Movies like The Gin Game (1981)
The best movies like The Gin Game (1981) are Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996), Hello Sister, Goodbye Life (2006) and Girl in the Box (2016). If The Gin Game hooked you with its drama and tv movie, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedSleuth (2007)6.3/10 from 611 votes
- NewestStrangers in the Park (2026)Released 2026
Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996)
A dramatization of the life of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (Don Cheadle), with a lot of factual based occurrences. A reformed junkie returns from prison to clean up his act and devote the rest of his life to the young kids of Harlem. 1996 was the 25th anniversary of the first tournament named after him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHello Sister, Goodbye Life (2006)
A college student must take care of her 7-year-old half sister after the death of their parents.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGirl in the Box (2016)
The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors (2015)
"Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors" is based on the inspiring true story of living legend Dolly Parton's remarkable upbringing. This once-in-a-lifetime movie special takes place inside the tight-knit Parton family as they struggle to overcome devastating tragedy and discover the healing power of love, faith and a raggedy patchwork coat that helped make Parton who she is today. The film is set in the Tennessee Great Smoky Mountains in 1955. It is neither a biopic nor a musical about Dolly's whole life and performing career, but rather a family-oriented faith-based story about the incidents in her and her family's life around the time she was nine years old.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGirl Fight (2011)
Inspired by a true story, Girl Fight recounts the harrowing story of a 16-year-old, stellar high school student whose life spirals downward when her former friends conspire to upload onto the Internet a shocking video of them beating her up.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMansfield Park (2007)
Fanny Price is sent to live with her wealthy relatives, the Bertrams, where she is treated poorly by most except her cousin Edmund. Her life is complicated by the arrival of the worldly Mary and Henry Crawford
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 thisIntroducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999)
An acclaimed stage performer, Dorothy still struggled with the challenge of her color, in a time that wouldn't let some stars in by the front door. Yet against the odds she beat out many more famous rivals for the role of "Carmen Jones", becoming the first black woman ever nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award. Marriages and affairs would break her heart, but her heart was strong. Seductive and easily seduced, she was born to be a star - with all the glory and all the pain of being loved, abused, cheated, glorified, undermined and undefeated. Here was a woman who wouldn't wait in the wings. Halle Berry stars as Dorothy Dandrige.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHomeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story (2003)
Based on a true story. Liz Murray is a young girl who is taken care of by her loving, but drug-addicted parents. Liz becomes homeless at 15 and after a tragedy comes upon her, she begins her work to finish high school.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFrom Straight A's to XXX (2017)
When a change of circumstances leaves Miriam unable to pay her college tuition, she makes a surprising decision: to start performing in adult films, using the pseudonym Belle Knox. Miriam lies to her family and her friends at school, keeping her double life a secret. But soon rumours spread and Miriam becomes the subject of vicious online attacks and unwanted attention. Miriam fights back: she talks to the media, saying her new line of work empowers her as a feminist. But her confident stand has unintended consequences. Miriam is shunned by her conservative family and her colleagues in the adult film world. One impulsive decision has quickly spiralled out of control - and Miriam's problems are just beginning.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisFab Five: The Texas Cheerleader Scandal (2008)
Based on a true story. Five high school cheerleaders, including the daughter of the school principal, run amok -- and teachers, parents and administrators allow them to get away with a wide range of scandalous behavior. Known as the "Fab Five," the girls disregard school rules, drink alcohol and post suggestive pictures on the Internet. But when the new cheerleading coach attempts to discipline them, her superiors ask her to resign.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisTuesdays with Morrie (1999)
A journalist finds himself questioning his own life when his best friend, a dying man, offers him some very powerful wisdom and advice for coping in relationships, careers and society.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIron Jawed Angels (2004)
Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Perfect Cheerleader (2019)
When college freshman Cassie earns a spot on the cheerleading squad, she is overjoyed about the new friendships, status, and access to social events that come along with being on the team. When she meets Terry, the charismatic President of the Alumni Association, at an event, Cassie finds herself falling for this older man despite their age difference. Terry even helps her out by paying part of her tuition when she falls on hard times. But all is not as it seems.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisI Am Elizabeth Smart (2017)
The story of Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping and captivity, as told from her perspective.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this...First Do No Harm (1997)
When Lori Reimuller learns that her young son Robbie has epilepsy, she first trusts the judgment of the hospital staff in how best to bring it under control. As Robbie's health slides radically downhill, however, she becomes frustrated and desperate, and so does her own research into the existing literature on treatments. When she decides to try an alternative treatment called the Ketogenic Diet, devised long ago by a doctor from Johns Hopkins, she is met with narrow-minded resistance from Robbie's doctor, who is prepared to take legal action to prevent Lori from removing him from the hospital.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHeaven (2019)
Heaven Leigh Casteel, gifted and intelligent, is the eldest of five dirt-poor children struggling to survive in a mountain shack. As she endures neglect and abuse, Heaven discovers a dark secret that changes everything she thought she knew about her family. Then tragedy tears her world apart and she must forge her own way in the cruel, unknown world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTwelve Angry Men (1954)
Twelve Angry Men is a 1954 teleplay by Reginald Rose for the Studio One anthology television series. Initially staged as a CBS live production on 20 September 1954, the drama was later rewritten for the stage in 1955 under the same title and again for a feature film, 12 Angry Men (1957). The episode garnered three Emmy Awards for writer Rose, director Franklin Schaffner and Robert Cummings as Best Actor.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this13 (2010)
A naive young man assumes a dead man's identity and finds himself embroiled in an underground world of power, violence, and chance where men gamble behind closed doors on the lives of other men.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisSleuth (2007)
Locked in a high-tech English manor, bound in a deadly duel of wits, Andrew Wyke and Milo Tindle come together as English gentlemen to discuss the matter of Wyke's wife: the woman both are sleeping with.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMe (1973)
Tomby, a challenged teenage boy, manipulates his family who cater to his every desire. Only his twin brother Greg treats him as a human being capable of development. A powerful drama / dark comedy with a surprising ending.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Last of Mrs. Lincoln (1976)
The Last of Mrs. Lincoln depicts the final seventeen years of Mary Todd Lincoln's life, following her husband's assassination.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Strangers in the Park (2026)
A former communist militant and a "live and let live" man form an unlikely friendship on a park bench, sharing their life stories with humor and heart.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Miss Moffat (1974)
A filmed production of the musical Miss Moffat based on The Corn is Green starring Bette Davis.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Jumbo (2025)
Desperate to prove to his peers that he’s more than a chubby kid that never wins at anything, little Don wishes to win his local talent show by performing a stageplay inspired from a storybook written by his late parents. When unfortunately a bully stole that book, at the same time a little ghost appeared from the spirit world asking for Don’s help to reunite her with her parents’ spirits. The two new friends then embark on an exciting adventure to help each other and learn the true meaning of friendship.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMethod (2017)
A seasoned actor and a pop star are cast as leads in a gay romantic play. As the actor teaches the pop star method acting, the line between fiction and reality is blurred and they become drawn to each other.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIn den Schluchten des Balkan (1960)
TV stage play based on the Karl May book of the same name.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Espèces menacées (2001)
An accountant, presumed honest, inadvertently finds 7 million francs in his bag and decides to change his life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Harrison Montgomery (2008)
In a rundown apartment complex in San Francisco's Tenderloin, a septuagenarian seer is waiting for his final message. For decades the eccentric recluse has chronicled the phrases of the Wheel of Fortune and deciphered their hidden meaning - the details of a mission to save his neighbors from their troubles.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like The Gin Game and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Gin Game?
The closest matches to The Gin Game are Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996), Hello Sister, Goodbye Life (2006) and Girl in the Box (2016). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Gin Game?
Start with Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996), the closest match to The Gin Game.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Gin Game?
Sleuth (2007), rated 6.3/10 by 611 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Gin Game?
Strangers in the Park (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Gin Game?
Yes: Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996), Hello Sister, Goodbye Life (2006) and Girl in the Box (2016).
How are movies similar to The Gin Game chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Gin Game, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.