Movies like The Public (2019)
The best movies like The Public (2019) are Stonewall (2015), The Last King of Scotland (2006) and Beautifully Broken (2018). If The Public hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Good Lie (2014)7.5/10 from 637 votes
- NewestMy Father's Shadow (2025)Released 2025
Stonewall (2015)
Kicked out by his parents, a gay teenager leaves small-town Indiana for New York's Greenwich Village, where growing discrimination against the gay community leads to riots on June 28, 1969.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Last King of Scotland (2006)
Young Scottish doctor, Nicholas Garrigan decides it's time for an adventure after he finishes his formal education, so he decides to try his luck in Uganda, and arrives during the downfall of President Obote. General Idi Amin comes to power and asks Garrigan to become his personal doctor.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBeautifully Broken (2018)
As three fathers fight to save their families, their lives become interwined in an unlikely journey across the globe, where they learn the healing power of forgiveness and reconciliation.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Olga (2021)
2013. Exiled in Switzerland, Olga, a talented and passionate 15-year-old Ukrainian gymnast, is trying to secure a place in the National Sports Centre. But the Euromaidan revolt erupts in Kyiv, and suddenly her loved ones are involved. While the girl is adapting to her new country and preparing for the European Championships, the Ukrainian revolution makes its way into her life, and nothing will ever be the same again.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Father's Shadow (2025)
Two young brothers explore Lagos with their estranged father during the 1993 Nigerian election crisis, witnessing both the city's magnitude and their father's daily struggles as political unrest threatens their journey home.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThis Is Not a War Story (2021)
A ragtag group of veterans in New York deal with the aftermath of war by creating unusual art.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
The Goldfinch (2019)
A boy in New York is taken in by a wealthy family after his mother is killed in a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In a rush of panic, he steals 'The Goldfinch', a painting that eventually draws him into a world of crime.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTrees of Peace (2021)
Four women from different backgrounds forge an unbreakable sisterhood while trapped and in hiding during the genocide in Rwanda.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019)
Jimmie Fails dreams of reclaiming the Victorian home his grandfather built in the heart of San Francisco. Joined on his quest by his best friend Mont, Jimmie searches for belonging in a rapidly changing city that seems to have left them behind.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSergio (2020)
A sweeping drama set in the chaotic aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq, where the life of top UN diplomat Brazilian Sérgio Vieira de Mello hangs in the balance during the most treacherous mission of his career.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBheed (2023)
8 hours, complete lockdown in the whole of India, movement shut and state borders sealed. Thousands of migrants without food, water and mode of transport were forced to return to their homes. A crisis that shook the whole nation, a time when borders of disparity divided the people and one man stood for humanity.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
93 Days (2016)
Bimbo Akintola, Danny Glover and TIFF Rising Star Somkele Iyamah-Idhalama star in director Steve Gukas’ riveting real-life thriller about courageous health-care workers in Lagos battling the Ebola outbreak of 2014.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisStop-Zemlia (2022)
Hanging out with friends, smoking a lot, spinning bottles and kissing, making mistakes, playing, refusing to accept, dreaming with open eyes - life as a teenager can be overwhelmingly beautiful and difficult at the same time. In her debut, the Ukrainian director composes a deeply emotional and multi-layered portrait of a generation whilst seamlessly flowing between the fictional and the documental.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNational Champions (2021)
A star quarterback ignites a players’ strike hours before the biggest game of the year in order to fight for fair compensation, equality, and respect for the athletes who put their bodies and health on the line for their schools.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Kindergarten Teacher (2018)
Lisa Spinelli is a Staten Island teacher who is unusually devoted to her students. When she discovers one of her five-year-olds is a prodigy, she becomes fascinated with the boy, ultimately risking her family and freedom to nurture his talent.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Good Lie (2014)
A young refugee of the Sudanese Civil War who wins a lottery for relocation to the United States with three other lost boys. Encountering the modern world for the first time, they develop an unlikely friendship with a brash American woman assigned to help them, but the young man struggles to adjust to this new life and his feelings of guilt about the brother he left behind.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHoller (2021)
In a forgotten pocket of Southern Ohio where American manufacturing and opportunity are drying up, a determined young woman finds a ticket out when she is accepted to college. Alongside her older brother, Ruth Avery joins a dangerous scrap metal crew in order to pay her way. Together, they spend one brutal winter working the scrap yards during the day and stealing valuable metal from the once thriving factories by night. With her goal in sight, Ruth finds that the ultimate cost of an education for a girl like her may be more than she bargained for, and she soon finds herself torn between a promising future and the family she would leave behind.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNational Theatre Live: Les Blancs (2019)
An African country teeters on the edge of civil war. A society prepares to drive out its colonial present and claim an independent future. Racial tensions boil over. Tshembe, returned home from England for his father’s funeral, finds himself in the eye of the storm.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Luce (2019)
A star athlete and top student, Luce's idealized image is challenged by one of his teachers when his unsettling views on political violence come to light, putting a strain on family bonds while igniting intense debates on race and identity.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Old Oak (2023)
A pub landlord in a previously thriving mining community struggles to hold onto his pub. Meanwhile, tensions rise in the town when Syrian refugees are placed in the empty houses in the community.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIn America (2003)
A family of Irish immigrants adjusts to life on the mean streets of Hell's Kitchen while also grieving the death of a child.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGook (2017)
Eli and Daniel, two Korean American brothers who own a struggling women's shoe store, have an unlikely friendship with 11-year-old Kamilla. On the first day of the 1992 L.A. riots, the trio must defend their store—and contemplate the meaning of family, their personal dreams and the future.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSitting in Limbo (2020)
Anthony Bryan and his personal struggle to be accepted as a British Citizen during the Windrush immigration scandal.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Rosewater (2014)
In 2009, Iranian Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari was covering Iran's volatile elections for Newsweek. One of the few reporters living in the country with access to US media, he made an appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, in a taped interview with comedian Jason Jones. The interview was intended as satire, but if the Tehran authorities got the joke they didn't like it - and it would quickly came back to haunt Bahari when he was rousted from his family home and thrown into prison.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCauseway (2022)
A US soldier suffers a traumatic brain injury while fighting in Afghanistan and struggles to adjust to life back home in New Orleans. When she meets local mechanic James, the pair begin to forge an unexpected bond.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPassing (2021)
In 1920s New York City, a Black woman finds her world upended when her life becomes intertwined with a former childhood friend who's passing as white.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Life Ahead (2020)
In seaside Italy, a Holocaust survivor with a daycare business takes in a 12-year-old street kid who recently robbed her.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHoly Rollers (2010)
Inspired by actual events in the late nineties when Hasidic Jews were recruited as mules to smuggle ecstasy from Europe into the United States.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisUrban Hymn (2015)
Set against the backdrop of the 2011 UK summer riots, Jamie, a young female offender who possesses a remarkable voice, meets a determined social worker who inspires her to use it.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Simón (2023)
Simón, a Venezuelan freedom fighter exiled in Miami, copes not only with trauma, but also deep guilt over a choice he must make: stay in Miami and start a new life, or return home to the losing fight against a tyrannical regime.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Public?
The closest matches to The Public are Stonewall (2015), The Last King of Scotland (2006) and Beautifully Broken (2018). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Public?
People who watched The Public most often go on to Stonewall (2015), The Last King of Scotland (2006) and Beautifully Broken (2018).
What is the highest-rated movie like The Public?
The Good Lie (2014), rated 7.5/10 by 637 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Public?
My Father's Shadow (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Public?
Yes: Stonewall (2015), The Last King of Scotland (2006) and Beautifully Broken (2018).
How are movies similar to The Public chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Public, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.