Movies Like Silent Pioneers

If you liked Silent Pioneers (1985), a documentary movie directed by Lucy Winer, 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
Disclosure (2020)
★ 7.8/10Also documentary
An investigation of how Hollywood's fabled stories have deeply influenced how Americans feel about transgender people, and how transgender people have been taught to feel about themselves.
2
28 Up (1985)
★ 7.5/10Also documentary
Just two years away from turning 30, participants in Michael Apted's documentary series are facing serious questions of identity and purpose, wondering whether they've found their place in the world.
3
American Teen (2008)
★ 6.4/10Also documentary
A documentary on seniors at a high school in a small Indiana town and their various cliques.
4
The Last Repair Shop (2024)
★ 7.5/10Also documentary
In a warehouse in the heart of Los Angeles, a dwindling handful of devoted craftspeople maintain more than 80,000 student musical instruments, the largest remaining workshop in America of its kind. Meet four…
5
Come See Me in the Good Light (2025)
★ 7.1/10Also documentary
In an intimate and joyful story of love in the face of loss, celebrated poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley find strength—and unexpected hilarity—in what might be their final year together.
6
Welcome to Chechnya (2020)
★ 7/10Also documentary
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…
7
Tongues Untied (1990)
★ 6.7/10Also documentary
Marlon Riggs, with assistance from other gay Black men, especially poet Essex Hemphill, celebrates Black men loving Black men as a revolutionary act. The film intercuts footage of Hemphill reciting his poetry, Riggs…
8
Tab Hunter Confidential (2015)
★ 7.2/10Also documentary
Throughout the 1950s, Tab Hunter reigned as Hollywood’s ultimate male heartthrob. But throughout his years of stardom, Tab had a secret. Tab Hunter was gay, and spent his Hollywood years in a precarious closet that…
9
35 Up (1991)
★ 7.6/10Also documentary
Director Michael Apted revisits the same group of British-born adults after a 7 year wait. The subjects are interviewed as to the changes that have occurred in their lives during the last seven years.
10
Some Kind of Heaven (2021)
★ 7/10Also documentary
Behind the gates of a palm-tree-lined fantasyland, three residents and one interloper at America's largest retirement community strive to find happiness.
11
42 Up (1999)
★ 7.6/10Also documentary
Director Michael Apted revisits the same group of British-born adults after a 7 year wait. The subjects are interviewed as to the changes that have occurred in their lives during the last seven years.
12
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022)
★ 7.2/10Also documentary
The life of internationally renowned artist and activist Nan Goldin is told through her slideshows, intimate interviews, ground-breaking photography, and rare footage of her personal fight to hold the Sackler family…
13
Nothing Like a Dame (2018)
★ 6.8/10Also documentary
BBC Arena's documentary on the Dames of British Theatre and film featuring Maggie Smith, Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench and Joan Plowright on screen together for the first time as they reminisce over a long summer weekend…
14
Anna Nicole Smith: You Don't Know Me (2023)
★ 6.1/10Also documentary
From the heights of her modeling fame to her tragic death, this documentary reveals Anna Nicole Smith through the eyes of the people closest to her.
15
Howard (2018)
★ 6.8/10Also documentary
Though legendary lyricist Howard Ashman died far too young, his impact on Broadway, movies, and the culture at large were incalculable. Told entirely through rare archival footage and interviews with Ashman’s family…
16
Pray Away (2021)
★ 6.7/10Also documentary
In the 1970s, five men struggling with being gay in their Evangelical church started a bible study to help each other leave the "homosexual lifestyle." They quickly received over 25,000 letters from people asking for…
17
Cameraperson (2016)
★ 6.7/10Also documentary
As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What…
18
My Mom Jayne (2025)
★ 8/10Also documentary
Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and…
19
Elstree 1976 (2015)
★ 6.2/10Also documentary
A documentary about ten very different lives connected by having appeared onscreen wearing masks or helmets in Star Wars.
20
Heart of a Dog (2015)
★ 6.5/10Also documentary
Musician and performance artist Laurie Anderson reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother and her beloved dog.