Movies like The First 100 Years Are Hard (1989)
The best movies like The First 100 Years Are Hard (1989) are Brotherly Love (2015), The Safety of Objects (2002) and The Young One (1960). If The First 100 Years Are Hard hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedHardball (2001)6.5/10 from 586 votes
- NewestOmaha (2025)Released 2025
Brotherly Love (2015)
West Philadelphia basketball star Sergio Taylor deals with the pressures of fame while his brother and sister have their own issues with ambition.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Safety of Objects (2002)
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Young One (1960)
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBastard Out of Carolina (1996)
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAlex of Venice (2015)
After her stay-at-home husband leaves her, a workaholic lawyer finds that she is not completely up to the tasks of caring for her young son, ailing father and household all by herself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisHerself (2020)
Struggling to provide her daughters with a safe, happy home, Sandra decides to build one - from scratch. Using all her ingenuity to make her ambitious dream a reality, Sandra draws together a community to lend a helping hand to build her house and ultimately recover her own sense of self.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHelen (2009)
On the outside, Helen has it all – a loving family and a successful career – but when her suppressed mental illness resurfaces, the world crumbles around her. Crippled by depression, Helen finds solace through her friendship with Mathilda, a kindred spirit struggling with bipolar disorder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHounddog (2008)
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDaddy Longlegs (2010)
After months of living a solitary existence, Lenny, 34, picks up his kids from school. Every year he spends a couple of weeks with his sons Sage, 9, and Frey, 7. Lenny hosts his kids within a midtown studio apartment in New York. During these two weeks, he must figure out if he wants to act as their father or be their friend. Ultimately, their trip upstate results in complete lawlessness taking over their lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEl Chicano (2019)
A pair of twin brothers from East L.A. choose to live their lives differently and end up on opposite sides of the law.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Nest (2020)
Rory is an ambitious entrepreneur who brings his American wife and kids to his native country, England, to explore new business opportunities. After abandoning the sanctuary of their safe American suburban surroundings, the family is plunged into the despair of an archaic '80s Britain and their unaffordable new life in an English manor house threatens to destroy the family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Friend Ivan Lapshin (1985)
Russian provincial town in the middle of the 1930s Stalin's Great Purge. Ivan Lapshin, the head of the local police, does what he has to do. And he does it well.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMindwalk (1991)
On the French island of Mont Saint-Michel, Jack, a failed presidential candidate, Tom, a poet and Sonia, a physicist, engage in an intellectual conversation about politics, philosophy and life over the course of a single day.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe River (1984)
Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHardball (2001)
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOmaha (2025)
A young girl and her brother are awoken by their father and loaded into the car on an early morning in 2008. As they road trip across the American West, she discovers the truth about their seemingly spontaneous journey.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Sound of Silence (2019)
A successful "house tuner" in New York City, who calibrates the sound in people's homes in order to adjust their moods, meets a client with a problem he can't solve.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Pumpkin Eater (1964)
Jo, the mother of seven children, divorces her second husband in order to marry Jake, a successful but promiscuous screenwriter. Though they are physically and emotionally compatible, they are slowly torn apart.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTigertail (2020)
A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHoly Lands (2019)
When lapsed Jew and former cardiologist Harry suddenly decides to spend his retirement as a pig farmer in Nazareth, Israel, the move deeply shocks his family and his new neighbours. Back in New York, Harry’s ex-wife Monica is trying to manage the lives of their adult children, Annabelle and David, as well as her own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Lenz Papers (1986)
Four-part german limited serial about the baden revolution in 1848 and 1849.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Leo & Claire (2002)
In 1933 Nuremberg, successful Jewish businessman Leo Katzenberger owns an apartment building and runs a shoe store. A devoted family man, he has a good relationship with his loving wife Claire. As the climate in Germany grows increasingly dangerous, bombshell Irene moves to the neighborhood. After forming an unlikely friendship, his relationship with Irene is immediately regarded with suspicion.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Leo und Marie – Eine Weihnachtsliebe (2008)
Leo has been working for the insurance company for 19 years, without a sick day, without being late, without ever being noticed. Now there is panic in the office: Layoffs are imminent. Nevertheless, the Christmas party takes place - for some it's more of a farewell party. Leo plucks up his courage and asks his shy new colleague Marie to the dance. But is he the right man to win Marie's wounded heart?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Die letzte Chance (1962)
It is a fateful moment: during one of his concerts, Jewish pianist Klaus Seiser discovers Gestapo officer Dr. Becker in the audience. He had imprisoned and harassed the young Seiser in 1943 because of a leaflet. Although the musician had managed to escape from prison at the time, he was caught at the Swiss border and Becker had him sent to Dachau concentration camp. Now, years after the end of the Nazi regime, Seiser denounces the Gestapo man and hopes for justice.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Last of Mrs. Lincoln (1976)
The Last of Mrs. Lincoln depicts the final seventeen years of Mary Todd Lincoln's life, following her husband's assassination.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Last Holidays (1975)
A young woman is going on holiday with her parents. She narrowly escapes when her holiday fling tries to kill her, only to find out that this nasty encounter was not quite as accidental as it first seemed.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Clarence Darrow (1974)
The taped performance of Henry Fonda's one-man show was aired as "IBM Presents Clarence Darrow" on September 4, 1974, on NBC.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Last Ones Shall Be First (1957)
The brother of a high ranking lawyer has killed the husband of a Polish woman, with whom he is having an affair. Can the counsel help his brother without getting himself involved in scandal?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Francis (2013)
Francis is a short story written by american novelist Dave Eggers. This is the story of a young boy growing up in the suburbs of chicago. He spent his vacations in Quetico Provincial Park, up on the border of Minnesota and Canada. But he won't be going back any day soon, not after what happened to a girl called Francis Brandywine.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Silent Night, Lonely Night (1969)
Over the Christmas holidays in a small New England college town, a man and a woman share a brief interlude. He is there to visit his wife, who is a mental patient at the university, and she is there visiting her son, who is a student, after discovering her husband's infidelity.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like The First 100 Years Are Hard and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The First 100 Years Are Hard?
The closest matches to The First 100 Years Are Hard are Brotherly Love (2015), The Safety of Objects (2002) and The Young One (1960). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The First 100 Years Are Hard?
Start with Brotherly Love (2015), the closest match to The First 100 Years Are Hard.
What is the highest-rated movie like The First 100 Years Are Hard?
Hardball (2001), rated 6.5/10 by 586 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The First 100 Years Are Hard?
Omaha (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to The First 100 Years Are Hard chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The First 100 Years Are Hard, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.