Movies like The First Grader (2010)
The best movies like The First Grader (2010) are The Invisible Woman (2013), The Edge of Love (2008) and Antwone Fisher (2002). If The First Grader hooked you with its drama and history, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedBraveheart (1995)7.9/10 from 11,604 votes
- NewestYour Fault: London (2026)Released 2026
The Invisible Woman (2013)
In 1857, at the height of his fame and fortune, novelist and social critic Charles Dickens meets and falls in love with teenage stage actress Nelly Ternan. As she becomes the focus of his heart and mind, as well as his muse, painful secrecy is the price both must pay.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Edge of Love (2008)
When the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and his flirtatious wife Caitlin sweep into war-torn London, the last thing they expect is to bump into Dylan's childhood sweetheart Vera. Despite her joy at seeing Dylan after so many years, Vera is swept off her feet by a dashing officer, William Killick, and finds herself torn between the open adoration of her new found beau and the wily charms of the exotic Welshman.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAntwone Fisher (2002)
A sailor prone to violent outbursts is sent to a naval psychiatrist for help. Refusing at first to open up, the young man eventually breaks down and reveals a horrific childhood. Through the guidance of his doctor, he confronts his painful past and begins a quest to find the family he never knew.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWhite Mischief (1987)
A millionaire past his prime and his young wife arrive in Kenya circa 1940 to find that the other affluent British expatriates are living large as the homefront gears up for war. They are busy swapping partners, doing drugs, and attending lavish parties and horse races. She begins a torrid affair with one of the bon vivants, and her husband finds out and confronts them. The husband and wife decide to break up peacefully, but the bon vivant is murdered and all the evidence points to the husband.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAn Officer and a Gentleman (1982)
Zack Mayo is an aloof, taciturn man who aspires to be a navy pilot. Once he arrives at training camp for his 13-week officer's course, Mayo runs afoul of abrasive, no-nonsense drill Sergeant Emil Foley. Mayo is an excellent cadet, but a little cold around the heart, so Foley rides him mercilessly, sensing that the young man would be prime officer material if he weren't so self-involved. Zack's affair with a working girl is likewise compromised by his unwillingness to give of himself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRachel, Rachel (1968)
Rachel is a 35-year-old school teacher who has no man in her life and lives with her mother. When a man from the big city returns and asks her out, she begins to have to make decisions about her life and where she wants it to go.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisShooting Dogs (2006)
Two westerners, a priest and a teacher find themselves in the middle of the Rwandan genocide and face a moral dilemna. Do they place themselves in danger and protect the refugees, or escape the country with their lives? Based on a true story.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisJude (1996)
In late 19th-century England, Jude aspires to be an academic, but is hobbled by his blue-collar background. Instead, he works as a stonemason and is trapped in an unloving marriage to a farmer's daughter named Arabella. But when his wife leaves him, Jude sees an opportunity to improve himself. He moves to the city and begins an affair with his married cousin, Sue, courting tragedy every step of the way.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlind (2017)
A novelist is blinded in a car crash that killed his wife and several years later rediscovers his passion for life and writing when he embarks on an affair with the neglected wife of an indicted businessman.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTime Is Up (2021)
Vivien, an accomplished student with a passion for physics, and Roy, a troubled young man, are involved in an accident that forces them to reclaim their lives one minute at the time.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFire with Fire (1986)
A tough, street-smart kid serving a sentence in a state youth reformatory meets a beautiful, innocent girl studying at a nearby convent. When forbidden love blossoms between them, they must fight the prison authorities, their parents and the law.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEscape from Pretoria (2020)
South Africa, 1978. Tim Jenkin and Stephen Lee, two white political activists from the African National Congress imprisoned by the apartheid regime, put a plan in motion to escape from the infamous Pretoria Prison.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOutlaws - For Greater Glory (2012)
A chronicle of the Cristeros War (1926-1929), which was touched off by a rebellion against the Mexican government's attempt to secularize the country.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMaria's Lovers (1984)
A World War II prisoner returns home to his childhood sweetheart. However, back home, he discovers that he has to compete to win her love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAshes in the Snow (2018)
The coming-of-age tale of 16-year-old Lina Vilkas who is deported to Siberia amid Stalin's reign of terror in the Baltic region during WWII. An aspiring artist, she secretly documents her harrowing journey with her drawings.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like this12 Mighty Orphans (2021)
Haunted by his mysterious past, a devoted high school football coach leads a scrawny team of orphans to the state championship during the Great Depression and inspires a broken nation along the way.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSome Came Running (1958)
A former novelist returns to his small Midwest town after serving in the Army during WWII, to the chagrin of his social-climbing brother, and becomes close with an easy-going professional gambler and torn between two very different women.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYour Fault: London (2026)
Nick and Noah are both embarking on life-changing adventures that are threatening to pull them apart—Nick in business with his father and Noah starting a fresh chapter at Oxford University. Now living separate lives, and meeting new people, they find themselves entangled in temptations, rivalries, and betrayals and their bond is tested like never before. As secrets unravel and temptation rises, they must fight to hold onto each other—or risk losing everything.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Journal for Jordan (2021)
Based on the true story of First Sergeant Charles Monroe King, a soldier deployed to Iraq begins to keep a journal of love and advice for his infant son. Back at home, senior New York Times editor Dana Canedy revisits the story of her unlikely, life-altering relationship with King and his enduring devotion to her and their child.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Beguiled (1971)
Offbeat Civil War drama in which a wounded Yankee soldier, after finding refuge in an isolated girls' school in the South towards the end of the war, becomes the object of the young women's sexual fantasies. The soldier manipulates the situation for his own gratification, but when he refuses to completely comply with the girls' wishes, they make it very difficult for him to leave.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBraveheart (1995)
Enraged at the slaughter of Murron, his new bride and childhood love, Scottish warrior William Wallace slays a platoon of the local English lord's soldiers. This leads the village to revolt and, eventually, the entire country to rise up against English rule.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Elementary Particles (2006)
Based on Michel Houellebecq's controversial novel, Atomised (aka The Elementary Particles) focuses on Michael and Bruno, two very different half-brothers and their disturbed sexuality. After a chaotic childhood with a hippie mother only caring for her affairs, Michael, a molecular biologist, is more interested in genes than women, while Bruno is obsessed with his sexual desires, but mostly finds his satisfaction with prostitutes. But Bruno's life changes when he gets to know the experienced Christiane. In the meantime, Michael meets Annabelle, the love of his youth, again.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVolver (2006)
Three generations of women deal with family secrets while surviving the east wind, fire, insanity, superstition, lies and even death.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOnly Cloud Knows (2019)
The film revolves around a Chinese man who returns to New Zealand following the death of his wife and begins to discover that she harbored a number of secrets.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both romance & drama
Walk the Line (2005)
A chronicle of country music legend Johnny Cash's life, from his early days on an Arkansas cotton farm to his rise to fame with Sun Records in Memphis, where he recorded alongside Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHotel Rwanda (2004)
Inspired by true events, this film takes place in Rwanda in the 1990s when more than a million Tutsis were killed in a genocide that went mostly unnoticed by the rest of the world. Hotel owner Paul Rusesabagina houses over a thousand refuges in his hotel in attempt to save their lives.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTable for Five (1983)
J.P. Tannen (Jon Voight) wants a second chance to be a father to his children ... but someone else has taken his place. Determined not to just be a friendly 'uncle' in their lives, he gets permission from his ex-wife Kathleen (Millie Perkins) and her new husband (Richard Crenna) to take the kids on a Mediterranean cruise. On the journey he comes to realise it's not that easy and, feeling overwhelmed, begins to doubt his abilities until a tragedy back home forces him to become the father he always hoped to be.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Henry Ford's War on Jews and the Legal Battles Against Hate Speech (TBA)
The film will tell the story of the campaign of antisemitism waged by automotive pioneer Henry Ford throughout the 1920s. It was in 1925 that Aaron Sapiro, a self-made lawyer and activist, sued Ford for libel. After a dramatic court case that gripped the nation, Sapiro forced Ford to shut down his antisemitic newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, and apologize publicly to the Jewish people.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history & drama
The Gunman (2015)
Eight years after fleeing the Congo following his assassination of that country's minister of mining, former assassin Jim Terrier is back, suffering from PTSD and digging wells to atone for his violent past. After an attempt is made on his life, Terrier flies to London to find out who wants him dead -- and why. Terrier's search leads him to a reunion with Annie, a woman he once loved, who is now married to an oily businessman with dealings in Africa.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisBlind Chance (1987)
Witek runs after a train. Three variations follow on how such a seemingly banal incident could influence the rest of Witek's life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The First Grader?
The closest matches to The First Grader are The Invisible Woman (2013), The Edge of Love (2008) and Antwone Fisher (2002). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The First Grader?
Start with The Invisible Woman (2013), the closest match to The First Grader.
What is the highest-rated movie like The First Grader?
Braveheart (1995), rated 7.9/10 by 11,604 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The First Grader?
Your Fault: London (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The First Grader?
Yes: The Invisible Woman (2013), The Edge of Love (2008) and Antwone Fisher (2002).
How are movies similar to The First Grader chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The First Grader, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.