Movies like Carlitos Medellin (2004)
The best movies like Carlitos Medellin (2004) are Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2019), Anna Nicole Smith: You Don't Know Me (2023) and Naqoyqatsi (2002). If Carlitos Medellin hooked you with its documentary, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- NewestA Toxic Love Story (2026)Released 2026
- In SpanishBank Robbers: The Last Great Heist (2022)Also in Spanish
Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2019)
Film adaptation of French economist Thomas Piketty's ground-breaking global bestseller of the same name: an eye-opening journey through wealth and power.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAnna Nicole Smith: You Don't Know Me (2023)
From the heights of her modeling fame to her tragic death, this documentary reveals Anna Nicole Smith through the eyes of the people closest to her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNaqoyqatsi (2002)
A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFuck (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 thisDirected by John Ford (1971)
A documentary about the life and films of director John Ford.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEx Libris: The New York Public Library (2017)
A documentary about how a dominant cultural and demographic institution both sustains their traditional activities and adapts to the digital revolution.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Toxic Love Story (2026)
A string of threatening emails escalates into a revenge plot involving a newly married US marshal and his ex-girlfriend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBank Robbers: The Last Great Heist (2022)
Through candid interviews, the perpetrators of Argentina's most notorious bank heist detail how — and why — they carried out the radical 2006 operation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisS4: The Bob Lazar Story (2026)
Over 35 years after Bob Lazar's revelations, this documentary exposes secrets of a facility the government still denies. Featuring Lazar's testimony, recreations, and new evidence, it reopens a case that continues to spark global curiosity
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisCome See Me in the Good Light (2025)
In an intimate and joyful story of love in the face of loss, celebrated poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley find strength—and unexpected hilarity—in what might be their final year together.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCrips and Bloods: Made in America (2009)
With a first-person look at the notorious Crips and Bloods, this film examines the conditions that have lead to decades of devastating gang violence among young African Americans growing up in South Los Angeles.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like this4 Little Girls (1997)
On September 15, 1963, a bomb destroyed a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls who were there for Sunday school. It was a crime that shocked the nation--and a defining moment in the history of the civil-rights movement. Spike Lee re-examines the full story of the bombing, including a revealing interview with former Alabama Governor George Wallace.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe U.S. vs. John Lennon (2006)
A documentary on the life of John Lennon, with a focus on the time in his life when he transformed from a musician into an antiwar activist.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJim: The James Foley Story (2016)
In August, 2014, a video of the public execution of American photojournalist James Foley rippled across the globe. Foley wore an orange jumpsuit as he knelt beside an ISIS militant dressed in black. That image challenged the world to deal with a new face of terror. And it tested one American family. Seen through the lens of filmmaker Brian Oakes, Foley’s close childhood friend, Jim takes us from small-town New England to the adrenaline-fueled front lines of Libya and Syria, where Foley pushed the limits of danger to report on the plight of civilians impacted by war.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Mystery of D.B. Cooper (2020)
This documentary brings to life the stories of four people believed by their family and friends to be “DB Cooper,” a man who hijacked a 727 flying out of Seattle and jumped from the plane over the wilds of Washington State with a parachute and $200,000, never to be heard from again.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Class of ‘92 (2013)
A detailing of the rise to prominence and global sporting superstardom of six supremely talented young Manchester United football players (David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Phil and Gary Neville). The film covers the period 1992-1999, culminating in Manchester United's European Cup triumph.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like this28 Up (1985)
Just two years away from turning 30, participants in Michael Apted's documentary series are facing serious questions of identity and purpose, wondering whether they've found their place in the world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLouis Theroux: Twilight of the Porn Stars (2012)
In 1997, Louis Theroux made a documentary about the world of male porn performers in Los Angeles. 15 years later, he returns to find a business struggling with the deluge of free porn on the internet. Louis revisits some of the original programme's contributors as well as meeting the latest crop of porn performers dreaming of porn stardom.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTrainwreck: The Real Project X (2025)
A night of drunken chaos rocks a quiet Dutch town in this shocking documentary about a teen's birthday invite that accidentally went viral on Facebook.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
SnoozefestMovies like thisTo Kill a Tiger (2023)
Ranjit, a farmer in India, takes on the fight of his life when he demands justice for his 13-year-old daughter, the victim of a brutal gang rape. His decision to support his daughter is virtually unheard of, and his journey unprecedented.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGamin (1977)
After an extensive immersion work on abandoned childhood, Ciro Durán presents, from his point of view, the life of street children, who have broken all family ties and have regrouped to survive in the concrete jungle.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Colombia in My Arms (2022)
After 52 years of armed conflict the FARC guerrillas are about to hand over their arms in exchange for political participation and social inclusion of the poor. Ernesto is one of them. The much celebrated Colombian peace agreement throws Ernesto and the polarised society around him into chaos in which everyone is afraid of the future and their own survival.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Like Shadows Growing as the Sun Goes Down (2014)
Medellin. Tireless car traffic. In the margins of a society launched at top speed, some lurking engines shutdown to make a living; Jugglers at intersections, employees on breaks, whose precise and repetitive work mark the flow of time which is always repeated.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Los Andes Symphony Orchestra (2020)
The North of Cauca is the region of Colombia most affected by the internal armed conflict since 1940. There is an orchestra of ancestral music composed of young indigenous people of the Nasa ethnic group who, with their instruments, their voice and their poetry, remember Maryi Vanessa Coicue, Sebastian Ul and Ingrid Guejia, three of the hundreds of indigenous children who have died because of this eternal and useless war between leftist guerrillas, armed groups of the extreme right, drug traffickers and the Colombian State.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
La Buena Vida - The Good Life (2015)
The village of Tamaquito lies deep in the forests of Colombia. Here, nature provides the people with everything they need. But the Wayúu community's way of life is being destroyed by the vast and rapidly growing El Cerrejón coal mine. Determined to save his community from forced resettlement, the leader Jairo Fuentes negotiates with the mine's operators, which soon becomes a fight to survive.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
La Flor de La Lengua de Vaca (2018)
Camila lives her last days in the jungle as a guerrilla of the FARC-EP at the crossroads between an uncertain future of peace and the lingering memory of a childhood severely punished. Sent to a war hospital in the middle of the jungle, Camila begins a journey into her past, to the depths of an old wound that needs to be healed. A journey that ends up leading her to an unexpected reunion with her friend Ricardo, a young guerrilla recently amputated due to a mine.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
País de los Pueblos sin Dueños (2009)
Colombia will never be the same after those 61 days of the Social and Community Minga, which began on October 11, 2008, and culminated in Bogotá’s Plaza de Bolívar. From Cauca, the people of thought, speech, and dignity rose up to reject—in solidarity with “Another Colombia”—the state policies that, through terror, subject them to hunger and misery. As expected, the government responded with terror to a peaceful mobilization, and its actions left two dead and 120 injured.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Sumercé (2019)
Sumercé follows veteran activist Don Eduardo, rising political leader César Pachón and agricultural educator Rosita as they fight their government’s decision to allow companies to carve up the campesinos birthright in rural Colombia and the country's access to fresh water.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Foreign Wars (2016)
From the land of narco-violence to the land of displaced persons. The documentary Guerras Ajenas ('Wars of Others') explores the consequences of the war on drugs in Colombia, and one of its main tools: aerial spraying.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
The Penny War (1985)
In Bogotá, urban public transport drivers do not receive a fixed salary. This has triggered a daily war marked by an anguishing and dangerous routine that only benefits large business owners and leaves the State as an indifferent bystander.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Carlitos Medellin?
The closest matches to Carlitos Medellin are Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2019), Anna Nicole Smith: You Don't Know Me (2023) and Naqoyqatsi (2002). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Carlitos Medellin?
Start with Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2019), the closest match to Carlitos Medellin.
What is the newest movie like Carlitos Medellin?
A Toxic Love Story (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Spanish movies like Carlitos Medellin?
Yes: Bank Robbers: The Last Great Heist (2022), Gamin (1977) and Like Shadows Growing as the Sun Goes Down (2014).
How are movies similar to Carlitos Medellin chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Carlitos Medellin, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.