Movies like Brother's Keeper (2021)
The best movies like Brother's Keeper (2021) are About Dry Grasses (2023), Child's Play (1972) and Paper Lives (2021). If Brother's Keeper hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedPaper Lives (2021)8.0/10 from 426 votes
- NewestThe Lost Bus (2025)Released 2025
About Dry Grasses (2023)
A young art teacher hopes to be transferred to Istanbul after completing his mandatory duty in a remote village school in Anatolia. After accusations of inappropriate contact with a student surface, his hopes of escape fade and he descends further into an existential crisis.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisChild's Play (1972)
At an exclusive boys' school, a new gym teacher is drawn into a feud between two older instructors, and he discovers that everything at the school is not quite as staid, tranquil and harmless as it seems.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPaper Lives (2021)
In the streets of Istanbul, ailing waste warehouse worker Mehmet takes a small boy under his wing and must soon confront his own traumatic childhood.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisA Dry White Season (1989)
During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAfter the Dark (2013)
At an international school in Jakarta, a philosophy teacher challenges his class of twenty graduating seniors to choose which ten of them would take shelter underground and reboot the human race in the event of a nuclear apocalypse.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBrave the Dark (2025)
When Mr. Deen discovers one of his students has been living out of his car and thrown into jail, he decides to bail him out. Determined to curb Nate’s self-destructive behavior, Deen quickly discovers a host of dark secrets slowly tearing Nate apart. What began as a good deed becomes a desperate fight to save Nate from his own demons. As Nate spirals deeper into despair, Deen must decide how far he’s willing to go to save a kid on the brink of losing everything—even himself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 thisLight It Up (1999)
On a winter day in a southside Queens high school, events collide and six students are suddenly in an armed standoff with the NYPD. At the school, classrooms freeze, teachers come and go, resources are scant.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBarron's Cove (2025)
When his young son is viciously murdered by a classmate, a grieving father with a history of violence kidnaps the child responsible, igniting a frenzied manhunt fueled by a powerful politician -- the father of the kidnapped boy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 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 Lost Bus (2025)
A determined father risks everything to rescue a dedicated teacher and her students from a raging wildfire.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Truth About Emanuel (2013)
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSteve (2025)
Over one intense day, the devoted head teacher of a last-chance reform school strives to keep his students in line while facing pressures of his own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020)
Nothing is as it seems when a woman experiencing misgivings about her new boyfriend joins him on a road trip to meet his parents at their remote farm.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIron Jawed Angels (2004)
Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIsland in the Sky (1953)
A C-47 transport plane, named the Corsair, makes a forced landing in the frozen wastelands of Labrador, and the plane's pilot, Captain Dooley, must keep his men alive in deadly conditions while awaiting rescue.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFoxcatcher (2014)
The greatest Olympic Wrestling Champion brother team joins Team Foxcatcher led by multimillionaire sponsor John E. du Pont as they train for the 1988 games in Seoul - a union that leads to unlikely circumstances.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Lords of Discipline (1983)
Will arrives for his last year at Military Academy, in the Deep South USA, in the 1960's. A black student, Pearce, has been accepted, for the first time and Will is asked to keep an eye out for the inevitable racism. The racists come in the form of The Ten, a secret group of the elite students. They want Pearce to leave on his own free will, but are prepared to torture him to make it 'his free will'. Will is forced to help Pearce and he is prepared to risk his own career to do so.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Road Dance (2022)
A young girl lives in the Outer Hebrides in a small village in the years just before WWI. Isolated and hard by the shore, her life takes a dramatic change when a terrible tragedy befalls her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBattle Royale (2000)
In the future, the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill each other under the revolutionary "Battle Royale" act.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Holdovers (2023)
A curmudgeonly instructor at a New England prep school is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually, he forms an unlikely bond with one of them — a damaged, brainy troublemaker — and with the school’s head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDreamers (2024)
A tight-knit group of final-year high school students determined in aiming for top-universities must confront an unthinkable tragedy that shatters their perception towards their group forever.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Hamlet (1970)
Hamlet suspects his uncle has murdered his father to claim the throne of Denmark and the hand of Hamlet's mother, but the Prince cannot decide whether or not he should take vengeance.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Chandni Bar (2001)
The gritty life of the Mumbai underworld, including prostitution, dance bars and gun crime.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Split (1974)
When his father runs off and his mother hooks up with a mustachioed new beau, eleven-year-old Mark becomes convinced that an uninvited talkative space alien, going by the name "Split," has taken up telepathic residence in his mind, and is leading him to question the norms of planet Earth. Only one teacher is willing to entertain the possibility that Mark just might be telling the truth.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
22 July (2018)
On 22 July 2011, neo-Nazi terrorist Anders Behring Breivik murdered 77 young people attending a Labour Party Youth Camp on Utøya Island outside of Oslo. This three-part story focuses on the survivors, the political leadership of Norway, and the lawyers involved.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFlirting (1991)
Two freethinking teenagers - a boy and a girl - confront with authoritarian teachers in their boarding schools. The other students treat this differently.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMädchen in Uniform (2027)
In 1914, a tender, forbidden love blossoms between a new pupil and her young teacher in the middle of a military-run boarding school for girls. It soon develops into a passionate affair that shakes this fortress of patriarchy to its core.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Coming SoonMovies like thisTerror (1986)
A teacher witnesses a murder committed by his ex-student, who restricts him from giving his statement to the police. An atmosphere of terror ensues and the teacher must decide if to muster courage and approach the police at a personal loss.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like Brother's Keeper and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Brother's Keeper?
The closest matches to Brother's Keeper are About Dry Grasses (2023), Child's Play (1972) and Paper Lives (2021). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Brother's Keeper?
Start with About Dry Grasses (2023), the closest match to Brother's Keeper.
What is the highest-rated movie like Brother's Keeper?
Paper Lives (2021), rated 8.0/10 by 426 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Brother's Keeper?
The Lost Bus (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Brother's Keeper chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Brother's Keeper, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.