Best movies like Why Shoot the Teacher?
Last updated March 2024
Looking for movies like Why Shoot the Teacher?? Share your expertise to direct others to films and tv shows you've watched previously that might similarly absorb them. Aid in expanding the network of people mentioning videos to each other. We encourage your involvement!
Plot Summary:
It's the winter of 1935 and Max Brown is newly arrived in Willowgreen, Saskatchewan - a rural Canadian prairie town - on his first teaching job in a one room schoolhouse. He quickly realizes that this is not his dream situation: the winter is harsher than he's ever experienced, he's living in the basement of the school, the older of his students treat him poorly and his wages are paltry if and when he ever does get paid. He also feels physically and emotionally isolated. There, he bonds primarily with two townsfolk. Harris Montgomery sees Max as an obvious choice to espouse the politics of socialism. And Alice Field sees in Max a person like herself: being a British war bride, she is an alien in a harsh environment. Alice is in an unsatisfying marriage and turns to Max for emotional support. As Max goes through his first year in Willowgreen, he learns to understand life in a rural prairie town, both from the viewpoint of his students and for his own benefit.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 479
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: independent film, thinking
Best tv shows and movies like Why Shoot the Teacher? (1977):
Similar in 85%
The Outside Chance of Maximilian Glick (1988)
Plot Summary:
The early 1960s: In preparation for his Bar Mitzvah, a Jewish boy, Max Glick (Noam Zylberman) from a small Manitoba community with an overbearing family tries to navigate his coming-of-age with his family's condescension and bigotry using his sarcastic, Jewish humour. The town's rabbi dies, and a sub-plot develops in which Max's father (Aaron Schwartz) and grandfather (Jan Rubes)-both synagogue leaders-are saddled with a traditional Hassidic rabbi who sticks out like a sore thumb among the otherwise assimilated Jewish community. To make matters more difficult, Max likes a Catholic girl (14 year old Fairuza Baulk in just her third film), whom he later competes with in a piano competition. The quirky, fun-loving rabbi tries to help him with his problems, yet harbours a secret ambition of his own. Filmed in Winnipeg and rural Beausejour, Manitoba, Canada.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 258
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Music
Country: Canada
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 77%
Rautatie (1973)
Plot Summary:
Matti and Liisa are two farmers who become curious to see the first railroads in Lapinlahti, Finland.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 169
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Finland
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 77%
The Holdovers (2023)
Plot Summary:
A curmudgeonly instructor at a New England prep school is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually, he forms an unlikely bond with one of them — a damaged, brainy troublemaker — and with the school’s head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 21000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 133 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Who Has Seen the Wind (1977)
Plot Summary:
The coming-of-age of adolescent Brian O'Connal in small town Depression-era Saskatchewan is told. The son of the local pharmacist Gerald O'Connal, Brian is in many ways a typical boy, who dislikes school if only because of his run-ins with the nervous schoolteacher, Miss MacDonald, and who tries to catch gophers with his friends, Artie and Forbsie. His best friend and protector is slightly older Jonathan Ben, better known as The Young Ben (as his father is referred to as The Ben), who is highly regarded as a problem by those in town who see themselves as the moral authority if only because of The Young Ben's association to The Ben, the town still keeper and drunk. Brian's life takes a turn when his parents have to leave town temporarily, while Brian stays on his Uncle Sean's farm. That stint leads to a series of events which make Brian see life around him through slightly older and wiser eyes.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 160
Genere: Drama, Comedy
Country: Canada
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 83%
Dimboola (1979)
Plot Summary:
Dimboola follows the interaction of various characters at a country wedding reception.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 126
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Australia
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 75%
All That You Possess (2012)
Plot Summary:
An obsessed scholar attempts to withdraw from the world but finds personal ties drawing him back into the family he had left behind, in this novelistic, beautifully modulated drama from acclaimed Québécois filmmaker Bernard Émond.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 167
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
Captain Johnno (1988)
Plot Summary:
"Captain Johnno" is a deaf boy who befriends an Italian fisherman in this Australian made-for-TV family film.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 91
Genere: Drama, Family
Country: Australia
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: children's story
Similar in 77%
Lies My Father Told Me (1975)
Plot Summary:
A Jewish boy grows up in 1920s Montreal with a grandfather who tells stories and a father who won't work.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 573
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 77%
Ratboy (1986)
Plot Summary:
A failed window dresser exploits a being with rat-like features in an effort to make money.
IMDB Rating: 3.8
IMDB Votes: 763
Genere: Comedy, Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: independent film, humorous, realistic, semi serious
Similar in 79%
Unfinished Business (1984)
Plot Summary:
Seventeen year old Izzy Marks lives in Toronto with her divorced mother and finds her life boring and directionless. Meant to be a sequel to Don Owen's acclaimed 1964 film "Nobody Waved Good-bye", "Unfinished Business" looks at life two decades later for Peter and Julie's (Peter Kastner and Julie Biggs) daughter Isabelle "Izzy" Marks (Isabelle Mejias). Curious, funny and intelligent, 17 year old Izzy feels the frustrations of her limiting environment and the pull of a more exciting, larger world. She meets passionate anarchist wannabe Jessie 'Fixit' (Peter Spence) and is quickly drawn into his free living alternative lifestyle. Much to the displeasure of her once free-thinking parents and friends.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 43
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 77%
Nobody Waved Goodbye (1964)
Plot Summary:
18 year-old Peter lives with his parents in a middle-class Toronto suburb and rebels constantly against their imposed middle-class goals and conventions and the materialist values they represent. He constantly mocks and belittles his family with his only real ally being his girlfriend Julie. Peter's relationship with his parents reaches its boiling point when he borrows his father's new car without permission and is left by him to spend the night in jail after Peter is arrested for reckless driving. Peter runs away from home and moves into a rooming house, and eventually gets a shady job as a parking attendant. His relationship with Julie becomes exponentially more complicated and he finally realizes that being alone in the real world is much harder than he ever imagined.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 326
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 81%
Crazy Moon (1987)
Plot Summary:
1987 Canadian film starring the then relatively unknown Kiefer Sutherland as Brooks, an eccentric rich kid, with a fondness for big band music, bow ties and taking strange photographs who one day whilst stealing a mannequin from a clothes store, meets Anne, a free-spirited, young deaf girl who works in the shop. It's a meeting that will transform his life. As their friendship blossoms he starts to learn sign-language and she helps him to conquer his fear of water but with a bullying brother, insensitive overbearing father and his father's peculiar new girlfriend alll pressurising him to be 'normal' will Brooks be able to break free from their boundaries and his own fears and limitations to find the meaning of true and selfless love.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 677
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: touching, humorous, realistic, semi serious, independent film
Similar in 77%
Ticket to Heaven (1981)
Plot Summary:
David is a young man seduced by a religious cult that uses starvation, exhaustion, and brainwashing to mold recruits into money hustling disciples of a messiah-like leader. Chronicles David's chilling transformation into a gaunt, mindless shadow of his former self...and his ultimate salvation when friends and family launch a plan to kidnap and deprogram him.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 862
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, thought provoking, serious, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing, independent film
Similar in 79%
Wish You Were Here (1987)
Plot Summary:
In a staid English seaside town after the Second World War, young Lynda grows up with her widowed father and younger sister. Rebellious Lynda has been swearing constantly from an early age. At sixteen, she becomes more exhibitionist and seeks out sexual encounters challenging the prevailing lower-middle class attitudes to sex. She eventually becomes pregnant by an acquaintance of her father.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: grindhouse, humorous, sentimental, realistic, semi serious, independent film, black comedy, dark comedy, light, sexy
Similar in 85%
Monsieur Lazhar (2011)
Plot Summary:
During a harsh Montréal winter, an elementary-school class is left reeling after its teacher commits suicide. Bachir Lazhar, a charismatic Algerian immigrant, steps in as the substitute teacher for the classroom of traumatized children. All the while, he must keep his personal life tucked away: the fact that he is seeking political refuge in Québec – and that he, like the children, has suffered an appalling loss.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 21000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: touching, sincere, inspirational, compassionate, realistic, thought provoking, visually appealing, art house, serious, contemplative
Similar in 86%
Crying Ladies (2003)
Plot Summary:
Three working-class Manila women — Stella, Ailing and Choleng — are hired as paid mourners at a traditional Chinese funeral.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 281
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: crying
Similar in 79%
Rita, Sue and Bob Too! (1987)
Plot Summary:
Realistic story of working class Yorkshire life. Two schoolgirls have a sexual fling with a married man. Serious and light-hearted by turns. Rita, Sue And Bob Too was adapted by Andrea Dunbar from two of her own controversial plays. Rita (Siobhan Finneran) and Sue (Michelle Holmes) are two teenagers living on a run-down council estate in Bradford who both share a job babysitting for Bob (George Costigan) and Michelle's (Lesley Sharp) children. Whilst giving them a lift home one night, Bob decides to take Rita and Sue up to a deserted, country-side landscape. Clearly knowing what he has in mind, Rita and Sue are only too happy to oblige and both have a sexual encounter with him that becomes a regular occurrence. Despite the blatant politically-incorrect nature of the film, this does emerge as a somewhat controversial, though enduringly amusing film that has a sharp, gritty undertone.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: independent film, sex comedy, avant garde, cult classic, sexy, humorous, realistic, witty, semi serious, hot
Similar in 79%
Special Treatment (1980)
Plot Summary:
Dr. Ilic works in the hospital for compulsory treatment of alcoholics. By conducting his own "special treatment" through physical exercises, apple eating, the healing effects of listening to Wagner's music and psychodrama, a group of six patients have been taken to visit the brewery where there is a problem of alcoholism in the workplace.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 779
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Yugoslavia
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
Barefoot (2017)
Plot Summary:
Story of a small boy is forced to move out of Prague during World War 2 to a small village of Slavonice where he meets the rest of his family. He needs to make new friends and get used to a new life which is immensely different from what this city boy was used to.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 882
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czech Republic, Slovakia, Denmark
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, suspense, suspenseful, light, humorous, melancholic, tragicomedy, crying
Similar in 88%
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974)
Plot Summary:
The younger son of a working-class Jewish family in Montreal, Duddy Kravitz yearns to make a name for himself in society. This film chronicles his short and dubious rise to power, as well as his changing relationships with family and friends. Along the way the film explores the themes of anti-semitism and the responsibilities which come with adulthood.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: sad, clever, humorous, realistic, witty, cynical, semi serious, biting, semi autobiographical, suspense
Similar in 83%
Next of Kin (1984)
Plot Summary:
Twenty-three-year old Peter Foster is an only child who lives at home, where he constantly hears his parents arguing. Because Peter does nothing all day, the family goes to a clinic where a therapist videotapes them. After Peter watches his tape, he views the tape of a troubled Armenian family, who gave their only son away for adoption when they arrived in Canada. Peter decides to visit this family, and he pretends to be their son, Bedros Deryan. The Deryan family welcomes him with open arms, and Peter tries to patch up the poor relationship between George Deryan and his daughter Azah. Written by Will Gilbert.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 70 min
Plot tags: independent film, psychological, serious, realistic
Similar in 81%
Outrageous! (1977)
Plot Summary:
Gay hair stylist Robin Turner does a lot of work for drag queens, all the while dreaming that he'll someday find the courage to perform in drag himself. When his schizophrenic friend, Liza, turns up looking for a place to stay, he little suspects that she'll be the one to finally motivate him. But over time the two form an increasingly tight bond, Robin helping Liza through an unplanned pregnancy and Liza pushing Robin to develop a successful nightclub act.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: thinking, independent film, clever, touching, offbeat, humorous, realistic, witty, semi serious, queer cinema
Similar in 89%
Peppermint Soda (1977)
Plot Summary:
In the fall of 1963, Anne is becoming a teenager. She lives in Paris with her mother and her older sister, Frédérique. They're just back from summer at the beach with their father. School starts. A turbulent year awaits them both.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: France
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: cult classic, sentimental, sincere, touching, humorous, realistic, contemplative, semi serious, teen comedy, period drama
Similar in 76%
Tyrel (2018)
Plot Summary:
Tyler joins his friend on a trip to the Catskills for a weekend birthday party with several people he doesn’t know. As soon as they get there, it’s clear that (1) he’s the only black guy, and (2) it’s going to be a weekend of heavy drinking. Although Tyler is welcomed, he can’t help but feel uneasy in “Whitesville.” The combination of all the testosterone and alcohol starts to get out of hand, and Tyler’s precarious situation starts to feel like a nightmare.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: freeze frame
Similar in 83%
Wedding in White (1972)
Plot Summary:
A young girl's brother comes home from the army, and brings an army buddy with him. The three of them go out that night to celebrate, and after much drinking has been done, the brother's friend rapes the sister. After the two men have gone back, the girl finds that she's pregnant--and discovers that her parents don't blame the soldier, but blame her.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 371
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: crying, independent film
Similar in 88%
Growing Op (2008)
Plot Summary:
The story of a teenage boy coming of age in a suburban grow-operation, where every day is paradise or fresh hell. But it's always a trip. Sheltered all his life and home-schooled by loving parents who are also committed criminals, Quinn Dawson yearns to experience the normalcy of the suburban world which surrounds him.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: humorous, semi serious, light, sincere, mystical, mystic, offbeat, realistic, witty
Similar in 80%
The House of Tomorrow (2017)
Plot Summary:
The film tells futurist, architect, and inventor R. Buckminster Fuller's incredible story through two teens hoping to get laid, become punk gods, and survive high school.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: light, enigmatic, captivating, semi serious, teen
Similar in 83%
Thunder Road (2018)
Plot Summary:
Officer Arnaud raises his daughter as a love letter to his late Mom.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 19000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, humorous, sincere, captivating, funny, emotional, dark, social, mumblecore
Similar in 79%
The Efficiency Expert (1991)
Plot Summary:
Wallace is an efficiency expert, managing the high-profile downsizing of a major auto parts factory. But when he is hired to evaluate a small moccasin factory which seems from another era, Wallace has to reconsider the rapid modernization he advocates, as he is confronted by the human faces such plans hurt.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Australia
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: clever, touching, feel good, humorous, realistic, semi serious, independent film
Similar in 78%
Baaria (2009)
Plot Summary:
Giuseppe Tornatore traces three generations of a Sicilian family in in the Sicilian town of Bagheria (known as Baarìa in the local Sicilian dialect), from the 1930s to the 1980s, to tell the story of the loves, dreams and delusions of an unusual community.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 163 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, sincere, touching, realistic, semi serious, sad, epic, sentimental, clever, humorous