Movies like Gagarin: First in Space (2013)
The best movies like Gagarin: First in Space (2013) are Adventures of a Mathematician (2021), Radium Girls (2020) and Munich - The Edge of War (2021). If Gagarin: First in Space hooked you with its drama and history, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedRichard Jewell (2019)7.4/10 from 2,844 votes
- NewestArtemis: To the Moon and Back (2026)Released 2026
Adventures of a Mathematician (2021)
The warmhearted story of Polish immigrant and mathematician Stan Ulam, who moved to the U.S. in the 1930s. Stan deals with the difficult losses of family and friends all while helping to create the hydrogen bomb and the first computer.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRadium Girls (2020)
Young women toiling in a factory are exposed to hazardous material which takes a disastrous toll on their health.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMunich - The Edge of War (2021)
At the tense 1938 Munich Conference, former friends who now work for opposing governments become reluctant spies racing to expose a Nazi secret.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Book of Daniel (2013)
Taken into slavery after the fall of Jerusalem in 605 B.C., Daniel is forced to serve the most powerful king in the world, King Nebuchadnezzar. Faced with imminent death, Daniel proves himself a trusted Advisor and is placed among the king's wise men. Threatened by death at every turn Daniel never ceases to serve the king until he is forced to choose between serving the king or honoring God. With his life at stake, Daniel has nothing but his faith to stand between him and the lions' den.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRichard Jewell (2019)
Richard Jewell thinks quick, works fast, and saves hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives after a domestic terrorist plants several pipe bombs and they explode during a concert, only to be falsely suspected of the crime by sloppy FBI work and sensational media coverage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisUnited (2011)
United is based on the true story of Manchester United's legendary "Busby Babes", the youngest side ever to win the Football League and the 1958 Munich Air Crash that claimed eight of the their number. The film draws on first-hand interviews with the survivors and their families to tell the inspirational story of a team and community overcoming terrible tragedy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBelfast (2021)
Buddy is a young boy on the cusp of adolescence, whose life is filled with familial love, childhood hijinks, and a blossoming romance. Yet, with his beloved hometown caught up in increasing turmoil, his family faces a momentous choice: hope the conflict will pass or leave everything they know behind for a new life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisShattered Glass (2003)
Stephen Glass is a staff writer for the respected current events and policy magazine The New Republic and a freelance feature writer for publications such as Rolling Stone, Harper's and George. By the mid-90s, Glass' articles had turned him into one of the most sought-after young journalists in Washington, but a bizarre chain of events - chronicled in Buzz Bissinger's September 1998 Vanity Fair article - suddenly stopped his career in its tracks.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSnow Flower and the Secret Fan (2011)
A story set in 19th century China and centered on the lifelong friendship between two girls who develop their own secret code as a way to contend with the rigid cultural norms imposed on women.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWorth (2021)
Kenneth Feinberg, a powerful D.C. lawyer appointed Special Master of the 9/11 Fund, fights off the cynicism, bureaucracy, and politics associated with administering government funds and, in doing so, discovers what life is worth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Current War (2018)
Electricity titans Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse compete to create a sustainable system and market it to the American people.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Scarlet and the Black (1983)
Fr. Hugh O'Flaherty is a Vatican official in 1943-45 who has been hiding downed pilots, escaped prisoners of war, and Italian resistance families. His activities become so large that the Nazis decide to assassinate him the next time he leaves the Vatican.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEight Men Out (1988)
Buck Weaver and Hap Felsch are young idealistic players on the Chicago White Sox, a pennant-winning team owned by Charles Comiskey - a penny-pinching, hands-on manager who underpays his players and treats them with disdain. And when gamblers and hustlers discover that Comiskey's demoralized players are ripe for a money-making scheme, one by one the team members agree to throw the World Series. But when the White Sox are defeated, a couple of sports writers smell a fix and a national scandal explodes, ripping the cover off America's favorite pastime.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSalyut-7 (2017)
USSR, June 1985. After contact with the Salyut 7 space station is lost, cosmonauts Vladimir Dzhanibekov and Viktor Savinykh dock with the empty, frozen craft, and bring her back to life. Based on actual events.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStargate SG-1: Children of the Gods (2009)
An alien similar to Ra appears out of the Stargate, killing five soldiers and kidnapping another, a year after the original Stargate mission. A new team is assembled, including some old members, and they go in search of the missing soldier in order to find out how Ra could still be alive. Meanwhile, the alien Goa'uld kidnap Sha're and Skaara, implanting them with symbiotes and making them Goa'uld hosts.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMission «Sky» (2021)
In the center of the story are three main characters - Lieutenant Colonel Soshnikov, Captain Muravyov and Major Zakharov. Three ages, three different characters, three different destinies, which are destined to meet at the Khmeimim military base.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955)
A dramatization of the American general and his court martial for publically complaining about High Command's dismissal and neglect of the aerial fighting forces.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Dinner with Hervé (2018)
An unlikely friendship evolves over one wild night in LA between a struggling journalist and actor Hervé Villechaize, the world's most famous gun-toting dwarf, resulting in life-changing consequences for both.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStowaway (2021)
A three-person crew on a mission to Mars faces an impossible choice when an unplanned passenger jeopardizes the lives of everyone on board.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe One That Got Away (1957)
Based on the true story of Oberleutnant Franz von Werra, the only German prisoner of war captured in Britain to escape back to Germany during the Second World War.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMoonshot (2009)
Man's landing on the moon was our greatest technological achievement. The Apollo 11 mission was truly the stuff of dreams. For the first time, our species walked on another celestial body. Even more remarkable was their ability to make it back. This is the story of the July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 moon landing. Drama with digitally remastered original footage.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & history
The Spacewalker (2017)
March 1965. In the heat of the Cold War, the USA and the USSR are competing for supremacy in space. What both superpowers aim for in this race, is to be the first to have a man walk in outer space. To accomplish that, no price is too high and no risk is too great. Now it’s up to the unlikely duo of a seasoned war veteran and a hot-headed test-pilot to fulfill this mission. Two men in a tiny spaceship, without proper testing, facing the complete unknown. They were supposed to do what no man has done before—and no man imagined what would happen next.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisArtemis: To the Moon and Back (2026)
The inside story of the Artemis II mission - filmed over three and a half years at NASA. How did four astronauts travel to the moon, going deeper into space than ever before?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
The Saturn V Story (2014)
In 1961, no one believed President Kennedy’s pledge to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. To win the race to space, the USA needed to create a multi-billion dollar space program. Using stunning NASA footage, this inspirational film tells the story of the colossal challenges NASA faced to fulfill Kennedy's pledge. With the accolade of flying 24 men safely to the moon, Saturn V is considered one of mankind's greatest technological achievements. This is the story of the most powerful machine ever built, and the men and women who believed it could fly.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
The Real Right Stuff (2020)
The story of America's first astronauts, known as the Mercury 7, told through archival news & radio reports, newly transferred & previously unheard NASA mission audio recordings, and more rare & unseen material.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
Searching for Skylab, America's Forgotten Triumph (2019)
The first American space station Skylab is found in pieces scattered in Western Australia. Putting these pieces back together and re-tracing the Skylab program back to its very conception reveals the cornerstone of human space exploration.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
Apollo 1: Destination Moon (2025)
At the height of the space race, three U.S. astronauts are tapped as the first Apollo crew. With dazzling archival footage and exceptional access, this riveting documentary explores the tragic events that followed, shaking NASA to the core.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
On the Threshold of Space (1956)
In the early stages of the space program, Capt. Jim Hollenbeck undergoes any experiment needed to ensure success in the new Air Force branch -- even though he's not required to be a subject in the tests. Always remaining a constant source of support, his wife, Pat, accepts his unwavering commitment to scientific progress. When Maj. Ward Thomas becomes the new head of the program, Hollenbeck must convince him of the necessity of taking the extra steps.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Star Trek: The True Story (2013)
Documentary covering the current state of both the theoretical and practical development of the various scientific basic principles that served, as per Gene Roddenberry's dictum, as a believable basis at the time for The Original Series. Several real-world scientists are interviewed, not a few of them unabashedly admitting they went into their chosen field of profession because of Star Trek: The Original Series.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
Thomas Pesquet : L'Odyssée de l'espace (2018)
For 192 days, Thomas Pesquet filmed his journey in space. He he lived in the ISS (International Space Station) with 5 other astronauts. From this extraterrestrial journey, the 39-year-old French astronaut brings back extraordinary images. Earth, seen from space The images of the earth scroll then, fascinating, despite this observation of the astronaut on pollution and deforestation. He had read the damage before, he now sees it from the ISS. He feels the fragility of the Earth. His weightless images on a soundtrack of quality provoke a surge of beauty, of strangeness, in this slowness propitious to poetry. And the reading of the texts of the two winners of "Le Petit Prince" writing contest, visiting an eighth planet, takes on a whole new dimension in this beautiful production by Julien Adam and Matthieu Besnard produced by Capa Presse TV.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Gagarin: First in Space?
The closest matches to Gagarin: First in Space are Adventures of a Mathematician (2021), Radium Girls (2020) and Munich - The Edge of War (2021). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Gagarin: First in Space?
Start with Adventures of a Mathematician (2021), the closest match to Gagarin: First in Space.
What is the highest-rated movie like Gagarin: First in Space?
Richard Jewell (2019), rated 7.4/10 by 2,844 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Gagarin: First in Space?
Artemis: To the Moon and Back (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Gagarin: First in Space chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Gagarin: First in Space, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.