Pay It Forward
Like some other kids, 12-year-old Trevor McKinney believed in the goodness of human nature. Like many other kids, he was determined to change the world for the better. Unlike most other kids, he succeeded.
Movies Like Pay It Forward
Similar in style, tone, and themes — find your next watch.
The Color of Rain
2014★ 6.4
After cancer claims Matt Kell's life on Christmas Day 2005, his widow, Gina and two young boys are left to cope with the pain of his loss while their close church community gathers around them for support.
Dead Poets Society
1989★ 8.3
At an elite, old-fashioned boarding school in New England, a passionate English teacher inspires his students to rebel against convention and seize the potential of every day, courting the disdain of the stern headmaster.
People Like Us
2012★ 6.8
After flying home to L.A. for the funeral of his estranged record-producer father, a struggling man discovers that the will stipulates that he must deliver $150,000 in cash to a 30-year-old alcoholic sister he never knew existed, and her troubled 12-year-old son.
All Together Now
2020★ 6.7
An optimistic, talented teen clings to a huge secret: she's homeless and living on a school bus. When tragedy strikes, can she learn to accept a helping hand?
Boychoir
2015★ 6.8
A troubled and angry 11-year-old orphan from a small Texas town, ends up at a Boy Choir school after the death of his single mother. Completely out of his element, he finds himself in a battle of wills with a demanding Choir Master who recognises a unique talent in this young boy as he pushes him to discover his creative heart and soul in music.
Sky
2016★ 6.2
A woman embarks on a journey alone across the United States after fleeing from her violent husband.
Paradise Hills
2019★ 5.9
A young woman is sent to Paradise Hills to be reformed, only to learn that the high-class facility's beautiful facade hides a sinister secret.
The Miracle Worker
1962★ 7.9
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.
Call Me Crazy: A Five Film
2013★ 7.0
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
Starving in Suburbia
2014★ 6.5
When seventeen-year-old Hannah stumbles upon a website about Thinspiration--an online community devoted to anorexia as a life choice--she becomes an obsessive follower of the site founder, ButterflyAna. By the time Hannah's family realizes what is happening and get Hannah the help she needs, the disease has fully taken hold and Hannah is refusing to eat. Will this family be able to exorcise the demon of anorexia from their lives?
Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story
2003★ 7.3
Based on a true story. Liz Murray is a young girl who is taken care of by her loving, but drug-addicted parents. Liz becomes homeless at 15 and after a tragedy comes upon her, she begins her work to finish high school.
Come Sunday
2018★ 5.8
Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.
Beyond the Blackboard
2011★ 7.6
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.
Out of My Mind
2024★ 7.8
Melody Brooks, a sixth grader with cerebral palsy, has a quick wit and a sharp mind, but because she is non-verbal and uses a wheelchair, she is not given the same opportunities as her classmates. When a young educator notices her student's untapped potential and Melody starts to participate in mainstream education, Melody shows that what she has to say is more important than how she says it.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
2017★ 6.4
An African-American woman becomes an unwitting pioneer for medical breakthroughs when her cells are used to create the first immortal human cell line in the early 1950s.
Morbius
2022★ 5.9
Dangerously ill with a rare blood disorder, and determined to save others suffering his same fate, Dr. Michael Morbius attempts a desperate gamble. What at first appears to be a radical success soon reveals itself to be a remedy potentially worse than the disease.
Moonrise
1948★ 6.3
Stigmatized from infancy by the fate of his criminal father, a man is bruised and bullied until one night, in a fit of rage, he kills his most persistent tormentor. As the police close in around him, he makes a desperate bid for the love of the dead man’s fiancée, a schoolteacher who sees the wounded soul behind his aggression.
Hideaways
2011★ 6.2
The elder one of each generation in the Furlong family is equipped with an extraordinary capacity. James discovers the nature of his at the time of an accident which causes the death of his father and his grandmother. Haunted by this mysterious evil he hides in a forest not to harm anybody. A few years later, Mae also takes refuge it in the forest and meets James.
Hereafter
2010★ 6.1
Three people — a blue-collar American, a French journalist and a London school boy — are touched by death in different ways.
Gigi & Nate
2022★ 7.7
A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.