Movies like What Has Happened to This City? (1986)
The best movies like What Has Happened to This City? (1986) are Feminists: What Were They Thinking? (2018), Jane Fonda in Five Acts (2018) and Miss Representation (2011). If What Has Happened to This City? hooked you with its documentary, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedFor Sama (2019)8.2/10 from 323 votes
- NewestCome See Me in the Good Light (2025)Released 2025
Feminists: What Were They Thinking? (2018)
In 1977, a book of photographs captured an awakening - women shedding the cultural restrictions of their childhoods and embracing their full humanity. This documentary revisits those photos, those women and those times and takes aim at our culture today that alarmingly shows the need for continued change.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisJane Fonda in Five Acts (2018)
Girl next door, activist, so-called traitor, fitness tycoon, Oscar winner: Jane Fonda has lived a life of controversy, tragedy and transformation – and she's done it all in the public eye. An intimate look at one woman's singular journey.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMiss Representation (2011)
The film MISS REPRESENTATION exposes how American youth are being sold the concept that women and girls’ value lies in their youth, beauty and sexuality. Explores the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America, and challenges the media's limited portrayal of what it means to be a powerful woman. It’s time to break that cycle of mistruths.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHeart of a Dog (2015)
Musician and performance artist Laurie Anderson reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother and her beloved dog.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFuck (2006)
A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTo Kill a Tiger (2023)
Ranjit, a farmer in India, takes on the fight of his life when he demands justice for his 13-year-old daughter, the victim of a brutal gang rape. His decision to support his daughter is virtually unheard of, and his journey unprecedented.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisShe's Beautiful When She's Angry (2014)
A documentary that resurrects the buried history of the outrageous, often brilliant women who founded the modern women's movement from 1966 to 1971.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDeliver Us from Evil (2006)
Documentary filmmaker Amy Berg investigates the life of 30-year pedophile Father Oliver O'Grady and exposes the corruption inside the Catholic Church that allowed him to abuse countless children. Victims' stories and a disturbing interview with O'Grady offer a view into the troubled mind of the spiritual leader who moved from parish to parish gaining trust ... all the while betraying so many.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFor Sama (2019)
A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice– whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisCome See Me in the Good Light (2025)
In an intimate and joyful story of love in the face of loss, celebrated poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley find strength—and unexpected hilarity—in what might be their final year together.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Red Pill (2016)
When a feminist filmmaker sets out to document the mysterious and polarizing world of the Men’s Rights Movement, she begins to question her own beliefs. Chronicling Cassie Jaye’s journey exploring an alternate perspective on gender equality, power and privilege.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRBG (2018)
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg now 84, and still inspired by the lawyers who defended free speech during the Red Scare, Ginsburg refuses to relinquish her passionate duty, steadily fighting for equal rights for all citizens under the law. Through intimate interviews and unprecedented access to Ginsburg’s life outside the court, RBG tells the electric story of Ginsburg’s consuming love affairs with both the Constitution and her beloved husband Marty—and of a life’s work that led her to become an icon of justice in the highest court in the land.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEx Libris: The New York Public Library (2017)
A documentary about how a dominant cultural and demographic institution both sustains their traditional activities and adapts to the digital revolution.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMcQueen (2018)
Alexander McQueen's rags-to-riches story is a modern-day fairy tale, laced with the gothic. Mirroring the savage beauty, boldness and vivacity of his design, this documentary is an intimate revelation of McQueen's own world, both tortured and inspired, which celebrates a radical and mesmerizing genius of profound influence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBeyoncé: Life Is But a Dream (2013)
Life Is But a Dream is a HBO documentary about the life of US singer Beyoncé Knowles during the years 2011 and 2012 and on the recording of her fifth album. The film was directed by Beyoncé herself. The film shows Beyoncé from intimate moments of her pregnancy to behind the scenes and rehearsals of the main concerts of that time.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIn the Realms of the Unreal (2004)
In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (2012)
Alex Gibney explores the charged issue of pedophilia in the Catholic Church, following a trail from the first known protest against clerical sexual abuse in the United States and all way to the Vatican.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGirl Model (2011)
A documentary on the modeling industry's 'supply chain' between Siberia, Japan, and the U.S., told through the experiences of the scouts, agencies, and a 13-year-old model.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSouth of the Border (2009)
A road trip across five countries to explore the social and political movements as well as the mainstream media's misperception of South America while interviewing seven of its elected presidents.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAs I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2000)
A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Origin of Miracles (2023)
A nation's architect battles war and chaos to forge a country from the ashes—can he secure its future before freedom slips away?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Mother of Many Children (1977)
This film is an album of Native womanhood, portraying a proud matriarchal society that for centuries has been pressured to adopt different standards and customs. All of the women featured share a belief in the importance of tradition as a source of strength in the face of change.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Dark Matter (2013)
Materia oscura tells the story of a war zone in peacetime. The film location is the Salto di Quirra test range (Sardinia, Italy) where, for over fifty years, governments around the world have tested 'new weapons' and where the Italian government has carried out controlled explosions of old weapon stocks, inexorably endangering the territory.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Indigo Girls: It's Only Life After All (2024)
An intimate look into the lives of one of the most iconic folk-rock bands in America - the Indigo Girls. With never-before-seen archival and intimate vérité the film dives into the songwriting and storytelling of the music that transformed a generation.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Cartoonists: Footsoldiers of Democracy (2014)
This movie takes us in the daily battle of 12 cartoonists around the world : France, Mexico, Israël, China, Russia, Ivory Coast...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Chuck Close (2007)
Chuck Close, an astounding portrait of one of the world's leading contemporary painters, was one of two parting gifts (her second is a film on Louise Bourgeois) from Marion Cajori, a filmmaker who died recently, and before her time. With editing completed by filmmaker Ken Kobland, Chuck Close lives the life and work of a man who has reinvented portraiture. Close photographs his subjects, blows up the image to gigantic proportions, divides it into a detailed grid and then uses a complex set of colors and patterning to reconstruct each face.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Journal No. 1 - An Artist's Impression (2007)
In 1947, two years after the end of the Second World War, Film Journal No. 1 was released in Sarajevo. Fifty years later, after the collapse of the Communist bloc, this newsreel was lost in the confusion of the fighting in Yugoslavia. In Journal No. 1 Hito Steyerl attempts to find out how the footage got lost and what was on this document from the Sutjeska studio. In the simultaneous projection of Journal No. 1 the ‘unattainability of an historical zero hour of the national identity’ takes concrete form: The lost newsreel reports on a literacy campaign as well as Muslim women confidently removing their headscarves. We listen however to eyewitnesses trying to recapture the lost content and we see the artist Arman Kulasic making a number of drawings that resemble the story-boards for the lost film. What appears to be moments of great change remain limited by subjective and uncertain memory. The film was premiered at documenta 12.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Visions of Europe (2004)
Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
The Prophet of Prosperity: Robert Tilton and the Gospel of Greed (2005)
Ok, let's admit it. We all miss him. Sure, there's Jan & Paul Crouch and even Pray TV's "hair apparent," Pastor Benny Hinn - but nobody, nobody, nobody can hold a collection plate up to "Brother Bob" Tilton. You know it. we know it. And most of all, he knows it.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Mouseholes (1999)
Helen Hill remembers her grandfather just before his death (in part) by a metaphor involving him as a rapidly diminishing mouse.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like What Has Happened to This City??
The closest matches to What Has Happened to This City? are Feminists: What Were They Thinking? (2018), Jane Fonda in Five Acts (2018) and Miss Representation (2011). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after What Has Happened to This City??
Start with Feminists: What Were They Thinking? (2018), the closest match to What Has Happened to This City?.
What is the highest-rated movie like What Has Happened to This City??
For Sama (2019), rated 8.2/10 by 323 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like What Has Happened to This City??
Come See Me in the Good Light (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Hindi movies like What Has Happened to This City??
The closest matches are in other languages.
How are movies similar to What Has Happened to This City? chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside What Has Happened to This City?, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.