
This Sporting Life
In Northern England in the early 1960s, Frank Machin is mean, tough and ambitious enough to become an immediate star in the rugby league team run by local employer Weaver.
Movies Like This Sporting Life
Similar in style, tone, and themes — find your next watch.

Kes
1970★ 7.4
Bullied at school and ignored and abused at home by his indifferent mother and older brother, Billy Casper, a 15-year-old working-class Yorkshire boy, tames and trains his pet kestrel falcon whom he names Kes. Helped and encouraged by his English teacher and his fellow students, Billy finally finds a positive purpose to his unhappy existence.

Train Dreams
2025★ 7.3
A logger leads a life of quiet grace as he experiences love and loss during an era of monumental change in early 20th-century America.

Fahrenheit 451
1966★ 7.1
In the future, the government maintains control of public opinion by outlawing literature and maintaining a group of enforcers, known as “firemen,” to perform the necessary book burnings. Fireman Montag begins to question the morality of his vocation…

The River
1984★ 6.4
Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.

The Dig
2021★ 6.8
As WWII looms, a wealthy widow hires an amateur archaeologist to excavate the burial mounds on her estate. When they make a historic discovery, the echoes of Britain's past resonate in the face of its uncertain future.

Black or White
2015★ 6.8
A grieving widower is drawn into a custody battle over his granddaughter, whom he helped raise her entire life.

Adopt a Highway
2019★ 6.7
Russ Millings has just been released from prison after serving 21 years for a 3rd strike conviction for possessing an ounce of marijuana. As he tries to adapt to a world he doesn’t recognize – including trying to learn how to use the internet – he finds an abandoned baby in a dumpster behind the fast food restaurant where he works as a dishwasher. Unsure of what to do, and caught between impulses of kindness and panic, Russ soon realizes this could be his chance at redemption.

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds
1972★ 7.3
Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.

A Taste of Honey
1961★ 7.0
While out to avoid spending time with her narcissistic and promiscuous mother, sixteen-year-old Jo has a brief affair that leaves her pregnant and abandoned. When her mother remarries, Jo's only support becomes her friend Geoffrey, a homosexual.

Mr. Church
2016★ 7.4
A unique friendship develops when a little girl and her dying mother inherit a cook - Mr. Church. What begins as an arrangement that should only last six months, instead spans fifteen years.

The Call of the Wild
1972★ 6.1
John Thornton, is a fearless man who's after more than gold; he wants to do what's right. Thornton works for the U.S. mail and is the only person daring and smart enough to figure out how to travel the deadly 600 miles from Skagway to Dawson, Alaska in the icy winter. His incredibly dog Buck is by his side and part of how he survives.

Blue Chips
1994★ 6.1
Pete Bell, a college basketball coach is under a lot of pressure. His team isn't winning and he cannot attract new players. The stars of the future are secretly being paid by boosters. This practice is forbidden in the college game, but Pete is desperate and has pressures from all around.

Helen
2009★ 6.5
On the outside, Helen has it all – a loving family and a successful career – but when her suppressed mental illness resurfaces, the world crumbles around her. Crippled by depression, Helen finds solace through her friendship with Mathilda, a kindred spirit struggling with bipolar disorder.

Third Star
2010★ 7.0
James and his three closest lifelong friends go on an ill-advised trip to the stunning coastal area of Barafundle Bay in West Wales. What follows is a touching and comical adventure dealing with friendship, heroism and love.

Indian Horse
2018★ 6.9
Follows the life of Native Canadian Saul Indian Horse as he survives residential school and life amongst the racism of the 1970s. A talented hockey player, Saul must find his own path as he battles stereotypes and alcoholism.

The Girl in the Book
2015★ 5.8
The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.

Eleanor the Great
2025★ 7.0
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.

Sky
2016★ 6.2
A woman embarks on a journey alone across the United States after fleeing from her violent husband.

FX's A Christmas Carol
2019★ 7.2
London, 1843. Ebenezer Scrooge, a bitter old man, despises the Christmas holiday. Over the course of Christmas Eve night he is visited by three ghosts to show him his past, present and future.

Nicholas Nickleby
2002★ 6.9
Nicholas Nickleby, a young boy in search of a better life, struggles to save his family and friends from the abusive exploitation of his coldheartedly grasping uncle.