Movies like Hope Dances (2017)
The best movies like Hope Dances (2017) are Ballet Shoes (2008), The Rookie (2002) and I Believe (2019). If Hope Dances hooked you with its family and drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Red Shoes (1948)8.0/10 from 787 votes
- NewestI Can (2023)Released 2023
Ballet Shoes (2008)
An unusual explorer named Gum and his kindly niece adopt three orphans -- Pauline, Petrova and Posy -- and raise them as sisters in 1930s London. But the girls must fend for themselves when Gum doesn't return from one of his adventures. Together, they nurture their passions for acting, aviation and ballet in this charming TV adaptation of Noel Streatfield's novel.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Rookie (2002)
Jim Morris never made it out of the minor leagues before a shoulder injury ended his pitching career twelve years ago. Now a married-with-children high-school chemistry teacher and baseball coach in Texas, Jim's team makes a deal with him: if they win the district championship, Jim will try out with a major-league organization. The bet proves incentive enough for the team, and they go from worst to first, making it to state for the first time in the history of the school. Jim, forced to live up to his end of the deal, is nearly laughed off the try-out field--until he gets onto the mound, where he confounds the scouts (and himself) by clocking successive 98 mph fastballs, good enough for a minor-league contract with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Jim's still got a lot of pitches to throw before he makes it to The Show, but with his big-league dreams revived, there's no telling where he could go.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Believe (2019)
A 9 year old boy experiences God's power in a supernatural way.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Second Chance (2011)
A young girl and her coach overcome adversity to make their way into the National Australian Gymnastics Squad.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAn American Girl: McKenna Shoots for the Stars (2012)
A young girl struggles to maintain her school grades while competing as a gymnast.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFlicka (2006)
Katy McLaughlin desires to work on her family's mountainside horse ranch, although her father insists she finish boarding school. Katy finds a mustang in the hills near her ranch. The headstrong 16 year old then sets her mind to tame a mustang and prove to her father she can run the ranch. But when tragedy happens, it will take all the love and strength the family can muster to restore hope.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSkater Girl (2021)
Prerna, a teenager growing up in rural India, comes of age when she’s introduced to the sport of skateboarding. As a result, she has to fight the odds to follow her dreams and compete in the national championship.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & family
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWhere the Red Fern Grows (2003)
Set in the Ozark Mountains during the Great Depression, Billy Coleman works hard and saves his earnings for 2 years to achieve his dream of buying two coonhound pups. He develops a new trust in God as he faces overwhelming challenges in adventure and tragedy roaming the river bottoms of Cherokee country with "Old Dan" and "Little Ann."
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhere the Red Fern Grows (1974)
Billy Coleman works hard and saves his earnings for two years to achieve his dream of buying two red-bone coonhound pups. He develops a new trust in life as he faces overwhelming challenges in adventure and tragedy roaming the river bottoms of Cherokee country with his dogs, Old Dan and Little Ann.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHeidi (2005)
Swiss girl Adelheid 'Heidi' is orphaned young. Aunt Detie brings her to grandpa Alp and his wife, who live isolated in the Alps since his murder charge. Heidi soon takes to the wild country, especially accompanying young goatherd Peter. Grandpa refuses to send her to school in the city, but aunt Detie returns and forces him to give in. She's sent to a posh lady in Frankfurt, where she'll be a companion for crippled daughter Clara after school hours.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & family
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThree Wishes (1995)
While Jane Holman is driving with her two sons, she accidentally runs into a drifter, Jack McCloud, who breaks his leg. Being responsible, Jane invites Jack, and his dog, to stay at her home until his leg has healed. Jack struggles to adapt their lifestyle, and finds himself loved by the family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Second Chance: Rivals! (2019)
As Maddy takes on coaching a team of young twelve-year-old gymnasts, she faces up to intense city versus country rivalry, racism, cyberbullying and her own self-doubt but eventually takes the challenge head on.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & family
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Perfect Game (2009)
Based on a true story, a group of boys from Monterrey, Mexico who become the first non-U.S. team to win the Little League World Series.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & family
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHoney: Rise Up and Dance (2018)
Street dancer Skyler comes out of the shadow of her trained dancer sister, Tosha, & joins a dance competition with the Honey dance studio; the prize is a college scholarship.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSnoopy Presents: It's the Small Things, Charlie Brown (2022)
Charlie Brown is determined to win the big baseball game. But things turn into a fiasco right before the matchup, when Sally bonds with a little flower on the pitcher's mound and vows to protect it at all costs.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBirds of Paradise (2021)
Two dancers at an elite ballet academy in Paris must compete for a contract to join the highly coveted Opéra National de Paris as they confront their competitive nature, sexual awakenings and how far they would go to win.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Pagemaster (1994)
Rich knows a lot about accidents. So much so, he is scared to do anything that might endanger him, like riding his bike, or climbing into his treehouse. While in an old library, he is mystically transported into the unknown world of books, and he has to try and get home again.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBruised (2021)
Jackie Justice is a mixed martial arts fighter who leaves the sport in disgrace. Down on her luck and simmering with rage and regret years after the fight, she's coaxed into a brutal underground fight by her manager and boyfriend Desi and grabs the attention of a fight league promoter who promises Jackie a life back in the Octagon. But the road to redemption becomes unexpectedly personal when Manny - the son she gave up as an infant - shows up at her doorstep. A triumphant story of a fighter who reclaims her power, in and out of the ring, when everyone has counted her out
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCenter Stage: On Pointe (2016)
Jonathan Reeves is tasked with infusing more contemporary styles and modernism into the American Ballet Academy, and enlists his top choreographers Charlie, Cooper and Tommy to recruit dancers to compete at a camp where the winners will be selected to join the Academy. Bella Parker, who has always lived in the shadow of her hugely successful sister Kate, finally gets her chance to step into the limelight as one of the dancers recruited for the camp.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStomp the Yard (2007)
After the death of his younger brother, a troubled 19-year-old street dancer from Los Angeles is able to bypass juvenile hall by enrolling in the historically black, Truth University in Atlanta, Georgia. But his efforts to get an education and woo the girl he likes are sidelined when he is courted by the top two campus fraternities, both of which want and need his fierce street-style dance moves to win the highly coveted national step show competition.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSave the Last Dance (2001)
After the death of her mother, Sara moves to the South Side of Chicago to live with her father and gets transferred to a majority-black school. Her life takes a turn for the better when befriends Chenille and her brother Derek, who helps her with her dancing skills.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Can (2023)
A couple's adulterous affair leads to an unexpected pregnancy. They leave their spouses to begin a new life together, but their daughter Katelyn is born with a birth defect: only one fully developed arm. Although her dad believes Katelyn's condition is God’s punishment for the affair, Katelyn defies all odds with an incredible gift for softball.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & family
The Red Shoes (1948)
A fledgling ballerina falls in love with a brilliant composer, but the jealous head of the ballet company plots to drive them apart.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisImmortal Melodies (1935)
Vienna, Austria, late 1870s. After suffering an irreparable misfortune, the Austrian composer Johann Strauss Jr. (1825-99), the Waltz King, falls in love with a ballet dancer, which disappoints the famous operetta singer Marie Geistinger…
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
La Chèvre aux pieds d'or (1926)
Spy drama about a young dancer from a poor background in Poland who is forced by a baron to spy for him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Gaining & Losing (2021)
What happens to friendship when a shared dream is abandoned? Gaining and Losing explores a friendship torn apart when a young dancer combats an eating disorder and her talented friend can't understand.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Goodbye Girl (1977)
After being dumped by her live-in boyfriend, an unemployed dancer and her 10-year-old daughter are reluctantly forced to live with a struggling off-Broadway actor.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe White Crow (2018)
The story of Rudolf Nureyev, whose escape to the West stunned the world at the height of the Cold War. With his magnetic presence, Nureyev emerged as ballet’s most famous star, a wild and beautiful dancer limited by the world of 1950s Leningrad. His flirtation with Western artists and ideas led him into a high-stakes game of cat and mouse with the KGB.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Black Swans (1984)
Violetta is a ballerina in a provincial town. She is the daughter of an opera singer and a violinist. The years pass in anticipation of the big role, and the men she meets do not understand her and she remains alone. When the chance finally comes - to play the role of Odette, Violetta realises she has failed.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Mao’s Last Dancer (2009)
At the age of 11, Li was plucked from a poor Chinese village by Madame Mao's cultural delegates and taken to Beijing to study ballet. In 1979, during a cultural exchange to Texas, he falls in love with an American woman. Two years later, he managed to defect and went on to perform as a principal dancer for the Houston Ballet and as a principal artist with the Australian Ballet.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Hope Dances?
The closest matches to Hope Dances are Ballet Shoes (2008), The Rookie (2002) and I Believe (2019). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Hope Dances?
Start with Ballet Shoes (2008), the closest match to Hope Dances.
What is the highest-rated movie like Hope Dances?
The Red Shoes (1948), rated 8.0/10 by 787 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Hope Dances?
I Can (2023) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Hope Dances?
Yes: Ballet Shoes (2008), The Rookie (2002) and I Believe (2019).
How are movies similar to Hope Dances chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Hope Dances, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.