Movies like Malaria (2012)
The best movies like Malaria (2012) are Mary and Martha (2013), I Am Not a Witch (2017) and The River (1984). If Malaria hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Malaria
Quick picks
- Highest ratedDesert Flower (2009)7.6/10 from 508 votes
- Newest40 Acres (2025)Released 2025
Mary and Martha (2013)
Wealthy American housewife Mary Morgan takes her bullied son George out of school for home education,including a trip to Southern Africa. Whilst in Mozambique George is bitten by a mosquito which crawls through a hole in his net and dies of malaria. After his funeral at home Mary feels a compulsion to return to Africa where she meets English woman Martha O'Connell,whose 24 year old son Ben, a teacher with voluntary service overseas,has also died of malaria. Ben gave his net to one of his pupils,believing adults cannot catch malaria. The two women are shocked to see the high death rate caused by the disease and,whilst Martha stays in Africa as a voluntary helper,Mary petitions the American government to change things. Martha turns up at Mary's house unannounced and,helped by Mary's ex-diplomat father,they address a senate committee on health spending,persuading them to do more to combat malaria. They meet with some success though a coda states that much more can be done.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Am Not a Witch (2017)
Convicted of witchcraft, 8-year-old Shula is brought to live in a penal colony where witches do hard labour in service of the government.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 this90 Minutes in Heaven (2015)
A man involved in a horrific car crash is pronounced dead, only to come back to life an hour and a half later, claiming to have seen Heaven.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Girl Who Believes in Miracles (2021)
When Sara hears a preacher say faith can move mountains, she starts praying. Suddenly people in her town are mysteriously healed! But fame soon takes its toll – can Sara’s family save her before it’s too late?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Nest (2020)
Rory is an ambitious entrepreneur who brings his American wife and kids to his native country, England, to explore new business opportunities. After abandoning the sanctuary of their safe American suburban surroundings, the family is plunged into the despair of an archaic '80s Britain and their unaffordable new life in an English manor house threatens to destroy the family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisExtortion (2017)
A doctor desperately tries to save his wife and their 5 year old son after their vacation in the Bahamas takes an unexpected turn.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this40 Acres (2025)
Hailey Freeman and her family are the last descendants of African American farmers who settled in rural Canada after the Civil War. In a famine-decimated near future, they now struggle to safeguard their farm, as they make one last stand against a vicious militia hell-bent on taking their 40 Acres.
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 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 thisThe Trials of Cate McCall (2013)
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
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 thisHoly Lands (2019)
When lapsed Jew and former cardiologist Harry suddenly decides to spend his retirement as a pig farmer in Nazareth, Israel, the move deeply shocks his family and his new neighbours. Back in New York, Harry’s ex-wife Monica is trying to manage the lives of their adult children, Annabelle and David, as well as her own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Good Neighbor (2022)
A nightmarish evening unfolds for neighbors David and Robert when they accidentally hit a woman on her bike and flee the scene. While David is increasingly plagued by feelings of guilt, Robert shows no remorse and becomes overbearing and possessive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThey Drive by Night (1940)
Joe and Paul Fabrini are Wildcat, or independent, truck drivers who have their own small one-truck business. The Fabrini boys constantly battle distributors, rivals and loan collectors, while trying to make a success of their transport company.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Question of Faith (2017)
When Tragedy Strikes three Families, their Destiny forces them on a coverging path and mercy as the challenges of their fate could also resurrect their beliefs
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Proud Rebel (1958)
Searching for a doctor who can help him get his son to speak again--the boy hadn't uttered a word since he saw his mother die in the fire that burned down the family home--a Confederate veteran finds himself facing a 30-day jail sentence when he's unfairly accused of starting a brawl in a small town. A local woman pays his fine, providing that he works it off on her ranch. He soon finds himself involved in the woman's struggle to keep her ranch from a local landowner who wants it--and whose sons were responsible for the man being framed for the fight.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 thisThe Greening of Whitney Brown (2011)
Whitney, a spoiled pre-teen from Philadelphia, is forced to move to the country when her parents feel the squeeze of economic hard times. A fish out of water, far from her comfort zone, she befriends an amazing horse, and undertakes a misguided journey back to her old life, only to discover that her family is her home.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisHala (2019)
Seventeen-year-old Pakistani American teenager Hala struggles to balance desire with her family, cultural, and religious obligations. As she comes into her own, she grapples with a secret that threatens to unravel her family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVengeance (1930)
John Meadham, in charge of a West African trading post, wires the home office in London that he is tired and worn out and that they need to send a replacement to take over. The company sends a stiff upper-lipper, Charles Summers, accompanied by his wife, Margaret. An antagonism develops between the two men from the moment Summers arrives.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Run (2014)
Run escapes... He just killed the Prime Minister of his country. In order to do so, he had to act as if he was a crazy man, wandering through the city. His life comes back by flashes; his childhood with Tourou when his dream was to become a rain miracle-worker, his adventures with Gladys the eater, and his past as a young member of militia, in the heart of the politic and military conflict in Ivory Coast. All those lives, Run didn't choose them. Every time, he felt in by running from another life. That's the reason why his name's Run.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Juju Stories (2021)
Juju Stories tackles juju in contemporary Lagos through three stories. In Love Potion, by Omonua, an unmarried woman agrees to use juju to find herself an ideal mate. In Yam, by Makama, consequences arise when a street urchin picks up seemingly random money from the roadside. In Suffer the Witch, by Obasi, love and friendship turns into obsession, when a young college woman attracts her crush's interest.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Flatfoot in Africa (1978)
Inspector Rizzo in Napoli gets a message from a policeman from South Africa who wants to meet him. Immediately before this meeting the South African policeman is killed. Dying he shows Rizzo a picture of his young son Bodo. Rizzo travels to Johannesburg to find out what the policeman was working on and to find Bodo.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDivine Carcass (1998)
This film follows the fortunes of an old Peugeot off loaded in Cotonou, Benin. As it changes hands we get a glimpse into the lives of its successive owners.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Illustrated Man (1969)
A man who has a body almost completely covered in tattoos is searching for the woman who cursed him with the "skin illustrations". Each tattoo reveals a bizarre story, which is experienced by staring at the scene depicted. When the illustrated man meets a fellow tramp on the road a strange voyage begins.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisMountains of the Moon (1990)
The story of Captain Richard Francis Burton's and Lt. John Hanning Speke's expedition to find the source of the Nile river in the name of Queen Victoria's British Empire.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDesert Flower (2009)
The autobiography of a Somalian nomad who was sold in marriage at 13, fled from Africa a while later to become finally an American supermodel and is now at the age of 38, the UN spokeswoman against female genital mutilation.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Lion (2003)
In Africa in the fifties, during the Mau-Mau war, young Patricia's friendship with a lion she raised for years.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Red Dust (1932)
Dennis, owner of a rubber plantation in Cochinchina, is involved with Vantine, who left Saigon to evade the police. When his new surveyor arrives along with his refined wife Dennis is quickly infatuated by her.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Malaria?
The closest matches to Malaria are Mary and Martha (2013), I Am Not a Witch (2017) and The River (1984). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Malaria?
Start with Mary and Martha (2013), the closest match to Malaria.
What is the highest-rated movie like Malaria?
Desert Flower (2009), rated 7.6/10 by 508 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Malaria?
40 Acres (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Malaria?
Yes: Mary and Martha (2013), I Am Not a Witch (2017) and The River (1984).
How are movies similar to Malaria chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Malaria, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.