nebraska with his estranged son in order to claim what he believes to be a million-dollar sweepstakes prize.

Follows a pair of siblings who love but distrust each other as they embark on a white-water rafting trip with a small group. One of their friends from childhood turns out to be more dangerous than he appears.

A group of high-school friends must come to terms with the fact that one of them, Samson, killed another, Jamie. Faced with the brutality of death, each must decide whether to turn their friend in to the police, or to help him escape the consequences of his dreadful deed.

Recent MIT grad Matt Franklin should be well on his way to a successful career at a Fortune 500 company, but instead he rebels against maturity by taking a job at a video store. Matt rethinks his position when his unrequited high-school crush, Tori, walks in and invites him to an end-of-summer party. With the help of his twin sister and his best friend, Matt hatches a plan to change the course of his life.

After learning that a boy their age has been accidentally killed near their rural homes, four Oregon boys decide to go see the body. On the way, Gordie, Vern, Chris and Teddy encounter a mean junk man and a marsh full of leeches, as they also learn more about one another and their very different home lives. Just a lark at first, the boys' adventure evolves into a defining event in their lives.

When a young rancher crosses paths with a Lakota girl from a nearby reservation, her mysterious disappearance sparks a search that uncovers a harrowing past and hints at a dire future.

After treating his rancher cousin shoddily in L.A. Michael Woods is sentenced by his parents to spending a month on the ranch with his cousin and aunt.

Lis is a teenager whose dream is to become a circus artist and leave her hometown, even if she knows that to do it she’ll have to fight her side against her parents. It’s summer and she spends her days playing with her friends and flirting with her boyfriend, a few years older than herself. The lack of privacy and the neighbours’ gossip force Lis to keep their relationship secret so that her parents won’t find out. A relationship which change her live forever.

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.

Charley Thompson, a teenager living with his single father, gets a summer job working for horse trainer Del Montgomery. Bonding with an aging racehorse named Lean on Pete, Charley is horrified to learn he is bound for slaughter, and so he steals the horse, and the duo embark on an odyssey across the new American frontier.

Shy 14-year-old Duncan goes on summer vacation with his mother, her overbearing boyfriend, and her boyfriend's daughter. Having a rough time fitting in, Duncan finds an unexpected friend in Owen, manager of the Water Wizz water park.

When Tyler Davidson brings his college buddy Chase home for the summer holidays a secret is revealed that threatens to tear his perfect family apart.

16-year-old Jamie Winkle and her extended family are left reeling after her calculating grandmother unveils an array of secrets on her deathbed. As her family deals with her grandmother's surprising dying messages, Jamie sets out to make the most of her summer and explores her sexuality.

A young Amish woman, who isn't satisfied with her path at home, visits a cousin for the summer. Over the summer, she is exposed to another world, finds friendship and more. Soon she must choose and come to terms with the life she wants.

Under small-town scrutiny, a withdrawn farmer’s daughter forges an intimate friendship with a worldly but reckless new girl in 1960s Oklahoma.

Ray is a fledgling entrepreneur who specializes in high-end simulated abductions. He jumps at the chance when a mysterious client contracts him for a weekend kidnapping with a handsome payday at the end. But the job isn't all that it seems.

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

When the situation at her idyllic Palos Verdes home turns volatile, young Medina attempts to surf her way to happiness.

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

Country girl Rebecca has spent most of her life on a farm in South Dakota, and, when she goes away to college in Los Angeles, Rebecca immediately feels out of place in the daunting urban setting. She is befriended by a savvy party animal named Crawl, who convinces the ambivalent Rebecca to stay in the city. When Thanksgiving break rolls around, Rebecca, no longer an innocent farm girl, invites Crawl back to South Dakota, where he pretends to be her fiancé.

Juliet heads to her grandfather’s ranch with her mother for Christmas, where she meets a horse named Rodeo and young cowboy who change her life.

An aimless adolescent joins several itinerant misfits who live on the fringe of society and welcome at-risk youths into their fold.

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.

This complex portrait of modern-day life on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation explores the bond between a brother and his younger sister, who find themselves on separate paths to rediscovering the meaning of home.

Two young horse traders guide a Mormon wagon train to the San Juan Valley and encounter rugged terrain, the cutthroat Clegg gang, hospitable Navajo, and moral challenges on the journey.

Gail and Tom Hartman are struggling to stay together and decide to take a white-water rafting holiday adventure in Montana for their son Roarke's 10th birthday, only to meet up with a pair of mysterious men whose desperation grows, turning their vacation into a nightmare.

Once a rising star of the rodeo circuit, and a gifted horse trainer, young cowboy Brady is warned that his riding days are over after a horse crushed his skull at a rodeo. In an attempt to regain control of his own fate, Brady undertakes a search for a new identity and what it means to be a man in the heartland of the United States.

A minor train accident in rural Nebraska gradually unveils a mystery involving the town's reclusive bank clerk.

After her father dies, a young woman returns to her Yorkshire village for the first time in 15 years to claim the family farm she believes is hers.

Nev, a 24-year-old New York-based photographer, has no idea what he's in for when Abby, an eight-year-old girl from rural Michigan, contacts him on Facebook, seeking permission to paint one of his photographs. When he receives her remarkable painting, Nev begins a friendship and correspondence with Abby's family. But things really get interesting when he develops a cyber-romance with Abby's attractive older sister, Megan, a musician and model. Prompted by some startling revelations about Megan, Nev and his buddies embark on a road trip in search of the truth.

A group of settlers traveling through the Oregon High Desert in 1845 find themselves stranded in harsh conditions.

When their drug abusing mother is released from prison determined to rebuild their family, Rey kidnaps his younger brother Oliver and escapes their desert home for the California coast.

The mother of a severely traumatized daughter enlists the aid of a unique horse trainer to help the girl's equally injured horse.

When an old high school crush returns to his small hometown, Reed Fish's once simple, calculated life begins to unravel. A drunken incident prompts Reed's fiancée and the entire town to turn against him.

A chaotic family is on a road trip across a rugged landscape. In the back seat, Dad has a broken leg, Mom tries to laugh when she's not holding back tears, and the youngest keeps exploding into car karaoke. Only the older brother is quiet.

A young man cares for his younger sisters after their mother is imprisoned for murdering their abusive father. When he strikes up an affair with a married woman, long-dormant family secrets bubble to the surface.

Johnny and his young nephew forge a tenuous but transformational relationship when they embark on a cross-country trip to see life away from Los Angeles.

Beautiful, wild, funny, and lost, Katie Kampenfelt takes a year off before college to find herself, all the while chronicling her adventures in an anonymous blog into which she pours her innermost secrets. Eventually, Katie's fearless narrative begins to crack, and dark pieces of her past emerge.

Daniela, raised in the bosom of a strict Evangelical family and recently unmasked as a fornicator by her shocked parents, struggles to find her own path to spiritual harmony.

During a trip to Berlin, a young Amish in the middle of a rite of passage reconnects with his roots, explores other ways of life, falls in love — and faces a big decision.

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.

A young man from a small mining town embroils himself with a wealthy family with a dubious past.

Feeling awkward and isolated, an imaginative and strong-willed teenage girl runs away from home with an older punk rock drifter.

A transgender woman takes an unexpected journey when she learns that she had a son, now a teenage runaway hustling on the streets of New York.

Young Native American man Thomas is a nerd in his reservation, wearing oversize glasses and telling everyone stories no-one wants to hear. His parents died in a fire in 1976, and Thomas was saved by Arnold. Arnold soon left his family, and Victor hasn't seen his father for 10 years. When Victor hears Arnold has died, Thomas offers him funding for the trip to get Arnold's remains.

When the Solomons trade in the craziness of big-city life for the quiet of a North Dakota farm, little do they expect the nightmare that follows. Soon after arriving, teenage Jess (Kristen Stewart) and her younger brother see terrifying apparitions and endure attacks from a supernatural source. Jess must warn her disbelieving family before it is too late to save them.

A restless teenager escapes her troubled home and joins a traveling crew of young drifters selling magazines across the American Midwest. Immersed in a world of reckless partying, risky hustles, and fleeting romances, she searches for freedom and belonging on the open road.

Kate Stone is career-focused with a brash attitude that keeps relationships at an arm's length. When her estranged brother calls asking her to baby-sit her tween niece Maddie, Kate reluctantly agrees to help. But baby-sitting overnight unexpectedly turns into a week, and Kate's life spins into chaos. As Maddie reveals stories of being bullied and of wanting to run away and be a Juggalo, the two form a unique bond.

In eastern France, two teenage cousins have the summer of their lives when they paddle a purloined canoe to the far shore of a lake.

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.

A country family of five take in charming cousin Julie, whose parents recently died in a car crash, though teenaged daughter Rachel grows suspect that she has an alternative agenda; one that possibly includes witchcraft.

Nola grew up living on a van with her father, Clint; two nomads against the world. When tragedy strikes, Nola must confront the reality of life on the road alone, learning to own her grief, her past and her new destination.

Cowgirls 'n Angels Dakota's Summer tells the story of Dakota Rose, a cowgirl and competitive trick rider who finds out at the age of seventeen that she was adopted. She secretly sets out to discover the truth about her adoption and meet her birth parents while visiting her grandfather, rodeo legend Austin Rose. At Austin's ranch on break from the Sweethearts of the Rodeo trick riding team, Dakota discovers that family is not defined by blood, but rather personal commitment and by the love they share. Finally at peace, Dakota trains with Austin in order to prepare to rejoin the Sweethearts for their final competition against the talented Lone Star trick riding team and become the champion trick rider she was destined to be.

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.

The lives of three men who were childhood friends are shattered when one of them suffers a family tragedy.

A small-town Oregon teacher and her brother, the local sheriff, discover a young student is harbouring a dangerous secret that could have frightening consequences.

Carrie is a big-city teenager whose life is turned upside down when she moves to a horse ranch in Wyoming to live with her father. But everything changes when Carrie meets Flicka, a wild, jet-black mustang who's just as free-spirited and strong-willed as Carrie. The two form a special bond and Carrie opens her heart to her father and a handsome, local boy, but when a jealous rival puts Flicka's life in jeopardy, Carrie must do whatever it takes to save her best friend.

Isolated on a remote property, 16-year-old Claudia finds her world transformed when a spirited girl named Grace wanders into her garden.

A family with buried secrets reunite at a farmhouse after two decades to pay for their past sins.

Nate takes his family for a camping trip to reconnect. When they pull off at a rest stop, a gang of thieves hides their stash from an armored car robbery among the family belongings. They soon find themselves on the run and the gang will stop at nothing to get their money back.

Cozy, a dissatisfied housewife, meets Lee at a bar. A drink turns into a home break-in, and a gunshot sends them on the run together, thinking they've committed murder.

Lamb, based on the novel by Bonnie Nadzam, traces the self-discovery of David Lamb in the weeks following the disintegration of his marriage and the death of his father. Hoping to regain some faith in his own goodness, he turns his attention to Tommie, an awkward and unpopular eleven-year-old girl. Lamb is convinced that he can help her avoid a destiny of apathy and emptiness, and takes Tommie for a road trip from Chicago to the Rockies, planning to initiate her into the beauty of the mountain wilderness. The journey shakes them in ways neither expects.

Samantha’s Montana ranch is her family’s legacy, so when a developer shows up to buy it, Sam isn’t interested. But as he tries to win her trust and her ranch, Sam finds he might also be winning her heart.

A young man develops severe neck pain after swimming in a polluted river for a movie shoot, but nobody can provide him any relief.

While her mom is away, a teen sneaks out of the hippie commune where she lives and embarks on a life-changing adventure to discover who her father is.

The survival instincts of a road-tripping family are put to the test when they have no other choice but to stay the night at a remote homestead.

Two teenage girls in small-town Sweden. Elin is beautiful, popular, and bored with life. Agnes is friendless, sad, and secretly in love with Elin.

Feeling confined by their small town and overbearing parents, Annie and Jules hatch a scheme of running away. The only issue is, they need the money to get there. Jules suggests the couple try webcam modeling. Although she’s nervous at first, Annie can’t argue when the money starts rolling in. But as the girls soon find out, consequences can blindside you. Sometimes violently.

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!

Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.

A young transgender man explores his gender identity and searches for love in rural Nebraska.

Lucas is a young man who lives with his religious aunt Lourdes in a quiet country town. He helps his aunt by holding religious meetings with the ladies of the area, in the living room, playing biblical songs on the keyboard. This quiet life will end as soon as the charitable aunt communicates the arrival of another nephew, Mario, just out of jail. The clash of reality between the cousins ends up causing unusual situations, and an unexpected attraction among the boys.

Katy McLaughlin desires to work on her family's mountainside horse ranch, although her father insists she finish boarding school. Katy finds a mustang in the hills near her ranch. The headstrong 16 year old then sets her mind to tame a mustang and prove to her father she can run the ranch. But when tragedy happens, it will take all the love and strength the family can muster to restore hope.

The Munns, father John and sons Chris and Tim, recede to the woods of rural Georgia. Their life together is forever changed with the arrival of Uncle Deel, though the tragedy that follows forces troubled Chris to become a man.

On a trip to the beach, a teenage girl named Tobe meets a charismatic stranger named Harlan, who dresses like a cowboy and claims to be a former ranch hand. The pair feel an instant attraction and begin a relationship, but her father, a lawman, is suspicious of her lover.

A coming-of-age story that follows 12-year-old Andy Nichol, a bright student who, like most kids his age, will do anything to avoid conflict for fear of suffering overwhelming ridicule and punishment from his junior high school peers.

A drama centered on a rebellious girl who is sent to a Southern beach town for the summer to stay with her father. Through their mutual love of music, the estranged duo learn to reconnect.

An FBI agent teams with the town's veteran game tracker to investigate a murder that occurred on a Native American reservation.

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.

A psychopathic twelve-year-old girl in a small town in Nebraska recruits all the other children and goes on a bloody rampage, killing the corrupt adults and anyone else who opposes her. A bright high schooler who won't go along with the plan is the town's only hope of survival.

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.

Two teenage boys find a fugitive hiding out on an island in the Mississippi River and help him reunite with his lover and escape an avenging family and their armed posse.

Five teenage girls navigate the twists and turns of their complicated emotional lives, and learn the secrets of the heart through their friendship.

A 17-year old Missouri teen discovers she has gotten pregnant, a development that threatens to end her dreams of matriculating at an Ivy League college, and the career that could follow.

A brother and sister are sent to their grandparents' remote Pennsylvania farm for a week, where they discover that the elderly couple is involved in something deeply disturbing.

Accused of a crime they didn't commit, two city kids and a magical horse are about to become the coolest outlaws ever to ride Into The West.

Christmas comes to Heartland, along with an anonymous call about starving horses stranded by an avalanche in the Rocky Mountains, which send Amy and Ty to their rescue.

A listless and alienated teenager decides to help his new friend win the class presidency in their small western high school, while he must deal with his bizarre family life back home.

Tess enlists her biological father – a lovable slacker from the wrong side of the tracks – and the charming juvenile delinquent next door to help her come to grips with the death of her little sister.

Charlie is a troublesome 18-year-old who breaks out of a youth drug treatment clinic, but when he returns home to Los Angeles, he's given an intervention by his parents and forced to go to an adult rehab. There, he meets a beautiful but troubled girl, Eva, and is forced to battle with drugs, elusive love and divided parents.

In turn-of-the-century Mississippi, an 11-year-old boy comes of age as two mischievous adult friends talk him into sneaking the family car out for a trip to Memphis and a series of adventures.

Climbing aboard their mammoth recreational vehicle for a cross-country road trip to the Colorado Rockies, the Munro family – led by dysfunctional patriarch, Bob – prepares for the adventure of a lifetime. But spending two weeks together in one seriously small space has a way of cramping their style.

14-year-old Joe is the only child of Jeanette and Jerry — a housewife and a golf pro — in a small town in 1960s Montana. Nearby, an uncontrolled forest fire rages close to the Canadian border, and when Jerry loses his job (and his sense of purpose) he decides to join the cause of fighting the fire, leaving his wife and son to fend for themselves.

Jon, a first-time filmmaker, finds himself in Lansing, Michigan to present his film at a local film festival. Vince, his high school friend who is now a volunteer fireman and small-time drug dealer, also visits the town to support Jon on his big day, or so it seems. After a raucous hello and much backslapping, it appears that there is an undercurrent of tension in the air.

After the bizarre death of her brother, Johana Burwood must return home after four years, to face her strange siblings, her out of touch father and her very touchy past.

