The Way Back
A former basketball all-star, who has lost his wife and family foundation in a struggle with addiction, attempts to regain his soul and salvation by becoming the coach of a disparate ethnically mixed high school basketball team at his alma mater.
Movies Like The Way Back
Similar in style, tone, and themes — find your next watch.
Blue Chips
1994★ 6.1
Pete Bell, a college basketball coach is under a lot of pressure. His team isn't winning and he cannot attract new players. The stars of the future are secretly being paid by boosters. This practice is forbidden in the college game, but Pete is desperate and has pressures from all around.
Fathers and Daughters
2015★ 7.1
A Pulitzer-winning writer grapples with being a widower and father after a mental breakdown, while, 27 years later, his grown daughter struggles to forge connections of her own.
Creed III
2023★ 7.1
After dominating the boxing world, Adonis Creed has thrived in his career and family life. When a childhood friend and former boxing prodigy, Damian Anderson, resurfaces after serving a long sentence in prison, he is eager to prove that he deserves his shot in the ring. The face-off between former friends is more than just a fight. To settle the score, Adonis must put his future on the line to battle Damian — a fighter with nothing to lose.
Radio
2003★ 7.3
In the racially divided town of Anderson, South Carolina in 1976, football coach Harold Jones spots a mentally disabled African-American young man nicknamed Radio near his practice field and is inspired to befriend him. Soon, Radio is Jones' loyal assistant, and he becomes a student at T.L. Hanna High School. But things start to sour when Coach Jones begins taking guff from parents and fans who feel that his devotion to Radio is getting in the way of the team's quest for a championship.
The Lost Weekend
1945★ 7.6
Longtime alcoholic Don Birnam has been sober for ten days and appears to be over the worst... but his craving has just become more insidious. Evading a country weekend planned by his brother and girlfriend, he begins a four-day bender that just might be his last – one way or another.
Breakthrough
2019★ 7.6
Tragedy strikes when a woman named Joyce's son falls through the ice on a frozen lake and is trapped underwater for over 15 minutes. After being rushed to the hospital, the 14-year-old boy continues to fight for his life as Joyce, her husband and their pastor stay by his bedside and pray for a miracle.
The Hurricane
1999★ 7.4
The story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a boxer wrongly imprisoned for murder, and the people who aided in his fight to prove his innocence.
23 Blast
2014★ 6.8
When a high school football star is suddenly stricken with irreversible total blindness, he must decide whether to live a safe handicapped life or bravely return to the life he once knew and the sport he still loves.
Starving in Suburbia
2014★ 6.5
When seventeen-year-old Hannah stumbles upon a website about Thinspiration--an online community devoted to anorexia as a life choice--she becomes an obsessive follower of the site founder, ButterflyAna. By the time Hannah's family realizes what is happening and get Hannah the help she needs, the disease has fully taken hold and Hannah is refusing to eat. Will this family be able to exorcise the demon of anorexia from their lives?
Gigi & Nate
2022★ 7.6
A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.
Friday Night Lights
2004★ 6.9
A small, turbulent town in Texas obsesses over their high school football team to an unhealthy degree. When the star tailback, Boobie Miles, is seriously injured during the first game of the season, all hope is lost, and the town's dormant social problems begin to flare up. It is left to the inspiring abilities of new coach Gary Gaines to instill in the other team members -- and, by proxy, the town itself -- a sense of self-respect and honor.
The Sense of an Ending
2017★ 6.4
A man becomes haunted by his past and is presented with a mysterious legacy that causes him to re-think his current situation in life.
Clean and Sober
1988★ 6.3
Hotshot real estate salesman Daryl has a bad cocaine habit. After embezzling his company's money, he wakes up next to a girl who overdosed. To hide from the police, he checks into a rehabilitation program guaranteeing anonymity. Under the mentorship of counselor Craig, Daryl accepts that he has a substance abuse problem. As he falls in love with fellow patient Charlie, Daryl begins committing to a newly sober life.
Obsession
1976★ 6.7
A wealthy New Orleans businessman becomes obsessed with a young woman who resembles his late wife.
Pride
2007★ 6.7
Coach Jim Ellis shocks the community and changes lives when, aided by a local janitor, he sets out to form Philadelphia's first black swim team. But the odds are against them as they battle rigid rules, racism and more.
Hoovey
2015★ 6.5
The true and inspiring story of the Elliott family, who refused to surrender, instead turning to one another and their faith in the worst of circumstances, to rebuild their lives, their boy, and their dreams... together. Step by grueling step, with faith, love, and the tireless work of a mother and father to save their family, their farm, their dream, Hoovey learns to walk again. To read again. To dribble and shoot a basketball again. And yes, to dream again himself. Then stepping out in his faith, back onto the hard court, to live that dream of playing this game once more...
Stillwater
2021★ 6.6
Bill Baker, an American oil-rig roughneck from Oklahoma, travels to Marseille to visit his estranged daughter, Allison, who is in prison for a murder she claims she did not commit. Confronted with language barriers, cultural differences, and a complicated legal system, Bill builds a new life for himself in France as he makes it his personal mission to exonerate his daughter.
Train Dreams
2025★ 7.3
A logger leads a life of quiet grace as he experiences love and loss during an era of monumental change in early 20th-century America.
Creed
2015★ 7.4
The former World Heavyweight Champion Rocky Balboa serves as a trainer and mentor to Adonis Johnson, the son of his late friend and former rival Apollo Creed.
Coach Carter
2005★ 7.6
Based on a true story, in which Richmond High School head basketball coach Ken Carter made headlines in 1999 for benching his undefeated team due to poor academic results.