Movies Like How to Make It to the Promised Land

If you liked How to Make It to the Promised Land (2014), a drama movie directed by Sam Zalutsky, 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
Boot Camp (2008)
★ 5.9/10Also drama
A group of troubled teens are sent to a rehabilitation program housed in a remote camp on the island of Fiji. What their parents believe is a state-of-the-art deluxe institution in a beautiful natural environment turns…
2
Tea and Sympathy (1956)
★ 7/10Also drama
A sensitive young man recalls his time in boarding school when the only person who seemed compassionate towards him was his housemaster's wife.
3
Amateur (2018)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
14-year-old basketball phenom Terron Forte has to navigate the under-the-table world of amateur athletics when he is recruited to an elite NCAA prep school.
4
Love! Valour! Compassion! (1997)
★ 6.3/10Also drama
A group of gay friends spend summer weekends together at a lakeside house in upstate New York. As the season progresses and secrets begin to surface, the complex relationships within the group are sometimes strained…
5
What Maisie Knew (2013)
★ 7.1/10Also drama
In New York City, six-year-old Maisie is caught in the middle of a bitter custody battle between her self-absorbed parents—an aging rock singer mother and a distracted art dealer father. As both quickly marry new…
6
All Together Now (2020)
★ 6.7/10Also drama
An optimistic, talented teen clings to a huge secret: she's homeless and living on a school bus. When tragedy strikes, can she learn to accept a helping hand?
7
Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story (2003)
★ 7.3/10Also drama
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.
8
School Ties (1992)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
When David Greene receives a football scholarship to a prestigious prep school in the 1950s, he feels pressure to hide the fact that he is Jewish from his classmates and teachers, fearing that they may be anti-Semitic…
9
The Plague (2025)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
A socially awkward tween endures the ruthless hierarchy at a water polo camp, his anxiety spiraling into psychological turmoil over the summer.
10
Lady Driver (2020)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
When a rebellious teen embarks on a solo summer journey to connect with her roots, she finds herself in a new world, geared up for the ride of her life, and discovers she had the drive in her all along.
11
The Short History of the Long Road (2019)
★ 7.3/10Also drama
Nola grew up living in a van with her father, Clint—two nomads against the world. When tragedy strikes, Nola must confront the reality of life on the road alone, learning to own her grief, her past, and her new…
12
The Young One (1960)
★ 7/10Also drama
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
13
Brave the Dark (2025)
★ 6.7/10Also drama
When Mr. Deen discovers one of his students has been living out of his car and thrown into jail, he decides to bail him out. Determined to curb Nate’s self-destructive behavior, Deen quickly discovers a host of dark…
14
Madeline's Madeline (2018)
★ 5.9/10Also drama
Madeline has become an integral part of a prestigious physical theater troupe. When the workshop's ambitious director pushes the teenager to weave her rich interior world and troubled history with her mother into their…
15
The World Will Tremble (2025)
★ 7.5/10Also drama
The incredible, untold true story of how a group of prisoners attempt a seemingly impossible escape from the first Nazi death camp in order to provide the first eyewitness account of the Holocaust.
16
Head Full of Honey (2018)
★ 6.3/10Also drama
A young girl tries to help her grandfather, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, navigate his increasing forgetfulness, and ends up going on a remarkable adventure with him.
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
The Grey Zone (2001)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
The story of Auschwitz's twelfth Sonderkommando — one of the thirteen consecutive "Special Squads" of Jewish prisoners placed by the Nazis in the excruciating moral dilemma of assisting in the extermination of fellow…
19
Mammal (2016)
★ 6.3/10Also drama
After Margaret, a divorcée living in Dublin, loses her teenage son, she develops an unorthodox relationship with Joe, a homeless youth. Their tentative trust is threatened by his involvement with a violent gang and the…
20
The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018)
★ 6.9/10Also drama
Pennsylvania, 1993. After getting caught with another girl, teenager Cameron Post is sent to a conversion therapy center run by the strict Dr. Lydia Marsh and her brother, Reverend Rick, whose treatment consists in…