Movies Like The Water Is Wide

If you liked The Water Is Wide (2006), a drama and tv movie movie directed by John Kent Harrison, here are 20 movies with a similar feel, based on TMDB's recommendations. Each one links to its cast, trailer and where it's streaming.

1
Cheaters (2000)
★ 6.3/10Also drama and tv movie
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.
2
The Substitute 2: School's Out (1998)
★ 6.5/10Also tv movie
When teacher Randall Thomasson is killed during a carjacking, an unexpected visitor shows up at his funeral - his estranged brother, Karl Thomasson. An ex-Green Beret turned mercenary, Karl signs on as a new substitute…
3
Conrack (1974)
★ 6.7/10Also drama
A young, white school teacher is assigned to Yamacraw Island, an isolated fishing community off the coast of South Carolina, populated mostly by poor black families. He finds that the basically illiterate, neglected…
4
Iron Jawed Angels (2004)
★ 6.8/10Also drama and tv movie
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.
5
Girl in the Box (2016)
★ 6.7/10Also drama and tv movie
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.
6
The Ron Clark Story (2006)
★ 7.6/10Also drama
Passionate and innovative teacher Ron Clark leaves his small hometown to teach in one of Harlem's toughest schools. But to break through to the students, he must use unconventional methods, including his…
7
The Christmas Shoes (2002)
★ 6.8/10Also drama and tv movie
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…
8
The Miracle Worker (2000)
★ 7.3/10Also drama and tv movie
Devoted teacher Anne Sullivan leads deaf, blind and mute Helen Keller out of solitude and helps integrate her into the world.
9
The Color of Rain (2014)
★ 6.4/10Also tv movie and drama
After cancer claims Matt Kell's life on Christmas Day 2005, his widow, Gina and two young boys are left to cope with the pain of his loss while their close church community gathers around them for support.
10
Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996)
★ 7.1/10Also drama and tv movie
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…
11
Abducted by My Teacher: The Elizabeth Thomas Story (2023)
★ 6.9/10Also tv movie
The story of Elizabeth Thomas, a 15-year-old high school student who was groomed and abducted by teacher Tad Cummins.
12
My Dinner with Hervé (2018)
★ 6.3/10Also drama and tv movie
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.
13
To Sir, with Love II (1996)
★ 6.4/10Also drama and tv movie
After thirty years teaching in London, Mark Thackeray retires and returns to Chicago. There, however, the challenge of teaching kids in an inner city school proves to be too much to resist.
14
Miracle Run (2004)
★ 7.6/10Also drama and tv movie
Corinne is a single mother of twin 5-year-old boys, Steven and Phillip, who are diagnosed with autism. Public school officials threaten to remove them from school due to their behavior, but through therapy, the boys…
15
Love, Once and Always (2018)
★ 6.3/10Also drama and tv movie
When Lucy’s childhood sweetheart plans to tear down the Gilded Age estate and replace it with a golf course, Lucy fights to preserve the historic mansion at all costs. As Lucy and Duncan set out to find a compromise…
16
A Dry White Season (1989)
★ 6.7/10Also drama
During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.
17
Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story (2003)
★ 7.3/10Also drama and tv movie
Based on a true story. Liz Murray is a young girl who is taken care of by her loving, but drug-addicted parents. Liz becomes homeless at 15 and after a tragedy comes upon her, she begins her work to finish high school.
18
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)
★ 7/10Also drama
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.
19
Dirty Teacher (2013)
★ 5.9/10Also tv movie and drama
When a high school senior discovers her teacher is seducing her boyfriend, events turn deadly after the teacher tries to cover it up.
20
The River (1984)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from…