Movies like Hanka (1955)
The best movies like Hanka (1955) are El Chicano (2019), Skin (2009) and Vanya on 42nd Street (1994). If Hanka hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedBeast (2026)7.5/10 from 227 votes
- NewestBeast (2026)Released 2026
El Chicano (2019)
A pair of twin brothers from East L.A. choose to live their lives differently and end up on opposite sides of the law.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSkin (2009)
Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVanya on 42nd Street (1994)
An uninterrupted rehearsal of Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya' plays out by a company of actors. The setting: their run-down theater with an unusable stage and crumbling ceiling. The play is shown act by act with the briefest of breaks to move props or for refreshments. The lack of costumes, real props and scenery is soon forgotten.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFarming (2018)
Based on the writer/director's childhood, FARMING tells the story of a young Nigerian boy, 'farmed out' by his parents to a white British family in the hope of a better future. Instead, he becomes the feared leader of a white skinhead gang.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 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 thisMindwalk (1991)
On the French island of Mont Saint-Michel, Jack, a failed presidential candidate, Tom, a poet and Sonia, a physicist, engage in an intellectual conversation about politics, philosophy and life over the course of a single day.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhat Maisie Knew (2013)
In New York City, six-year-old Maisie is caught in the middle of a bitter custody battle between her self-absorbed parents—an aging rock singer mother and a distracted art dealer father. As both quickly marry new partners to strengthen their legal standing, Maisie is shuttled back and forth in an endless game of emotional point-scoring. Yet amid the chaos and upheaval, Maisie begins to find true comfort and affection in her new step-parents.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 thisHounddog (2008)
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBeast (2026)
MMA legend Patton James, now a commercial fisherman, is pulled back into the cage when his brother is in danger. Reuniting with his old coach Sammy, he commits to one final fight in one championship against the brutal champion Xavier Grau.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 thisRebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996)
A dramatization of the life of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (Don Cheadle), with a lot of factual based occurrences. A reformed junkie returns from prison to clean up his act and devote the rest of his life to the young kids of Harlem. 1996 was the 25th anniversary of the first tournament named after him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Kindness of Strangers (2019)
Clara and her two sons escape from her abusive husband with little more than their car and plan to start over in New York. After the car towed away, the family meets Alice, who gets them into an emergency shelter. While stealing food at a Russian restaurant called ‘Winter Palace’, Clara meets Marc, who has been given the chance to help the old eatery regain its former glory. The ‘Winter Palace’ soon becomes a place of unexpected encounters between people who are all undergoing some sort of crisis and whom fate has now brought together.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAll Day and a Night (2020)
While serving life in prison, a young man looks back at the people, the circumstances and the system that set him on the path toward his crime.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisImperial Dreams (2014)
A 21-year-old reformed gangster's devotion to his family and his future is put to the test when he is released from prison and returns to his old stomping grounds in Watts, Los Angeles.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisF.I.S.T. (1978)
Johnny Kovak joins the Teamsters trade-union in a local chapter in the 1930s and works his way up in the organization. As he climbs higher and higher his methods become more ruthless and finally senator Madison starts a campaign to find the truth about the alleged connections with the Mob.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCardboard Boxer (2016)
Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMansfield Park (2007)
Fanny Price is sent to live with her wealthy relatives, the Bertrams, where she is treated poorly by most except her cousin Edmund. Her life is complicated by the arrival of the worldly Mary and Henry Crawford
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Short History of the Long Road (2019)
Nola grew up living in a van with her father, Clint—two nomads against the world. When tragedy strikes, Nola must confront the reality of life on the road alone, learning to own her grief, her past, and her new destination.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAsparagus (1979)
A symbolic reflection on issues of female sexuality, art and identity constructs.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNora Roberts' Montana Sky (2007)
The wealthy stock dealer bequeaths his Montana farm to the three daughters provided they would live there together at least for a year.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStand Off (2012)
A group of elite female bank robbers are thrown into a Mexican stand off when they discover that someone on their team might be a snitch for the cops...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
A Space Program (2015)
The artist Tom Sachs and his team of bricoleurs build a handmade space program and send two female astronauts to Mars
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Man Who Defended Gavrilo Princip (2014)
When Gavrilo Princip killed Franz Ferdinand, Austrian future king , the World War I began. What will Gavrilo Princip do? He has to choose, hard jail untill death, or hanging. There are so much things happening in Bosnia.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Yearning for Karim (2010)
Sarajevo, after 11th September 2001. Karim works as deminer in the hills around the city while waiting to be sent to Iraq with his group. His main reason - the money. But a love story with unhappy ending will change his life. It's a tale about a love triangle between him, his best friend Juka and Ivana, girl from Belgrade, but at the same time this is a story about the clash between West and Islam and how one young Bosnian copes with this issue.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
MURDER and murder (1996)
Mildred and Doris are two middle-aged white women, from very different backgrounds, who become lovers and set up house together. Film explores the pleasures and uncertainties of later-life emotional attachment and lesbian identity in a culture that glorifies youth and heterosexual romance.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Gunbuster: The Movie (2006)
Noriko Takaya's dream is to become a space pilot like her father, who died when she was young after an attack by alien forces in deep space. After entering Okinawa Girls Space Pilot High School, she must persuade everyone, especially herself, that she can fulfill her goal and become an accomplished pilot despite being just an ordinary girl.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Cycologic (2016)
And urban planner's journey to making the impossible possible.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Zaha Hadid... Who Dares Wins (2013)
Alan Yentob profiles the most successful female architect there has ever been, the late Zaha Hadid, who designed buildings around the globe from Austria to Azerbaijan.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Hanka?
The closest matches to Hanka are El Chicano (2019), Skin (2009) and Vanya on 42nd Street (1994). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Hanka?
Start with El Chicano (2019), the closest match to Hanka.
What is the highest-rated movie like Hanka?
Beast (2026), rated 7.5/10 by 227 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Hanka?
Beast (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Hanka chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Hanka, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.