Movies like Ward Six (1978)
The best movies like Ward Six (1978) are The Professor and the Madman (2019), Shutter Island (2010) and Neverwas (2005). If Ward Six hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedShutter Island (2010)8.2/10 from 26,784 votes
- NewestThe Life of Chuck (2025)Released 2025
The Professor and the Madman (2019)
Professor James Murray begins work compiling words for the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary in the mid 19th century, and receives over 10,000 entries from a patient at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, Dr. William Minor.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisShutter Island (2010)
World War II soldier-turned-U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by troubling visions and a mysterious doctor.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisNeverwas (2005)
Zach Riley is a psychiatrist, who leaves a job at a prestigious university, to take up a job at the privately run mental institution, Millwood. What he doesn't reveal at the time of his appointment is that this was the very place where his novelist father, T.L. Pierson, spent many years of his life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this25th Hour (2002)
On the eve of a seven-year prison sentence, a New York drug dealer spends his final day of freedom confronting his past, his relationships, and the choices that led to his downfall in a city still reeling from 9/11.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGirl, Interrupted (1999)
Set in the changing world of the late 1960s, Susanna Kaysen's prescribed "short rest" from a psychiatrist she had met only once becomes a strange, unknown journey into Alice's Wonderland, where she struggles with the thin line between normal and crazy. Susanna soon realizes how hard it is to get out once she has been committed, and she ultimately has to choose between the world of people who belong inside or the difficult world of reality outside.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Life of Chuck (2025)
In this extraordinary story of an ordinary man, Charles 'Chuck' Krantz experiences the wonder of love, the heartbreak of loss, and the multitudes contained in all of us.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSpellbound (1945)
When Dr. Anthony Edwardes arrives at a Vermont mental hospital to replace the outgoing hospital director, Dr. Constance Peterson, a psychoanalyst, discovers Edwardes is actually an impostor. The man confesses that the real Dr. Edwardes is dead and fears he may have killed him, but cannot recall anything. Dr. Peterson, however is convinced his impostor is innocent of the man's murder, and joins him on a quest to unravel his amnesia through psychoanalysis.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Physician (2013)
England, 1021: Born in a miserable mining town, Robert Cole swears to become a physician and vanquish disease and death. His harsh path of many years, a quest for knowledge besieged by countless challenges and sacrifices, leads him to the remote Isfahan, in Persia, where he meets Ibn Sina, the greatest healer of his time.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Dangerous Method (2011)
Seduced by the challenge of an impossible case, the driven Dr. Carl Jung takes the unbalanced yet beautiful Sabina Spielrein as his patient. Jung’s weapon is the method of his master, the renowned Sigmund Freud. Both men fall under Sabina’s spell.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAsphalt City (2024)
A young paramedic is paired with a seasoned partner on the night shift in New York revealing a city in crisis. Discovering the chaos firsthand, he is tested with the ethical ambiguity that can be the difference between life and death.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGigi & Nate (2022)
A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBringing Out the Dead (1999)
Once called "Father Frank" for his efforts to rescue lives, Frank Pierce sees the ghosts of those he failed to save around every turn. He has tried everything he can to get fired, calling in sick, delaying taking calls where he might have to face one more victim he couldn't help, yet cannot quit the job on his own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAwakenings (1990)
Dr. Malcolm Sayer, a shy research physician, uses an experimental drug to "awaken" the catatonic victims of a rare disease. Leonard is the first patient to receive the controversial treatment. His awakening, filled with awe and enthusiasm, proves a rebirth for Sayer too, as the exuberant patient reveals life's simple but unutterably sweet pleasures to the introverted doctor.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMy Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2010)
Brad has committed murder and barricaded himself inside his house. With the help of his friends and neighbours, the cops piece together the strange tale of how this nice young man arrived at such a dark place.
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 Giver (2014)
In a seemingly perfect community, without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, a young boy is chosen to learn from an elderly man about the true pain and pleasure of the "real" world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
Dr. Steven Murphy is a renowned cardiovascular surgeon who presides over a spotless household with his wife and two children. Lurking at the margins of his idyllic suburban existence is Martin, a fatherless teen who insinuates himself into the doctor's life in gradually unsettling ways.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Pelican Brief (1993)
A law student's theory about the recent deaths of two Supreme Court justices embroils her in a far-reaching web of murder, corruption, and greed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCall Me Crazy: A Five Film (2013)
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
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 thisCesta ženy (1975)
A chronicle of dramatic events capturing the fates of people living in a Slovak village just after World War II. Thirty years later, the main character Anna recalls a decision that fundamentally changed her life. During the period of incipient collectivization, she chose happiness and a difficult life with a poor man founding a cooperative in the village, although this significantly weakened her relationship with her own mother and at the same time interrupted a long-standing tradition in relation to the preservation of family property.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
It Was Not In Vain (1957)
Boris Buzančić plays an idealistic young doctor who is assigned a nearly deserted village. The backwards residents at first resent Buzančić's new-fangled methods. Gradually, he proves his worth and wins their confidence. The clincher comes when Buzančić rids the community of a despotic villain.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Swept from the Sea (1998)
The film tells the story of Russian emigree and the only survivor from ship crash Yanko Goorall and servant Amy Foster in the end of 19th century. When Yanko enters a farm sick and hungry after the shipwreck, everyone is afraid of him, except for Amy, who is very kind and helps him. Soon he becomes like a son for Dr. James Kennedy and romance between Yanko and Amy follows.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLive and Become (2005)
In 1980, the black Falashas in Ethiopia are recognised as genuine Jews and are secretly carried to Israel. The day before the transport the son of a Jewish mother dies. In his place and with his name (Schlomo) she takes a Christian 9-year-old boy.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Lake House (2006)
When architect Alex Wyler moves into an unusual glass house on stilts over a lake, he discovers a note from the previous tenant in the mailbox--but no one's lived in the house for years. He replies and soon discovers that he's corresponding with a doctor named Kate Forster. Their correspondence, only through the 'magical' mailbox, turns romantic and their paths cross in unexpected ways, but when they try to truly connect, danger looms. They must try to unravel the mystery behind their extraordinary romance before it's too late.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMission to Mars (2000)
When the first manned mission to Mars meets with a catastrophic and mysterious disaster after reporting an unidentified structure, a rescue mission is launched to investigate the tragedy and bring back any survivors.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNobody Knows (2004)
In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisTriptych o láske (1981)
TV movie "Triptych of love" was created by short stories by famous Slovak writer Ladislava Nádaši - Jégeho. Historical themes in his works have an ambition to bring over to look attractive environment and time bygone era strong dramatic stories and exciting human destinies. Renaissance short stories from the collection "Italy" are a variety of views from different backgrounds, linking theme of many forms of love, its tones and semitones, from bitterly ridiculous after tragic. Screenwriter Ján Števček that dramatically processed three Jégeho stories.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
And the Band Played On (1993)
The story of the discovery of the AIDS epidemic and the political infighting of the scientific community hampering the early fight with it.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPirogov (1947)
A biopic based on the life of Russian scientist and doctor Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov (1810-1881), famous for being the founder of field surgery.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Ward Six?
The closest matches to Ward Six are The Professor and the Madman (2019), Shutter Island (2010) and Neverwas (2005). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Ward Six?
Start with The Professor and the Madman (2019), the closest match to Ward Six.
What is the highest-rated movie like Ward Six?
Shutter Island (2010), rated 8.2/10 by 26,784 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Ward Six?
The Life of Chuck (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Ward Six chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Ward Six, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.