Movies Like The Deserted Valley

If you liked The Deserted Valley (2002), a drama movie directed by Phạm Nhuệ Giang, 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
Light It Up (1999)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
On a winter day in a southside Queens high school, events collide and six students are suddenly in an armed standoff with the NYPD. At the school, classrooms freeze, teachers come and go, resources are scant.
2
Only the Strong (1993)
★ 6.9/10Also drama
Former Green Beret Louis Stevens returns to his hometown of Miami after completing military service in Brazil, only to learn that his old high school has become a haven for gangs and drug dealers. After Stevens uses…
3
Cheaters (2000)
★ 6.3/10Also drama
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.
4
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…
5
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.
6
After the Dark (2013)
★ 6/10Also drama
At an international school in Jakarta, a philosophy teacher challenges his class of twenty graduating seniors to choose which ten of them would take shelter underground and reboot the human race in the event of a…
7
Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (2023)
★ 6.3/10Also drama
After a Vietnamese woman dies in a car crash in Saigon, her brother-in-law and her young son transport her body back to the former’s hometown in rural Vietnam, where they plan to give her a funeral.
8
Steve (2025)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
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.
9
The Principal (1987)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
Burglary. Drugs. Assault. Rape. The students at Brandel High are more than new Principal Rick Latimer bargained for. Gangs fight to control the school using knives - even guns - when they have to. When Latimer and the…
10
The Giver (2014)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
In a seemingly perfect community, without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, a young boy is chosen to learn from an elderly man about the true pain and pleasure of the "real" world.
11
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.
12
Dead Poets Society (1989)
★ 8.3/10Also drama
At an elite, old-fashioned boarding school in New England, a passionate English teacher inspires his students to rebel against convention and seize the potential of every day, courting the disdain of the stern…
13
Jonathan (2018)
★ 5.9/10Also drama
Jonathan is a young man with a strange condition that only his brother understands. But when he begins to yearn for a different life, their unique bond becomes increasingly tested.
14
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.
15
The Parts You Lose (2019)
★ 6.7/10Also drama
An unlikely friendship unfolds between a young deaf boy, Wesley, and a fugitive criminal who takes refuge in an abandoned barn on the family’s rural North Dakota farm.
16
Holy Lands (2019)
★ 6.1/10Also drama
When lapsed Jew and former cardiologist Harry suddenly decides to spend his retirement as a pig farmer in Nazareth, Israel, the move deeply shocks his family and his new neighbours. Back in New York, Harry’s ex-wife…
17
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…
18
Detachment (2011)
★ 7.6/10Also drama
A chronicle of three weeks in the lives of several high school teachers, administrators and students through the eyes of substitute teacher Henry Barthes. Henry roams from school to school, imparting modes of…
19
Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (1998)
★ 7.2/10Also drama
Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even…
20
This Is Not a Ceremony (2022)
Also drama
This cinematic VR experience offers insights into the struggles and conflicts of growing up an Indigenous man.