Best tv shows like Underground
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A group of slaves plan a daring 600-mile escape from a Georgia plantation. Along the way, they are aided by a secret abolitionist couple running a station on the Underground Railroad as they attempt to evade the people charged with bringing them back, dead or alive.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Adventure, Drama, History, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 43 min
Plot tags: historical drama, suspense, realistic, disturbing, stylized, intense, political, period drama, black cinema
Best tv shows and movies like Underground (2016):
Similar in 77%
Roots: The Gift (1988)
Plot Summary:
In December 1775, Cletus Moyer is a free black Northerner in colonial America, helping slaves escape captivity. In the days just prior to Christmas, a group of bounty hunters captures Moyer. Because of his capture, dozens of slaves who have already left their plantations are in danger of being captured as well. Moyer implores two slaves from a nearby plantation to take his place: Kunta Kinte, a Mandinka in his mid-twenties who was captured in what is now Gambia, and Fiddler, an elderly man who was born into slavery. Kunta is eager to help (and to escape himself), but Fiddler is unwilling, fearful of the consequences if they are caught.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 627
Genere: Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: historical drama
Similar in 78%
The Secret River (2015)
Plot Summary:
In 1806, William Thornhill is sentenced to New South Wales for life where he is drawn into a terrifying conflict that will leave a bloody and indelible stain.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 662
Genere: Adventure, Drama, History
Country: Australia
Duration:
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, stylized, historical drama, period drama
Similar in 89%
The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019)
Plot Summary:
Jimmie Fails dreams of reclaiming the Victorian home his grandfather built in the heart of San Francisco. Joined on his quest by his best friend Mont, Jimmie searches for belonging in a rapidly changing city that seems to have left them behind.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 21000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 121 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, unusual plot structure, captivating, disturbing, thought provoking, political, poignant, cult classic, independent film
Similar in 90%
Captive Heart: The James Mink Story (1996)
Plot Summary:
James Mink is a black man in Canada who has built a very successful livery business, and enjoys a white wife and a beautiful daughter, Mary. An excellent match is arranged with an American businessman, but when he takes his new wife Mary across the border his true character emerges - he sells her into slavery. James and Elizabeth must go to Virginia to rescue their daughter.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 265
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: uplifting, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, christian film
Similar in 83%
The Long Song (2018)
Plot Summary:
Set during the final days of slavery in 19th century Jamaica, we follow the trials, tribulations and survival of plantation slave July and her odious mistress Caroline.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing, costume drama, historical drama, period drama
Similar in 86%
The Porter (2022)
Plot Summary:
In 1921, friends and train porters Junior and Zeke find their unbreakable bond stretched to its limits when tragedy inspires them to take conflicting paths to a better life.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 510
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, suspense, realistic, disturbing, period drama
Similar in 78%
Oliver Twist (2007)
Plot Summary:
Oliver is born into poverty and misfortune - the son of an unmarried mother, who dies shortly after his birth. He is soon delivered to the workhouse, where the cruel Mr. Bumble oversees children tormented by starvation and suffering. When Oliver dares to ask for more gruel, he finds himself cast out and forced to make his own way in the world.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 176 min
Plot tags: costume drama, sentimental, touching, sincere, captivating, juvenile, historical drama, bleak, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 80%
Mercy Street (2016)
Plot Summary:
Follows the lives of two volunteer nurses on opposing sides of the Civil War - New England abolitionist Mary Phinney and Confederate supporter Emma Green. Based on true stories and set in a Union hospital in the occupied Confederate city of Alexandria, viewers are taken beyond the battlefield and into the lives of Americans on the Civil War home front as they face the unprecedented challenges of one of the most turbulent times in our nation’s history.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 53 min
Plot tags: historical drama, psychological, tense, sincere, suspense, gothic, dark, period piece, costume drama, medical drama
Similar in 87%
The Good Lord Bird (2020)
Plot Summary:
Enslaved teenager Henry Shackleford, aka Little Onion, becomes a member in abolitionist John Brown’s motley family during the Bleeding Kansas era before the Civil War.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, War, Western
Country: USA
Duration: 335 min
Plot tags: historical drama, tense, captivating, suspense, disturbing, political, dramatic, cult classic, humorous, dark comedy
Similar in 76%
True Women (1997)
Plot Summary:
True Women is a sweeping saga of love, war and adventure. Spanning five decades from the Texas Revolution through the Civil War, Reconstruction and beyond, True Women is the story of the love, friendship, survival and triumphs.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Action, Adventure, Biography, Drama, History, Romance, War, Western
Country: USA
Duration: 183 min
Plot tags: period piece, costume drama, tense, rough, epic, serious, emotional, realistic, family saga, period drama
Similar in 78%
Beulah Land (1980)
Plot Summary:
This sweeping epic dramatized the lives of two Georgia families during the early-to-mid 1800s: the Kendricks, who resided on the Beulah Land plantation, and the Davises, who owned the Oaks plantation. Both families loved, prospered and lost during this period, and were both touched by the events of the Civil War.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 263
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 281 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
A House Divided (2000)
Plot Summary:
In the aftermath of the terrible Civil War which has devastated the South, Amanda America Dixon returns home to find she has become the sole heir to a vast cotton plantation. But the dreadful secret which has blighted her life threatens to deprive her of the birthright which her beloved father David had struggled for so long to create. Raised by her father and grandmother to be the perfect white Southern Belle, Amanda's true mother was a black slave Julia. Confronted with the forces of greed and bigotry, Amanda has to face not only the hatred of a racist world, but the complex truth of a family whose lives have been built on a lie.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 287
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, realistic, suspenseful, period drama
Similar in 76%
The Underground Railroad (2021)
Plot Summary:
Follow young Cora’s journey as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. After escaping her Georgia plantation for the rumored Underground Railroad, Cora discovers no mere metaphor, but an actual railroad full of engineers and conductors, and a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, History, War
Country: USA
Duration: 593 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, suspense, disturbing, exciting, historical drama, atmospheric, period drama
Similar in 82%
North and South (1985)
Plot Summary:
Two friends, one northern and one southern, struggle to maintain their friendship as events build towards the American Civil War.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 12000
Genere: Drama, History, Romance, War
Country: USA
Duration: 561 min
Plot tags: exciting, realistic, atmospheric, serious, captivating, emotional, soap opera, period piece, costume drama, patriotic
Similar in 90%
Race to Freedom: The Underground Railroad (1994)
Plot Summary:
A number of slaves risk their lives to escape their masters with their only help coming from the famous secret slave escape network.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 185
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Canada
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: political, edutainment, sincere, atmospheric, serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 80%
Selma, Lord, Selma (1999)
Plot Summary:
In 1965 Alabama, an 11 year old girl (Jurnee Smollett) is touched by a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. (Clifton Powell) and becomes a devout follower. But her resolution is tested when she joins others in the famed march from Selma to Montgomery. This movie is based on the memoir "Selma, Lord, Selma: Girlhood Memories of the Civil Rights Days" by Sheyann Webb and Rachel West Nelson, as told to Frank Sikora, first published in 1980.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 586
Genere: Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Family, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: gothic, sincere, uplifting, thought provoking, touching, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 89%
Roots (2016)
Plot Summary:
An adaptation of Alex Haley's "Roots", chronicling the history of an African slave sold to America and his descendants.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: historical drama, captivating, sincere, rough, suspense, inspirational, gothic, political, educational, black cinema
Similar in 85%
Show Me a Hero (2015)
Plot Summary:
Mayor Nick Wasicsko took office in 1987 during Yonkers' worst crisis when federal courts ordered public housing built in the white, middle class side of town, dividing the city in a bitter battle fueled by fear, racism, murder and politics.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 12000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 358 min
Plot tags: serious, tense, rough, thought provoking, captivating, political, realistic, social, saga, clever
Similar in 80%
A Woman Called Moses (1978)
Plot Summary:
A film about the life and career of the African American abolitionist and slave escape leader, Harriet Tubman.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 403
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 240 min
Plot tags: political, tension, suspense
Similar in 83%
The Birth of a Nation (2016)
Plot Summary:
Nat Turner, a former slave in America, leads a liberation movement in 1831 to free African-Americans in Virgina that results in a violent retaliation from whites.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 22000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: factual, brutal, emotional, stylized, intense, controversial, exciting, powerful, gothic, serious
Similar in 88%
The Book of Negroes (2015)
Plot Summary:
Kidnapped in Africa and subsequently enslaved in South Carolina, Aminata must navigate a revolution in New York, isolation in Nova Scotia and treacherous jungles of Sierra Leone, in an attempt to secure her freedom in the 19th century.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Canada
Duration: 265 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, emotional, disturbing, epic, serious, captivating, realistic, historical drama, stylized, uplifting
Similar in 84%
Lovecraft Country (2020)
Plot Summary:
The anthology horror series follows 25-year-old Atticus Freeman, who joins up with his friend Letitia and his Uncle George to embark on a road trip across 1950s Jim Crow America to find his missing father. They must survive and overcome both the racist terrors of white America and the malevolent spirits that could be ripped from a Lovecraft paperback.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 46000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: lovecraft, anthology, exciting, captivating, suspenseful, suspense, disturbing, visual, twisted, supernatural thriller
Similar in 75%
Dark Angel (2016)
Plot Summary:
Drama about the real-life Victorian serial killer Mary Ann Cotton.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama, History, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 63 min
Plot tags: costume drama, psychological, captivating, suspense, disturbing, period piece, historical drama, period drama
Similar in 78%
Roots (1977)
Plot Summary:
African teen Kunta Kinte, brought to America to be enslaved, and the generations of his family.
IMDB Rating: 8.4
IMDB Votes: 18000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History, War
Country: USA
Duration: 588 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, emotional, uplifting, suspense, historical drama, thought provoking, sincere, serious, epic
Similar in 75%
Queen (1993)
Plot Summary:
A plantation owner's son falls in love with a slave named Easter and together they have a Mixed race daughter named Queen. As Queen grows up, she faces the struggle of trying to fit into the troubled world around her. She tries passing for white, but it leads to sorrow in post-Civil War America. Everywhere she goes, she faces obstacles and hardships while searching for happiness and a place to belong.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Biography, Drama, Romance, War
Country: USA
Duration: 282 min
Plot tags: psychological, gothic, heartbreaking, costume drama, uplifting, thought provoking, touching, serious, captivating, emotional
Similar in 82%
Glory (1989)
Plot Summary:
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.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 142000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History, War
Country: USA
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: epic, inspirational, suspense, realistic, rough, factual, period piece, emotional, talky, serious
Similar in 76%
Harriet (2019)
Plot Summary:
The story of Harriet Tubman, who helped free hundreds of slaves from the South after escaping from slavery herself in 1849.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 30000
Genere: Action, Biography, Drama, History
Country: China, USA
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, costume drama, tense, enigmatic, psychological, political, historical drama, exciting, inspirational, road movie
Similar in 75%
Amistad (1997)
Plot Summary:
In 1839, the slave ship Amistad set sail from Cuba to America. During the long trip, Cinque leads the slaves in an unprecedented uprising. They are then held prisoner in Connecticut, and their release becomes the subject of heated debate. Freed slave Theodore Joadson wants Cinque and the others exonerated and recruits property lawyer Roger Baldwin to help his case. Eventually, John Quincy Adams also becomes an ally.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 82000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 155 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, period piece, epic, dramatic, compassionate, factual, uplifting, serious, captivating
Similar in 86%
The Retrieval (2013)
Plot Summary:
On the outskirts of the Civil War, a boy is sent north by a bounty hunter gang to retrieve a wanted man.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Adventure, Drama, Western
Country: USA
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, captivating, suspense, road movie, realistic, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 88%
12 Years a Slave (2013)
Plot Summary:
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, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon’s chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist will forever alter his life.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 731000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History
Country: USA, UK
Duration: 134 min
Plot tags: motivational, heartbreaking, disturbing, harsh, bleak, atmospheric, emotional, factual, brutal, rough