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Movies like True Mothers

Key Features:
Adoption, Family drama, Motherhood, Marital relationship, Secrets, Past trauma, Social issues, Emotional complexity, Character-driven, Mystery
Tone:
serious, restrained, dramatic
Target Audience:
Drama enthusiasts, Parents, International cinema fans, Thoughtful viewers
Emotional Arc:
Hope → Uncertainty → Revelation

True Mothers

2020-10-23
True Mothers Poster - Find Similar Movies

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.

Genres
Drama
Cast
Hiromi Nagasaku, Arata Iura, Aju Makita, Miyoko Asada, Hiroko Nakajima, Tetsu Hirahara, Ren Komai, Reo Satou, Go Riju, Taketo Tanaka
Crew
Naomi Kawase, Naomi Kawase
Rating
7.3(83 votes)
True MothersTrue Mothers
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MOTHER
MOTHER(2020)
6.995

Shuhei is leading a tough life. His alcoholic mother Akiko can only hook up with bad guys and order Shuhei to go get money from his disapproving grandparents instead of going to school. Except raising the little half-sister, his rock-bottom life seems to have no end.



Wolf Children
8.2

After her werewolf lover unexpectedly dies in an accident, a woman must find a way to raise the son and daughter that she had with him. However, their inheritance of their father's traits prove to be a challenge for her.



Like Father, Like Son
7.688

Ryota Nonomiya is a successful businessman driven by money. He learns that his biological son was switched with another child after birth. He must make a life-changing decision and choose his true son or the boy he raised as his own.



Mother and Child
6.589

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.



Monster
Monster(2023)
7.928

After an outburst at school involving her son, a concerned single mother demands answers, triggering a sequence of deepening suspicion and turmoil.



Be with You
7.459

Takumi and his six-year-old son, Yuji, haven't come to terms with their wife and mother's death. One day, they meet a woman with an uncanny resemblance to her sheltering from the rain near their home.



The Adopted
6.8

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.



Tokyo Twilight
7.682

Two sisters find out the existence of their long-lost mother, but the younger cannot accept the fact that she was abandoned as a child.



Private Life
6.9

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.



Love Life
Love Life(2022)
7.2

Taeko and her husband, Jirō, are living a peaceful existence with her young son, Keita, when a tragic accident brings the boy's long-lost father, Park, back into her life. To cope with the pain and guilt, Taeko throws herself into helping this deaf and homeless man.



Close-Knit
7.1

After being neglected by her mother, a little girl is taken in by her uncle and his transgender girlfriend, who create a loving home for her.



Tokyo Family
7.271

An elderly couple journey to Tokyo to visit their grown children, only to find them preoccupied and self-involved.



Mother
Mother(2009)
7.7

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.



The Family
7.371

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’?



Mother
Mother(2019)
6.73

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.



Kim Ji-young, Born 1982

Kim Ji-young, an ordinary woman in her 30s, suddenly shows signs of being inhabited by other women from her life, past and present.



In Safe Hands
7.4

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.



Red
Red(2020)
4.7

A married woman with a lovely daughter lives a carefree life, until she meets her ex-lover at a friend’s wedding. They haven’t seen each other in ten years, but they begin an affair.



Japanese Mom
6.6

"Innocent face, D-cup breasts and perfect intercourse skills! Son, this is not your girlfriend anymore but your mother!" Ki-ho brings Yuki from Japan to marry her. However, he starts cheating on her with his ex-girlfriend in Korea. Min-cheol comforted Yuki and thought of her as his daughter-in-law, but one day he realizes he is looking at her as a woman. In the end, Yuki and Min-cheol have intercourse without Ki-ho knowing...



Her Story
Her Story(2024)
7.534

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.



Foster
Foster(2011)
6.7

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.



Her Love Boils Bathwater

A strict, but caring mother has an awakening when she is told she has cancer and it is terminal. She has a few months. She needs to complete her tasks in that short time frame.



Visitor Q
Visitor Q(2001)
6.378

In a dysfunctional family where the mother is a heroin addict and prostitute, beaten by her son, and the father is an ex-TV reporter, sleeping with his daughter and filming his son being beaten up, ‘Q’, a complete stranger enters the bizarre family, changing their lives for the better, finding a balance in their disturbing natures.



Glass House: The Good Mother

One year after losing their son David, Eve Goode and her husband Raymond Goode adopt the orphan Ethan Snow (and his teenager sister Abby Snow and bring them to their mansion nearby a lake. Abby faces difficulties of adaptation in her new home, and she confronts Eve, who proves to be deranged and unstable. When Ethan gets sick, Abby tries to contact their friend, detective Ben Koch, and she realizes that her brother and she are trapped in the house.



Nobody Knows
7.972

In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.



Still the Water
6.8

On the Japanese island of Amami, despite lacking parental guidance, Kaito and his girlfriend Kyoko try to find their place in the world. While Kaito suffers from the absence of his father, who moved to Tokyo after his birth, Kyoko must come to grips with her mother’s terminal illness.



Thi Mai
Thi Mai(2018)
6.2

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.



Mother
Mother(2016)
6.5

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.



Our Little Sister
7.6

After the death of their estranged father, 3 adult sisters invite their teenaged half-sister to live with them.



Still Walking
7.779

A family gathers together for a commemorative ritual whose nature only gradually becomes clear.



Mommy
Mommy(2014)
8.2

A peculiar neighbor offers hope to a recent widow who is struggling to raise a teenager who is unpredictable and, sometimes, violent.



Acacia
Acacia(2003)
5.653

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.



Tokyo Story
8.2

The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.



Harmonium
Harmonium(2016)
6.543

Toshio hires Yasaka to work in his workshop. But then this old acquaintance, who has just been released from prison, begins to meddle in Toshio's family life.



Relative Strangers
5.2

An uptight professional meets his lower-class biological parents for the first time.



Kidz
Kidz(2020)
5.9

Sara and Nicola are married and in love. Their lives seem to be perfect: they have an angelic six-year-old daughter, thriving careers and a stable marriage. The birth of their second child, which disrupts the family balance, leads to tragicomic scenarios.



Audition
Audition(2000)
7.1

Seven years after the death of his wife, widower Shigeharu seeks advice on how to find a new wife from a colleague. Taking advantage of their position as a film company, they stage an audition. Interviewing a series of women, Shigeharu is enchanted by the quiet Asami. But soon things take a twisted turn as Asami isn’t what she seems to be.



Mimi
Mimi(2021)
6.927

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 Man
A Man(2022)
7

Akira works as a lawyer. One day, he meets with his former client Rie, who asks Akira to perform a background check on her late husband Daisuke.



A Girl Missing
6.491

Ichiko works as a private nurse for a family she almost became a part of. While Ichiko cares for the grandmother, she is also a confidant to Motoko, the eldest sister. But one day, Motoko’s younger sister disappears. And the media soon reveal the kidnapper to be Ichiko’s own nephew.



Like Mother, Like Daughter

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



Kikujiro
Kikujiro(1999)
7.498

Brash, loudmouthed and opportunistic, Kikujiro is the unlikely companion for Masao who is determined to see the mother he has never met. The two begin a series of adventures which soon turns out to be a whimsical journey of laughter and tears with a wide array of surprises and unique characters along the way.



Broker
Broker(2022)
7.182

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.



Asako I & II
6.762

Asako lives in Osaka. She falls in love with Baku, a free-spirit. One day, Baku suddenly disappears. Two years later, Asako now lives in Tokyo and meets Ryohei. He looks just like Baku, but has a completely different personality.



Made in Italy
6.067

Riko is an honest and hardworking man who can count on a group of real friends and a loving wife. Things change after he loses his job and experiences a midlife crisis.



Ama
Ama(2021)
6.343

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.



Ride or Die
6.683

Rei helps the woman she's been in love with for years escape her abusive husband. While on the run, their feelings for each other catch fire.



Bunny Drop
7.1

Daikichi learns that his recently deceased grandfather has an illegitimate daughter with an unknown mother. The girl's name is Rin and she is just 6 years old. Everybody in Daikichi's family looks at the girl as an embarrassment and wants no part of her. Daikichi, annoyed by his family's attitude, decides to raise Rin by himself. Even though Daikichi himself has no experience raising a child and is still single.



Return to Zero
6.632

Based on the true story of a successful couple, Maggie and Aaron who are preparing for the arrival of their first child.



Secrets & Lies
7.6

After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense, a successful black optometrist, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to Cynthia, a working class white woman.



Dark Water
6.8

A woman in the midst of an unpleasant divorce moves to an eerie apartment building with her young daughter. The ceiling of their apartment has a dark and active leak.



The Secret World of Arrietty

14-year-old Arrietty and the rest of the Clock family live in peaceful anonymity as they make their own home from items "borrowed" from the house's human inhabitants. However, life changes for the Clocks when a human boy discovers Arrietty.



Gus
Gus(2013)
5.204

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.



House
House(1977)
7.315

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.



Happy Hour
7.357

Four women in their thirties reevaluate their relationships, both shared and private, after a startling revelation concerning one's marriage forces each of them to ask one of life's biggest questions: "Am I who I want to be?"



Early Summer
7.842

A 28-year-old single woman is pressured to marry.



Instant Family
7.506

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.



Reclaim
Reclaim(2014)
5.252

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.



Shelley
Shelley(2016)
5.542

Louise and Kasper want to become parents, but Louise cannot have children. She seals a pact with her Romanian maid, Elena, to bear her child, but things don't turn out quite as planned...



Lullaby
Lullaby(2022)
7.2

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.



The Mother
5.96

A grandmother has a passionate affair with a man half her age, who is also sleeping with her daughter.



Mother
Mother(2017)
6.913

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.



What to Expect When You're Expecting

Challenges of impending parenthood turn the lives of five couples upside down. Two celebrities are unprepared for the surprise demands of pregnancy; hormones wreak havoc on a baby-crazy author, while her husband tries not to be outdone by his father, who's expecting twins with his young trophy wife; a photographer's husband isn't sure about his wife's adoption plans; a one-time hook-up results in a surprise pregnancy for rival food-truck owners.



A Copenhagen Love Story

After author Mia finds love with single father Emil, their happiness is put to the test as they undergo fertility treatments to have kids of their own.



Confessions
7.577

Devastated at the death of her four-year-old daughter, a grieving middle school teacher is horrified to discover that her students aren't as innocent as she thinks.



Ramen Shop
6.9

Masato is a young ramen chef in Japan. When he finds his late mother's journal after the sudden death of his emotionally distant father, he takes it with him to her native country, Singapore, hoping to piece together the story of his family and his life.



A Family
A Family(2021)
7.3

Taken in by the yakuza at a young age, Kenji swears allegiance to his old-school boss, pledging to adhere to the family code amid ever-changing times.



Before We Vanish
6.478

Narumi is on bad terms with her husband, Shinji, when, one day, Shinji goes missing. He comes back a couple of days later, but he seems like a totally different person, and he is now gentle and tender. He goes for a walk every day. Meanwhile, journalist Sakurai covers the story of a family that was brutally murdered, when an unexplained phenomenon takes place. Shinji Kase tells his wife that he came to Earth to invade.



Late Autumn
7.7

A woman and her daughter are each forced to contend with an increasing pressure to marry, particularly from three men who knew her late husband.



Rabbit Hole
6.665

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



Mother's Day
6

Sandy is a stressed-out, single mom who learns that her ex-husband is marrying a younger woman. Her friend Jesse's parents don't know that she has a family or that her sister, Gabi is married to a woman. Jesse's friend, Kristin, is juggling motherhood of a toddler, a patient boyfriend who keeps proposing, and searching for her biological mother. Bradley is a widower who's trying to raise two daughters on his own, while Miranda is too busy with her career to worry about children. When their respective problems intersect and start coming to a head, the Mother's Day holiday takes on a special meaning for all.



mother!
mother!(2017)
6.966

A couple's relationship is tested when uninvited guests arrive at their home, disrupting their tranquil existence.



Sound of the Mountain
7.315

An ingratiating bride develops warm ties to her father-in-law while her cold husband blithely slights her for another woman.



Like Dandelion Dust
6.88

A compelling drama that explores the different meanings of being a parent through the gritty, realistic lives of a struggling family, and a privileged family. Their lives intersect, intertwine and collide, all for the love of a little boy. This film bravely exposes the humanity in each character reminding us that we each have the potential to be the best and worst versions of ourselves at any time.



Mirai
Mirai(2018)
7.143

Unhappy after his new baby sister displaces him, four-year-old Kun begins meeting people and pets from his family's history in their unique house in order to help him become the big brother he was meant to be.



Noriko's Dinner Table

A teenager named Noriko Shimabara runs away from her family in Toyokawa, to meet Kumiko, the leader of an Internet BBS, Haikyo.com. She becomes involved with Kumiko's family circle, which grows darker after the mass suicide of 54 high school girls.



Don't Call Me Son
6.291

Pierre is seventeen and in the middle of puberty. He plays in a band, has sex at parties and secretly tries on women’s clothing and lipstick in front of a mirror. Ever since his father’s death, his mother Aracy has looked after him and his younger sister Jacqueline, spoiling them both. But when he discovers that she stole him from a hospital when he was a new born baby, Pierre’s life changes dramatically. In her new film, director Anna Muylaert explores the mother-child relationship through the eyes of a rebellious son whose whole world unravels overnight.



Tokyo Sonata
7.4

A young boy takes interest in piano while his family begins to disintegrate around him after his father loses his job.



Missing
Missing(2016)
6.9

A working single mother comes home one day to find that her daughter and the nanny have disappeared -- and this is just the beginning of her nightmare.



Martian Child
6.7

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.



Dearest
Dearest(2014)
7.1

A story centered around a divorced couple living in a southern Chinese city Shenzhen and dealing with the disappearance of their missing son.



Hal
Hal(2013)
6.983

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.



Mrs. Chatterjee Vs Norway

An immigrant Indian mother fights the Norwegian foster care system and legal machinery to win back custody of her children.



Miss Oyu
Miss Oyu(1951)
7.2

Shinnosuke is introduced to Shizu as a prospective marriage partner, but he falls in love with her widowed sister Oyu. Convention forbids Oyu to marry because she has to raise her son as the head of her husband's family. Oyu convinces Shinnosuke and Shizu to marry so that she can remain close to Shinnosuke.



Strange Circus
7.2

The erotic novelist Taeko is writing a morbid story of a family destroyed by incest, murder and abuse. Her assistant, Yuji, sets on a mission to uncover the reality of this story, but the reality might be too much to bear.



Monstrous
Monstrous(2022)
5.83

Laura, traumatized by an abusive relationship, runs away from her former husband with her seven-year-old son Cody. But in their new, idyllic and remote sanctuary, they find they have another, bigger and more terrifying monster to deal with…



Twinsters
Twinsters(2015)
7.327

Adopted from South Korea, raised on different continents & connected through social media, Samantha & Anaïs believe that they are twin sisters separated at birth.



Our Children
6.7

Young and full of life, Murielle has a promising future ahead of her when she meets and falls head over heels for Mounir. A wedding soon follows, and the happy couple quickly set about preparing to make a family. However, with family come ties, and none come as tight as that between Mounir and his adoptive father. As Murielle continues to bring new life into the family, frictions between Mounir and Doctor Pinget reach boiling point. Helpless to extract her husband and children from the wealthy nest that Doctor Pinget has provided for them, Murielle is drawn into an unhealthy family dynamic. There is only one way out of this nightmare, and for Murielle all sense of reasoning begins to abandon her.



Identifying Features

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.



Motherly
Motherly(2022)
6.132

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.



First Born
5.4

A young couples lives are turned upside down when the birth of their first child is accompanied by terrifying entities that threaten their newly formed family.



Philomena
Philomena(2013)
7.3

A woman searches for her adult son, who was taken away from her decades ago when she was forced to live in a convent.



The Relative Worlds

Shin has shut his heart ever since his mother died when he was young. His childhood friend Kotori has been looking after him ever since. Now that they are in the third year of high school, and it seems like they can finally move forward, another Shin from another Japan has suddenly appeared in front of them.



A Deadly Adoption
4.871

Things go awry when an author and his wife welcome a pregnant woman into their home, with plans to adopt her baby.



Two Stepmoms
6

What would happen if two sworn enemies, two opposed women in temperament and lifestyle find out to share the most incredible legacy: the child of their ex-husband?



Museum
Museum(2016)
6.7

In Tokyo, Japan, several grotesque murders take place on rainy days. Detective Sawamura, who is in charge of the case, soon discovers that his own family is connected to the crimes.



The Tearsmith
6.508

Adopted together after a tough childhood in an orphanage, Nica and Rigel realize that unexpected but irresistible feelings pull them together.



The Orphanage
7.228

A woman brings her family back to her childhood home, which used to be an orphanage, intent on reopening it. Before long, her son starts to communicate with a new invisible friend.



Miss Baek
Miss Baek(2018)
7.5

A woman's past as a convict follows her everywhere and because of this she doesn't open up to others. But then she strikes up a friendship with a broken child who has suffered from domestic violence and decides to save the girl from the cruel world. A man who holds feelings for the woman, tries to protect her in his own way.

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