Movies like THE FOCUS (2013)
The best movies like THE FOCUS (2013) are The Devil's Arithmetic (1999), Wonderstruck (2017) and Lee (2024). If THE FOCUS hooked you, these 20 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedSorcerer (1977)7.5/10 from 724 votes
- NewestFather Mother Sister Brother (2025)Released 2025
The Devil's Arithmetic (1999)
An American-born Jewish adolescent, Hannah Stern, is uninterested in the culture, faith and customs of her relatives. However, she begins to revaluate her heritage when she has a supernatural experience that transports her back to a Nazi death camp in 1941. There she meets a young girl named Rivkah, a fellow captive in the camp. As Rivkah and Hannah struggle to survive in the face of daily atrocities, they form an unbreakable bond.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWonderstruck (2017)
The story of a young boy in the Midwest is told simultaneously with a tale about a young girl in New York from fifty years ago as they both seek the same mysterious connection.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLee (2024)
The true story of photographer Elizabeth "Lee" Miller, a fashion model who became an acclaimed war correspondent for Vogue magazine during World War II.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisKing of the Hill (1993)
Based on the Depression-era bildungsroman memoir of writer A. E. Hotchner, the film follows the story of a boy struggling to survive on his own in a hotel in St. Louis after his mother is committed to a sanatorium with tuberculosis. His father, a German immigrant and traveling salesman working for the Hamilton Watch Company, is off on long trips from which the boy cannot be certain he will return.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSorcerer (1977)
Four men from different countries flee to an impoverished South American village, Povernir, to hide from their pasts. When an oil well explodes, chaos and barbarism roam the streets. Desperate to leave, they agree to risk their lives to transport several crates of nitroglycerin across treacherous jungle terrain.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThey'll Love Me When I'm Dead (2018)
As his life comes to its end, famous Hollywood director Orson Welles puts it all on the line at the chance for renewed success with the film The Other Side of the Wind.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRoom 237 (2012)
A subjective documentary that explores various theories about hidden meanings in Stanley Kubrick's classic film The Shining. Five very different points of view are illuminated through voice over, film clips, animation and dramatic reenactments.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Remember Mama (1948)
Norwegian immigrant Marta Hanson keeps a firm but loving hand on her household of four children, a devoted husband and a highly-educated lodger who reads great literature to the family every evening. Through financial crises, illnesses and the small triumphs of everyday life, Marta maintains her optimism and sense of humor, traits she passes on to her aspiring-author daughter, Katrin.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOperation Finale (2018)
In 1960, a team of Israeli secret agents is deployed to find Adolf Eichmann, the infamous Nazi architect of the Holocaust, supposedly hidden in Argentina, and get him to Israel to be judged.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Reluctant Fundamentalist (2013)
In New York, a Pakistani native finds that his American Dream has collapsed in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Shift (2023)
Following a tense encounter with a mysterious stranger with otherworldly powers, a man finds himself banished to a parallel, tyrannical Earth, where he fights to get back to the woman he loves.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBe Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché (2018)
The epic life story of Alice Guy-Blaché (1873–1968), a French screenwriter, director and producer, true pioneer of cinema, the first person who made a narrative fiction film; author of hundreds of movies, but banished from history books. Ignored and forgotten. At last remembered.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSight (2023)
Ming Wang is an impoverished Chinese prodigy who flees Communist China to become a pioneering eye surgeon in America. When tasked with restoring the sight of an orphan in India, who was blinded by her stepmother, Wang must confront the trauma of living through the violent uprising in his youth, the Cultural Revolution.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)
In Brooklyn circa 1900, the Nolans manage to enjoy life on pennies despite great poverty and Papa's alcoholism. We come to know these people well through big and little troubles: Aunt Sissy's scandalous succession of "husbands"; the removal of the one tree visible from their tenement; and young Francie's desire to transfer to a better school...if irresponsible Papa can get his act together.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFather Mother Sister Brother (2025)
Estranged siblings reunite after years apart, forced to confront unresolved tensions and reevaluate their strained relationships with their emotionally distant parents.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPeeping Tom (1960)
Loner Mark Lewis works at a film studio during the day and, at night, takes racy photographs of women. Also he's making a documentary on fear, which involves recording the reactions of victims as he murders them. He befriends Helen, the daughter of the family living in the apartment below his, and he tells her vaguely about the movie he is making.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAudrey (2020)
An unprecedented and intimate look at the life, work and enduring legacy of British actress Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993).
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Pawnbroker (1965)
A Jewish pawnbroker, a victim of Nazi persecution, loses all faith in his fellow man until he realizes too late the tragedy of his actions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHouse of Sand and Fog (2003)
Behrani, an Iranian immigrant buys a California bungalow, thinking he can fix it up, sell it again, and make enough money to send his son to college. However, the house is the legal property of former drug addict Kathy. After losing the house in an unfair legal dispute with the county, she is left with nowhere to go. Wanting her house back, she hires a lawyer and befriends a police officer. Neither Kathy nor Behrani have broken the law, so they find themselves involved in a difficult moral dilemma.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGood (2008)
When John Halder's latest novel is enlisted by powerful political figures in the Nazi party to push their agenda, his career and social standing instantly advance. But after learning of the Reich's horrific plans for the future and the devastating effects they will have on people close to him, John must decide whether or not to take a stand and risk losing everything.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
Like THE FOCUS and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like THE FOCUS?
The closest matches to THE FOCUS are The Devil's Arithmetic (1999), Wonderstruck (2017) and Lee (2024). Below are 17 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after THE FOCUS?
Start with The Devil's Arithmetic (1999), the closest match to THE FOCUS.
What is the highest-rated movie like THE FOCUS?
Sorcerer (1977), rated 7.5/10 by 724 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like THE FOCUS?
Father Mother Sister Brother (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Japanese movies like THE FOCUS?
The closest matches are in other languages.
How are movies similar to THE FOCUS chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside THE FOCUS, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.