Movies like Harriet (2019)
The best movies like Harriet (2019) are Respect (2021), Richard Jewell (2019) and Till (2022). If Harriet 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 Help (2011)8.2/10 from 9,416 votes
- NewestMary (2024)Released 2024
Respect (2021)
The rise of Aretha Franklin’s career from a child singing in her father’s church’s choir to her international superstardom.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRichard Jewell (2019)
Richard Jewell thinks quick, works fast, and saves hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives after a domestic terrorist plants several pipe bombs and they explode during a concert, only to be falsely suspected of the crime by sloppy FBI work and sensational media coverage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTill (2022)
The true story of Mamie Till Mobley's relentless pursuit of justice for her 14-year-old son, Emmett Till, who, in 1955, was lynched while visiting his cousins in Mississippi.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Best of Enemies (2019)
Centers on the unlikely relationship between Ann Atwater, an outspoken civil rights activist, and C.P. Ellis, a local Ku Klux Klan leader who reluctantly co-chaired a community summit, battling over the desegregation of schools in Durham, North Carolina during the racially-charged summer of 1971. The incredible events that unfolded would change Durham and the lives of Atwater and Ellis forever.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisJulia (1977)
At the behest of an old and dear friend, playwright Lillian Hellman undertakes a dangerous mission to smuggle funds into Nazi Germany.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOrigin (2023)
While investigating the global phenomenon of caste and its dark influence on society, a journalist faces unfathomable personal loss and uncovers the beauty of human resilience.
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 thisSelma (2014)
"Selma," as in Alabama, the place where segregation in the South was at its worst, leading to a march that ended in violence, forcing a famous statement by President Lyndon B. Johnson that ultimately led to the signing of the Voting Rights Act.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Life of Emile Zola (1937)
A fictionalized account of famous French writer Émile Zola and his involvement in the Dreyfus Affair. After struggling to establish himself, Zola wins success documenting the unsavory side of Paris and settles into a comfortable upper-class life. However, his complacency is shaken when Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus is imprisoned for espionage. Realizing that Dreyfus is an innocent victim of anti-Semitism, Zola boldly pens an exposé, only to be charged with libel and now he must defend himself in a dramatic courtroom testimony.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisK-19: The Widowmaker (2002)
When Russia's first nuclear submarine malfunctions on its maiden voyage, the crew must race to save the ship and prevent a nuclear disaster.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Long Walk Home (1990)
Two women, black and white, in 1955 Montgomery Alabama, must decide what they are going to do in response to the famous bus boycott led by Martin Luther King.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & history
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 thisThe Help (2011)
Aibileen Clark is a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children and has recently lost her only son; Minny Jackson is an African-American maid who has often offended her employers despite her family's struggles with money and her desperate need for jobs; and Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is a young white woman who has recently moved back home after graduating college to find out her childhood maid has mysteriously disappeared. These three stories intertwine to explain how life in Jackson, Mississippi revolves around "the help"; yet they are always kept at a certain distance because of racial lines.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisChaplin (1992)
An aged Charlie Chaplin narrates his life to his autobiography's editor, including his rise to wealth and comedic fame from poverty, his turbulent personal life and his run-ins with the FBI.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNorma Rae (1979)
Norma Rae is a southern textile worker employed in a factory with intolerable working conditions. This concern about the situation gives her the gumption to be the key associate to a visiting labor union organizer. Together, they undertake the difficult, and possibly dangerous, struggle to unionize her factory.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Adventures of Huck Finn (1993)
Mischievous Huck Finn is unnerved when his father, reemerging after years away, kidnaps him in an attempt to take away a $600 inheritance from his late mother. Fearing for his life, Huck fakes his own death and escapes. He soon runs into his friend, Jim, a slave fleeing his master. Together, the pair embarks on a raft journey down the Mississippi River, staying ahead of pursuers who blame the slave for Huck's alleged murder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Color Purple (2023)
A decades-spanning tale of love and resilience and of one woman's journey to independence. Celie faces many hardships in her life, but ultimately finds extraordinary strength and hope in the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
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
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Piano Lesson (2024)
A brother and sister's battle over a prized heirloom piano unleashes haunting truths about how the past is perceived — and who defines a family legacy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisA Birth (2022)
The great adventures of Kim Dae-gun, a young man dreaming of a New Joseon. He is full of curiosity and takes action rather than words. He willingly accepts the fate of becoming Joseon’s first priest and sets out to study in Macau with his seminary classmates. And finally opens the way of the modern Joseon Dynasty by traversing the sea and land!
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & history
Corto Maltese: The Secret Court of the Arcane (2002)
At the end of 1918 while civil war is raging on in Russia, antagonism is slowly spreading to the East, between the Oral mountains and Shanghai. Stuck between a desire to save what's left of the great Imperial Russia, and starting from a clean slate, old generals, secret organizations, and mercenaries attracted by gold, struggle to take advantage of the events. As Corto Maltese returns to Shanghai, he barely gets time to cross paths with his old friend/nemesis Rasputin, and escape a murder attempt before being contacted by members of a Chinese secret organization called "The Red Lanterns". In the heart of violent Manchurian horizons, Corto and Rasputin launch themselves into a fabulous treasure hunt, following the tracks of the mysterious armor-plated train of Kolchak. A steel monster spiked with canons and machine guns, this trains protects the counter-revolutionaries gold...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisValentino (1977)
The untimely death of silent screen star Rudolph Valentino prompts the many women in his past to reminisce about his troubled rise to superstardom.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & history
SnoozefestMovies like thisBurn! (1969)
The professional mercenary Sir William Walker instigates a slave revolt on the Caribbean island of Queimada in order to help improve the British sugar trade. Years later he is sent again to deal with the same rebels that he built up because they have seized too much power that now threatens British sugar interests.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIsadora (1968)
A biography of the dancer Isadora Duncan, the 1920s dancer who forever changed people's ideas of ballet. Her nude, semi-nude, and pro-Soviet dance projects as well as her attitudes on free love, debt, dress, and lifestyle shocked the public of her time.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & history
Napoleon (1927)
A biopic of former Emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant 1797 invasion of Italy.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & history
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Big Trail (1930)
Young scout Breck Coleman leads a wagon train along the dangerous trail to Oregon as he tries to get the affection of the beautiful pioneer Ruth Cameron and plans his revenge on the harsh scoundrels who murdered a friend of his in the past.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Way West (1967)
In the mid-19th century, Senator William J. Tadlock leads a group of settlers overland in a quest to start a new settlement in the Western US. Tadlock is a highly principled and demanding taskmaster who is as hard on himself as he is on those who have joined his wagon train. He clashes with one of the new settlers, Lije Evans, who doesn't quite appreciate Tadlock's ways. Along the way, the families must face death and heartbreak and a sampling of frontier justice when one of them accidentally kills a young Indian boy.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJesse James: Legend, Outlaw, Terrorist (2005)
One of the most controversial figures in U.S. history, Jesse James has captured the imagination of the world for more than a century. Teen guerilla fighter, Civil War soldier, notorious bandit, James holds a place in popular legend like no other. Through expert accounts, historic analysis and forensic science, this revealing exposé traces the outlaw's life from his humble Southern childhood through his rise to infamy and his mysterious death.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
Southside with You (2016)
Chronicles a single day in the summer of 1989 when the future president of the United States, Barack Obama, wooed his future First Lady on an epic first date across Chicago's South Side.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Harriet?
The closest matches to Harriet are Respect (2021), Richard Jewell (2019) and Till (2022). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Harriet?
Start with Respect (2021), the closest match to Harriet.
What is the highest-rated movie like Harriet?
The Help (2011), rated 8.2/10 by 9,416 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Harriet?
Mary (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Harriet?
Yes: Respect (2021), Richard Jewell (2019) and Till (2022).
How are movies similar to Harriet chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Harriet, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.