Movies like Steve (2025)
The best movies like Steve (2025) are The Principal (1987), The Hate U Give (2018) and Freedom Writers (2007). If Steve 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 Hate U Give (2018)8.1/10 from 2,264 votes
- NewestThe Lost Bus (2025)Released 2025
The Principal (1987)
Burglary. Drugs. Assault. Rape. The students at Brandel High are more than new Principal Rick Latimer bargained for. Gangs fight to control the school using knives - even guns - when they have to. When Latimer and the head of security try to clean up the school and stop the narcotics trade, they run up against a teenage mafia. A violent confrontation on the campus leads to a deadly showdown with the drug dealer's gang, and one last chance for Latimer to save his career... and his life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Hate U Give (2018)
Raised in a poverty-stricken slum, a 16-year-old girl named Starr now attends a suburban prep school. After she witnesses a police officer shoot her unarmed best friend, she's torn between her two very different worlds as she tries to speak her truth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisFreedom Writers (2007)
A young teacher inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply themselves, and pursue education beyond high school.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisLean On Me (1989)
When principal Joe Clark takes over decaying Eastside High School, he's faced with students wearing gang colors and graffiti-covered walls. Determined to do anything he must to turn the school around, he expels suspected drug dealers, padlocks doors and demands effort and results from students, staff and parents. Autocratic to a fault, this real-life educator put it all on the line.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOne Eight Seven (1997)
When a Brooklyn high school student writes the police code for homicide, 187, inside a textbook owned by teacher Trevor Garfield, Garfield feels threatened. The principal dismisses the incident, but the same student stabs Trevor soon after. Fifteen months later, a physically and emotionally scarred Trevor relocates to California and takes up substitute teaching. To his dismay, his new school is as full of dangerously undisciplined students as his old one—including four Latin Americans and a European American claiming membership in tagging gang K.O.S. (Kappin' Off Suckers)—driving him over the edge.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisApt Pupil (1998)
One day in 1984, Todd Bowden, a brilliant high school boy fascinated by the history of Nazism, stumbles across an old man whose appearance resembles that of Kurt Dussander, a wanted Nazi war criminal. A month later, Todd decides to knock on his door.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCheaters (2000)
In the fall of 1994, a teacher at Chicago's run-down Steinmetz High conspires with the school's academic decathlon team to cheat on an academic competition.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBrave the Dark (2025)
When Mr. Deen discovers one of his students has been living out of his car and thrown into jail, he decides to bail him out. Determined to curb Nate’s self-destructive behavior, Deen quickly discovers a host of dark secrets slowly tearing Nate apart. What began as a good deed becomes a desperate fight to save Nate from his own demons. As Nate spirals deeper into despair, Deen must decide how far he’s willing to go to save a kid on the brink of losing everything—even himself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Lost Bus (2025)
A determined father risks everything to rescue a dedicated teacher and her students from a raging wildfire.
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 thisif.... (1968)
In an English boys' boarding school, social hierarchy reigns supreme and power remains in the hands of distanced and ineffectual teachers and callously vicious prefects in the Upper Sixth. Three Lower Sixth students, Wallace, Johnny and leader Mick Travis decide on a shocking course of action to redress the balance of privilege once and for all.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIron Jawed Angels (2004)
Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.
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 thisConfirmation (2016)
Judge Clarence Thomas' nomination to the United States' Supreme Court is called into question when former colleague, Anita Hill, testifies that he had sexually harassed her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisElephant (2003)
Several ordinary high school students go through their daily routine as two others prepare for something more malevolent.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBad Education (2019)
A superintendent of a school district works for the betterment of the student’s education when an embezzlement scheme is discovered, threatening to destroy everything.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCracks (2009)
Jealousy flares after the headmistress of an elite boarding school for girls becomes obsessed with a new student.
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 thisThe Lords of Discipline (1983)
Will arrives for his last year at Military Academy, in the Deep South USA, in the 1960's. A black student, Pearce, has been accepted, for the first time and Will is asked to keep an eye out for the inevitable racism. The racists come in the form of The Ten, a secret group of the elite students. They want Pearce to leave on his own free will, but are prepared to torture him to make it 'his free will'. Will is forced to help Pearce and he is prepared to risk his own career to do so.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOslo (2021)
The true story of negotiations between implacable enemies — the secret back-channel talks, unlikely friendships and quiet heroics of a small but committed group of Israelis, Palestinians and one Norwegian couple that led to the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Pelican Brief (1993)
A law student's theory about the recent deaths of two Supreme Court justices embroils her in a far-reaching web of murder, corruption, and greed.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlood and Chocolate (2007)
A young teenage werewolf is torn between honoring her family's secret and her love for a man.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisEmpire of the Sun (1987)
Jamie Graham, a privileged English boy, is living in Shanghai when the Japanese invade and force all foreigners into prison camps. Jamie is captured with an American sailor, who looks out for him while they are in the camp together. Even though he is separated from his parents and in a hostile environment, Jamie maintains his dignity and youthful spirit, providing a beacon of hope for the others held captive with him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisColors (1988)
A confident young cop is shown the ropes by a veteran partner in the dangerous gang-controlled barrios of Los Angeles, where the gang culture is enforced by the colors the members wear.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSpider (2002)
A mentally disturbed man takes residence in a halfway house. His mind gradually slips back into the realm created by his illness, where he replays a key part of his childhood.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisŠek, na kterém chyběl podpis (1974)
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story (2000)
Anne is persuaded to join her fiance, Gilbert, in New York City as he begins his tenure at a major hospital. However, any chance of lasting happiness is dashed when Gilbert enlists to serve in The Great War in Europe. Anne stays behind and takes up writing, but learns that contact has been lost with Gilbert. Seeing no other option, Anne decides to venture to Europe herself to find him. In doing so, she begins an adventure that will challenge her wits and imagination to the limit.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Lolita (1997)
Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged British novelist who is both appalled by and attracted to the vulgarity of American culture. When he comes to stay at the boarding house run by Charlotte Haze, he soon becomes obsessed with Lolita, the woman's teenaged daughter.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Teacher (2017)
Teacher in the most prestigious highschool in the country, François enjoys the life he’s always known, in the intellectual and bourgeois society of Paris. Trapped in a situation where he’s forced to accept a job in a school of a tough underprivileged suburb, he finds himself confronted to his own limits and to the upheaval of his values and certainties.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGolden Queen (1965)
A man returns to his native village in search of renewed faith and his old girlfriend. But she, now a middleaged woman, does not recognise him and he goes home, more disillusioned than ever.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Steve?
The closest matches to Steve are The Principal (1987), The Hate U Give (2018) and Freedom Writers (2007). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Steve?
Start with The Principal (1987), the closest match to Steve.
What is the highest-rated movie like Steve?
The Hate U Give (2018), rated 8.1/10 by 2,264 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Steve?
The Lost Bus (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Steve?
Yes: The Principal (1987), The Hate U Give (2018) and Freedom Writers (2007).
How are movies similar to Steve chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Steve, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.