Movies like Forty Little Mothers (1940)
The best movies like Forty Little Mothers (1940) are Child's Play (1972), I Never Sang for My Father (1970) and Music of the Heart (1999). If Forty Little Mothers hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Ron Clark Story (2006)7.6/10 from 201 votes
- NewestBernadette of Lourdes: The Musical (2025)Released 2025
Child's Play (1972)
At an exclusive boys' school, a new gym teacher is drawn into a feud between two older instructors, and he discovers that everything at the school is not quite as staid, tranquil and harmless as it seems.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Never Sang for My Father (1970)
A man living in the towering shadow of his aging father finds it difficult to start a new chapter in his life by marrying his girlfriend and moving to California.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMusic of the Heart (1999)
After Roberta Guaspari separates from her husband, she receives encouragement from her mother to take up a job of a music teacher at the Central Park East School in East Harlem.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSubmission (2018)
A well-respected professor who is a celebrated novelist and loving husband loses himself when he becomes obsessed with an ambitious and talented student.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Young One (1960)
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Dry White Season (1989)
During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCome Sunday (2018)
Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisHome Run (2013)
A pro ball player with a substance abuse problem is forced into rehab in his hometown, finding new hope when he gets honest about his checkered past, and takes on coaching duties for a misfit Little League team
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSound of Christmas (2016)
Lizzie is a young piano teacher working at a music school while trying to save enough money for a Steinway piano. The school is gearing up for their major Christmas fundraiser and she has committed much of her time to plan the event. One afternoon, she meets Brad who takes an interest in her playing and asks if she will teach his uninterested teenage daughter. She begins to break through to the young girl, and sparks begin to fly with Brad, but she is shocked to find out that his interest is not solely in her playing, but in the property that houses the music school. She sets out to save the school and the event, but can she work things out with Brad?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Christmas Shoes (2002)
Two separate stories mesh - in the first, a young music teacher, Maggie Andrews, begins dying of a heart condition and her son Nathan tries to get a pair of Christmas shoes for her before she dies. In the second, lawyer Robert Layton and his wife Kate are slowly drifting apart and the matter comes to a head during Christmas when Kate takes over for Maggie for the school choir.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Ron Clark Story (2006)
Passionate and innovative teacher Ron Clark leaves his small hometown to teach in one of Harlem's toughest schools. But to break through to the students, he must use unconventional methods, including his ground-breaking classroom rules, to help them reach their potential. Based on a true story.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMolly Maxwell (2013)
At Phoenix Progressive School, students take notes lying on parlor couches and are encouraged to explore their gifts through electives like break-dancing and graphic-novel writing. In the midst of all this liberal pedagogy and budding talent, Molly Maxwell feels unexceptional, until she falls for her attractive English teacher, Ben.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)
A headstrong young teacher in a private school in 1930s Edinburgh ignores the curriculum and influences her impressionable 12-year-old charges with her over-romanticized worldview.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTalhotBlond (2012)
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHardball (2001)
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTigertail (2020)
A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWon't Back Down (2012)
Jamie Fitzpatrick and Nona Alberts are two women from opposites sides of the social and economic track, but they have one thing in common: a mission to fix their community's broken school and ensure a bright future for their children. The two women refuse to let any obstacles stand in their way as they battle a bureaucracy that's hopelessly mired in traditional thinking, and they seek to re-energize a faculty that has lost its passion for teaching.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOleanna (1994)
Carol, a college student, comes to John's office, her professor, to discuss the grade she has received for one of her papers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisClass of 1984 (1982)
Andy is a new teacher at an inner city high school that is unlike any he has seen before. There are metal detectors at the front door and the place is basically run by a tough kid named Peter Stegman. Soon, Andy and Stegman become enemies and Stegman will stop at nothing to protect his turf and drug dealing business.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHands of Stone (2016)
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOctet (TBA)
Eight internet-obsessed people meet in a church basement and lock their phones in a box. They follow the octet as they struggle with digital dependency, charting their compulsions using only the analog vibrancy of their own voices.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Snow Lotus (2008)
A Tibetan girl, who’d be a bride, could sing the traditional folk song Ganglamedo magically and elegantly. Her name was the same as the name of the song. But she disappeared in the night of her wedding. 60 years later, An Yu, a singer of Han nationality, became hot for singing Ganglamedo. But she lost her voice in a performance and then she disappeared, too. Is Ganglamedo a beautiful curse?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Strange Journey (1946)
Reformed racketeer "Lucky" Leeds flees from the police when he thinks they are about to arrest him for a murder he didn't commit. He and his wife Patti fly to his privately-owned remote island and have to crash land. Also on the island is a group of shipwrecked people, including a German professor, his daughter, an English journalist, a wealthy widow, a sailor and a Nazi Agent.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Bernadette of Lourdes: The Musical (2025)
Bernadette Soubirous, just 14 years old, goes by the river near the Massabielle cave. It is there that, for the first time, a “lady dressed in white” appears to her. Accused of lying, Bernadette’s revelation initially provokes mistrust and tensions in her family, drawing the wrath of civil and ecclesiastical authorities. The rumor spreads. Pilgrims begin to converge. Lourdes goes down in History.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Bran Nue Dae (2009)
In the Summer of 1965 a young man is filled with the life of the idyllic old pearling port Broome - fishing, hanging out with his mates and his girl. However his mother returns him to the religious mission for further schooling. After being punished for an act of youthful rebellion, he runs away from the mission on a journey that ultimately leads him back home.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938)
Rebecca's Uncle Harry leaves her with Aunt Miranda who forbids her to associate with show people. But neighbor Anthony Kent is a talent scout who secretly set it up for her to broadcast.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Some Came Running (1958)
A former novelist returns to his small Midwest town after serving in the Army during WWII, to the chagrin of his social-climbing brother, and becomes close with an easy-going professional gambler and torn between two very different women.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPinjra (1972)
A respected village schoolteacher falls for a travelling dancer and faces a moral dilemma.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Little Miss Broadway (1938)
An orphan is provisionally adopted by the manager of a hotel populated by show business people. The hotel's owner doesn't like the entertainers and wants the girl returned to the orphanage.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Portrait (2018)
A musical tale about two impoverished sisters' anguish over whether or not to sell the final masterpiece of their recluse father days before the second world war, in Manila.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Forty Little Mothers?
The closest matches to Forty Little Mothers are Child's Play (1972), I Never Sang for My Father (1970) and Music of the Heart (1999). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Forty Little Mothers?
Start with Child's Play (1972), the closest match to Forty Little Mothers.
What is the highest-rated movie like Forty Little Mothers?
The Ron Clark Story (2006), rated 7.6/10 by 201 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Forty Little Mothers?
Bernadette of Lourdes: The Musical (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Forty Little Mothers?
Yes: Child's Play (1972), I Never Sang for My Father (1970) and Music of the Heart (1999).
How are movies similar to Forty Little Mothers chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Forty Little Mothers, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.