Movies Like Spare the Rod

If you liked Spare the Rod (1961), a drama movie directed by Leslie Norman, 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
To Sir, with Love (1967)
★ 7.5/10Also drama
A British Guianese engineer starts a job as a high school teacher in London’s East End, where his uninterested and delinquent pupils are in desperate need of attention and care.
2
Steve (2025)
★ 6.3/10Also 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.
3
Cracks (2009)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
Jealousy flares after the headmistress of an elite boarding school for girls becomes obsessed with a new student.
4
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…
5
The End We Start From (2023)
★ 5.8/10Also drama
As London is submerged below floodwaters, a woman gives birth to her first child. Days later, she and her baby are forced to leave their home in search of safety. They head north through a newly dangerous country…
6
Living (2022)
★ 7/10Also drama
London, 1953. Mr. Williams, a veteran civil servant, is an important cog within the city's bureaucracy as it struggles to rebuild in the aftermath of World War II. Buried under paperwork at the office and lonely at…
7
Urchin (2025)
★ 6.8/10Also drama
Mike, a rough sleeper in London, is trapped in a cycle of self-destruction as he attempts to turn his life around. Along the way, he encounters unexpected chances for a fresh start.
8
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)
★ 7/10Also drama
A headstrong young teacher in a private school in 1930s Edinburgh ignores the curriculum and influences her impressionable 12-year-old charges with her over-romanticized worldview.
9
Kidulthood (2006)
★ 6.3/10Also drama
A day in the life of a group of troubled 15-year-olds growing up in west London.
10
Freedom Writers (2007)
★ 7.9/10Also drama
A young teacher inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply themselves, and pursue education beyond high school.
11
Sweetness in the Belly (2019)
★ 6.2/10Also drama
Orphaned in Africa as a child, Lilly escapes to England as a refugee, fleeing civil war in Ethiopia. Lost in this cold new world, Lilly embraces the immigrant community in London, attempting to reunite people with…
12
Poor Cow (1967)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
Joy lives a life filled with bad choices. At a young age, she marries and has a child–with an abusive thief who quickly ends up incarcerated. Left alone, she takes up with the guy's mate, another thief, who seems to…
13
Wonderstruck (2017)
★ 6.1/10Also drama
The story of a young boy in the Midwest is told simultaneously with a tale about a young girl in New York from fifty years ago as they both seek the same mysterious connection.
14
Mr. Holmes (2015)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
In 1947, long-retired and near the end of his life, Sherlock Holmes grapples with an unreliable memory and must rely on his housekeeper's son as he revisits the still-unsolved case that led to his retirement.
15
Night and the City (1950)
★ 7.5/10Also drama
Londoner Harry Fabian is a second-rate con man looking for an angle. After years of putting up with Harry's schemes, his girlfriend, Mary, becomes fed up when he taps her for yet another loan.
16
Disgrace (2008)
★ 6.2/10Also 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…
17
Oliver Twist (2005)
★ 6.8/10Also drama
An orphan endures a harsh life in a workhouse before fleeing to London, where he falls in with a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the criminal Fagin, and eventually finds a better life, exposing the cruelties of…
18
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…
19
Suffragette (2015)
★ 7.2/10Also drama
Based on true events about the foot soldiers of the early feminist movement, women who were forced underground to pursue a dangerous game of cat and mouse with an increasingly brutal State.
20
Jasper Jones (2017)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
Fourteen-year-old Charlie's life changes when Jasper takes his help to dispose of the body of his girlfriend, Laura. He decides to look for the murderer and falls in love with Laura's younger sister.