Movies Like Freedom Writers

If you liked Freedom Writers (2007), a crime and drama movie directed by Richard LaGravenese, 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
The Hate U Give (2018)
★ 8.1/10Also crime and drama
Raised in a poverty-stricken slum, a 16-year-old girl named Starr now attends a suburban prep school. After she witnesses a police officer shoot her unarmed best friend, she's torn between her two very different worlds…
2
The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler (2009)
★ 7.4/10Also drama
Irena Sendler is a Catholic social worker who has sympathized with the Jews since her childhood, when her physician father died of typhus contracted while treating poor Jewish patients. When she initially proposes…
3
Disgrace (2008)
★ 6.2/10Also crime and drama
Disgrace is the story of a South African professor of English who loses everything: his reputation, his job, his peace of mind, his good looks, his dreams of artistic success, and finally even his ability to protect…
4
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.
5
The Pawnbroker (1965)
★ 7.1/10Also drama
A Jewish pawnbroker, a victim of Nazi persecution, loses all faith in his fellow man until he realizes too late the tragedy of his actions.
6
Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
★ 8.4/10Also drama and crime
A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.
7
The Pianist (2002)
★ 8.4/10Also drama
The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his…
8
Conspiracy (2001)
★ 7.3/10Also drama
At the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942, senior Nazi officials meet to determine the manner in which the so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" can be best implemented.
9
My Friend Dahmer (2017)
★ 6.5/10Also drama and crime
Jeffrey Dahmer struggles with a difficult family life as a young boy. During his teenage years he slowly transforms, edging closer to the serial killer he was to become.
10
Schindler's List (1993)
★ 8.6/10Also drama
The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.
11
I'm Not Ashamed (2016)
★ 7.1/10Also drama and crime
Based on the journal entries of Rachel Joy Scott, the first student killed in the Columbine High School shooting in 1999.
12
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…
13
Georgetown (2019)
★ 5.9/10Also crime and drama
Ulrich Mott is an eccentric and versatile social climber with grandiose plans to affect United States foreign policy. Encouraged in his attempts by his strategically chosen (and much older) wife, the well-connected…
14
Apt Pupil (1998)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
One day in 1984, Todd Bowden, a brilliant high school boy fascinated by the history of Nazism, stumbles across an old man whose appearance resembles that of Kurt Dussander, a wanted Nazi war criminal. A month later…
15
The Irishman (2019)
★ 7.6/10Also crime and drama
Pennsylvania, 1956. Frank Sheeran, a war veteran of Irish origin who works as a truck driver, accidentally meets mobster Russell Bufalino. Once Frank becomes his trusted man, Bufalino sends him to Chicago with the task…
16
The Fallout (2021)
★ 7.5/10Also drama
In the wake of a school tragedy, Vada, Mia and Quinton form a unique and dynamic bond as they navigate the never linear, often confusing journey to heal in a world that feels forever changed.
17
GoodFellas (1990)
★ 8.5/10Also drama and crime
The true story of Henry Hill, a half-Irish, half-Sicilian Brooklyn kid who is adopted by neighbourhood gangsters at an early age and climbs the ranks of a Mafia family under the guidance of Jimmy Conway.
18
Lean On Me (1989)
★ 7.3/10Also drama
When principal Joe Clark takes over decaying Eastside High School, he's faced with students wearing gang colors and graffiti-covered walls. Determined to do anything he must to turn the school around, he expels…
19
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
★ 8.7/10Also drama and crime
Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden…
20
Adam Resurrected (2008)
★ 6.1/10Also drama
After again attempting to commit murder, a Jewish man with a mysterious past and extraordinary intelligence, charisma, and body control returns to an insane asylum, where he makes a startling discovery.