1. Black, White & Us
Explores racism in America through the lives of four white families who adopt African American children and must overcome their own inherent biases to become advocates. Is there a way to fix our country's racial divide? These transracial adoptive families just might provide the answer.
2. The Twinning Reaction
An astounding exposé that gives voice to the unwitting subjects of an infamous American scientific experiment: the 1960s Neubauer-Bernard study of separated twins. Told from the perspective of the Jewish identical twins and triplets who were secretly split up in infancy and adopted through Louise Wise Services, a Jewish adoption agency, the documentary examines the traumatic, long-term effects of the separations — and continuing deception — on the children and their adoptive families.
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.
3. Lenin kam nur bis Lüdenscheid - Meine kleine deutsche Revolution (Lenin kam nur bis Lüdenscheid - Meine kleine deutsche Revolution)
(Lenin kam nur bis Lüdenscheid - Meine kleine deutsche Revolution)
It has an average vote of 7 on TMDB.
4. All My Fathers (Alle meine Väter)
Jan's father is not his father at all. The directors knows this and takes this fact as the starting point for a very personal documentary film project about the search for his biological father.
5. The Invention of the Other (A Invenção do Outro)
In 2019, the Brazilian government coordinates the largest and riskiest expedition of the last decades into the Amazon rainforest to search for a group of isolated indigenous people in vulnerability and promote their first contact with non-indigenous. Bruno Pereira, who would later be murdered in the same region and turned into an international symbol in favor of the indigenous and the forest, leads the expedition.
6. My Flesh and Blood
My Flesh and Blood is a 2003 documentary film by Jonathan Karsh chronicling a year in the life of the Tom family. The Tom family is notable as the mother, Susan, adopted eleven children, most of whom had serious disabilities or diseases. The film itself is notable for handling the sensitive subject matter in an unsentimental way that is more uplifting than one might expect.
It has an average vote of 7.9 on TMDB.
7. Tribu (Tribu)
Ruben and Gio have been recently adopted by Evelyn and Memo. The four of them try to create a home where the past, the bad and good stories, and the dreams in common for the future blend all together.
8. Anything Else Than Air (De puro aire)
This film explores the consequences of the decisions we take and shows those things which really matter. After leaving his wife and children and promising he would be back, a man lives in a tent at a Mexico City park. There, he earns his living by selling balloons. After 30 years, he needs to fulfill his promise and return home. Will his family accept him back? Is he going to be able to change a life on the streets for the comfort of his home?
It has an average vote of 6.3 on TMDB.
9. Blindsided
A documentary examines the claims the Tuohy family have made about adopting Oher for over a decade, casting scrutiny on the conservatorship they put in place which has now been terminated by a judge. Oher’s litigation with the Tuohys continues, with the latter filing a sworn document on November 8 that they paid Oher more than $138,000 in profits from the film. Oher is expected to file any counterclaims by the end of November.
10. Twin Sisters (Tvillingsøstrene)
In 2003, the infant Chinese twin sisters Mia and Alexandra were found in a cardboard box. They ended up in an orphanage and were put up for adoption, at which time the authorities apparently decided that it was a good idea to separate them, and to keep silent about the fact that they were twins. Twin Sisters tells their story from the perspective of both sets of adoptive parents: one from Sacramento, California, the other from a tiny village in picturesque Norway. Through a series of coincidences that they later attribute to fate, the parents meet each other during the adoption procedure in China and launch an investigation that reveals the little girls are sisters.
It has an average vote of 8.3 on TMDB.
11. Dawnland
They were forced to assimilate into white society: children ripped away from their families, depriving them of their culture and erasing their identities. Can reconciliation help heal the scars from childhoods lost? "Dawnland" is the untold story of Indigenous child removal in the US through the nation's first-ever government-endorsed truth and reconciliation commission, which investigated the devastating impact of Maine’s child welfare practices on the Wabanaki people.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
12. Moon Child (Kuutyttö)
A movie about two women who are mothers to the same child, and a child who belongs to two different worlds.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
13. D'une mère à l'autre (D'une mère à l'autre)
(D'une mère à l'autre)
14. Filho (Filho)
Actually, Tomas knows his parents. Born in Brazil in 1993 and adopted from there, he now lives with them in the Netherlands. Now he is faced with the question of whether he should look for his biological mother, or if there are reasons not to do so.
15. Daughter of a Lost Bird
What does blood have to do with identity? Kendra Mylnechuk, an adult Native adoptee, born in 1980 at the cusp of the enactment of the Indian Child Welfare Act, is on a journey to reconnect with her birth family and discover her Lummi heritage.
16. Aka Dan
YouTube musician and Korean American adoptee Dan Matthews travels to South Korea to perform and reunite with his biological family, including a long lost twin he never knew he had.
17. Madonna of the Mills
Uplifting tale of Staten Island woman who creates modern underground railroad and rescues 2,000 dogs condemned to death in Amish Country puppy mills. The film chronicles Laura F on her weekend rescue missions to Amish Country. With her Brooklyn mom and Staten Island girl friends by her side, Laura embarks on a four-year odyssey to rescue dogs from the hellish conditions of Amish puppy mills. The film follows four of the dogs from the time their lives are spared until they are nursed back to health and placed with their forever families. We see the dogs leave the cages where they have spent their entire lives and watch these dogs, who were given up for dead, transform the lives of the people who adopt them.
18. MUM Misunderstandings of Miscarriage
At age 31, after experiencing her second miscarriage, Tahyna MacManus was devastated, lost, angry and, despite those around her, felt terribly alone. She picked up a camera and started to record her story and in doing so found her tribe. Resilient, courageous women speaking of their sadness, their shame and their guilt while still holding onto hope. Tahyna discovers that 1 in 4 Australian women experience miscarriage so why aren’t we talking about it? In this highly intimate journey, Tahyna is on a mission to lift the lid on all that shame, provide some answers and make sure that women no longer walk this path alone. But first, she has to face her own fears.
19. Ingrid Chauvin : notre combat pour adopter (Ingrid Chauvin : notre combat pour adopter)
(Ingrid Chauvin : notre combat pour adopter)
It has an average vote of 5.7 on TMDB.
20. Welcome Back, Farewell (Bem-Vindos de Novo)
Parents and children are reunited after 13 years apart. This is the starting point of the film, which follows the process of affective reconstruction of director Marcos Yoshi's family, crossed by the flow of migrations between Brazil and Japan, known as the dekassegui phenomenon. The story of a family of Japanese descent torn between the need to make a living and the desire to stay together.