NoBadPicks

Movies Like Leave No Trace

If you loved Leave No Trace's Drama storytelling, these films deliver a similar experience — carefully selected for tone, themes, and emotional depth. Each pick includes where to watch it right now.

Top Picks

Into the Wild
7.8

Into the Wild

2007

After graduating from Emory University in 1992, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandons his possessions, gives his entire $24,000 savings account to charity, and hitchhikes to Alaska to live in the wilderness.

Walkabout
7.3

Walkabout

1971

Under the pretense of having a picnic, a geologist takes his teenage daughter and 6-year-old son into the Australian outback and attempts to shoot them. When he fails, he turns the gun on himself, and the two city-bred children must contend with harsh wilderness alone. They are saved by a chance encounter with an Aboriginal boy who shows them how to survive, and in the process underscores the disharmony between nature and modern life.

Unbroken: Path to Redemption
6.6

Unbroken: Path to Redemption

2018

Zamperini returns to California where he wound up marrying Cynthia Applewhite while wrestling with untreated PTSD, suffering constant nightmares, angry, bitter and deeply depressed, his wife convinces Zamperini to attend the 1949 Billy Graham Crusade.

Wendy and Lucy
6.8

Wendy and Lucy

2008

A near-penniless drifter's journey to Alaska in search of work is interrupted when she loses her dog while attempting to shoplift food for it.

Labor Day
7.0

Labor Day

2013

Two strangers are drawn together under incredible circumstances. What starts as an unforeseen encounter over a long holiday weekend soon becomes a second chance love story.

Good One
6.5

Good One

2024

On a weekend backpacking trip in the Catskills, 17-year-old Sam contends with the competing egos of her father and his oldest friend.

Homestead
6.5

Homestead

2024

A nuclear bomb is detonated in Los Angeles, and the nation devolves into unprecedented chaos. Ex-Green Beret Jeff Eriksson and his family escape to The Homestead, an eccentric prepper’s fortress nestled in the mountains. As violent threats and apocalyptic conditions creep toward their borders, the residents of The Homestead are left to wonder: how long can a group of people resist both the dangers of human nature and the bloodshed at their doorstep?

The Emerald Forest
6.6

The Emerald Forest

1985

For ten years, engineer Bill Markham has searched tirelessly for his son Tommy who disappeared from the edge of the Brazilian rainforest. Miraculously, he finds the boy living among the reclusive Amazon tribe who adopted him. And that's when Bill's adventure truly begins. For his son is now a grown tribesman who moves skillfully through this beautiful-but-dangerous terrain, fearful only of those who would exploit it. And as Bill attempts to "rescue" him from the savagery of the untamed jungle, Tommy challenges Bill's idea of true civilization and his notions about who needs rescuing.

More Movies Like Leave No Trace

The Mothman Prophecies
6.2

The Mothman Prophecies

2002

Reporter John Klein is plunged into a world of impossible terror and unthinkable chaos when fate draws him to a sleepy West Virginia town whose residents are being visited by a great winged shape that sows hideous nightmares and fevered visions.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette
6.6

Where'd You Go, Bernadette

2019

When architect-turned-recluse Bernadette Fox goes missing prior to a family trip to Antarctica, her 15-year-old daughter, Bee, goes on a quest with Bernadette's husband to find her.

Dad
6.4

Dad

1989

A busy executive learns during a meeting that his mother may be dying and rushes home to her side. He ends up being his father's caretaker and becomes closer to him than ever before. Estranged from his own son, the executive comes to realize what has been missing in his own life.

Heaven Is for Real
6.8

Heaven Is for Real

2014

After their young son, Colton, undergoes emergency surgery, small-town parents Todd and Sonja Burpo are overjoyed at the child's miraculous recovery. However, the Burpos are unprepared for what happens next... Colton says that during his surgery he went to heaven and back, and tells his parents things that he couldn't possibly know. Can Todd find the courage and conviction to share his son's extraordinary, life-changing experience with the world?

The Horse Whisperer
6.9

The Horse Whisperer

1998

The mother of a severely traumatized daughter enlists the aid of a unique horse trainer to help the girl's equally injured horse.

When I'm Ready
6.4

When I'm Ready

2025

It's the end of the world. Seeking meaning and thrills in their last days alive, Rose and Michael embark on a cross-country road trip to see Rose's grandmother as a devastating asteroid threatens to wipe out life on Earth. Along the way they encounter other lost souls, each with their own very different perspective on the impending doom.

Train Dreams
7.3

Train Dreams

2025

A logger leads a life of quiet grace as he experiences love and loss during an era of monumental change in early 20th-century America.

Jeremiah Johnson
7.3

Jeremiah Johnson

1972

A mountain man who wishes to live the life of a hermit becomes the unwilling object of a long vendetta by Indians when he proves to be the match of their warriors in one-on-one combat on the early frontier.

Testament
6.4

Testament

1983

It is just another day in the small town of Hamlin until something disastrous happens. Suddenly, news breaks that a series of nuclear warheads has been dropped along the Eastern Seaboard and, more locally, in California. As people begin coping with the devastating aftermath of the attacks — many suffer radiation poisoning — the Wetherly family tries to survive.

Lost on a Mountain in Maine
6.9

Lost on a Mountain in Maine

2024

When twelve-year-old Donn Fendler gets tired of waiting for his father and brothers to join him on the summit of Maine's highest peak, he decides to find his own way back to camp. But Donn doesn't count on a fast-moving fog that obscures the path. He doesn't count on falling down an embankment that hides him from sight. And he doesn't count on taking a turn that leaves him alone to wander aimlessly for nearly two weeks in the empty mountain wilderness.

The Hours
7.3

The Hours

2002

The story of three women searching for more potent, meaningful lives. Each is alive at a different time and place, all are linked by their yearnings and their fears. Their stories intertwine, and finally come together in a surprising, transcendent moment of shared recognition.

The Impossible
7.4

The Impossible

2012

In December 2004, close-knit family Maria, Henry and their three sons begin their winter vacation in Thailand. But the day after Christmas, the idyllic holiday turns into an incomprehensible nightmare when a terrifying roar rises from the depths of the sea, followed by a wall of black water that devours everything in its path. Though Maria and her family face their darkest hour, unexpected displays of kindness and courage ameliorate their terror.

Why These Movies Are Similar

These recommendations share core qualities with Leave No Trace (2018): Drama themes, similar narrative structure, and comparable emotional depth. NoBadPicks uses a combination of TMDB collaborative filtering, genre matching, and AI analysis to surface films most likely to resonate with fans of Leave No Trace.

See full details for Leave No Trace (2018)

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