Finding Forrester
Gus Van Sant tells the story of a young African American man named Jamal who confronts his talents while living on the streets of the Bronx. He accidentally runs into an old writer named Forrester who discovers his passion for writing. With help from his new mentor Jamal receives a scholarship to a private school.
Movies Like Finding Forrester
Similar in style, tone, and themes — find your next watch.
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.
Dead Poets Society
1989★ 8.3
At an elite, old-fashioned boarding school in New England, a passionate English teacher inspires his students to rebel against convention and seize the potential of every day, courting the disdain of the stern headmaster.
The Fabelmans
2022★ 7.6
Growing up in post-World War II era Arizona, young Sammy Fabelman aspires to become a filmmaker as he reaches adolescence, but soon discovers a shattering family secret and explores how the power of films can help him see the truth.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
1969★ 6.9
A headstrong young teacher in a private school in 1930s Edinburgh ignores the curriculum and influences her impressionable 12-year-old charges with her over-romanticized worldview.
I Swear
2025★ 8.2
Diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome at 15, John Davidson navigates his way against the odds through troubled teenage years and into adulthood, finding inspiration in the kindness of others to discover his true purpose in life.
Trumbo
2015★ 7.2
The career of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo is halted by a witch hunt in the late 1940s when he defies the anti-communist HUAC committee and is blacklisted.
Experimenter
2015★ 6.5
Yale University, 1961. Stanley Milgram designs a psychology experiment that still resonates to this day, in which people think they’re delivering painful electric shocks to an affable stranger strapped into a chair in another room. Despite his pleads for mercy, the majority of subjects don’t stop the experiment, administering what they think is a near-fatal electric shock, simply because they’ve been told to do so. With Nazi Adolf Eichmann’s trial airing in living rooms across America, Milgram strikes a nerve in popular culture and the scientific community with his exploration into people’s tendency to comply with authority. Celebrated in some circles, he is also accused of being a deceptive, manipulative monster, but his wife Sasha stands by him through it all.
Boyhood
2014★ 7.5
The film tells a story of a divorced couple trying to raise their young son. The story follows the boy for twelve years, from first grade at age 6 through 12th grade at age 17-18, and examines his relationship with his parents as he grows.
I Never Sang for My Father
1970★ 6.7
A man living in the towering shadow of his aging father finds it difficult to start a new chapter in his life by marrying his girlfriend and moving to California.
Giant Little Ones
2019★ 7.1
Two popular teen boys, best friends since childhood, discover their lives, families, and girlfriends dramatically upended after an unexpected incident occurs on the night of a 17th birthday party.
Belfast
2021★ 7.0
Buddy is a young boy on the cusp of adolescence, whose life is filled with familial love, childhood hijinks, and a blossoming romance. Yet, with his beloved hometown caught up in increasing turmoil, his family faces a momentous choice: hope the conflict will pass or leave everything they know behind for a new life.
The Miracle Worker
1962★ 7.9
The true story of the frightening, lonely world of silence and darkness of 7-year-old Helen Keller who, since infancy, has never seen the sky, heard her mother's voice or expressed her innermost feelings. Then Annie Sullivan, a 20-year-old teacher from Boston, arrives. Having just recently regained her own sight, the no-nonsense Annie reaches out to Helen through the power of touch, the only tool they have in common, and leads her bold pupil on a miraculous journey from fear and isolation to happiness and light.
The Words
2012★ 6.7
The Words follows young writer Rory Jansen who finally achieves long sought after literary success after publishing the next great American novel. There's only one catch - he didn't write it. As the past comes back to haunt him and his literary star continues to rise, Jansen is forced to confront the steep price that must be paid for stealing another man's work, and for placing ambition and success above life's most fundamental three words.
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.
Tetro
2009★ 6.8
In Buenos Aires, 17-year-old Bennie seeks out his estranged brother Tetro, a once-promising writer haunted by their family’s past. As Bennie uncovers Tetro’s hidden manuscript, old secrets and rivalries resurface, forcing both men to confront the truth about their father and the tangled legacy that tore their family apart.
The Best of Enemies
2019★ 7.4
Centers on the unlikely relationship between Ann Atwater, an outspoken civil rights activist, and C.P. Ellis, a local Ku Klux Klan leader who reluctantly co-chaired a community summit, battling over the desegregation of schools in Durham, North Carolina during the racially-charged summer of 1971. The incredible events that unfolded would change Durham and the lives of Atwater and Ellis forever.
Richard Jewell
2019★ 7.4
Richard Jewell thinks quick, works fast, and saves hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives after a domestic terrorist plants several pipe bombs and they explode during a concert, only to be falsely suspected of the crime by sloppy FBI work and sensational media coverage.
The Social Network
2010★ 7.4
In 2003, Harvard undergrad and computer programmer Mark Zuckerberg begins work on a new concept that eventually turns into the global social network known as Facebook. Six years later, Mark is one of the youngest billionaires ever, but his unprecedented success leads to both personal and legal complications when he ends up on the receiving end of two lawsuits, one involving his former friend.
King Richard
2021★ 7.6
The story of how Richard Williams served as a coach to his daughters Venus and Serena, who will soon become two of the most legendary tennis players in history.
White Bird
2023★ 7.8
After being expelled from Beecher Prep for his treatment of a classmate with a facial deformity, Julian has struggled to fit in at his new school. To transform his life, Julian's grandmother finally reveals her own story of courage of her youth in Nazi-occupied France, where a classmate shelters her from mortal danger.