30 Best Movies Like Stand by Me You Need to Watch
Stand by Me is not so known Stephen King book adaptation such as The Shining or It, or The Shawshank Redemption, but it is definitely one of the best. But in case you have finished the movie, and you want more similar movies like Stand by Me, don’t worry, as we have you covered. In this article, we are bringing you the best movies like Stand by Me for your next watch.
Stand by Me is a 1986 American coming-of-age film directed by Rob Reiner. It is based on Stephen King’s 1982 novella The Body, and the title derives from the song by Ben E. King. Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O’Connell star as four boys who, in 1959, go on a hike to find the dead body of a missing boy.
Stand by Me was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and for two Golden Globe Awards: one for Best Drama Motion Picture and one for Best Director.
Let’s now take a look at similar movies like Stand by Me so you can chose your next watch.
The Man in the Moon (1991)
Dani (Reese Witherspoon) is a fourteen-year-old who shares a room with her 17-year-old sister Maureen (Emily Warfield). During hot summer nights, they sleep on the fenced porch of their house, talk about romance, the future and the meaning of life.
But a handsome seventeen-year-old Court Foster (Jason London) moves into the house. Court meets Dani at a local swimming pool and they immediately like each other. Dani will experience her first real, perfect love with Court.
But when Court meets Maureen, the chemistry is really strong. Maureen also falls in love with him and is torn between accepting his love and betraying her sister.
The Kite Runner (2007)
An unusual, poignant and at times disturbing story about two boys who experienced several upheavals in their country, of which they were not even aware, from the fall of the monarchy, through the Russian occupation to the beginning of the Taliban tyranny.
As times became more dangerous, more and more unpleasant things happen to the boys until the culmination, when Amir does not help his friend Hasan in a situation that can only be brought by the whirlwind of war, in which people lose their humanity and turn into monsters.
After fleeing to America, despite the good life he leads there and his love with the beautiful Soraya, Amir is tormented by remorse, to such an extent that he has to return to his native Afghanistan, in order to correct the injustice he inflicted on his friend.
Les géants (2011)
The two brothers are left to fend for themselves and the dwindling amount of money left by their mother, who works abroad. Set in the family cottage during the summer holidays, they form a friendship with another unsupervised teenager.
It’s summertime. Brothers Seth (16) and Zac (13 and 3/4) were once again left to fend for themselves by their careless single mother in the family cottage in the green and remote Luxembourg countryside. As with all previous holidays, they reconciled to spend another ordinary summer, but everything changes drastically when they befriend a local boy, Danny, and the most dangerous, and most important, journey of their lives begins.
While the boys look for food together like scavengers, steal their grandfather’s car and come up with silly plans to earn money, their swagger is constantly under threat from the rigid and incomprehensible world of adults.
12 and Holding (2005)
The lives of a small group of friends change completely when one of them dies in an arson attack. Jacob, the twin brother of the deceased boy, vows revenge on the two troubled hooligans who caused his brother’s death. The rest of this group, fat Leonard and depressed girl, Meele, are trying to deal with their own problems that are plaguing them.
Tomorrow Will Be Better (2010)
Time Lord Rip Hunter sets out from the year 2166 with the intention of avenging the murdered woman and child and saving the world from the cruel Vandal Savage. He goes back in time, gathers around him the best team of heroes and even criminals and leads them on the greatest adventure of their lives! In the past, he will try to alter the flow of time so that the future is not as he remembers it.
Various enemies will stand in his way, from hired killers, other masters of time, and even time itself, which does not want to change. Thinking that they were chosen because they are true legends, the heroes of this series eventually discover that they were chosen only because they are unknown, and with their death the time continuum has minimal losses.
It is a fact that causes depression in some, while for others it is an incentive to become as good as possible so that the universe pays attention to them and the future is brighter precisely because of their actions.
Duma (2005)
Xan (Alexander Michaletos) and his father Peter (Campbell Scott) find a small wild cat and name it Duma, which means read in Swahili, and very quickly accept it as a member of the family. Boy and the cat become inseparable friends, as if they belong to the same species. However, when Duma grows up a little, Xan’s father tells the boy that it is time for the animal to return to its rightful home.
Although sad about parting, the boy realizes that Duma will not be able to survive if he does not return to his natural habitat as soon as possible. On the journey he will embark on with his father to return Duma to where it belongs, Xan will learn that many things change, but not love.
Hearts in Atlantis (2001)
On the occasion of the death of his best friend, Bobby Garfield (David Morse) returns to his hometown for the funeral, where he is immediately flooded with memories of his childhood, especially the magical period that changed his life.
As eleven-year-olds, Bobby (Anton Yelchin), Carol (Mika Boorem) and Sully (Will Rothaar) were inseparable, with Bobby and Carol sharing something more, a kiss by which they thought all their future kisses would be measured.
Then a mysterious stranger, Ted Brautigan, entered their lives, who immediately befriended the boy, but not his mother. Brautigan shared his supernatural abilities with Bobby, warning him of pursuers who were on his trail.
Into the Wild (2007)
“Into The Wild” tells the story of Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch), a student who attends Emory University. Along with excellent grades, Christopher also excels in sports activities. After graduation, McCandless decides to give his entire savings, 24,000, to charity. When he gets rid of the money in the bank, he destroys all his documents and the money in his wallet.
Christopher decided to get away from civilization and spend some time traveling the country to prepare for the ultimate test of endurance, life in Alaska. During his travels, he meets many different characters whose lives he influences more than he thought.
The Cure (1995)
Despite his mother’s disapproval, Erik (Brad Renfro) befriends his small, sick neighbor, Dexter (Joseph Mazzello). At first, they communicate over the fence, but as their friendship deepens, Erik and Dexter grow closer. Their friendship prompts them on a Mark Twain-style adventure along the Mississippi River.
The Breakfast Club (1985)
It’s Saturday morning and five very different teenagers are serving time at a small school in the suburbs of Chicago. They are there for firing flares in the school locker, marking, bullying and setting off the school alarm. By force of chance, this unusual group will find a common language and realize that, despite the initial differences, they share the same problems and feelings.
Lord of the Flies (1990)
A plane full of young military cadets crashes near a remote desert island. Unsupervised by adults, the 25 boys embrace their new freedom at first, but then split into two factions – one that embodies the values ​​of civilization, the other that embraces the savagery of their new environment with sadistic games, rituals and punishments.
The Goonies (1985)
Mikey (S. Astin) and Brandon (J. Brolin) Walsh are brothers whose family, along with the rest of the neighborhood, will soon have to move, because the land has caught the eye of greedy corrupt people from a corporation that wants to build a golf course on their fields.
When Mikey and his friends find an old dusty map in the attic, it turns out that it is real and can indeed lead them to a missing treasure that belonged to the cruel pirate One-Eyed Will back in the 17th century.
Carried away by the idea that they could use this money to save the neighborhood from demolition, they go in search and find the entrance to the cave, which is located just below the house where dangerous criminals, the Fratelli family, are hiding.
The Lost Boys (1987)
Along with her sons, Michael (Jason Patric) and Sam (Corey Haim), Lucy (Dianne Wiest) comes to Santa Carlo to live with her fly-by-night father (Barnard Hughes). Soon she finds a job in a video store and starts dating the owner Max (Edward Herrmann). Sam, meanwhile, starts hanging out with Edward and Alan Frog (Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander), comic book sellers obsessed with vampires.
But his brother Michael meets the girl Star (Jami Gertz) and comes into contact with the real vampire leader David (Kiefer Sutherland). After accidentally drinking a sip of blood, he becomes a member of a vampire gang.
This Boy’s Life (1993)
The film is based on the true life story of writer Tobias Wolff. The year is 1957 when the son and mother run away to the east from their mother’s violent young man, in order to find a new and happier life. They settled in Seattle where the mother meets a decent car mechanic.
The boy is constantly getting into trouble for hanging out with bad company. The mother marries a mechanic, but it soon turns out that he is a bully and an alcoholic. The boy grows up in that hopeless situation and is only held back by the thought of killing himself.
El Bola (2000)
El Bola, a 12-year-old boy a.k.a. “Pellet” is a 12-year-old boy raised in a violent and sordid environment. Embarrassed by his family life, he avoids becoming close to classmates. The arrival of a new boy at school changes his attitude towards his classmates, and friendship. The heart of the story is the change in El Bola’s life, at almost all levels, after befriending this new classmate.
A River Runs Through It (1992)
Norman’s (C. Sheffer) and Paul’s (B. Pitt) father (T. Skerrit) was a strict Presbyterian minister. He taught his sons about life by taking them fly fishing on the river. Norman was obedient. He did not strive to find his own rhythm, as did Paul, who suddenly, one day, stopped fishing the way his father taught them. That day, Norman realized, his younger brother had mastered the art. Years passed.
Norman was accepted to college at Dartmouth, and Paul stayed at home on the river. When Norman returned with his diploma, Paul was still on the river, trying to catch that one perfect fish. He worked at the newspaper, drank too much, lost at gambling and spent time with girls from the pub. Regardless, the funny, disobedient, free Paul managed to make his father and mother smile, but not Norman.
Big (1988)
When he woke up in the morning and looked in the mirror, he cried out in horror: he saw an unknown young man in the mirror. And when he tried to get dressed, his clothes were too small. A card that reads Your wish is granted fell out of his pocket and Josh (T. Hanks) realized with horror that Zoltan had kept his promise. A series of terrible, but for the viewers, indescribably comical situations follows for Josh, his mom (M. Ruehl) and his best friend Billy (J. Rushton).
The War (1994)
Vietnam veteran Stephen Simmons (Kevin Costner) returns from a mental institution, where he voluntarily checked himself in because of nightmares about the war. He gets a new job, at a school, but also loses it again very quickly, due to the law that prevents people treated for mental illness from working near children.
Stephen’s return to society will not be made easier by his kids, the playful twins Stu (Elijah Wood) and Lidia (Lexi Randall), who, together with their friends, clash with another group of children over the right to the tree house where they like to play. Stephen finally finds a new job in a mine, where he will soon have an accident that will remind him of Vietnam.
The Sandlot (1993)
The action of the film takes place in the early sixties of the last century in an American town where a boy Scott (Tom Guiry) moves. He desperately wants to fit into his new environment and neighborhood. There is a local ballpark with eight players and Scott could be ninth if he knew how to play baseball. Fortunately, he befriends baseball teacher Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez (Mike Vitar), who selflessly helps the younger ones.
In order to teach Scott everything he needs to know about the sport, he must do it diplomatically and with great patience. Scott will be impressed by this, and hanging out with Benjamin and the other kids from the team will turn into the most beautiful summer of his young life. Scott learns to catch and throw a ball and meets a legendary dog ​​called the Beast, which eats balls by the fence, supposedly people, and the teacher successfully scares naughty children with it.
Unfortunately for Scott, one of the balls that ends up in the Beast’s yard is the one with Babe Ruth’s signature, and it was the property of his stepfather Bill (Denis Leary). The boys try to return the expensive ball, and the movie about kids from the sandbox becomes a comic adventure full of fun and unusual children’s adventures.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)
Ferris (Matthew Broderick) is a street kid and knows all the tricks. One day he decides to avoid his school duties and, together with his hypochondriac best friend Cameron and his girlfriend Sloane, whom he also pulled out of class, sets out on an adventure or a waste of time around the city.
In the eyes of his parents, Ferris is a model child – an angel, so to speak, but the school principal and his sister have their own reasons to prove otherwise.
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
After learning that their bright and somewhat insecure seven-year-old daughter Olive (A. Breslin) has been accepted into the Miss California Children’s pageant, frustrated mother Sheryl (T. Collette) and father Richard Hoover (G. Kinnear) decide to take the girl to the town of Redondo Beach where an election is held.
Olive’s older brother Dwayne (P. Dano), a maladjusted young man who hasn’t spoken a word for nine months, and eccentric grandfather Edwin (A. Arkin), a man in poor health who openly snorts cocaine, and reclusive uncle Frank Ginsberg (S. Carell), a homosexual and unrealized suicide. After their vehicle soon breaks down during the journey, and they are all forced to start it by pushing, many details from the lives of each of them will gradually be revealed.
While Olive is a sensitive and insecure girl who believes that she is not beautiful enough to win the title of Miss, father Richard has been having business problems lately because his deal with his partner Stan Grossman (B. Cranston) fell through.
Young Dwayne is silent due to the fact that he despises his parents, whom he considers small-towners, and communicates through written messages, and Uncle Frank was driven to attempt suicide by breaking off his relationship with the much younger Josh (J. Shilton). Only Grandpa Edwin seems to have no problems.
King Jack (2015)
Growing up in a rural town filled with violent delinquents, Jack has learned to do what it takes to survive, despite having an oblivious mother and no father. After his aunt falls ill and a younger cousin comes to stay with him, the hardened 15-year-old discovers the importance of friendship, family, and looking for happiness even in the most desolate of circumstances.
Super 8 (2011)
In 1979, US forces closed down Area 51. All materials from that place were to be transported by train to fully protected facilities. The freight train was destroyed in a spectacular accident under cover of the night just before reaching its destination.
The cargo and its fate remained shrouded in secrecy. The film Super 8 follows a group of teenagers and the adventure they embark on after these dramatic events.
It (2017)
When children start disappearing from the small town of Derry, Maine, a group of young friends will face their worst fears when they attract the attention of the evil clown Pennywise, whose history of violence and murder goes back a long way.
Dead Poets Society (1989)
The shy Todd Anderson (Ethan Hawke) becomes a student at a college in the heart of New England that is looking for the future elite of America. All the professors of this prestigious school are strict people, false authorities who strictly follow the rules. All but one – literature professor John Keating (Robin William), an unconventional man full of enthusiasm, original ideas and inspirational verses, the only professor at the college who believes that words and ideas can change the world.
Professor Keating’s love of literature, especially poetry, sets students on a journey that leads to self-realization. Inspired by his lectures, a group of young men led by Todd Anderson founds the “Dead Poets Society”, a club named after the one of the same name to which Keating belonged as a student. The Society of Dead Poets meets at night, in a nearby cave, where boys read poetry and their first lines.
Professor Keating’s encouragement has a strong effect on Todd Anderson, so much so that he slowly overcomes his shyness and fear of public speaking. Todd’s roommate Neil (Robert Sean Leonard), under the influence of the professor, discovers a passion for theater and gets involved in the preparation of a Shakespeare play.
However, when Neil’s father discovers that his son is interested in theater, he forbids him from acting in the play. Things slowly get out of control, and the destinies of these young men and their professor change forever.
The Outsiders (1983)
In 1966, in Tulsa, teenagers are divided into two groups. If you are a “soc”, you have wealth, cars, and a future. However, if you are a “greaser”, you are an outsider, you only have your friends…and the dream that one day you will finally belong to someone.
When two “greasers”, Ponyboy (Howell) and Johnny (Macchio), clash with the cruel Bob Sheldon (Garrett), a member of the “soc” group, things get out of control, leading to tragic consequences that will change their lives forever.
The Other Side of Heaven (2001)
In the 1950s, John Groberg, a farm boy from Idaho Falls, crosses the ocean to become a missionary on the exotic Tongan Islands. John struggles with language barriers, physical disabilities and deep doubts to gain the trust and love of the Tongan people he has come to help.
During three years on the islands, full of adventure, he finds friendship and wisdom in the most unexpected places.
The Kings of Summer (2013)
Three teenage friends, Joe, Patrick and the eccentric and unpredictable Biaggio, in the last act of their quest for independence, decide to spend the summer building a house in the woods and living off nature.
Free from the rules set by their parents, their idyllic summer soon becomes a test of their friendship, as each boy learns to appreciate the fact that family, whether it’s the one you’re born into or the one you’ve made yourself, is something you can’t escape from.
Now and Then (1995)
Writer Samantha Albertson (Demi Moore), actress Tina Tercell (Melanie Griffith), gynecologist Roberta Martin (Rosie O’Donnell) and housewife Christina DeWitt (Rita Wilson) are childhood friends who meet for the first time in a long time. Christina was about to give birth.
Meeting with old friends makes Samantha think about the old days, especially about the summer of 1970, when the girls were 12 years old and just entering the world of women.
Samantha (Gaby Hoffmann) is troubled by her parents’ divorce, Roberta (Christina Ricci) deals with the death of her mother, Tina (Thora Birch) is upset because her parents are not interested in her, and Christina (Ashleigh Aston Moore) tries to discover the truth about sex.
Together they will talk about boys and experience their first kisses, talk about the physical and emotional changes they are going through and hold sessions where they will try to summon the spirit of the boy who tragically died 30 years ago.
Flipper (1963)
A fun family story about the friendship between a dolphin and the boy who saved his life. The film was accompanied by a series of the same name, and in 1996 it was remade in which Elijah Wood played the main role.
Sandy Ricks (Halpin), is a young boy who lives with his father (Connors) in Florida. During one fishing trip, Sandy manages to persuade her father to take in a dolphin that they injured with a harpoon. Despite the initial disagreement, the father decides to comply with his son’s wishes.
