Movies Like For The Child's Own Good

If you liked For The Child's Own Good (1980), a movie, 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
Fallen (2016)
★ 6.1/10
Lucinda Price is sent to a reform academy under the assumption that she has killed a boy. There, she meets two mysterious boys, Cam and Daniel, to whom she feels drawn to both. But as the love triangle unfurls, it is…
2
Girl in the Box (2016)
★ 6.7/10
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.
3
Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (2019)
★ 6.3/10
Nancy Drew, a smart high schooler with a penchant for keen observation and deduction, stumbles upon the haunting of a local home. A bit of an outsider struggling to fit into her new surroundings, Nancy and her pals set…
4
Level 16 (2018)
★ 6.7/10
The teenage girls of Vestalis Academy are meticulously trained in the art of being “clean girls,” practicing the virtues of perfect femininity. But what exactly are they being trained for? Vivien intends to find out.
5
Steve (2025)
★ 6.4/10
Over one intense day, the devoted head teacher of a last-chance reform school strives to keep his students in line while facing pressures of his own.
6
Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List (2015)
★ 5.9/10
The bonds between Naomi and Ely are tested when they fall for the same guy.
7
The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012)
★ 7/10
A childless couple bury a box in their backyard, containing all of their wishes for an infant. Soon, a child is born, though Timothy Green is not all that he appears.
8
Cheaters (2000)
★ 6.3/10
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.
9
The Man in the White Suit (1951)
★ 6.9/10
The unassuming, nebbishy inventor Sidney Stratton creates a miraculous fabric that will never be dirty or worn out. Clearly he can make a fortune selling clothes made of the material, but may cause a crisis in the…
10
Imperium (2016)
★ 6.5/10
Nate Foster, a young, idealistic FBI agent, goes undercover to take down a radical white supremacy terrorist group. The bright up-and-coming analyst must confront the challenge of sticking to a new identity while…
11
Toy Soldiers (1991)
★ 6.5/10
After federal agents arrest a drug czar and put him on trial, the cartel leader's vicious son storms a prep school and takes its students hostage. They rebel against the armed intruders and try to take back their…
12
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
★ 6.8/10
Winston Smith is a government employee whose job involves the rewriting of history in a manner that casts his fictional country's leaders in a charitable light. His trysts with Julia provide his only measure of…
13
Welcome to Chechnya (2020)
★ 7/10
This searing investigative work shadows a group of activists risking unimaginable peril to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ program raging in the repressive and closed Russian republic. Unfettered access and a…
14
Old Boys (2018)
★ 6.6/10
In the school-set re-working of Cyrano, an awkward but imaginative pupil helps the handsome but spectacularly dim school-hero pursue the fiery daughter of a visiting French teacher.
15
Mariah Carey's Magical Christmas Special (2020)
★ 6.2/10
Faced with a holiday cheer crisis, the North Pole knows there's only one person who can save the day: Santa's great friend Mariah Carey. The Queen of Christmas creates a fabulous and star-studded spectacular to make…
16
TalhotBlond (2012)
★ 6.3/10
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
17
The Sacrifice Game (2023)
★ 5.8/10
Christmas break, 1971. Samantha and Clara, two students who are staying behind for the holidays at their boarding school, must survive the night after the arrival of uninvited visitors.
18
The Pigeon Tunnel (2023)
★ 6.6/10
Academy Award winner Errol Morris pulls back the curtain on the storied life and career of David Cornwell, the former spy known to the literary world as John le Carré.
19
Call Me by Your Name (2017)
★ 8.1/10
In the summer of 1983, a 17-year-old Elio spends his days in his family's villa in Italy. One day Oliver, a graduate student, arrives to assist Elio's father, a professor of Greco-Roman culture. Soon, Elio and Oliver…
20
Porno (2019)
★ 6/10
When a group of naive teens working at a movie theater in a small Christian town discover a mysterious film hidden in its basement, they unleash an alluring succubus who gives them a sex education…written in blood.