Recursive function for trees in Python

The problem is here

    if node['id'] == parent:
        parent = node['parent']

The current parent will be overwritten by its parent.

Moreover, you should add return node_list at the end of the function, or use node_list as results.

def pop_list(nodes=None, parent=None, node_list=None):
    if parent is None:
        return node_list
    node_list.append([])
    for node in nodes:
        if node['parent'] == parent:
            node_list[-1].append(node)
        if node['id'] == parent:
            next_parent = node['parent']

    pop_list(nodes, next_parent, node_list)
    return node_list

>>> print pop_list(nodes, 5, node_list)
[[{'id': 6, 'parent': 5}], [{'id': 4, 'parent': 2}, {'id': 5, 'parent': 2}], [{'id': 2, 'parent': 1}, {'id': 3, 'parent': 1}]]