Movies Similar to Pay It Forward

Strange Days(1995)

Former policeman Lenny Nero has moved into a more lucrative trade: the illegal sale of virtual reality-like recordings that allow users to experience the emotions and past experiences of others. While they typically contain tawdry incidents, Nero is shocked when he receives one showing a murder.

7.0

Desert Hearts(1985)

While waiting for her divorce papers, a repressed literature professor finds herself unexpectedly attracted by a carefree, spirited young woman named Cay.

7.0

Beyond Silence(1996)

Beyond Silence is about a family and a young girl’s coming of age story. This German film looks into the lives of the deaf and at a story about the love for music. A girl who has always had to translate speech into sign language for her deaf parents yet when her love for playing music grows strong she must decide to continue doing something she cannot share with her parents.

6.9

Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams(2006)

A woman and her daughter struggle to make their way through the aftermath of the Balkan war.

6.9

Bollywood/Hollywood(2002)

Rahul Seth is a dashing young millionaire who believes he is "western" enough to rebel against his mother and grandmother. They are not too keen about his Caucasian girlfriend Kimberly who, to make matters worse, is a pop star. Before you can say "karmic intervention," Kimberly dies in a freak accident and Rahul is devastated. Instead of allowing him to mourn in peace, Rahul's mother sees the opportunity she's been waiting for. She threatens to call off his sister's wedding unless he finds himself a "nice Indian girl." Rahul enlists the services of Sue, a fiercely independent escort whom he believes to be Hispanic, and therefore not "married" to the conventions taught to young Indian women. With a wink in her eye, Sue accepts the deal to pose as his Indian bride-to-be. She needs the money and having never been a fan of the typical Indian male, she feels her heart is safe. The charade begins....

5.9

Dead Poets Society(1989)

At an elite, old-fashioned boarding school in New England, a passionate English teacher inspires his students to rebel against convention and seize the potential of every day, courting the disdain of the stern headmaster.

8.3

Boys Don't Cry(1999)

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

7.4

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Ben Tumbling(1985)

A stuntman who dabbles as a petty thief for corrupt policemen decides to quit. His bosses do not let him go but, instead, he is tortured. His consistent brushes with the law earn him a prize on his head and attention from a daily.

4.0

My Life Without Me(2003)

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.

6.1

Open Hearts(2002)

Cecilie and Joachim are about to get married when a freak car accident leaves Joachim disabled, throwing their lives into a spin. The driver of the other car, Marie, and her family don’t get off lightly, either. Her husband Niels works in the hospital where he meets Cecilie and falls madly in love with her.

7.1

Italian for Beginners(2000)

Several lonely hearts in a semi-provincial suburb of a town in Denmark use a beginner's course in Italian as the platform to meet the romance of their lives. The film, which unspools the connections and family drama shared between the students, complies with several aesthetic principles of Dogme 95 movement.

6.4

The Secret Life of Words(2005)

A solitary nurse bonds with a badly burned patient who survived an accident on an oil rig.

7.0

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The Old Settler(2001)

The Old Settler is the story of two middle-aged sisters, Elizabeth and Quilly, who share an apartment in Harlem in 1943. The sisters quarrel amiably, but they share a wounded history that becomes revealed as the tale unfolds. An earnest but unworldly young man named Husband travels up from the South to board with the sisters while he searches for his beloved Lou Bessie, who left their small town a few years back to find a new life. Husband would like to bring Lou Bessie back home, but she's enamored with the excitement of the city, and her plans are more complicated. In time, Elizabeth and Husband begin a courtship that may or may not overcome their considerable age difference, while Quilly reacts disapprovingly.

3.5

Northern Lights(1998)

A stranger's call informs Roberta that her estranged brother Frank has died in a small town under bizarre circumstances. Ben, his best friend from college, also gets the call. Arriving just in time for his funeral, it becomes quickly obvious to them that the little slice of small-town America in which they find themselves is like an episode of The Twilight Zone featuring Frank's eccentric friends, his amazing secrets and his stunning final request. Both Ben and Roberta are shocked to discover that Frank not only had a child, but that he has left them responsible for his son's care.

6.0

The Prize(2012)

Architect Alexander Beck has just won an architecture prize. He wants to modernize GDR building blocks in Thuringia. Alex travels to the heart of rural Eastern Germany where he grew up and where people remember him as Alex from the Free German Youth, a pro-GDR youth organization.

9.0

The David Dance(2014)

Away from the microphone, David is soft spoken, shy and unsure of himself. However, as his on-air alias ‘Danger Dave,’ the host of “Gay Talk,” he’s poised, witty, and every listener’s best friend. His sister, Kate, a thrice divorced banker has a yen for Schumann and cats. Though successful, the siblings suffer from a secret, yet vast, sense of inadequacy. Kate decides to adopt and asks David to be a father figure. David gawkily romances his coworker. Past and present intertwine to tell the story of a man learning to love and accept himself.

3.9

Lost in Translation(2003)

Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.

7.4

National Theatre Live: War Horse(2014)

Based on Michael Morpurgo's novel and adapted for the stage by Nick Stafford, War Horse takes audiences on an extraordinary journey from the fields of rural Devon to the trenches of First World War France.

8.8

El triunfo(2006)

Barcelona, 1980s: in a tough urban neighbourhood inhabited by survivors and ruled by ex-legionnaires Gandhi, Fontán and Andrade - who are fighting a war for control of the streets - Nen and his friends Palito, Topo and Tostao dream of making it big in the world of rumba. But Nen discovers why his father, El Guacho - of whom all Nen has left is the memory of his brilliance as a rumba singer - disappeared many years earlier. He learns how the relationship between his mother, Chata, and Ghandi, leader of the neighbourhood, was connected to his father's disappearance, and so Nen is forced to balance his own desire for vengeance with his longing to triumph.

5.5

Iris(2004)

After the failure of her marriage, Iris goes back to her hometown during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), where she becomes a war photographer.

6.5