Movies Like Smile

Breathing Underwater

2024

When Emma has to leave her picture-perfect life for a women's shelter, her unlikely friendship with a ragtag group of women pushes them all into a fight to take back their power.

We Iranian Women

2023

The Magdalene Sisters

2002

Three young Irish women struggle to maintain their spirits while they endure dehumanizing abuse as inmates of a Magdalene Sisters Asylum.

A Matter of Sex

1984

Dramatization of the true story of the so-called Willmar Eight, a group of Minnesota bank workers who braved freezing conditions whilst picketing their branch in a struggle for union rights.

Salt of the Earth

1954

At New Mexico's Empire Zinc mine, Mexican-American workers protest the unsafe work conditions and unequal wages compared to their Anglo counterparts. Ramon Quintero helps organize the strike, but he is shown to be a hypocrite by treating his pregnant wife, Esperanza, with a similar unfairness. When an injunction stops the men from protesting, however, the gender roles are reversed, and women find themselves on the picket lines while the men stay at home.

Mona Lisa Smile

2003

Katherine Watson is a recent UCLA graduate hired to teach art history at the prestigious all-female Wellesley College, in 1953. Determined to confront the outdated mores of society and the institution that embraces them, Katherine inspires her traditional students, including Betty and Joan, to challenge the lives they are expected to lead.

Orlando

1992

England, 1600. Queen Elizabeth I promises Orlando, a young nobleman obsessed with poetry, that she will grant him land and fortune if he agrees to satisfy a very particular request.

Battle of the Year

2013

A down-on-his-luck coach is hired to prepare a team of the best American dancers for an international tournament that attracts all the best crews from around the world, but the Americans haven't won in fifteen years.

Iron Jawed Angels

2004

Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.

Radium Girls

2020

Young women toiling in a factory are exposed to hazardous material which takes a disastrous toll on their health.

The Perfect Candidate

2020

A young Saudi doctor campaigns for a seat on the municipal council, finding confidence as she combats prejudice.

A Time for Dancing

2002

Their love of dance, and their friendship, is challenged for two high school girls when one is diagnosed with cancer.

Suburbia

1984

When household tensions and a sense of worthlessness overcome Evan, he finds escape when he clings with the orphans of a throw-away society. The runaways hold on to each other like a family until a tragedy tears them apart.

Starving in Suburbia

2014

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?

A Mouthful of Air

2021

Julie is a new mom and children's book author, who escapes into the bright Crayola-colored world of her creation in order to leave behind the darkness caused by her post-partum depression.

Helen

2009

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.

Notes for a Film About Donna & Gail

1966

The story of two young women who go to the city to work in a dress factory, and who share a room to ease their expenses and their loneliness. The film shows the currents that brought them together and the facets of their natures that first made them seem compatible but eventually drove them apart. Their story reflects, to a degree, the situation of anyone who has ever shared the life of another.

Mo' Better Blues

1990

Talented but self-centered trumpeter Bleek Gilliam is obsessed with his music and indecisiveness about his girlfriends Indigo and Clarke. But when he is forced to come to the aid of his manager and childhood friend, Bleek finds his world more fragile than he ever imagined.