Movies Like Shadrach

If you liked Shadrach (1998), a drama movie directed by Susanna Styron, 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 Birth of a Nation (2016)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
Nat Turner, a former slave in America, leads a liberation movement in 1831 to free African-Americans in Virginia that results in a violent retaliation from whites.
2
12 Years a Slave (2013)
★ 7.9/10Also drama
In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty as well as unexpected kindnesses Solomon struggles not only to stay alive…
3
Free State of Jones (2016)
★ 6.8/10Also drama
In 1863, Mississippi farmer Newt Knight serves as a medic for the Confederate Army. Opposed to slavery, Knight would rather help the wounded than fight the Union. After his nephew dies in battle, Newt returns home to…
4
The Beguiled (2017)
★ 5.9/10Also drama
During the Civil War, at a Southern girls’ boarding school, young women take in an injured enemy soldier. As they provide refuge and tend to his wounds, the house is taken over with sexual tension and dangerous…
5
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…
6
Glory (1989)
★ 7.5/10Also drama
Robert Gould Shaw leads the US Civil War's first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices of both his own Union army and the Confederates.
7
The Poker House (2008)
★ 6.2/10Also drama
Agnes and her two sisters struggle through a day in a home overrun by gamblers, thieves, and johns.
8
The Beguiled (1971)
★ 7/10Also drama
Offbeat Civil War drama in which a wounded Yankee soldier, after finding refuge in an isolated girls' school in the South towards the end of the war, becomes the object of the young women's sexual fantasies. The…
9
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…
10
Unconquered (1947)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
England, 1763. After being convicted of a crime, the young and beautiful Abigail Hale agrees, to escape the gallows, to serve fourteen years as a slave in the colony of Virginia, whose inhabitants begin to hear and…
11
Matewan (1987)
★ 7.4/10Also drama
Filmed in the coal country of West Virginia, "Matewan" celebrates labor organizing in the context of a 1920s work stoppage. Union organizer, Joe Kenehan, a scab named "Few Clothes" Johnson and a sympathetic mayor and…
12
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…
13
The Burial (2023)
★ 7.1/10Also drama
When a handshake deal goes sour, funeral home owner Jeremiah O'Keefe enlists charismatic, smooth-talking attorney Willie E. Gary to save his family business. Tempers flare and laughter ensues as the unlikely pair bond…
14
Trees of Peace (2021)
★ 7.2/10Also drama
Four women from different backgrounds forge an unbreakable sisterhood while trapped and in hiding during the genocide in Rwanda.
15
Django Unchained (2012)
★ 8.2/10Also drama
With the help of a German bounty hunter, a freed slave sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.
16
Son of the South (2021)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
In civil rights era Montgomery, Alabama, Klansman's grandson Bob Zellner must choose which side of history to be on during the Movement. Defying his family and white Southern norms, he fought against social injustice…
17
Holler (2021)
★ 6/10Also drama
In a forgotten pocket of Southern Ohio where American manufacturing and opportunity are drying up, a determined young woman finds a ticket out when she is accepted to college. Alongside her older brother, Ruth Avery…
18
Christy (2025)
★ 7.1/10Also drama
Christy Martin never imagined life beyond her small-town roots in West Virginia—until she discovered a knack for punching people. Fueled by grit, raw determination, and an unshakable desire to win, she charges into the…
19
Marshall (2017)
★ 7.3/10Also drama
Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court Justice, battles through one of his career-defining cases.
20
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.