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Movies like Terrarium (1981)

The best movies like Terrarium (1981) are Cheaters (2000), Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996) and The Christmas Shoes (2002). If Terrarium hooked you with its drama and tv movie, these 20 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.

Quick picks

  1. Cheaters (2000)

    In the fall of 1994, a teacher at Chicago's run-down Steinmetz High conspires with the school's academic decathlon team to cheat on an academic competition.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  2. Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996)

    A dramatization of the life of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (Don Cheadle), with a lot of factual based occurrences. A reformed junkie returns from prison to clean up his act and devote the rest of his life to the young kids of Harlem. 1996 was the 25th anniversary of the first tournament named after him.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Worth the HypeMovies like this
  3. The Christmas Shoes (2002)

    Two separate stories mesh - in the first, a young music teacher, Maggie Andrews, begins dying of a heart condition and her son Nathan tries to get a pair of Christmas shoes for her before she dies. In the second, lawyer Robert Layton and his wife Kate are slowly drifting apart and the matter comes to a head during Christmas when Kate takes over for Maggie for the school choir.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  4. Hello Sister, Goodbye Life (2006)

    A college student must take care of her 7-year-old half sister after the death of their parents.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  5. TalhotBlond (2012)

    Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  6. Girl in the Box (2016)

    The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  7. ...First Do No Harm (1997)

    When Lori Reimuller learns that her young son Robbie has epilepsy, she first trusts the judgment of the hospital staff in how best to bring it under control. As Robbie's health slides radically downhill, however, she becomes frustrated and desperate, and so does her own research into the existing literature on treatments. When she decides to try an alternative treatment called the Ketogenic Diet, devised long ago by a doctor from Johns Hopkins, she is met with narrow-minded resistance from Robbie's doctor, who is prepared to take legal action to prevent Lori from removing him from the hospital.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  8. My Dinner with Hervé (2018)

    An unlikely friendship evolves over one wild night in LA between a struggling journalist and actor Hervé Villechaize, the world's most famous gun-toting dwarf, resulting in life-changing consequences for both.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  9. Return to Zero (2014)

    Based on the true story of a successful couple, Maggie and Aaron who are preparing for the arrival of their first child.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  10. Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999)

    An acclaimed stage performer, Dorothy still struggled with the challenge of her color, in a time that wouldn't let some stars in by the front door. Yet against the odds she beat out many more famous rivals for the role of "Carmen Jones", becoming the first black woman ever nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award. Marriages and affairs would break her heart, but her heart was strong. Seductive and easily seduced, she was born to be a star - with all the glory and all the pain of being loved, abused, cheated, glorified, undermined and undefeated. Here was a woman who wouldn't wait in the wings. Halle Berry stars as Dorothy Dandrige.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  11. Iron 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 this
  12. Girl Fight (2011)

    Inspired by a true story, Girl Fight recounts the harrowing story of a 16-year-old, stellar high school student whose life spirals downward when her former friends conspire to upload onto the Internet a shocking video of them beating her up.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  13. A Bramble House Christmas (2017)

    While settling his father’s estate, Finn Conrad becomes suspicious as to why the man left a nurse $100,000. His dad knew her for less than two months before he died. Just before Christmas, Finn wants what to reclaim what he considers his family’s money, going undercover to investigate the bed and breakfast the nurse has recently taken over. When Finn meets Willa, he discovers she’s not a conniving gold digger at all, but a woman in need who put the money to good use. When she discovers his true identity, will it keep Willa from ever trusting him again?

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  14. Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors (2015)

    "Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors" is based on the inspiring true story of living legend Dolly Parton's remarkable upbringing. This once-in-a-lifetime movie special takes place inside the tight-knit Parton family as they struggle to overcome devastating tragedy and discover the healing power of love, faith and a raggedy patchwork coat that helped make Parton who she is today. The film is set in the Tennessee Great Smoky Mountains in 1955. It is neither a biopic nor a musical about Dolly's whole life and performing career, but rather a family-oriented faith-based story about the incidents in her and her family's life around the time she was nine years old.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  15. Mansfield Park (2007)

    Fanny Price is sent to live with her wealthy relatives, the Bertrams, where she is treated poorly by most except her cousin Edmund. Her life is complicated by the arrival of the worldly Mary and Henry Crawford

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  16. Decalogue VI (1989)

    A teenage postal worker, Tomek, routinely spies on his older neighbor Magda, a sexually liberated artist who lives in the apartment across the courtyard from his. As their private worlds merge, fascination turns to obsession, and the line between love and curiosity becomes violently blurred.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Absolute CinemaMovies like this
  17. Sound of Christmas (2016)

    Lizzie is a young piano teacher working at a music school while trying to save enough money for a Steinway piano. The school is gearing up for their major Christmas fundraiser and she has committed much of her time to plan the event. One afternoon, she meets Brad who takes an interest in her playing and asks if she will teach his uninterested teenage daughter. She begins to break through to the young girl, and sparks begin to fly with Brad, but she is shocked to find out that his interest is not solely in her playing, but in the property that houses the music school. She sets out to save the school and the event, but can she work things out with Brad?

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  18. Fab Five: The Texas Cheerleader Scandal (2008)

    Based on a true story. Five high school cheerleaders, including the daughter of the school principal, run amok -- and teachers, parents and administrators allow them to get away with a wide range of scandalous behavior. Known as the "Fab Five," the girls disregard school rules, drink alcohol and post suggestive pictures on the Internet. But when the new cheerleading coach attempts to discipline them, her superiors ask her to resign.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

  19. How Sarah Got Her Wings (2015)

    Good Samaritan Sarah Fitzpatrick has a fatal accident just before Christmas, and finds herself in the lobby before the gates of Heaven. Certain that she will be let in, she is shocked to find that her name is not on the reservation list. However, she is granted the chance to return to Earth as an "angel in training" with the requirement to help a soul in need. Sarah has the 12 days before Christmas to secure her place on the list leaving her in the race for her after-life.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

  20. American Son (2019)

    Time passes and tension mounts in a Florida police station as an estranged interracial couple awaits news of their missing teenage son.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this

Like Terrarium and something else?

Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.

Frequently asked questions

What are the best movies like Terrarium?

The closest matches to Terrarium are Cheaters (2000), Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996) and The Christmas Shoes (2002). Below are 17 more, each with the reason it matches.

What should I watch after Terrarium?

Start with Cheaters (2000), the closest match to Terrarium.

What is the highest-rated movie like Terrarium?

American Son (2019), rated 6.0/10 by 242 TMDB users.

What is the newest movie like Terrarium?

American Son (2019) is the most recent release on this list.

How are movies similar to Terrarium chosen?

First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Terrarium, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.

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