Movies Like Zulu Meets Jazz

If you liked Zulu Meets Jazz (2008), a movie directed by Ferdinando Vicentini Orgnani, 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
Sarafina! (1992)
★ 6.2/10
A Soweto schoolgirl named Sarafina is galvanized to protest apartheid after her teacher is arrested for her activism, leading her to join the student resistance movement.
2
Searching for Sugar Man (2012)
★ 7.9/10
Two South Africans set out to discover what happened to their unlikely musical hero, the mysterious 1970s rock 'n' roller, Rodriguez.
3
Cry Freedom (1987)
★ 7/10
A dramatic story, based on actual events, about the friendship between two men struggling against apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s. Donald Woods is a white liberal journalist in South Africa who begins to follow…
4
Escape from Pretoria (2020)
★ 7.2/10
South Africa, 1978. Tim Jenkin and Stephen Lee, two white political activists from the African National Congress imprisoned by the apartheid regime, put a plan in motion to escape from the infamous Pretoria Prison.
5
The Soloist (2009)
★ 6.7/10
A Los Angeles journalist befriends a homeless Juilliard-trained musician, while looking for a new article for the paper.
6
Whiplash (2014)
★ 8.4/10
Under the direction of a ruthless instructor, a talented young drummer begins to pursue perfection at any cost, even his humanity.
7
Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (2021)
★ 7.6/10
During the same summer as Woodstock, over 300,000 people attended the Harlem Cultural Festival, celebrating African American music and culture, and promoting Black pride and unity. The footage from the festival sat in…
8
Chappie (2015)
★ 6.8/10
Every child comes into the world full of promise, and none more so than Chappie: he is gifted, special, a prodigy. Like any child, Chappie will come under the influence of his surroundings—some good, some bad—and he…
9
'Round Midnight (1986)
★ 7.1/10
Inside the Blue Note nightclub one night in 1959 Paris, an aged, ailing jazzman coaxes an eloquent wail from his tenor sax. Outside, a young Parisian too broke to buy a glass of wine strains to hear those notes. Soon…
10
Car Wash (1976)
★ 6/10
This day-in-the-life cult comedy focuses on a group of friends working at Sully Boyar's Car Wash in the Los Angeles ghetto. The team meets dozens of eccentric customers -- including a smooth-talking preacher, a wacky…
11
Whiplash (2013)
★ 7.8/10
A ferocious, bullying music teacher teaches a dedicated student.
12
Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)
★ 6.5/10
In late 1940s Los Angeles, Easy Rawlins is an unemployed black World War II veteran with few job prospects. At a bar, Easy meets DeWitt Albright, a mysterious white man looking for someone to investigate the…
13
The Cotton Club (1984)
★ 6.5/10
Harlem's legendary Cotton Club becomes a hotbed of passion and violence as the lives and loves of entertainers and gangsters collide.
14
District 9 (2009)
★ 7.5/10
Thirty years ago, aliens arrive on Earth. Not to conquer or give aid, but to find refuge from their dying planet. Separated from humans in a South African area called District 9, the aliens are managed by…
15
A Haunting in Venice (2023)
★ 6.6/10
Celebrated sleuth Hercule Poirot, now retired and living in self-imposed exile in Venice, reluctantly attends a Halloween séance at a decaying, haunted palazzo. When one of the guests is murdered, the detective is…
16
Cradle Will Rock (1999)
★ 6.5/10
A true story of politics and art in the 1930s USA, centered around a leftist musical drama and attempts to stop its production.
17
Music of the Heart (1999)
★ 6.7/10
After Roberta Guaspari separates from her husband, she receives encouragement from her mother to take up a job of a music teacher at the Central Park East School in East Harlem.
18
The Rainmaker (1997)
★ 7/10
Fresh out of law school and desperate for work, idealistic rookie Rudy Baylor takes on a powerful insurance company accused of denying a dying boy’s claim. Teaming up with a scrappy, unlicensed paralegal, he finds…
19
Ali G Indahouse (2002)
★ 6.1/10
Ali G unwittingly becomes a pawn in the evil Chancellor's plot to overthrow the Prime Minister of Great Britain. However, instead of bringing the Prime Minister down, Ali is embraced by the nation as the voice of youth…
20
The Terminal (2004)
★ 7.4/10
An Eastern European tourist unexpectedly finds himself stranded in JFK airport, and must take up temporary residence there.