Movies like Shirkers (2018)
The best movies like Shirkers (2018) are The Cleaners (2018), The Oslo Diaries (2018) and Motherland (2017). If Shirkers hooked you with its documentary, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedMinding the Gap (2018)7.7/10 from 206 votes
- NewestSeparated (2024)Released 2024
The Cleaners (2018)
A deep dive into the hidden industry of digital cleaning, which rids the Internet of unwanted violence, porn and political content.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Oslo Diaries (2018)
A group of Israelis and Palestinians come together in Oslo for unsanctioned peace talks during the 1990s in order to bring peace to the Middle East.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Motherland (2017)
The planet’s busiest maternity hospital is located in one of its poorest and most populous countries: the Philippines. There, poor women face devastating consequences as their country struggles with reproductive health policy and the politics of conservative Catholic ideologies.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Matangi / Maya / M.I.A. (2018)
Drawn from a never before seen cache of personal footage spanning decades, this is an intimate portrait of the Sri Lankan artist and musician who continues to shatter conventions.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOur New President (2018)
The story of Donald Trump's election told entirely through Russian propaganda. By turns horrifying and hilarious, the film is a satirical portrait of Russian meddling in the 2016 election that reveals an empire of fake news and the tactics of modern day information warfare.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
The Land of the Enlightened (2016)
A group of Kuchi children are living in a minefield around Bagram airfield, Afghanistan. They dig out anti-personal mines in order to sell the explosives to child workers mining in a Lappis Lazulli mine. The trajectory of the blue precious stones goes towards Tajikistan and China, through an area controlled by child soldiers. When they are not waging their own mini-wars in the daily madness of life in Afghanistan, the children are fleeing away in their personal fantasies and dreams, while the American soldiers are planning their retreat...
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Minding the Gap (2018)
Three young men bond together to escape volatile families in their Rust Belt hometown. As they face adult responsibilities, unexpected revelations threaten their decade-long friendship.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSchool Life (2017)
John and Amanda teach Latin, English and guitar at a fantastical stately home-turned-school. Nearly 50-year careers are drawing to a close for the pair who have become legends with the mantra: “Reading! ’Rithmetic! Rock ’n’ roll!” But for pupil and teacher alike, leaving is the hardest lesson.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower (2017)
When the Chinese Communist Party backtracks on its promise of autonomy to Hong Kong, teenager Joshua Wong decides to save his city. Rallying thousands of kids to skip school and occupy the streets, Joshua becomes an unlikely leader in Hong Kong and one of China’s most notorious dissidents.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · 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: Fans watch both · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOf Fathers and Sons (2017)
Talal Derki returns to his homeland where he gains the trust of a radical Islamist family, sharing their daily life for over two years. His camera focuses on Osama and his younger brother Ayman, providing an extremely rare insight into what it means to grow up in an Islamic Caliphate.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEl Mar La Mar (2017)
An immersive and enthralling journey through the Sonoran Desert on the U.S.-Mexico border, El Mar La Mar weaves together harrowing oral histories from the area with hand-processed 16mm images of flora, fauna and items left behind by travelers. Subjects speak of intense, mythic experiences in the desert: A man tells of a fifteen-foot-tall monster said to haunt the region, while a border patrolman spins a similarly bizarre tale of man versus beast. A sonically rich soundtrack adds to the eerie atmosphere as the call of birds and other nocturnal noises invisibly populate the austere landscape. Emerging from the ethos of Harvard's Sensory Ethnography Lab, J.P. Sniadecki's attentive documentary approach mixes perfectly with Joshua Bonnetta's meditations on the materiality of film. Together, they've created an experience of the border region like nothing you've seen, heard or felt before.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (2012)
An account of the many tribulations that Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, known for his subversive art and political activism, endured between 2008 and 2011, from his rise to world fame via the Internet to his highly publicized arrest due to his frequent and daring confrontations with the Chinese authorities.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisJulia's Stepping Stones (2024)
Oscar-winning filmmaker Julia Reichert reflects on the social, economic and personal forces that led to her career as a pioneering documentarian.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Letter from Masanjia (2019)
Damascus, Oregon, United States. Julie Keith finds a baffling message hidden in a pack of decorative items, a desperate plea for help, written by someone imprisoned in a Chinese labor camp called Masanjia…
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Separated (2024)
Based on NBC News Political and National Correspondent Jacob Soboroff’s book, Oscar winner Errol Morris merges bombshell interviews with government officials and artful narrative vignettes tracing one migrant family’s plight. Together, they show that the cruelty at the heart of this policy was its very purpose. Against this backdrop, audiences can begin to absorb the US government’s role in developing and implementing policies that have kept over 1,300 children without confirmed reunifications years later, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
The Earth Is Blue as an Orange (2020)
Single mother Anna and her four children live in the front-line war zone of Donbas, Ukraine. While the outside world is made up of bombings and chaos, the family is managing to keep their home a safe haven, full of life and full of light. Every member of the family has a passion for cinema, motivating them to shoot a film inspired by their own life during a time of war. The creative process raises the question of what kind of power the magical world of cinema could have during times of disaster. How to picture war through fiction? For Anna and the children, transforming trauma into a work of art is the ultimate way to stay human.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Last Men in Aleppo (2017)
A searing example of boots-on-the-ground reportage follows the efforts of the internationally recognized White Helmets, an organization consisting of ordinary citizens who are the first to rush towards military strikes and attacks in the hope of saving lives. Incorporating moments of both heart-pounding suspense and improbable beauty, the documentary draws us into the lives of three of its founders — Khaled, Subhi, and Mahmoud — as they grapple with the chaos around them and struggle with an ever-present dilemma: do they flee or stay and fight for their country?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Dissident (2020)
When Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappears after entering Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, his fiancée and dissidents around the world are left to piece together the clues to a brutal murder and expose a global cover up perpetrated by the very country he loved.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBeba (2022)
A raw, poetic self-portrait in which young, NYC-born Afro-Latina Rebeca “Beba” Huntt stares down historical, societal, and generational trauma.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Children of the Mist (2022)
Di is a 12-year-old girl from the mist-shrouded mountains of northern Vietnam. She belongs to the Hmong, an ethnic minority in which girls get married at a very young age. This is often preceded by a controversial “bride-napping,” where the girl is abducted by her future husband on New Year’s Eve. Negotiations between the families follow. This also happened to Di’s sister and their mother, so it doesn’t seem strange that in preparation the women and girls discuss sex and married life without embarrassment. But Di also goes to school, where she learns very different values. And in her own way, even Di’s mother tries to warn her daughter about child marriage.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Black Sheep (2018)
After the high-profile killing of Damilola Taylor, Cornelius' family move out of London. But when they discover their new town is run by racists, Cornelius takes a drastic step to survive.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLearning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You're a Girl) (2020)
The story of young Afghan girls learning to read, write and skateboard in Kabul.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThis Is Home: A Refugee Story (2018)
The lives of four Syrian families, resettled in Baltimore and under a deadline to become self-sufficient in eight months.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
A Night of Knowing Nothing (2022)
L, a student in India witness to the government's violent response to university protests, writes letters to her estranged lover while he is away.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Tokyo Idols (2017)
This exploration of Japan's fascination with girl bands and their music follows an aspiring pop singer and her fans, delving into the cultural obsession with young female sexuality and the growing disconnect between men and women in hypermodern societies.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAmerican Factory (2019)
In post-industrial Ohio, a Chinese billionaire opens a new factory in the husk of an abandoned General Motors plant, hiring two thousand blue-collar Americans. Early days of hope and optimism give way to setbacks as high-tech China clashes with working-class America.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTruth to Power (2020)
The Grammy-winning lead singer of System of a Down, Serj Tankian helps to awaken a political revolution on the other side of the world, inspiring Armenia's struggle for democracy through his music and message.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
United Skates (2018)
When America's last standing roller rinks are threatened with closure, a community of thousands battle in a racially charged environment to save an underground subculture.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Given (2017)
A young family leaves their home on Kauai. It is time to return to the itinerant path from which all things in their uncommon lives come; beginning and ending on a remote dot in the Pacific. They nomadically trace continents to places where waves meet their edges, envoys of aloha. It is what they will learn, what they bring others, what they will pass on to their children in the hyper-expanded classroom, the lab of direct being; a legacy passed from a father to his family.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Shirkers?
The closest matches to Shirkers are The Cleaners (2018), The Oslo Diaries (2018) and Motherland (2017). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Shirkers?
People who watched Shirkers most often go on to The Cleaners (2018), The Oslo Diaries (2018) and Motherland (2017).
What is the highest-rated movie like Shirkers?
Minding the Gap (2018), rated 7.7/10 by 206 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Shirkers?
Separated (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Shirkers?
Yes: The Oslo Diaries (2018), Motherland (2017) and Matangi / Maya / M.I.A. (2018).
How are movies similar to Shirkers chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Shirkers, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.