Personal Best
Young sprinter Chris Cahill is having difficulty reaching her potential as an athlete, until she meets established track star Tory Skinner. As Tory and her coach help Chris with her training, the two women form friendship that evolves into a romantic relationship. Their intimacy, however, becomes complicated when Chris' improvement causes them to be competitors for the Olympic team.
Movies Like Personal Best
Similar in style, tone, and themes — find your next watch.
Bruised
2021★ 6.8
Jackie Justice is a mixed martial arts fighter who leaves the sport in disgrace. Down on her luck and simmering with rage and regret years after the fight, she's coaxed into a brutal underground fight by her manager and boyfriend Desi and grabs the attention of a fight league promoter who promises Jackie a life back in the Octagon. But the road to redemption becomes unexpectedly personal when Manny - the son she gave up as an infant - shows up at her doorstep. A triumphant story of a fighter who reclaims her power, in and out of the ring, when everyone has counted her out
Girlfight
2000★ 6.5
Diana Guzman, a troubled Brooklyn teenager, decides to channel her aggression by training to become a boxer, all while keeping it a secret from her father.
The Swimmers
2022★ 7.4
From war-torn Syria to the 2016 Rio Olympics, two young sisters embark on a risky voyage, putting their hearts and their swimming skills to heroic use.
Flow
1996★ 7.7
A filmmaker talks about his work and love life with an unseen friend behind the camera. We also watch four of his short films.
Gracie
2007★ 6.2
A teenager faces an uphill battle when she fights to give women the opportunity to play competitive soccer.
The Adjuster
1991★ 6.0
An uptight insurance man and his film-censor wife become a kinky couple's landlords.
My Brother the Devil
2012★ 6.4
Fourteen-year-old Mo is a lonely, sensitive boy whose hunger for the rant and banter of buddies makes him prone to tread dangerous territories. He idolizes his handsome older brother, Rashid, a charismatic, well-respected member of a local gang, whose drug dealing enables “Rash” to provide for his family. Aching to be seen as a tough guy himself, Mo takes a job that unlocks a fateful turn of events and forces the brothers to confront their inner demons. It turns out that hate is easy. It is love and understanding that take real courage.
Pariah
2011★ 6.8
A Brooklyn teenager juggles conflicting identities and risks friendship, heartbreak, and family in a desperate search for sexual expression.
Million Dollar Baby
2004★ 8.0
Despondent over a painful estrangement from his daughter, trainer Frankie Dunn isn't prepared for boxer Maggie Fitzgerald to enter his life. But Maggie's determined to go pro and to convince Dunn and his cohort to help her.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post
2018★ 6.9
Pennsylvania, 1993. After getting caught with another girl, teenager Cameron Post is sent to a conversion therapy center run by the strict Dr. Lydia Marsh and her brother, Reverend Rick, whose treatment consists in repenting for feeling “same sex attraction.” Cameron befriends fellow sinners Jane and Adam, thus creating a new family to deal with the surrounding intolerance.
Thrashin'
1986★ 6.3
Corey and his band of skater buddies sometimes make mischief, but they're more interested in girls and having fun on their boards than in getting into any real trouble. Notorious enemy crew the Daggers, led by Tommy Hook, get their kicks terrorizing the locals at Venice Beach. When Corey starts dating Tommy's kid sister Chrissy, the Daggers are furious. The boys then take their beef to the "L.A. Massacre," a deadly skate race down a canyon road.
Southpaw
2015★ 7.4
Billy "The Great" Hope, the reigning junior middleweight boxing champion, has an impressive career, a loving wife and daughter, and a lavish lifestyle. However, when tragedy strikes, Billy hits rock bottom, losing his family, his house and his manager. He soon finds an unlikely savior in Tick Willis, a former fighter who trains the city's toughest amateur boxers. With his future on the line, Hope fights to reclaim the trust of those he loves the most.
Head On
1998★ 6.3
Nineteen-year-old Ari confronts both his sexuality and his Greek family. Ari despises his once-beloved parents, former radical activists, for having entombed themselves in insular tradition. Ari is obsessed with gay sex, although he does make an unenthusiastic attempt to satisfy the sister of one of his best friends. While all of this is going on, he's facing problems with his traditional Greek parents, who have no clue about his sexual activities.
The Dresser
2015★ 6.2
One fateful night in a small English regional theatre during World War II a troupe of touring actors stage a production of Shakespeares King Lear. Bombs are falling, sirens are wailing, the curtain is up in an hour but the actor/manager Sir who is playing Lear is nowhere to be seen. His dresser Norman must scramble to keep the production alive but will Sir turn up in time and if he does will he be able to perform that night? The Dresser is a wickedly funny and deeply moving story of friendship and loyalty as Sir reflects on his lifelong accomplishments and seeks to reconcile his turbulent friendships with those in his employ before the final curtain.
The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep
2025★ 6.8
When human sailors are attacked by mysterious creatures of the deep, only one person can stop the war between land and sea: the Witcher, Geralt of Rivia.
The Death & Life of John F. Donovan
2019★ 6.9
A decade after the death of an American TV star, a young actor reminisces about the written correspondence he once shared with the former, as well as the impact those letters had on both their lives.
Ali
2001★ 6.8
In 1964, a brash, new pro boxer, fresh from his Olympic gold medal victory, explodes onto the scene: Cassius Clay. Bold and outspoken, he cuts an entirely new image for African Americans in sport with his proud public self-confidence and his unapologetic belief that he is the greatest boxer of all time. Yet at the top of his game, both Ali's personal and professional lives face the ultimate test.
Magazine Dreams
2025★ 6.7
Aspiring bodybuilder Killian Maddox struggles to find human connection in an exploration of celebrity and violence. Nothing deters him from his fiercely protected dream of superstardom, not even the doctors who warn him of the permanent damage he causes to himself with his quest.
Cassandro
2023★ 6.6
The true story of Saúl Armendáriz, a gay amateur wrestler from El Paso that rises to international stardom after he creates the character Cassandro, the “Liberace of Lucha Libre.” In the process, he upends not just the macho wrestling world but also his own life.
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
2020★ 6.6
Tensions rise when the trailblazing Mother of the Blues and her band gather at a Chicago recording studio in 1927. Adapted from August Wilson's play.