Once in a while, Netflix surprises viewers with titles that at first glance might not end up on your watch list, but after an overflow of positive feedback convinces you to hit play, you wish you had been less stubborn to give it a try in the first place. MAID, the miniseries adaptation of Stephanie Land’s memoir, follows a young mother named Alex (Margaret Qualley) who decides to flee with her baby daughter after her boyfriend’s addiction threatens their safety. Although the decision was the right one to make, Alex undergoes multiple struggles to make a living as an underpaid maid in order to provide for her daughter Maddie and one day pursue her dream of becoming a writer.
Each episode makes you tear-up and root for the main character to reach freedom and live happily ever after alongside Maddie. This is a sensation that you will also go through when watching the following stories about single mothers who had to hustle, but like Alex, they didn’t give up. Here are 7 powerful films to watch next if you are looking for titles similar to MAID.
1. Room
Although MAID successfully depicts Alex’s perspective of the story, wouldn’t it be interesting to see everything through Maddie’s eyes? In Room, viewers get to witness the unraveling of events through Jack’s (Jacob Tremblay) point-of-view living in confinement alongside his mother Joy (Brie Larson). Having grown up inside a tiny shed without experiencing the outside world, Jack finds everything to be just right. This is due to the fact that Joy does whatever it takes to make sure her son doesn’t experience the trauma and horrendous reality that she is facing ever since she was kidnapped and began to live in the shed. When they are finally freed, Jack must learn to have a normal childhood while Joy must recover from the years she was forced to stay in confinement. Brie Larson’s moving portrayal of a single mother who tries her best to keep her son’s imagination from being tarnished, led her to win the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.
2. Changeling
One thing that we have seen Alex do throughout the series is persist, specially when Maddie’s custody was at stake. Christine (Angelina Jolie) does the same in Changeling. After her son goes missing, Christine approaches the authorities so that they may help her find him. During their search, they find a boy that fits the same physical descriptions as Christine’s son and insist that they have found him. However, after she meets with him, Christine has the certainty that he isn’t her son and urges the authorities to continue their investigation. In return, she receives multiple accusations for being delusional and an unfit mother for not recognizing her own son, even though she is telling the truth.
3. Precious
Being a young mother from an underprivileged background isn’t easy and sometimes prevents mothers from following through with their aspirations for at least a while. In this film, 16-year-old Precious (Gabourey Sidibe) is now pregnant with her second child, after being raped by her own father. Never having learned to read or write and often being verbally abused by her mother, Precious has a chance to pave a different future for herself with the guidance of her new teacher Ms. Rein (Paula Patton). This is adaptation to the screen was awarded with two Oscars for Best Supporting Actress and Best Screenplay in 2010.
4. Joy
Another story about a single mother that doesn’t take no for an answer, Joy is focused on a character by the same name who just got a divorce and wishes to take a shake her life around. With two children and an entrepreneurial mindset, Joy (Jennifer Lawrence) must balance between taking care of her co-dependant family members and overcoming the odds to sell her self-manufactured product: a wringing mop. From tough business executives to dealing with a legal issue, Joy is committed to achieving success no matter what.
5. Erin Brockovich
Based on a true story, Erin Brockovich-Ellis is a single mother in desperate need of a job and finding no luck in her attempts. After she loses a lawsuit against a doctor in a car accident, she convinces her lawyer to offer her a position in his firm as an assistant. Although no one takes her seriously, Erin proves everyone wrong once she starts to investigate a real estate case that involves a million-dollar company that is allegedly buying contaminated land and poisoning the residents that live in it. This film not only includes a fantastic performance by Julia Roberts, but it also marked her Academy Award win back in 2001.
6. Where the Heart Is
In MAID, we witness Alex sleeping at a ferry point with Maddie in her arms after a car crash. Also left with no place to go and almost 9 months pregnant, Novalee Nation (Natalie Portman) lives in a Wal-Mart store since the moment her boyfriend literally abandoned her there. When she gives birth, Novalee captivates the media’s attention with her story, which eventually leads her to connect with a nurse named Lexie (Ashley Judd), who takes Novalee and her daughter to live with her. The two become best friends and support one another in their journey as single mothers.
7. Enough
Alex might have not faced physical abuse during her relationship with Maddie’s father, Sean (Nick Robinson), but when she moves to the DV shelter she encounters many women who were punched and strangled by their partners. In Enough, Jennifer Lopez plays Slim Miller, a waitress that falls for the ideal man and eventually marries him. The two are a happy couple, up until Slim notices that he isn’t the same person that she was in love with. She then decides to flee with her daughter and prepare herself to fight him off in order to ensure her and her daughter’s protection.