Movies Like Preface to a History

If you liked Preface to a History (2024), a drama movie directed by Willa Ross and Devan Scott, 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
Blue Heron (2026)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
A family of six's fresh start on 1990s Vancouver Island unravels as their youngest child, Sasha, witnesses the increasingly dangerous behavior of her older brother, Jeremy.
2
The Experiment (2010)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
20 men are chosen to participate in the roles of guards and prisoners in a psychological study that ultimately spirals out of control.
3
Eleanor the Great (2025)
★ 6.8/10Also drama
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
4
I Believe in Unicorns (2015)
★ 6.7/10Also drama
Feeling awkward and isolated, an imaginative and strong-willed teenage girl runs away from home with an older punk rock drifter.
5
The Last Rifleman (2023)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
A WWII veteran escapes his care home in Northern Ireland and embarks on an arduous but inspirational journey to France to attend the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, finding the courage to face the ghosts of his…
6
Hounddog (2008)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
7
Here (2024)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
An odyssey through time and memory, centered on a place in New Jersey where—from wilderness, and then, later, from a home—love, loss, struggle, hope and legacy play out between couples and families over generations.
8
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
★ 8/10Also drama
The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.
9
Killer's Kiss (1955)
★ 6.3/10Also drama
Davey Gordon, a New York City boxer at the end of his career, falls for dancer Gloria Price. However, their budding relationship is interrupted by Gloria's violent boss, Vincent Rapallo, who has eyes for Gloria. The…
10
Synecdoche, New York (2008)
★ 7.5/10Also drama
A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.
11
An Adventure in Space and Time (2013)
★ 7.7/10Also drama
Actor William Hartnell felt trapped by a succession of hard-man roles while wannabe producer Verity Lambert was frustrated by the TV industry's glass ceiling. Both of them were to find unlikely hope and unexpected…
12
The Beaver (2011)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
Suffering from a severe case of depression, toy company CEO Walter Black begins using a beaver hand puppet to help him open up to his family. With his father seemingly going insane, adolescent son Porter pushes for his…
13
Swan Song (2021)
★ 7.1/10Also drama
In the near future, Cameron Turner is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Presented with an experimental solution to shield his wife and son from grief, he grapples with altering their fate in this thought-provoking…
14
Aftersun (2022)
★ 7.7/10Also drama
Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories fill the gaps between camcorder footages as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with…
15
Strange Weather (2016)
★ 5.9/10Also drama
Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.
16
Bastard Out of Carolina (1996)
★ 7.1/10Also drama
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as…
17
Goodbye June (2025)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.
18
Ex Machina (2015)
★ 7.6/10Also drama
Caleb, a coder at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote…
19
Brand Upon the Brain! (2007)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
After returning home to his long-estranged mother upon a request from her deathbed, a man raised by his parents in an orphanage has to confront the childhood memories that have long haunted him.
20
Magazine Dreams (2025)
★ 7/10Also drama
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…