Movies like Paper Birds (2010)
The best movies like Paper Birds (2010) are Six Minutes to Midnight (2020), While at War (2019) and Fireflies at El Mozote (2025). If Paper Birds 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 ratedThe Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)7.8/10 from 7,933 votes
- NewestFireflies at El Mozote (2025)Released 2025
- In SpanishWhile at War (2019)Also in Spanish
Six Minutes to Midnight (2020)
Summer 1939. Influential families in Nazi Germany have sent their daughters to a finishing school in an English seaside town to learn the language and be ambassadors for a future looking National Socialist. A teacher there sees what is coming and is trying to raise the alarm. But the authorities believe he is the problem.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhile at War (2019)
Salamanca, Spain, 1936. In the early days of the military rebellion that began the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), writer Miguel de Unamuno supports the uprising in the hope that the prevailing political chaos will end. But when the confrontation becomes bloody, Unamuno must question his initial position.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFireflies at El Mozote (2025)
A boy seeks revenge after surviving El Mozote massacre in El Salvador, where government forces killed his family and destroyed his village - the deadliest civilian massacre in modern Latin America.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe House on Telegraph Hill (1951)
Concentration camp survivor Victoria Kowelska finds herself involved in mystery, greed, and murder when she assumes the identity of a dead friend in order to gain passage to America.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUndercover (2024)
Basque Country, Spain, late nineties. A young policewoman manages to infiltrate the ruthless terrorist gang ETA.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Call to Spy (2020)
The story of Vera Atkins, a crafty spy recruiter, and two of the first women she selects for Churchill's "secret army": Virginia Hall, a daring American undaunted by a disability and Noor Inayat Khan, a pacifist. These civilian women form an unlikely sisterhood while entangled in dangerous missions to turn the tide of the war.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFreedomfighters (1996)
At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the nun Maria is forced to flee her convent. She takes refuge in a brothel, until it is liberated by a woman's anarchist group. Maria joins the group and eventually goes to the front. The women's group faces the problems of fighting not only the nationalists, but also factions on the left seeking to impose a more traditional military structure.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Teacher Who Promised the Sea (2023)
The buried memories of the Spanish Civil War are unearthed as a woman searches for the remains of her grandfather's father and discovers the story of an idealistic young teacher from Tarragona.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe House on Carroll Street (1988)
A reporter, fired after refusing to give names to a 1951 House Un-American Activities Committee, takes a part-time job as companion to an old lady. While working she overhears a noisy argument in the neighboring house, being conducted largely in German and involving her HUAC prosecutor. She begins to investigate, enlisting the help of the FBI Agent initially detailed to surveil her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)
When his family moves from their home in Berlin to a strange new house in Poland, young Bruno befriends Shmuel, a boy who lives on the other side of the fence where everyone seems to be wearing striped pajamas. Unaware of Shmuel's fate as a Jewish prisoner or the role his own Nazi father plays in his imprisonment, Bruno embarks on a dangerous journey inside the camp's walls.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Last Rifleman (2023)
A WWII veteran escapes his care home in Northern Ireland and embarks on an arduous but inspirational journey to France to attend the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, finding the courage to face the ghosts of his past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIn Her Place (2024)
After Chilean writer María Carolina Geel murders her lover, the case captivates shy legal secretary Mercedes, sparking a connection between the two women.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMunich - The Edge of War (2021)
At the tense 1938 Munich Conference, former friends who now work for opposing governments become reluctant spies racing to expose a Nazi secret.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAll the Names of God (2023)
After being implicated in a terrorist attack, Santi, a taxi driver, is taken hostage by one of the perpetrators.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKiller's Kiss (1955)
Davey Gordon, a New York City boxer at the end of his career, falls for dancer Gloria Price. However, their budding relationship is interrupted by Gloria's violent boss, Vincent Rapallo, who has eyes for Gloria. The two decide to skip town, but before they can, Vincent and his thugs abduct Gloria, and Davey is forced to search for her among the most squalid corners of the city, with his enemy hiding in the shadows.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Scarlet and the Black (1983)
Fr. Hugh O'Flaherty is a Vatican official in 1943-45 who has been hiding downed pilots, escaped prisoners of war, and Italian resistance families. His activities become so large that the Nazis decide to assassinate him the next time he leaves the Vatican.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Caveman's Valentine (2001)
Romulus, a misunderstood musician turned recluse hiding from personal demons in a New York City cave, finds the frozen body of a young drifter in a tree. The authorities, including his police officer daughter, claim the death is accidental. Romulus is convinced the man was murdered by a prominent art photographer but how can he prove he's right when everyone thinks he's insane?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Realm (2018)
Manuel, a Spanish politician whose high-class lifestyle is based on nefarious and illegal business threatens to break his entire party after a newspaper exposes him to the public eye. Rather than admit to any wrongdoing, he decides to sell out his whole party in an effort to avoid jail time. It's a decision that will put many lives at risk.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMary (2024)
A miraculous conception. A merciless king. A murderous pursuit. Mary's journey to give birth to Jesus unfolds in this biblical coming-of-age epic.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBelfast (2021)
Buddy is a young boy on the cusp of adolescence, whose life is filled with familial love, childhood hijinks, and a blossoming romance. Yet, with his beloved hometown caught up in increasing turmoil, his family faces a momentous choice: hope the conflict will pass or leave everything they know behind for a new life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLand and Freedom (1995)
Summer 1936: young unemployed communist David Carr leaves Liverpool to join the fight against fascism in Spain. He joins an international group of Militia-men and women, the POUM (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista). After being wounded, he goes to Barcelona, where he joins another group of fighters.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRed Joan (2018)
London, England, May 2000. The peaceful life of elderly Joan Stanley is suddenly disrupted when she is arrested by the British Intelligence Service and accused of providing information to communist Russia during the forties.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Way Back (2010)
A small band of multicultural convicts stages a daring escape from a WWII-era Siberian gulag, and embarks on a treacherous journey across five countries in a desperate race for freedom and survival.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisReds (1981)
An account of the revolutionary years of the legendary American journalist John Reed, who shared his adventurous professional life with his radical commitment to the socialist revolution in Russia, his dream of spreading its principles among the members of the American working class, and his troubled romantic relationship with the writer Louise Bryant.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSpiral (2007)
A reclusive telemarketer has only one semblance of a friend: His telecommuter boss. But the telemarketer's social circle seems to improve greatly when a whimsical co-worker enters his life. Only, as he begins to sketch his new friend's portrait, disturbing "voices" from the phone man's past threaten to lead him into a network of destruction.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Cry of the Owl (2009)
Fleeing New York City, a failed marriage and a fragile mental history, artist Robert Forrester moves to small-town Pennsylvania. There he becomes fascinated with the simple domesticity of a beautiful neighbor, watching her through the windows of her home --- until she invites him in for coffee. He is drawn into a relationship with the young woman whose boyfriend goes missing; Robert becomes a murder suspect, gradually sensing he is the target of a larger plot.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisLong Live Death (1971)
At the end of the Spanish civil war, Fando, a boy of about ten, tries to make sense of war and his father's arrest. His mother is religious, sympathetic to the Fascists; his father is accused of being a Red. Fando discovers that his mother may have aided in his father's arrest. Sometimes we witness Fando imagining explanations for what's going on; sometimes we see him at play, alone or with his friend Thérèse. Oedipal fantasies and a lad's natural curiosity about sex and death mix with his search for his mother's nature and his father's fate. Will Fando survive the search?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisSusana y el sexo (2021)
The story of iconic Spanish artist Susana Estrada's struggle against censorship and sexual repression during the turbulent years following the death of dictator Francisco Franco.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
Words of Devotion: To the End of the World (2010)
IT guy meets corporate golden boy. They can’t stand each other—until they maybe can’t stop thinking about each other.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Paper Birds?
The closest matches to Paper Birds are Six Minutes to Midnight (2020), While at War (2019) and Fireflies at El Mozote (2025). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Paper Birds?
Start with Six Minutes to Midnight (2020), the closest match to Paper Birds.
What is the highest-rated movie like Paper Birds?
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008), rated 7.8/10 by 7,933 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Paper Birds?
Fireflies at El Mozote (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Spanish movies like Paper Birds?
Yes: While at War (2019), Fireflies at El Mozote (2025) and Undercover (2024).
How are movies similar to Paper Birds chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Paper Birds, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.