Thi MaiMovies like Thi Mai
- Key Features:
- Grief, Adoption, Cross-cultural, Motherhood, Friendship, Travel, Vietnam War, Loss, Healing, Family
- Tone:
- earnest, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Drama viewers, International film enthusiasts, Those interested in adoption stories, Viewers seeking emotional stories
- Emotional Arc:
- ['Grief → Hope → Acceptance']
Thi Mai

After losing her daughter in an accident, Carmen loses all incentive to keep going, until she receives an unexpected letter from the adoption agency: her daughter was finally granted the Vietnamese girl she had asked for adoption and whose name is Thi Mai.
Thi Mai
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.

After her mother's death, six-year-old Frida is sent to her uncle's family to live with them in the countryside. But Frida finds it hard to forget her mother and adapt to her new life.

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

Magdalena makes a journey to find her son, who has disappeared on his way to the Mexican border with the United States. Her odyssey takes her to meet Miguel, a man recently deported from the US. They start to travel together, Magdalena looking for her son, and Miguel hoping to see his mother again.

Ten years have gone by since Elena's six-year old son has disappeared. The last thing she heard of him was a phone call he gave her, saying that he was lost on a beach in France and couldn't find his father. Nowadays, Elena lives on this same beach and manages a restaurant. She is finally beginning to emerge from this tragic episode when she meets a French teenager who strongly reminds her of her lost son. The two of them will embark on a relationship which will sow chaos and distrust around them.

After finding a lump in one of her breasts, Magda goes to visit her doctor who gives her bad news: she needs a mastectomy, preceded by severe chemo treatments. While she ponders this ill fortune at a soccer game where her son Dani participates, she attracts the attention of talent scout Arturo, who is looking for talented young players to enroll them in the junior leagues.

Lisa and Marine live a life of relative companionship together, where the only man permitted into the equation is Lisa’s young son, Leo. However, their simple existence is thrown into disarray when Marie meets and falls in love with Alex, a customer at her bookshop. Lisa is left feeling excluded, and tension develop. But soon an unexpected accident forces all of those involved to reassess the situation and adopt a different position in each other’s lives.

Théo is given up for adoption by his biological mother on the very day he is born. After this anonymous birth, the mother has two months to change her mind… Or not. The child welfare services and adoption service spring into action… The former have to take care of the baby and support it during this limbo-like time, this period of uncertainty, while the latter must find a woman to become his adoptive mother. She is called Alice, and she has spent the last ten years fighting to have a child.

A portrait of the myth of maternity around the story of Pepa and her daughter, who are evicted from their home and forced to wander for a place to live with no support network.

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.

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.

Sara, Lucía, Sofía and Claudia are sisters, 4 modern women with very different personalities, who come together at their mother's funeral, after which they discover the man they've all called "dad" throughout their lives is not really their father. They embark on a quest to discover who their real fathers are, discovering more about themselves, their mother, and their lives.

When a little girl is kidnapped by a trafficking ring, they soon find they messed with the wrong child. Her mother, a notorious former gang leader, is close on their trail and will go to any lengths to bring her child home.

19-year-old Argentine Martin has a nearly fatal drug overdose. After that, his mother sends him to Madrid, where his film director father (also Martin) lives with his new, much younger lover, Alicia, and bisexual actor friend, Dante.

When Santi and his parents learn that he has an eye disease, his father encourages him to make a list of places and things he wants to see and do before he loses his sight completely.

After losing her mother in a car accident that leaves her with a broken arm, 4-year-old Ponette struggles with anguish and fear. Left by her father with a caring aunt and her children, Ponette grieves, secretly hoping her mother will somehow come back. Confused by the religious explanations provided by adults, and challenged by the cruel taunts of a few children at school, little Ponette must make her way through her emotional turmoil.

A comedy that chronicles a chance encounter between Robert and a Chinese named Jun who wanders lost through the city of Buenos Aires in search of his uncle after being assaulted by a taxi driver and his henchmen.

As single mom Grace juggles work, bills, and her affair with a married doctor, her daughter, Ansiedad, plots a shortcut to adulthood after finding inspiration in the coming-of-age stories she's reading for school.

Anna happily lives with her husband, their two boys, and Simon, 6 years-old, who was placed with her by the Social Care services when he was only 18 months. When Simon’s father decides that he is ready to take his son back with him, the family’s balance is at stake. Anna is torn apart: how could she possibly let go a of child who has always called her ‘Mom’?

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.

After suffering through a long and unsuccessful series of fertility treatments, Satoko and her husband Kiyokazu make the decision to adopt a child. Six years after adopting a boy they named Asato, Satoko has quit her job to concentrate fully on her husband and son. The family lives a peaceful existence until the arrival of a stranger.

An aspiring actress in a small town in Rajasthan agrees to bear a child for a visiting couple seeking a surrogate mother, but her experience takes an unexpected turn when they refuse to have the child anymore.

A pregnant woman, who is taking care of her son with development problems, is at her breaking point when a caregiver from the Philippines steps into her life. Diana suspects that she’s using voodoo against her after the quick improvements of her son.

Set in colonial French Indochina during the 1930s to 1950s, this is the story of Éliane Devries, a French plantation owner, and of her adopted Vietnamese daughter, Camille, set against the backdrop of the rising Vietnamese nationalist movement.

When a woman visits a Chinese doctor, she discovers her pain is due to pent-up rage, and the only cure is to fully express herself, whatever may come.

After a Vietnamese woman dies in a car crash in Saigon, her brother-in-law and her young son transport her body back to the former’s hometown in rural Vietnam, where they plan to give her a funeral.

A recently-widowed science fiction writer considers whether to adopt a hyper-imaginative 6-year-old abandoned and socially-rejected boy who says he's really from Mars.

Fatima, an Algerian-born woman who now lives in France with her two teenage daughters, with whom she is barely able to communicate.

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

María's routine at school is altered by the arrival of a very special child. Soon, they become close friends.

After a traumatic miscarriage, Lola and her husband, Adolfo, adopt Tin and Tina, a lovely albino brother and sister with an ultra-Catholic education that makes them interpret the Holy Bible verbatim.

A comedian finds new meaning in his life when his best friend asks him to be her sperm donor, and he meets a girl who connects with the cosmos.

Amaia has just become a mother, and the challenge is even more significant than she imagined. So when her partner has to leave for several weeks because of his job, she decides to spend time with her parents in a lovely coastal village in the Basque Country and hopefully share the responsibility of looking after her baby. However, she forgot that even when one becomes a parent, one never stops being a daughter.

A conservative church-choir director moves from Texas to San Francisco to run her deceased gay son's drag club.

Follows the Díaz-Aguirre family, whose perfect universe turns upside down after the death of the patriarch, who in his will asks his wife to recover the 'Sardinete', his first fishing boat which is rusting in a Moroccan port.

Six months after losing her only child in the Southeast Asia tsunami, Jeanne is convinced she sees him in a film about orphans living in the jungles.

Due to many reasons, ranging from insecurity to trauma, a group of people have gained a lot of weight in recent times.

A dying woman is fighting to choose a new family to keep her four children together, after she's gone.

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.

A working woman, mother a three children, realizes that, when her youngest one is about to go to Canada to continue her education, she will end up out of her most precious goal, being a mother.

Joseph learns that his son and his companion have just perished in an accident. They were expecting a child via a surrogate mother in Belgium. What will become of their future baby? Is Joseph the legitimate grandfather? Carried by the promise of this birth which will prolong the existence of his son, the sexagenarian goes to meet the young Flemish woman with a fierce and indomitable character.

Mario, a worker in "lost and found" department, finds a suitcase with a dead baby inside.

A daughter torn between two mothers, one who raised her with love and her biological mother, who instinctively claims her back.

Though only 14 years old, May is selected to be the third wife of a wealthy landowner. Her new home seems idyllic, her husband favours her, and she quickly becomes pregnant with what she is certain will be the desired male progeny. But trouble is quietly brewing: she witnesses a forbidden tryst that will spark a chain reaction of misfortunes — and stir in May urges that until now had been dormant.

A child does not stand the idea of having a new brother and dreams about drinking milk from the breasts of his mother again. The child asks the moon to bring him a tit only for him.

An ad creative and a successful exec have a great marriage — until he wants to be a dad just as her star is rising. Then he brings someone new home.

In a small Vietnamese village torn apart by war, a young woman faces unimaginable horrors before deciding to escape to the city. There, she encounters a compassionate Marine who offers her hope and a chance at a new life, igniting the possibility of a future together.

Traveling on a ferry heading to the island of Hierro where they will spend their holidays, Mary loses her son Diego, and no one can explain what happened. Six months later, Maria struggles to overcome the pain of loss and continue his life. Then, you receive an unexpected phone call: they found the body of a child, so it must return to the island. There, in the suggestive and disturbing landscape, surrounded by disturbing and sinister characters, Mary is forced to confront their worst nightmares. And as he travels this road, he discovers that some mysteries should not be disclosed ...

The film spans 30 years in Julieta’s life from a nostalgic 1985 where everything seems hopeful, to 2015 where her life appears to be beyond repair and she is on the verge of madness.

Dona Hermínia will have to rediscover and reinvent herself because her children are forming new families. This supermom will have to deal with a new life scenario: Marcelina is pregnant and Juliano is getting married.

A shy 11-year-old's life takes a strange turn when she discovers three hungry goblins living in the attic of her new house. She misses her old life. She misses her father so very much. Until she makes some new ghoulish friends.

A grieving couple move to a remote Irish village in the wake of their baby daughter's death. They soon take in an orphaned autistic girl, only to become involved in a series of strange occurrences.

In a world where an AI programme allows people to communicate with their deceased loved ones, a flight attendant and a mother question the meaning of reality and humanity.

A mother lives quietly with her son. One day, a girl is brutally killed, and the boy is charged with the murder. Now, it's his mother's mission to prove him innocent.

Paz seems to have a perfect life. She has a job, a partner and friends but something's missing. In reality, there are things she is unhappy about. She feels anxious and burdened but can't bring herself to express these feelings. Until one day she turns to a strange therapy that will make her say absolutely everything she thinks. How would your life be if you only said what you think?

After answering an ad on a dating website for Eastern European women, Olla leaves Ukraine and heads to French suburbia to move in with Pierre, who lives with his elderly mother. However, the suburbia cannot temper her desires, and nothing goes as expected.

Richard and Rachel, a couple in the throes of infertility, try to maintain their marriage as they descend deeper and deeper into the insular world of assisted reproduction and domestic adoption.

Ema is a magnetic and impulsive dancer in a reggaeton troupe. Her toxic marriage to choreographer Gastón is beyond repair, following a decision to give up on their adopted child Polo. She sets out on a mission to get him back, not caring who she’ll need to fight, seduce or destroy to make it happen.

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.

After suffering a family tragedy, a widower named Thanh moves his two daughters to a centuries-old ancestral home. Both daughters fall prey to sleep paralysis and night terrors. Their father seeks the help of a local psychologist, but chilling secrets and visions eventually prove that all is not what it seems in the old family house.

Inspired by her grandfather's stories, young Shinko embarks on wild flights of fancy about the history of the little town she lives in. But dreams can't fend off the realities of growing up.

Kurumi’s heart was broken by the sudden death of her boyfriend in a tragic airplane accident. By melding futuristic technology with the binary equivalent of human emotion, a brilliant scientist created an ultra-lifelike robotic surrogate to take Hal’s place – and lure Kurumi from her shroud of solitude.

Pedro is a single man in his forties who likes to party, has no children and lives at night. Everything changes when he meets Alin. She mentions to him that she is looking for her dad and that there is a high probability that it is him.

While a sixteen year old girl is possessed by an evil spirit, her mother tries to find help, but everything goes wrong with horrible consequences.

Ana, an eight-year-old girl living in Madrid with her grandmother and two sisters, mourns the death of her mother.

Jesus and María are a couple going through a difficult time in their relationship. Nevertheless, they have just become parents. To shape their new life, they decide to buy a new coffee table. A decision that will change their existence.

The life of two men changed unexpectedly when Ajith, an Indian sailor who was robbed and lost everything, appears out of nowhere in front of Pierre, a single and grumpy Frenchman.

An aging Chinese mother suffering from empty nest syndrome gets another chance at motherhood when one of her dumplings springs to life as a lively, giggly dumpling boy.

A fatally ill mother with only two months to live creates a list of things she wants to do before she dies without telling her family of her illness.

Gabriell is a single mother, her 17-year-old daughter Claire is pregnant, however the child's father Simon has no desire to be involved with his future baby. When Gabrielle takes matters into her own hands and asks Simon's father Ange for help, an unexpected relationship begins.

Just when Lola, 18 years old and transgender, learns that she can finally have surgery, her mother, who is her only financial support, passes away. Abiding by her mother’s last wishes, Lola and her father, who are permanently in conflict and have not seen each other for two years, undertake a journey all the way to the Belgian coast. They realize the outcome of the journey may not be the one they were both expecting...

After her husband dies, Carmina keeps it a secret until a check that he had been expecting comes in.

The father of a terminally ill girl is determined to grant his daughter's last wish, a ridiculously expensive collectors' costume from a Japanese TV series. The request will drive him into a journey within his city's dark underbelly.

Mexican immigrant and single mother Flor Moreno finds housekeeping work with Deborah and John Clasky, a well-off couple with two children of their own. When Flor admits she can't handle the schedule because of her daughter, Cristina, Deborah decides they should move into the Clasky home. Cultures clash and tensions run high as Flor and the Claskys struggle to share space while raising their children on their own, and very different, terms.

An everyday conversation between Marta and her mother turns into a tragic race against the clock when Marta receives a phone call from Iván, her six-year-old son, who is on holiday in France with his father.

After her boyfriend commits suicide, a young woman attempts to use the unpublished manuscript of a novel and a sum of money he left behind to reinvent her life.

In the wake of a horrific car accident that kills her husband, Michael, expectant mother Madeline Matheson discovers that her daughter, Grace, has died in the womb. Ignoring her doctor's warnings that the fetus must be removed from her body, a grief-stricken Matheson demands to carry the child to term -- even if it endangers her own life to do so. Curiously, little Grace emerges undead -- and with a craving for human blood.

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.

An attention-craving mother nearing 50, unemployed and living with her pregnant daughter and son-in-law, suddenly finds herself with child, too...

A young black woman discovers that her father was a sperm donor, and if that wasn't bad enough, he's white.

A Japanese photojournalist revisits Vietnam after the liberation to document the nation, and begins following and documenting the young children from a poor Vietnamese family.

A Korean horror film about an adopted young boy with a strange link to an old, dead acacia tree. As the boy settles in to his new home, the tree comes to life. When the family who adopted him becomes pregnant, he is to go back to the orphanage, and horror ensues.

A young man is stood up at the altar. His overprotective mother decides to join him is what would have been his honeymoon, so as not to waste the trip. He ails while his mum enjoys the trip of her life.

Determined to help her son, who has cerebral palsy, Bárbara takes her family to India for an experimental treatment.

In rural Northern Ireland, following the untimely death of their mother, a young man with Down syndrome and his estranged brother discover her unfulfilled bucket list.

Devastated after her mom's serious accident and grief-stricken because she hasn't become the daughter she wanted to be for her mother, Jia Xiaoling finds herself transported back in time to the year 1981, where she meets her young mother before she was her mom.

A Cape Verdean woman navigates her way through Lisbon, following the scanty physical traces her deceased husband left behind and discovering his secret, illicit life.

Alex, an intersexed 15-year-old, is living as a girl, but she and her family begin to wonder whether she's emotionally a boy when another teenager's sexual advances bring the issue to a head. As Alex faces a final decision regarding her gender, she meets both hostility and compassion.

Jack always lands on his feet. He lands on his feet when he marries the beautiful Sarah. He lands on his feet when he buys a luxurious new home. However, when Sarah goes into labour, he takes a tumble down the stairs and lands on his head. When he comes around he discovers he is the proud father of a baby girl, but deficient in the spouse department to the tune of 1.

While on a trip to Thailand, a successful American businessman tries to radically change his life. Back in New York, his wife and daughter find their relationship with their live-in Filipino maid changing around them. At the same time, in the Philippines, the maid's family struggles to deal with her absence.

A debt collector who looks intimidating, but actually has a warm heart, ends up becoming the guardian of a child, who has been left behind as collateral by her illegal immigrant mother.

Jackie is a divorced mother of two. Isabel is the career minded girlfriend of Jackie’s ex-husband Luke, forced into the role of unwelcome stepmother to their children. But when Jackie discovers she is ill, both women realise they must put aside their differences to find a common ground and celebrate life to the fullest, while they have the chance.

Irene lives in Rome. When her mother ask to, she go back to Rimini, her hometown, to take care of her autistic brother, Omar. She soon discover that Omar knows very well what to expect from the future, but in order to achieve his dreams, he need to be independent, which is why Irene begins a tender crash course to teach him adult life.

Valeria is 17 and pregnant. She lives in Puerto Vallarta with Clara, her half sister. Valeria has not wanted her long-absent mother, April, to find out about her pregnancy, but due to the economic strain and the overwhelming responsibility of having a baby in the house, Clara decides to call their mother. April arrives, willing to her daughters, but we soon understand why Valeria had wanted her to stay away.

Vincent, 18 years old, is dumped by Elina. It is his first love, it is the end of the world! His parents decide to take matters into their own hands and will try everything to make him forget this girl: he will have to follow them in a loving detoxification of which they will imagine the program ...

Hiroko attends the memorial service of her fiancé, Itsuki Fujii, who died in a mountain-climbing incident. Although Itsuki's mother says that their old house is gone, Hiroko records the address listed under his name in his yearbook and sends him a letter. Surprisingly, she receives a reply, and discovers it came from his old classmate, a girl who also happens to be called Itsuki Fujii.

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.


