8 Movies Like The Graduate (1967)

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Staff & contributors

Chasing the feel of watching The Graduate ? Here are the movies we recommend you watch right after.

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, 2010

Good parents, of course, try to push their children to better outcomes, but abusive parents, under the guise of this idea, turn this into restrictive control, where failure is irredeemable, expectations become orders, and the said child is blamed for everything that goes wrong. Udaan depicts this fraught father-son relationship realistically. It’s a tough watch because of how realistic the abuse was portrayed, but the film soars with the way it doesn’t paint Rohan only as a victim, but rather as a boy able to find his way through empathy and kindness despite the terrible way his father treats him. There’s a sense of genuine hope Udaan has that many other films forget, and it’s an important perspective we should try to remember.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Aayan Boradia, Akshay Sachdev, Anand Tiwari, Jayanta Das, Manjot Singh, Raja Hudda, Rajat Barmecha, Ram Kapoor, Ronit Roy, Sanjay Gandhi, Shashi Sharma, Shaunak Sengupta, Varun Khettry, Vikas Kumar, Vikramaditya Motwane

Director: Vikramaditya Motwane

Rating: Not Rated, R

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, 2011

Demian Bichir was nominated for an Oscar for his role in this movie where he plays an illegal immigrant and father. You might be wondering "who is that?", but trust me you won't after watching this movie. The kindness, complexity, and authenticity he brings to this story are unparalleled.

A Better Life is about the illegal immigrant experience, about the line between the fear of being caught and the aspiration for a better future. It's an excellent and important movie. 

Genre: Drama

Actor: Abraham Belaga, Bobby Soto, Brigitte Sy, Carlos Linares, Chelsea Rendon, Demián Bichir, Dolores Heredia, Eddie 'Piolin' Sotelo, Eddie 'Piolin' Sotelo, Fayçal Safi, Francois Favrat, Gabriel Chavarria, Guillaume Canet, Isabella Rae Thomas, Joaquín Cosío, José Julián, Leila Bekhti, Nancy Lenehan, Nicolas Abraham, Slimane Khettabi, Tim Griffin

Director: Cedric Kahn, Chris Weitz

Rating: PG-13

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, 2022

It doesn’t feel quite right to call Pacifiction a political thriller — at 2 hours 45 minutes and with an unhurried, dreamlike pace, it’s hardly the adrenaline rush that that categorization suggests. But Albert Serra’s film is still suffused with all the paranoia and intrigue that the genre promises, just at a slower burn. The specters of colonialism and nuclear apocalypse hang low over the movie, which is set in an idyllic Tahiti, where Benoît Magimel’s Monsieur De Roller is stationed as France’s outgoing High Commissioner, a bureaucratic relic of the country’s imperialist history. As shady figures and strange rumors about a military submarine begin to arrive on the island, a paranoid De Roller struggles to exert political control — and, in the process, seems to lose some of his own sanity. With an ethereal score, defiantly murky plot, hallucinatory cinematography, and some of humanity’s greatest horrors hanging over it like a pall, Pacifiction feels like a fever dream in the truest sense.

Genre: Drama, Thriller

Actor: Alexandre Melo, Baptiste Pinteaux, Benoit Magimel, Cécile Guilbert, Lluís Serrat, Marc Susini, Montse Triola, Pahoa Mahagafanau, Sergi Lopez

Director: Albert Serra

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, 2018

Howard Ashman was at the peak of his career—fresh off Little Mermaid’s sweeping win at the Grammys and Oscars, and concocting the iconic songs that would make up Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast—when he died of AIDS at 40. But even at that relatively young age, Ashman already had a lifetime’s worth of work to show. Howard, the documentary, gives us a glimpse into Howard’s inner and early life, starting with his fanciful and imaginative childhood, all the way down to his formative college years, his foundational work in “off, off” Broadway, and the breakout success of The Little Shop of Horrors the Musical. Disney isn’t the whole picture, the documentary rightfully proclaims, so in between the abovementioned highlights, director Don Hahn inserts pockets of heartwarming anecdotes from Howard’s friends and family, and some of Howard’s own wise words from interview snippets. It’s clear Hahn was a good friend of Ashman, since the documentary often feels like a warm get-together of the people who knew and loved Ashman best.

Genre: Documentary, Music

Actor: Adam Jacobs, Alan Menken, Angela Lansbury, Anne Bobby, Annette O'Toole, Barbara McCutchan, Barry Peterson, Benny Carter, Bill Boggs, Bill Lauch, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Brynn O'Malley, Charles B. Griffith, Chris Montan, Colleen Camp, Dan Rather, Dan Stevens, Danny Glover, David Friedman, David Geffen, Denise Nickerson, Dennis Green, Diane Sawyer, Divine, Don Hahn, Donald W. Ernst, Douglas Seale, Dudley Moore, Ellen Greene, Emma Watson, Estelle Bennett, Fats Waller, Frank Oz, Frederick Coffin, Gary Trousdale, Glen Keane, Howard Ashman, James Monroe Iglehart, Janis Menken, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Jerry Orbach, Joan Prather, Jodi Benson, John Herman Shaner, John Musker, Jonathan Hadary, Jonathan Haze, Karen Miller, Kirk Wise, Kurt Vonnegut, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Kyle Renick, Larry Kramer, Leola Wendorff, Levi Stubbs, Maria O'Brien, Marvin Hamlisch, Maureen Abbott, Maury Yeston, Mel Welles, Melanie Griffith, Melinda Smith, Mena Massoud, Michelle Weeks, Mike Gabriel, Nancy Parent, Natalie Wood, Paige O'Hara, Pat Carroll, Paula Abdul, Peter Schneider, Phil Spector, Randy Cartwright, Richard Beymer, Richard White, Rick Moranis, Rob Minkoff, Roger Allers, Roger Ebert, Ron Clements, Ronnie Spector, Roy Edward Disney, Sarah Gillespie, Shirley Ashman, Steve Martin, Thomas Schumacher, Tichina Arnold, Tisha Campbell, Vincent Gardenia, Walt Disney, Will Smith

Director: Don Hahn

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, 2006

Starring a sad-sack Steve Carrell and an ensemble cast with brilliant timing and real heart, Little Miss Sunshine is a rare understated comedy that brings laughter and tears. As a dysfunctional family's youngest member gets chosen to be in a pageant in California, the family must come together and support her through her journey. Along the path that they take, they learn and cope with each other. A great movie filled with phenomenal acting and writing with a real heart that will leave you breathless.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Abigail Breslin, Alan Arkin, Beth Grant, Brenda Canela, Bryan Cranston, Chuck Loring, Dean Norris, Geoff Meed, George W. Bush, Gordon Thomson, Greg Kinnear, Jerry Giles, Jill Talley, Joan Scheckel, John Walcutt, Julio Oscar Mechoso, Justin Shilton, Lauren Shiohama, Marc Turtletaub, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Matt Winston, Mel Rodriguez, Paul Dano, Paula Newsome, Steve Carell, Steven Christopher Parker, Terry Bolo, Toni Collette, Wallace Langham

Director: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris

Rating: R

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, 2017

What happens to genius and complex filmmakers once they reach old age? Agnès Varda at 89 is one example. She maintains an interest in the same deep questions but portrays them in a casual way - basically tries to have a little more fun with things. She finds a friend in JR, a young artist with a truck that prints large portraits. Together they go around French villages (the French title is “Visages Villages”), connecting with locals and printing their photos on murals. Their interactions are researched, but not worked. In fact, they are deeply improvised. Because of this and because the movie is structured in an episode format, it will completely disarm you. And when you least expect it you will be met with long-lasting takes on mortality, loss, but also gender, the environment and the evasiveness of life and art.

Genre: Documentary

Actor: Agnès Varda, Amaury Bossy, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Paul Beaujon, Jeannine Carpentier, JR, Yves Boulen

Director: Agnès Varda, JR

Rating: PG

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, 2007

A film by legendary director Werner Herzog where he travels to Antarctica, or rather you travel with him to study the people, the places, and the wild life of the South Pole. And when I say people I mean scientists and researchers but also truck drivers, plummers, and basically everyone with an interesting dream. This is a film for all curious minds, whether suit-trapped in a big city or out there in contact with nature every day. It’s a combination so deep of unbelievable scenery and tangible sequences, that it almost becomes intangible, almost a religious experience.

Genre: Documentary

Actor: Clive Oppenheimer, Doug MacAyeal, Scott Rowland, Stefan Pashov, Werner Herzog

Director: Werner Herzog

Rating: G

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, 2024

Horror doesn’t have the best track record with homosexuality, as anything considered as the other are often alluded to in making its monsters, but in Ganymede, the script is flipped– Lee’s love for Kyle is portrayed in the most peaceful and calming of ways, while the harshly spat homophobic beliefs Lee’s dad beats into his family manifests into grotesque demons. It’s a novel idea, one that smartly suggests that forcing yourself in the closet forms a hell of one’s own making, but the way the film is executed gives Ganymede an uneven tone, especially since co-directors Colby Holt and Sam Probst don’t seem to know what to do with the film’s horror elements.

Genre: Drama, Horror, Thriller

Actor: Brady Gentry, David Koechner, Joe Chrest, Jordan Doww, Marissa Reyes, Melanie Booth, Pablo Castelblanco, Pete Zias, Rachel Walters, Robyn Lively, Sibyl Gregory Wulf, Tatiana Harman

Director: Colby Holt, Sam Probst

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