Movies like Come Back, Africa (1959)
The best movies like Come Back, Africa (1959) are Cry Freedom (1987), Sarafina! (1992) and Disgrace (2008). If Come Back, Africa hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedLa Haine (1995)8.1/10 from 4,799 votes
- NewestEscape from Pretoria (2020)Released 2020
Cry Freedom (1987)
A dramatic story, based on actual events, about the friendship between two men struggling against apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s. Donald Woods is a white liberal journalist in South Africa who begins to follow the activities of Stephen Biko, a courageous and outspoken black anti-apartheid activist.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSarafina! (1992)
A Soweto schoolgirl named Sarafina is galvanized to protest apartheid after her teacher is arrested for her activism, leading her to join the student resistance movement.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDisgrace (2008)
Disgrace is the story of a South African professor of English who loses everything: his reputation, his job, his peace of mind, his good looks, his dreams of artistic success, and finally even his ability to protect his cherished daughter. After having an affair with a student, he moves to the Eastern Cape, where he gets caught up in a mess of post-apartheid politics.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSkin (2009)
Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEscape from Pretoria (2020)
South Africa, 1978. Tim Jenkin and Stephen Lee, two white political activists from the African National Congress imprisoned by the apartheid regime, put a plan in motion to escape from the infamous Pretoria Prison.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisInvictus (2009)
Newly elected President Nelson Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa's rugby union team as they make their historic run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship match.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCatch a Fire (2006)
The true story of anti-apartheid activists in South Africa, and particularly the life of Patrick Chamusso, a timid foreman at Secunda CTL, the largest synthetic fuel plant in the world. Patrick is wrongly accused, imprisoned and tortured for an attempt to bomb the plant, with the injustice transforming the apolitical worker into a radicalised insurgent, who then carries out his own successful sabotage mission.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Bang Bang Club (2011)
In the early to mid '90s, when the South African system of apartheid was in its death throes, four photographers - Greg Marinovich, Kevin Carter, Ken Oosterbroek and João Silva - bonded by their friendship and a sense of purpose, worked together to chronicle the violence and upheaval leading up to the 1994 election of Nelson Mandela as president. Their work is risky and dangerous, potentially fatally so, as they thrust themselves into the middle of chaotic clashes between forces backed by the government (including Inkatha Zulu warriors) and those in support of Mandela's African National Congress.
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 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 thisShepherds and Butchers (2017)
A lawyer takes on a case of a prison guard in South Africa who is traumatized by the executions he's witnessed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Power of One (1992)
PK, an English orphan terrorized for his family's political beliefs in Africa, turns to his only friend, a kindly world-wise prisoner, Geel Piet. Geel teaches him how to box with the motto “fight with your fists and lead with your heart”. As he grows to manhood, PK uses these words to take on the system and the injustices he sees around him - and finds that one person really can make a difference.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Color of Friendship (2000)
Mahree Bok lives on a farm in South Africa. Her father is a policeman who cannot hide his joy when activist Steve Biko is caught by the South African authorities. Piper Dellums is the daughter of a US congressman from California and who lives in a nice home in Washington DC. When Mahree is chosen to spend a semester at the Dellums' house, she doesn't expect that her host family would be black. Nor do her hosts suspect that she is not a black South African.
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 thisHoffa (1992)
A portrait of union leader James R. Hoffa, as seen through the eyes of his friend, Bobby Ciaro. The film follows Hoffa through his countless battles with the RTA and President Roosevelt.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFarming (2018)
Based on the writer/director's childhood, FARMING tells the story of a young Nigerian boy, 'farmed out' by his parents to a white British family in the hope of a better future. Instead, he becomes the feared leader of a white skinhead gang.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Color Purple (1985)
An epic tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie, an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry. After Celie's abusive father marries her off to the equally debasing 'Mister' Albert Johnson, things go from bad to worse, leaving Celie to find companionship anywhere she can. She perseveres, holding on to her dream of one day being reunited with her sister in Africa.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisZulu (1964)
In 1879, during the Anglo-Zulu War, man-of-the-people Lt. Chard and snooty Lt. Bromhead are in charge of defending the isolated and vastly outnumbered Natal outpost of Rorke's Drift from tribal hordes.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMister Johnson (1991)
In 1923 British Colonial Nigeria, Mister Johnson is an oddity -- an educated black man who doesn't really fit in with the natives or the British. He works for the local British magistrate, and considers himself English, though he has never been to England. He is always scheming, trying to get ahead, which lands him in a lot of hot water.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIn the Heat of the Night (1967)
African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie, the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. After Tibbs proves not only his own innocence but that of another man, he joins forces with Gillespie to track down the real killer. Their investigation takes them through every social level of the town, with Tibbs making enemies as well as unlikely friends as he hunts for the truth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMy Own Private Idaho (1991)
Mike Waters is a hustler afflicted with narcolepsy. Scott Favor is the rebellious son of a mayor. Together, the two travel from Portland, Oregon to Idaho and finally to the coast of Italy in a quest to find Mike's estranged mother. Along the way they turn tricks for money and drugs, eventually attracting the attention of a wealthy benefactor and sexual deviant.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDriving Miss Daisy (1989)
The story of an old Jewish widow named Daisy Werthan and her relationship with her black chauffeur, Hoke. From an initial mere work relationship grew in 25 years a strong friendship between the two very different characters, in a time when those types of relationships were shunned.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLa Haine (1995)
After a chaotic night of rioting in a marginal suburb of Paris, three young friends, Vinz, Hubert and Saïd, wander around unoccupied waiting for news about the state of health of a mutual friend who has been seriously injured when confronting the police.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisDesert Hearts (1985)
While waiting for her divorce papers, a repressed literature professor finds herself unexpectedly attracted by a carefree, spirited young woman named Cay.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Celebration (1998)
The family of a wealthy businessman gather to celebrate his 60th birthday. During the course of the party, his eldest son presents a speech that reveals a devastating secret that turns the night into a battle of truth and denial.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisChocolat (2000)
In the winter of 1959, a single mother and her young daughter arrive in a rural French town, where they open an unusual chocolate shop that disrupts the moral fiber of the strictly Catholic townsfolk and mayor.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCapote (2005)
A biopic of writer Truman Capote and his assignment for The New Yorker to write the non-fiction book "In Cold Blood".
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMonster (2003)
In 1989, prostitute Aileen Wuornos befriends and enters a relationship with a young woman named Selby. Determined to straighten out her life, Aileen's limited education lands her back on the corner. She's raped by a trick, who she kills. A string of murder and robbery follows that ultimately leads Aileen to becoming America's first female serial killer.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEd Wood (1994)
The mostly true story of the legendary "worst director of all time", who, with the help of his strange friends, filmed countless B-movies without ever becoming famous or successful.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPas De Blanc À La Une (1971)
Pas De Blanc À La Une, by Youcef Bouchouchi, treatises the brutality of the conflict during the war of independence in Algeria from 1854 to 1962, and the systematic use of torture which pushes even the most hesitant to make up their minds.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Come Back, Africa?
The closest matches to Come Back, Africa are Cry Freedom (1987), Sarafina! (1992) and Disgrace (2008). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Come Back, Africa?
Start with Cry Freedom (1987), the closest match to Come Back, Africa.
What is the highest-rated movie like Come Back, Africa?
La Haine (1995), rated 8.1/10 by 4,799 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Come Back, Africa?
Escape from Pretoria (2020) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Come Back, Africa?
Yes: Cry Freedom (1987), Sarafina! (1992) and Disgrace (2008).
How are movies similar to Come Back, Africa chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Come Back, Africa, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.