Movies like Johan (1921)
The best movies like Johan (1921) are That Evening Sun (2009), Rogue Agent (2022) and Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (1998). If Johan hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedA Star Is Born (1954)7.1/10 from 343 votes
- NewestMexicali (2026)Released 2026
That Evening Sun (2009)
An aging Tennessee farmer returns to his homestead and must confront a family betrayal, the reappearance of an old enemy, and the loss of his farm.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRogue Agent (2022)
Conman Robert Freegard poses as an undercover MI5 agent and kidnaps countless victims amidst a high-stakes manhunt, until the woman who fell for him brings him to justice.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisXiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (1998)
Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even more remote spot with a Tibetan saddle tramp Lao Jin to learn horse herding.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGirl in the Box (2016)
The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHungry Hearts (2015)
The relationship of a couple who meet by chance in New York City is put to the test when they encounter a life or death circumstance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Sound of Silence (2019)
A successful "house tuner" in New York City, who calibrates the sound in people's homes in order to adjust their moods, meets a client with a problem he can't solve.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisMan with No Past (2025)
Waking up in an unfamiliar city, a man with no memory must confront the mysteries of his own identity. However, his desperate search to uncover the past pits him against a powerful enemy, leading to a showdown that ultimately reveals the truth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWonderstruck (2017)
The story of a young boy in the Midwest is told simultaneously with a tale about a young girl in New York from fifty years ago as they both seek the same mysterious connection.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJane Got a Gun (2015)
After her outlaw husband returns home shot with eight bullets and barely alive, Jane reluctantly reaches out to an ex-lover who she hasn't seen in over ten years to help her defend her farm when the time comes that her husband's gang eventually tracks him down to finish the job.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisHeatwave (2022)
A woman's life takes an unexpected turn when she falls for her boss's wife. She must soon defend herself as she becomes entangled in a web of malice.
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 thisThe Girl in the Book (2015)
The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Outlaw and His Wife (1918)
A stranger comes to work at widow Halla's farm. Halla and the stranger fall in love, but when he is revealed as Eyvind, an escaped thief forced into crime by his family's starvation, they flee and become two of the many outlaws of Iceland's mountains.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe River (1984)
Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCall Me Crazy: A Five Film (2013)
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 thisThe Truth About Emanuel (2013)
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMexicali (2026)
A former special forces contractor is forced out of retirement as an avocado farmer in Mexico when local gangsters try to force him and his family off their farm.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Padre (2018)
American retired Judge Randall Nemes and his hired gun, Gaspar, track down a con man posing as a priest in a small Colombian town only to be thrown off-course by a scrappy 16-year-old girl intent on reuniting with her sister in the United States.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies 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 thisA Star Is Born (1954)
A movie star helps a young singer-actress find fame, even as age and alcoholism send his own career into a downward spiral.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Paul Street Boys (1925)
A couple of boy gangs in Budapest constantly fight over the neighborhood turf.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Should We Be Silent? (1926)
A melodrama about a painter who is infected with syphilis, refuses treatment, turns to the use instead of narcotics, and withers away.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
A Bright City (1928)
Partially lost movie. Based on the novella ‘The Red Scarf’ by Mikhail Pavlovich Rogi. The story of a peasant woman who comes to the city to join her husband, a factory worker, and finds it difficult to adjust to her new life. Only the fourth part of the film has survived.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Case of Lena Smith (1929)
A peasant girl goes to great lengths to protect her child in 19th century Vienna. The film is considered lost, and only four minutes of footage are known to remain.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Die Flamme (1923)
In 19th century Paris a hedonistic woman marries an aristocrat but has trouble keeping faithful to him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Dead Man's Curve (1928)
A grease monkey discovers a defect in an auto engine being turned out by his employer. But since our hero discovers this only after losing an important race, his boss chalks up the loss to Fairbanks' supposed cowardice.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
One Stolen Night (1929)
When his ne'er-do-well brother embezzles the commissary funds of their cavalry unit stationed in the Sudan, a British soldier takes the blame for him. He winds up deserting his post and joining up with a traveling vaudeville troupe. He falls in love with a pretty young woman in one of the show's acts but finds that a local Arab sheik has his own plans for the young girl.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Suzanna (1923)
Hoping to consolidate their adjoining ranches, Don Fernando and Don Diego betroth their children, Ramón and Dolores, although Ramón is in love with Suzanna, the daughter of a peon on his father's ranch, and Dolores is interested in Pancho, a toreador. When Suzanna learns that she was kidnapped in infancy and is really Don Diego's daughter, she keeps silent; but Ramón finally rebels and steals Suzanna from the altar as she is about to marry Pancho. There are explanations, Ramón marries Suzanna, and Dolores marries Pancho. Suzanna (1923) has been mastered from a good quality but incomplete 35mm print.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Johan?
The closest matches to Johan are That Evening Sun (2009), Rogue Agent (2022) and Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (1998). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Johan?
Start with That Evening Sun (2009), the closest match to Johan.
What is the highest-rated movie like Johan?
A Star Is Born (1954), rated 7.1/10 by 343 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Johan?
Mexicali (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Johan chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Johan, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.