Skip to content

Movies like Africa is a Woman's Name (2009)

The best movies like Africa is a Woman's Name (2009) are Feminists: What Were They Thinking? (2018), In the Realms of the Unreal (2004) and Shirkers (2018). If Africa is a Woman's Name hooked you with its documentary, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.

Quick picks

  1. 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 this
  2. In 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 this
  3. Shirkers (2018)

    In 1992, teenager Sandi Tan shot Singapore's first indie road movie with her enigmatic American mentor Georges – who then vanished with all the footage. Twenty years later, the 16mm film is recovered, sending Tan, now a novelist in Los Angeles, on a personal odyssey in search of Georges' vanishing footprints.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary

    Worth the HypeMovies like this
  4. Love, Marilyn (2013)

    Using the book 'Fragments', which collects Marilyn Monroe's poems, notes and letters, and with participation from the Arthur Miller and Truman Capote estates who have contributed more material, each of the actresses will embody the legend at various stages in her life.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  5. Miss 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 this
  6. Beyoncé: 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 this
  7. I Am Ali (2014)

    Unprecedented access to Muhammad Ali's personal archive of "audio journals" as well as interviews and testimonials from his inner circle of family and friends are used to tell the legend's life story.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  8. Making 'The Shining' (1980)

    Directed and edited by Stanley Kubrick's daughter Vivian Kubrick, this film offers a look behind the scenes during the making of The Shining.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary

    Worth the HypeMovies like this
  9. One Child Nation (2019)

    Through interviews with both victims and instigators, Nanfu Wang, a first-time mother, breaks open decades of silence on a vast, unprecedented social experiment that shaped — and destroyed — countless lives in China.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary

    Worth the HypeMovies like this
  10. Heart 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 this
  11. She'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 this
  12. Cameraperson (2016)

    As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  13. Love, Gilda (2018)

    Diaries, audiotapes, videotapes and testimonials from friends and colleagues offer insight into the life and career of Gilda Radner -- the beloved comic and actress who became an icon on Saturday Night Live.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary

    Worth the HypeMovies like this
  14. My Beautiful Broken Brain (2014)

    A profoundly personal voyage into the complexity, fragility and wonder of the human brain, after Lotje Sodderland miraculously survives a hemorrhagic stroke and finds herself starting again in an alien world, bereft of language and logic. This feature documentary takes us on a genre-twisting tale that is by turns excruciating and exquisite - from the devastating consequences of a first-time neurological experiment, through to the extraordinary revelations of her altered sensory perception.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary

    Worth the HypeMovies like this
  15. God Grew Tired of Us (2006)

    Filmmaker Christopher Quinn observes the ordeal of three Sudanese refugees -- Jon Bul Dau, Daniel Abul Pach and Panther Bior -- as they try to come to terms with the horrors they experienced in their homeland, while adjusting to their new lives in the United States.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary

    Worth the HypeMovies like this
  16. The Cheshire Murders (2013)

    In the early-morning hours of July 23, 2007, in Cheshire, Conn., ex-convicts Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky broke into the family home of William Petit, his wife, Jennifer, and their daughters, Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17. Dr. Petit was beaten and tied to a pole in the basement. The three women were bound in their bedrooms while the men ransacked the house. The brutal ordeal continued throughout the morning, ending with rape, arson and a horrific triple homicide.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  17. To Be Takei (2014)

    Over seven decades, actor and activist George Takei journeyed from a World War II internment camp to the helm of the Starship Enterprise, and then to the daily news feeds of five million Facebook fans. Join George and his husband, Brad, on a wacky and profound trek for life, liberty, and love.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary

    Worth the HypeMovies like this
  18. Deliver 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 this
  19. Fuck (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 this
  20. Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds (2016)

    An intimate portrait of Hollywood royalty featuring Debbie Reynolds, Todd Fisher, and Carrie Fisher.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary

    Worth the HypeMovies like this
  21. 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

  22. 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

  23. 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

  24. 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

  25. 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

  26. 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

  27. 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

  28. 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

  29. The Voyagers (2010)

    In the summer of 1977, NASA sent Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 on an epic journey into interstellar space. Together and alone, they will travel until the end of the universe. Each spacecraft carries a golden record album, a massive compilation of images and sounds embodying the best of Planet Earth. According to Carl Sagan, “[t]he spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced space-faring civilizations in interstellar space. But the launching of this bottle into the cosmic ocean says something very hopeful about life on this planet.” While working on the golden record, Sagan met and fell madly in love with his future wife Annie Druyan. The record became their love letter to humankind and to each other. In the summer of 2010, I began my own hopeful voyage into the unknown. This film is a love letter to my fellow traveler. - Penny Lane

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary

  30. Wie konnte es geschehen? - Teil 1: "Deutschland erwache..." (1914 - 1938) (2006)

    In 1945, 160 German cities lay in ruins and the loss of millions of lives, billions in material assets and countless cultural treasures was mourned throughout Europe... With the question “How could it happen?”, the film goes back to the year 1914, when the “primal catastrophe of the 20th century” took its course with the First World War.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary

Like Africa is a Woman's Name and something else?

Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.

Frequently asked questions

What are the best movies like Africa is a Woman's Name?

The closest matches to Africa is a Woman's Name are Feminists: What Were They Thinking? (2018), In the Realms of the Unreal (2004) and Shirkers (2018). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.

What should I watch after Africa is a Woman's Name?

Start with Feminists: What Were They Thinking? (2018), the closest match to Africa is a Woman's Name.

What is the highest-rated movie like Africa is a Woman's Name?

Deliver Us from Evil (2006), rated 7.2/10 by 216 TMDB users.

What is the newest movie like Africa is a Woman's Name?

Indigo Girls: It's Only Life After All (2024) is the most recent release on this list.

Are there English movies like Africa is a Woman's Name?

Yes: Feminists: What Were They Thinking? (2018), In the Realms of the Unreal (2004) and Shirkers (2018).

How are movies similar to Africa is a Woman's Name chosen?

First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Africa is a Woman's Name, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.

↑ ↓ to move · Enter to open · Full search page