Movies Like The First Grader (2010)

The First Grader is a 2010 drama, history, romance film from Justin Chadwick with a MovieMagicScore of 7.1/10. Here are 20 similar films, ranked by real viewer ratings — starting with Cracks and To Sir, with Love.

Drama History Romance

Cracks

2009

Jealousy flares after the headmistress of an elite boarding school for girls becomes obsessed with a new student.

6.6

MagicScore

To Sir, with Love

1967

A British Guianese engineer starts a job as a high school teacher in London’s East End, where his uninterested and delinquent pupils are in desperate need of attention and care.

7.5

MagicScore

The Class

2008

Teacher and novelist François Bégaudeau plays a version of himself as he negotiates a year with his racially mixed students from a tough Parisian neighborhood.

7.0

MagicScore

Hurricane Bianca

2016

A teacher from New York moves to a small town in Texas, gets fired for being gay, and returns disguised in drag to get revenge on the people who were nasty to him.

6.1

MagicScore

Waiting for "Superman"

2010

Gripping, heartbreaking, and ultimately hopeful, Waiting for Superman is an impassioned indictment of the American school system from An Inconvenient Truth director Davis Guggenheim.

6.9

MagicScore

Mrs. Hyde

2018

Mrs. Géquil is an eccentric teacher despised by her colleagues and students. On a stormy night, she is struck by lightning and faints. When she wakes up, she feels different. Will she now be able to keep the powerful and dangerous Mrs. Hyde contained?

4.3

MagicScore

Kathmandu Lullaby

2011

Kathmandu, Nepal, early 1990s. Laia, a young teacher from Catalonia, Spain, works at a local school in the slums of the city where poverty reigns. Her personal path, besieged by a harsh sum of indescribable social conditions, will be a struggle against a nefarious educational system, but a journey of self-discovery as well.

5.9

MagicScore

Where Is The Friend's House?

1987

An 8-year-old boy must return his friend's notebook he took by mistake, lest his friend be punished by expulsion from school.

7.9

MagicScore

Stand and Deliver

1988

Jaime Escalante is a mathematics teacher in a school in a hispanic neighbourhood. Convinced that his students have potential, he adopts unconventional teaching methods to try and turn gang members and no-hopers into some of the country's top algebra and calculus students.

7.6

MagicScore

#10

The Grizzlies

2019

In a small Arctic town struggling with the highest suicide rate in North America, a group of Inuit students' lives are transformed when they are introduced to the sport of lacrosse.

7.3

MagicScore

#11

Beyond the Blackboard

2011

Inspired by a true story, “Beyond the Blackboard” is about a 24-year-old first-time teacher who makes a difference in the lives of the homeless children she teaches in a shelter’s makeshift classroom. Set in 1987 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, this movie tells the story a brand-new teacher and Mom who is given a tougher than expected teaching job and winds up teaching homeless children in a school that is housed in a room and called, literally, The School with No Name. She has some personal prejudicial hurdles to cross before she is able to be a true teacher for these children and of course there are hurdles like the lack of books and supplies.

7.6

MagicScore

#12

Tart

2001

A student will do anything to become part of the "in-crowd" at the exclusive school she attends in New York.

4.3

MagicScore

#13

The Miracle Worker

1962

The true story of the frightening, lonely world of silence and darkness of 7-year-old Helen Keller who, since infancy, has never seen the sky, heard her mother's voice or expressed her innermost feelings. Then Annie Sullivan, a 20-year-old teacher from Boston, arrives. Having just recently regained her own sight, the no-nonsense Annie reaches out to Helen through the power of touch, the only tool they have in common, and leads her bold pupil on a miraculous journey from fear and isolation to happiness and light.

7.9

MagicScore

#14

Stolen Spring

1993

At their 25th high-school anniversary some bourgeois citizens remember their time in school as a happy one. In reality it was quite the contrary. The school was a madhouse in which the teachers, especially Blomme, tormented the students. As a result one of them became a murderer.

6.8

MagicScore

#15

The History Boys

2006

The story of an unruly class of bright, funny history students at a Yorkshire grammar school in pursuit of an undergraduate place at Oxford or Cambridge. Bounced between their maverick English master, a young and shrewd teacher hired to up their test scores, a grossly out-numbered history teacher, and a headmaster obsessed with results, the boys attempt to pass.

6.6

MagicScore

#16

To Sir, with Love II

1996

After thirty years teaching in London, Mark Thackeray retires and returns to Chicago. There, however, the challenge of teaching kids in an inner city school proves to be too much to resist.

6.4

MagicScore

#17

Aarakshan

2011

The decision by India's supreme court to establish caste-based reservations for jobs in education causes conflict between a teacher and his mentor.

6.2

MagicScore

#18

Two & Two

2011

In a drab, anonymous gray school governed by a strict authoritarian regime, an apparently unremarkable day is turned on its head following a seemingly ridiculous announcement. Disbelieving at first, the all male, identically uniformed pupils are informed that what they had always been taught as fact is no longer true. When the incredulous students speak out, what initially seems laughably absurd becomes desperately real as they are forced to question how far they will go to stand up for their beliefs. Two & Two is an allegory for the absurdness of dictatorship and tyranny - and the resilience of the human spirit.

7.2

MagicScore

#19

On the Way to School

2008

One year in the life of a Turkish teacher, teaching the Turkish language to Kurdish children in a remote village in Turkey. The children can't speak Turkish, the teacher can't speak Kurdish and is forced to become an exile in his own country. On the Way to School is a film about a Turkish teacher who is alone in a village as an authority of the state, and about his interaction with the Kurdish children who have to learn Turkish. The film witnesses the communication problem emphasizing the loneliness of a teacher in a different community and culture; and the changes brought up by his presence into this different community during one year. The film chronicles one school year, starting from September 2007 until the departure of the teacher for summer holiday in June 2008. During this period, they begin to know and understand each other mutually and slowly.

7.0

MagicScore

#20

Assassination Classroom the Movie: 365 Days' Time

2016

The killer class is back in session—sort of. Relive every moment through the eyes of the top two students: Nagisa and Karma!

6.5

MagicScore

Frequently asked

What are the best movies like The First Grader?

The top films similar to The First Grader by MovieMagicScore are Cracks (6.6), To Sir, with Love (7.5), The Class (7.0). Each shares drama/history/romance themes and is ranked by real viewer ratings, not critics or studios.

Is The First Grader worth watching?

The First Grader holds a MovieMagicScore of 7.1/10 from 97 viewer ratings, putting it among the better-reviewed titles in its genre.

What kind of movie is The First Grader?

The First Grader (2010) is a drama, history, romance film directed by Justin Chadwick, starring Naomie Harris, Tony Kgoroge, Nick Reding.

Where can I find more recommendations like The First Grader?

Browse the full ranked list above, or explore more drama recommendations on MovieMagicScore, where every list is ordered by genuine viewer ratings.

Keep exploring

Movies like Cracks Movies like To Sir, with Love Movies like The Class Movies like Hurricane Bianca Movies like Waiting for "Superman"Movies like Mrs. Hyde

About movies like The First Grader

This ranked list pairs The First Grader (2010), a drama and history and romance film from Justin Chadwick, with similar titles by genre, theme and cast overlap (fans of Naomie Harris take note). Unlike critic-driven sites, every position here is ordered by MovieMagicScore — a rating built only from real viewers, with no studio marketing or paid placement. Scores update as more people rate, so the list stays current.

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