Movies like Vaya (2017)
The best movies like Vaya (2017) are Skin (2009), A Dry White Season (1989) and Sarafina! (1992). If Vaya hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedRed Beard (1965)8.2/10 from 435 votes
- NewestA Little Bird Told Me (2025)Released 2025
Skin (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 thisA Dry White Season (1989)
During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSarafina! (1992)
A Soweto schoolgirl named Sarafina is galvanized to protest apartheid after her teacher is arrested for her activism, leading her to join the student resistance movement.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Young One (1960)
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 Color of Friendship (2000)
Mahree Bok lives on a farm in South Africa. Her father is a policeman who cannot hide his joy when activist Steve Biko is caught by the South African authorities. Piper Dellums is the daughter of a US congressman from California and who lives in a nice home in Washington DC. When Mahree is chosen to spend a semester at the Dellums' house, she doesn't expect that her host family would be black. Nor do her hosts suspect that she is not a black South African.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWinged Creatures (2009)
A psychotic man opens fire in a diner, murdering numerous people before killing himself. The survivors struggle in different ways following this horrendous event: a doctor doubts his own instincts and elects to use an experimental medical procedure on his wife, while a gambler believes he's on a lucky streak. A waitress begins engaging in promiscuous sex, and a young girl whose father is among the dead gains unexpected fame.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Safety of Objects (2002)
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
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 Truth About Emanuel (2013)
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHelen (2009)
On the outside, Helen has it all – a loving family and a successful career – but when her suppressed mental illness resurfaces, the world crumbles around her. Crippled by depression, Helen finds solace through her friendship with Mathilda, a kindred spirit struggling with bipolar disorder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisF.I.S.T. (1978)
Johnny Kovak joins the Teamsters trade-union in a local chapter in the 1930s and works his way up in the organization. As he climbs higher and higher his methods become more ruthless and finally senator Madison starts a campaign to find the truth about the alleged connections with the Mob.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHounddog (2008)
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBastard Out of Carolina (1996)
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHereafter (2010)
Three people — a blue-collar American, a French journalist and a London school boy — are touched by death in different ways.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLittle Lord Fauntleroy (1980)
Young Cedric Errol and his widowed mother live in genteel poverty in 1880s Brooklyn after the death of his father. Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, has long ago disowned his son for marrying an American. But after the death of the Earl's remaining son, he decides to accept Cedric as his heir.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Sound of Silence (2019)
A successful "house tuner" in New York City, who calibrates the sound in people's homes in order to adjust their moods, meets a client with a problem he can't solve.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972)
Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCharm City Kings (2020)
Mouse desperately wants to join The Midnight Clique, the infamous Baltimore dirt bike riders who rule the summertime streets. When Midnight’s leader, Blax, takes 14-year-old Mouse under his wing, Mouse soon finds himself torn between the straight-and-narrow and a road filled with fast money and violence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBeyond the Forest (1949)
Rosa, the self-serving wife of a small-town doctor, gets a better offer when a wealthy big-city man insists she get a divorce and marry him instead. Soon she demonstrates she is capable of rather deplorable acts -- including murder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHigh Fantasy (2017)
A group of young friends on a camping trip, deep in the South African countryside wake up to discover they have all swapped bodies.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Year My Voice Broke (1987)
Set in 1962, a young prepubescent boy in rural Australia watches painfully as his best friend and first love blossoms into womanhood and falls for a thuggish rugby player, changing the lives of everyone involved.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Reflecting Skin (1990)
In 1950s rural Idaho, a young boy watches helplessly as his friends and brother fall under the spell of a mysterious widow living up the road and becomes convinced that she is a vampire.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFar from Men (2015)
A French teacher in a small Algerian village during the Algerian War forms an unexpected bond with a dissident who is ordered to be turned in to the authorities.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Little Bird Told Me (2025)
Seeking evidence of an afterlife for her seriously ill father, a Dublin teenager attempts to contact the spirit of late Irish rockstar Phil Lynott.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Young People of Ireland (2024)
A playful exploration of underground responses to social mores in 1970s Ireland, told through a day in the life of two young women.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Naked (1993)
An unemployed Brit vents his rage on unsuspecting strangers as he embarks on a nocturnal London odyssey.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStromboli (1950)
After the end of WWII, a young Lithuanian woman and a young Italian man from Stromboli impulsively marry, but married life on the island is more demanding than she can accept.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRed Beard (1965)
Aspiring to an easy job as personal physician to a wealthy family, Noboru Yasumoto is disappointed when his first post after medical school takes him to a small country clinic under the gruff doctor Red Beard. Yasumoto rebels in numerous ways, but Red Beard proves a wise and patient teacher. He gradually introduces his student to the unglamorous side of the profession, ultimately assigning him to care for a prostitute rescued from a local brothel.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Vaya?
The closest matches to Vaya are Skin (2009), A Dry White Season (1989) and Sarafina! (1992). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Vaya?
Start with Skin (2009), the closest match to Vaya.
What is the highest-rated movie like Vaya?
Red Beard (1965), rated 8.2/10 by 435 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Vaya?
A Little Bird Told Me (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Vaya?
Yes: Skin (2009), A Dry White Season (1989) and Sarafina! (1992).
How are movies similar to Vaya chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Vaya, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.