Movies like Max Havelaar: or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (1976)
The best movies like Max Havelaar: or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (1976) are Waiting for the Barbarians (2020), The East (2021) and Katie Tippel (1975). If Max Havelaar: or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company 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 ratedThe Uprising (2026)7.8/10 from 417 votes
- NewestThe Uprising (2026)Released 2026
Waiting for the Barbarians (2020)
At an isolated frontier outpost, a colonial magistrate suffers a crisis of conscience when an army colonel arrives looking to interrogate the locals about an impending uprising, using cruel tactics that horrify the magistrate.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe East (2021)
A young Dutch soldier deployed to suppress post-WWII independence efforts in the Netherlands’ colony of Indonesia finds himself torn between duty and conscience when he joins an increasingly ruthless commander’s elite squad.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKatie Tippel (1975)
In the late 19th-century, the Tippel family moves to rural Stavoren in search of greener pastures. However, their dreams are quickly shattered, as teenage Katie is terrorized by a male-dominated society who only see her as an object. Her situation worsens when, following her father's sacking and her elder sister's descent into alcoholism, her mother decides that, rather than starving, Katie becomes a prostitute.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Lost City of Z (2017)
A true-life drama in the 1920s, centering on British explorer Col. Percy Fawcett, who discovered evidence of a previously unknown, advanced civilization in the Amazon and disappeared whilst searching for it.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOranges and Sunshine (2010)
The story of Margaret Humphreys, a social worker from Nottingham, who uncovers one of the most significant social scandals in recent times – the forced migration of children from the United Kingdom to Australia and other Commonwealth countries. Almost singlehandedly, Margaret reunited thousands of families, brought authorities to account and worldwide attention to an extraordinary miscarriage of justice.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRiphagen the Untouchable (2016)
Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1944, during World War II. Andries Riphagen, a powerful underworld boss, has made his fortune by putting his many criminal talents at the service of the Nazi occupiers. But the long battle is about to end and the freedom fighters, who have been persecuted and murdered for years, are abandoning their hideouts to mercilessly hunt down those who have collaborated with the killers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHarvest (2025)
Over seven hallucinatory days, a village with no name, in an undefined time and place, disappears.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Uprising (2026)
As war and plague devastate 14th-century England, a humble peasant ignites a rebellion, uniting an army of commoners to defy the King’s might in a desperate fight for justice and survival.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Last of the Mohicans (1992)
In war-torn colonial America, in the midst of a bloody battle between British, the French and Native American allies, the aristocratic daughter of a British Colonel and her party are captured by a group of Huron warriors. Fortunately, a group of three Mohican trappers comes to their rescue.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOutlaws - For Greater Glory (2012)
A chronicle of the Cristeros War (1926-1929), which was touched off by a rebellion against the Mexican government's attempt to secularize the country.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Wind and the Lion (1975)
At the beginning of the 20th century an American woman is abducted in Morocco by Berbers, and the attempts to free her range from diplomatic pressure to military intervention.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFirebrand (2024)
Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of King Henry VIII, is named regent while the tyrant battles abroad. When the king returns, increasingly ill and paranoid, Katherine finds herself fighting for her own survival.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKillers of the Flower Moon (2023)
When oil is discovered in 1920s Oklahoma under Osage Nation land, the Osage people are murdered one by one—until the FBI steps in to unravel the mystery.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLord Jim (1965)
After being discredited as a coward, a 19th century seaman lives for only one purpose: to redeem himself. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2000.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDisgrace (2008)
Disgrace is the story of a South African professor of English who loses everything: his reputation, his job, his peace of mind, his good looks, his dreams of artistic success, and finally even his ability to protect his cherished daughter. After having an affair with a student, he moves to the Eastern Cape, where he gets caught up in a mess of post-apartheid politics.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRising Sun (1993)
When a prostitute is found dead in a Los Angeles skyscraper occupied by a large Japanese corporation, detectives John Connor and Web Smith are called in to investigate. Although Connor has previous experience working in Japan, cultural differences make their progress difficult until a security disc showing the murder turns up. Close scrutiny proves the disc has been doctored, and the detectives realize they're dealing with a cover-up as well.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPapillon (1973)
A man befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence on a dreadful prison island, which inspires the man to plot his escape.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMuhammad Ali's Greatest Fight (2013)
Muhammad Ali’s historic Supreme Court battle from behind closed doors. When Ali was drafted into the Vietnam War at the height of his boxing career, his claim to conscientious objector status led to a controversial legal battle that rattled the U.S. judicial system right up to the highest court in the land.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe White Tiger (2021)
An ambitious Indian driver uses his wit and cunning to escape from poverty and rise to the top. An epic journey based on the New York Times bestseller.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Devil's Double (2011)
A chilling vision of the House of Saddam Hussein comes to life through the eyes of the man who was forced to become the double of Hussein's sadistic son.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRaazi (2018)
An Indian spy is married to a Pakistani military officer during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPreludes to Ecstasy (1961)
Sten Lehtoja, a married, middle-aged businessman, picks up a young hitchhiker, Elsie, while driving to his summer home. Elsie spends the night and becomes his mistress. Later during the summer, Elsie also begins an affair with Reino, the teenage son of a local storekeeper. Sten offers to divorce his wife, and Elsie, attracted by the prospect of a secure social position, agrees to marry him when the divorce becomes final. One night when the couple are in bed, Reino climbs a ladder and attempts to force his way into their room; he falls and breaks his neck, and to avoid scandal Sten hides the body. But the strain of guilt ruins the romance, and Elsie contacts the police, who arrest her lover.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Welcome to the Quiet Room (2007)
28 year old freelance writer Sakura Asuka wakes up tied in a white room. The white room is a protected room located in an isolated ward of a psychiatric hospital. Sakura first became unconscious because of heavy alcohol use and a druge overdose. She’s confined in the single room because of her high risk of committing suicide. Sakura tried to talk to the nurses and doctors but they didn’t listen to her. Under the circumstances another patient Miki, who suffers from an eating disorder, leads her to understand the unknown world. But, Sakura is looking for the way to get back to the real world as soon as possible.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Winter's Bone (2010)
After discovering her father put their house up for his bail bond and then disappeared, 17-year-old Ree Dolly must confront the local criminal underworld and the harsh Ozark wilderness in order to to track down her father and save her family.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlonde (2022)
From her volatile childhood as Norma Jeane, through her rise to stardom and romantic entanglements, this reimagined fictional portrait of Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe blurs the lines of fact and fiction to explore the widening split between her public and private selves.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisLocomotive Teacher (2004)
Seigo Yoshioka (Kenji Sakaguchi) is a teacher that became mute after a kendo accident. He feels lost after the accident and eventually decides to teach again on a small island where his mother was born. The children there on the island quickly name him "Kikansha Sensei" (Teacher Locomotive) after learning he is mute. The parents on the island are mostly hostile to Seigo Yoshioka, believing he is incapable of teaching their children. But with Seigo Yoshioka's determination and kindness, a strong bond develops between the students and the mute teacher, which then changes the parents' opinions of Seigo Yoshioka. Suddenly, tragedy then strikes ...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Bihter: A Forbidden Passion (2023)
Bihter, who is desperate for love, sees Adnan, a wealthy and respected older guy, as a way out of the stereotype that society and her materialistic mother have given her. But she soon discovers that she is not satisfied with his attention and has other needs.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Tarnished Angels (1957)
In the 1930s, once-great World War I pilot Roger Shumann performs as a daredevil barnstorming pilot at aerial stunt shows while his wife, LaVerne, works as a parachutist. When newspaper reporter Burke Devlin arrives to do a story on the Shumanns’ act, he quickly falls in love with the beautiful--and neglected--LaVerne.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTombstone of the Fireflies (2008)
Set during World War II, the film follows a young brother and sister as they attempt to survive the aftermath of the firebombing of Kobe City.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Heidi (1968)
Heidi is an orphaned girl initially raised by her aunt Dete in Maienfeld, Switzerland. In order to get a job in Frankfurt, Dete brings 5-year-old Heidi to her grandfather, who has been at odds with the villagers for years and lives in seclusion on the alm. He at first resents Heidi's arrival, but the girl manages to penetrate his harsh exterior and subsequently has a delightful stay with him and her best friend, young Peter the goat-herd.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like Max Havelaar: or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Max Havelaar: or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company?
The closest matches to Max Havelaar: or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company are Waiting for the Barbarians (2020), The East (2021) and Katie Tippel (1975). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Max Havelaar: or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company?
Start with Waiting for the Barbarians (2020), the closest match to Max Havelaar: or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company.
What is the highest-rated movie like Max Havelaar: or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company?
The Uprising (2026), rated 7.8/10 by 417 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Max Havelaar: or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company?
The Uprising (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Max Havelaar: or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Max Havelaar: or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.