Dynamic Watchlist Hub: Apr 13, 2026

10 Best Movies Like When I Was 12

If you loved When I Was 12, we've curated the perfect watchlist for you based on shared genres, themes, and directorial style.

🏆

Expert Review & Ratings

See our full critical analysis and audience score for When I Was 12.

View Review →
Advertisement
#1
Rocks

Rocks

2019★ 6.6

Why watch this? A perfect follow-up to When I Was 12 for fans of Drama. It captures a similar emotionally gripping atmosphere.

15-year-old Rocks fears that she and her little brother Emmanuel will be taken into care and forced apart if anyone finds out that their mother has left them. Against all odds, and...

#2
Hellion

Hellion

2014★ 5.9

Why watch this? A perfect follow-up to When I Was 12 for fans of Drama. It captures a similar emotionally gripping atmosphere.

When motocross and heavy metal obsessed, 13-year-old Jacob's delinquent behavior forces CPS to place his little brother Wes with his aunt, Jacob and his emotionally absent father m...

#3
Babylon

Babylon

1980★ 6.9

Why watch this? A perfect follow-up to When I Was 12 for fans of Drama. It captures a similar emotionally gripping atmosphere.

Drama telling the story of Blue, a young man of Jamaican descent living in Brixton in 1980, as he hangs out with his friends, fronts a dub sound system, loses his job, struggles wi...

#4
Mammal

Mammal

2016★ 6.1

Why watch this? A perfect follow-up to When I Was 12 for fans of Drama. It captures a similar emotionally gripping atmosphere.

After Margaret, a divorcée living in Dublin, loses her teenage son, she develops an unorthodox relationship with Joe, a homeless youth. Their tentative trust is threatened by his i...

#5
Wander Darkly

Wander Darkly

2020★ 6.0

Why watch this? A perfect follow-up to When I Was 12 for fans of Drama. It captures a similar emotionally gripping atmosphere.

New parents Adrienne and Matteo are forced to reckon with trauma amidst their troubled relationship. They must revisit the memories of their past and unravel haunting truths in ord...

#6
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

1977★ 5.8

Why watch this? A perfect follow-up to When I Was 12 for fans of Drama. It captures a similar emotionally gripping atmosphere.

A disturbed and institutionalized 16-year-old girl struggles between fantasy and reality....

Advertisement