Movies like J. Edgar Hoover (1987)
The best movies like J. Edgar Hoover (1987) are All the Way (2016), The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2017) and The Scarlet and the Black (1983). If J. Edgar Hoover hooked you with its tv movie and history, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedRichard Jewell (2019)7.4/10 from 2,844 votes
- NewestMary (2024)Released 2024
All the Way (2016)
Lyndon B. Johnson's amazing 11-month journey from taking office after JFK's assassination, through the fight to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act and his own presidential campaign, culminating on the night LBJ is actually elected to the office – no longer the 'accidental President.'
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2017)
An African-American woman becomes an unwitting pioneer for medical breakthroughs when her cells are used to create the first immortal human cell line in the early 1950s.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Scarlet and the Black (1983)
Fr. Hugh O'Flaherty is a Vatican official in 1943-45 who has been hiding downed pilots, escaped prisoners of war, and Italian resistance families. His activities become so large that the Nazis decide to assassinate him the next time he leaves the Vatican.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGrey Gardens (2009)
Based on the life stories of the eccentric aunt and first cousin of Jackie Onassis raised as Park Avenue débutantes but who withdrew from New York society, taking shelter at their Long Island summer home, "Grey Gardens." As their wealth and contact with the outside world dwindled, so did their grasp on reality.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Call to Spy (2020)
The story of Vera Atkins, a crafty spy recruiter, and two of the first women she selects for Churchill's "secret army": Virginia Hall, a daring American undaunted by a disability and Noor Inayat Khan, a pacifist. These civilian women form an unlikely sisterhood while entangled in dangerous missions to turn the tide of the war.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMr. Turner (2014)
Eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner lives his last 25 years with gusto and secretly becomes involved with a seaside landlady, while his faithful housekeeper bears an unrequited love for him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBaywatch: Hawaiian Wedding (2003)
Mitch Buchannon, believed to have died in a boating accident survived and only has amnesia, he has been recovering in a Los Angeles hospital. His new fiancée, Allison Ford, resembles his old lover, Lt. Stephanie Holden who died years ago.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin (2024)
As the world teeters on the brink of annihilation, Dietrich Bonhoeffer joins a deadly plot to assassinate Hitler, risking his faith and fate to save millions of Jews from genocide.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTalhotBlond (2012)
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMary (2024)
A miraculous conception. A merciless king. A murderous pursuit. Mary's journey to give birth to Jesus unfolds in this biblical coming-of-age epic.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMeltdown: Days of Destruction (2006)
Despite scientist Nathan's warnings, his boss continues an experiment meant as publicity for his satellite firm: exploding an asteroid. Instead it splits, and the major piece, the size of Iceland, changes course to earth. It is deflected but so close that it shift our course closer to the sun, causing rapid extreme heating, hopefully only mid-term. Nathan warns his sister, TV journalist Carly, and she her lover, police detective Tom. He brings his unruly daughter Kim, her ex-con lover C.J. and her mother, nurse Bonnie, when Nathan offers a flight to a friend's Arctic weather station. Tom takes charge of a dangerous trip to the airport, as everywhere on earth things catch fire and people fight for water, transport and sheer looting.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Dinner with Hervé (2018)
An unlikely friendship evolves over one wild night in LA between a struggling journalist and actor Hervé Villechaize, the world's most famous gun-toting dwarf, resulting in life-changing consequences for both.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRosewood (1997)
Spurred by a white woman's lie, vigilantes destroy a black Florida town and slay inhabitants in 1923.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCollision Earth (2011)
A huge solar flare blasts Mercury out of it's orbit and provides it with an intense magnetic field and it's on collision course for Earth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisFlyboys (2006)
The adventures of the Lafayette Escadrille, young Americans who volunteered for the French military before the U.S. entered World War I, and became the country's first fighter pilots.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAdventures of a Mathematician (2021)
The warmhearted story of Polish immigrant and mathematician Stan Ulam, who moved to the U.S. in the 1930s. Stan deals with the difficult losses of family and friends all while helping to create the hydrogen bomb and the first computer.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRichard Jewell (2019)
Richard Jewell thinks quick, works fast, and saves hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives after a domestic terrorist plants several pipe bombs and they explode during a concert, only to be falsely suspected of the crime by sloppy FBI work and sensational media coverage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Audrey Hepburn Story (2000)
The film spans from Hepburn's early childhood to the 1950s which details her life as a Dutch ballerina, coming to grips with her parents' divorce, and enduring life in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands during World War II. She then settles in the U.S. where she succeeds in making it big as a movie actress, in such movies as Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMiss Marple: They Do It with Mirrors (1992)
At the insistence of Ruth Van Rydock, an old schoolfriend who is convinced that there is something wrong, Miss Marple agrees to visit 'Stonygates', the country house of Ruth's sister.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNormal (2003)
A Midwestern husband and father announces his plan to have a sex change operation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSix crimes sans assassins (1990)
A legendary police commissioner is at the edge of writing his memoirs when he asked to help out with solving a locked room mystery where two people are found dead in an apartment that was locked from the inside.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
La Grotte aux loups (1980)
A postman in a small mountain village finds a woman and her son both dead in the "grotte aux loups" (cave of wolves). He soon begins to realize than it's not natural death, and that someone in the village in behind their murder, while tragic events occur.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Riot at the Rite (2005)
In the spring of 1913, Parisian businessman Gabriel Astruc opens a new theater on the Champs Elysées. The first performance is the premiere of Igor Stravinsky's 'The Rite of Spring', danced by the Ballet Russes. The rehearsal process is extremely fraught: the orchestra dislike Stravinsky's harsh, atonal music; the dancers dislike the 'ugly' choreography of Vaslav Nijinsky. The volatile, bisexual Nijinsky is in a strained relationship with the much older Sergei Diaghilev, the Ballet Russes' charismatic but manipulative impresario. Public expectation is extremely high after Nijinsky's success in 'L'apres-midi d'un faune'. Finally, 'The Rite of Spring' premieres to a gossip-loving, febrile, fashion-conscious Parisian audience sharply divided as to its merits.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & history
Smashing the Spy Ring (1938)
G-Men in Washington break up a powerful spy ring and capture the ringleaders.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
FBI Girl (1951)
G-men grab a gangster and a governor thanks to a clerk in the fingerprints division.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Scarface Mob (1959)
In 1929 Chicago, Federal investigator Eliot Ness struggles in the fight against Al Capone. He decides to form a special team of reliable, dedicated, honest law enforcement officers. First broadcast in April 1959 as two episodes of the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse anthology series, this set the stage for the popular series The Untouchables (1959-63). The two-parter was released as a theatrical feature film in international territories in late 1959 and in the US and UK in 1962.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Exile Express (1939)
When her scientist-employer is murdered, a female legal immigrant suddenly finds herself being deported via a train full of criminal aliens, g-men, reporters - and foreign agents trying to smuggle her off and into the hands of the murderous gang.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Federal Man-Hunt (1938)
By a daring ruse and inside help, Pete Rennick, a noted criminal behind bars on federal charges, escapes from the prison, and all of the law-agencies and local police are out to catch him with roadblocks and every car searched, but the escapee gets away. Bill Hasford, a private detective, investigating a racket finds it leads to the wanted man, and has the biggest adventure of his career.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Leader: Karl Marx (2019)
A story about Karl Marx and his controversial love for Jenny, his near-lost friendship with Engels, the evolution of philosophy and dialectics, the thought of transforming the world through political economics and his contribution to the revolution of the working classes.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
Yağmur Rengi (2021)
Yağmur, drawing pictures on electrical transformers for the public benefit, gets in a friendly and warm neighborhood that she longed for all her life, in her quest to get rid of her childhood traumas. This new adventure will not only relieve the longing for the warmth of a family she wished, but also opens the door to a totally new life where she will forget the pangs of love in her heart.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like J. Edgar Hoover?
The closest matches to J. Edgar Hoover are All the Way (2016), The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2017) and The Scarlet and the Black (1983). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after J. Edgar Hoover?
Start with All the Way (2016), the closest match to J. Edgar Hoover.
What is the highest-rated movie like J. Edgar Hoover?
Richard Jewell (2019), rated 7.4/10 by 2,844 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like J. Edgar Hoover?
Mary (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like J. Edgar Hoover?
Yes: All the Way (2016), The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2017) and The Scarlet and the Black (1983).
How are movies similar to J. Edgar Hoover chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside J. Edgar Hoover, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.