Best movies like A Smile as Big as the Moon

A special education teacher, his class, and their inspiring journey through U.S. space camp.

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like A Smile as Big as the Moon Starring John Corbett, Jessy Schram, Logan Huffman, Moira Kelly, and more. If you liked A Smile as Big as the Moon then you may also like: Woodlawn, Nude on the Moon, October Sky, Queen of Outer Space, Roll Red Roll and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

Mike Kersjes is a special-education teacher and football coach in Michigan. Mike doesn’t talk down to his "special" students. He respects them, and he believes they’re capable of achieving great things. When Mike hears about Space Camp, a competitive education program at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, he gets an idea. Even though the program is designed for gifted science students, Mike decides participating in the summer program would do wonders for the self-esteem of his young students, one in particular who wants to be an astronaut.

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Woodlawn

Love and unity in a school torn by racism and hate in the 1970s. A gifted high school football player must learn to embrace his talent and his faith as he battles racial tensions on and off the field.

Nude on the Moon

A rich rocket scientist organizes an expedition to the moon, which they discover is inhabited by nude women.

October Sky

Based on the true story of Homer Hickam, a coal miner's son who was inspired by the first Sputnik launch to take up rocketry against his father's wishes, and eventually became a NASA scientist.

Queen of Outer Space

A mission to Venus discovers the planet inhabited only by women led by their evil Queen Yllana. Yllana had all the men of Venus killed, now that's she met Earth men, she wants them dead, too.

Roll Red Roll

At a 2012 pre-season high-school football party in Steubenville, Ohio, a young woman was raped by members of the beloved high school football team. The aftermath exposed an entire culture of complicity—and Roll Red Roll maps out the roles that peer pressure, denial, sports machismo, and social media each played in the tragedy.

The Junction Boys

Tom Berenger leads an outstanding cast in this bone-crunching dramatization of legendary college football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant's debut at Texas A&M in the summer of 1954. The often unnerving story finds Bryant ducking the school's good ol' boy network of rich, influential alumni by spiriting his new team away to a makeshift training base in a tiny town called Junction. There, Bryant runs the equivalent of a POW camp, brutalizing an oversized, underdeveloped bunch of rowdy young men and tormenting those who seek medical attention for cracked spines and deadly heat exhaustion. Berenger delivers a warts-and-all performance as the vulgar, monstrous, yet much-respected Bryant, and the direction by seasoned television vet Mike Robe is brisk and almost explosively charged. Whatever one thinks of Bryant's punishing methods, the film does not flinch from telling its powerful tale. --Tom Keogh

Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood

A man narrates stories of his life as a 10-year-old boy in 1969 Houston, weaving tales of nostalgia with a fantastical account of a journey to the moon.

Camp Fear

Some sorority sisters opt for camping in the woods with a handsome professor instead of going to Palm Springs for spring break. However, the orgy is interrupted when some druids appear and decide they need to sacrifice the sisters to prevent the apocalypse at the start of the new millennium.

Carry On Teacher

Prepare for Six of the Best as the Carry On team cause chaos in the school yard. When a well-loved headmaster decides to retire, his scheming pupils have other ideas. The cunning boys unleash a campaign of practical jokes, armed with gin, itching power and bombs!

Countdown

Desperate to land a man on the moon before Russia does, NASA hastily preps a would-be spaceman for a mission that would leave him alone in a lunar shelter for a year.

First Man

A look at the life of the astronaut, Neil Armstrong, and the legendary space mission that led him to become the first man to walk on the Moon on July 20, 1969.

To Sir, with Love

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.

Destination Moon

Postulates the first manned trip to the moon, happening in the (then) near future, and being funded by a consortium of private backers. Assorted difficulties occur and must be overcome in-flight. Attempted to be realistic, with Robert A. Heinlein providing advice.

Journey to the Far Side of the Sun

A planet is discovered in the same orbit as Earth's but is located on the exact opposite side of the sun, making it not visible from Earth. The European Space Exploration Council decide to send American astronaut Glenn Ross and British scientist John Kane via spaceship to explore the other planet.

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers

Test space rockets exploding at liftoff and increased reporting of UFO sightings culminate in a direct attempt by alien survivors of a dead, extra-galactic civilization to invade Earth from impervious flying saucers, using ray-weapons of mass destruction.

The Happy Years

Based on a collection of stories with the focus on young John Humperkink "Dink" Stover, a student at the Lawrenceville Prepatory School, in 1896, whose family, in Eastcester, New York, have just about given up on his education because he is an incorrigible student. He gets into one situation after another and incurs the dislike of his classmates, who think he is cowardly but he changes their opinion when he challenges several of them to a fight. When he returns home for the summer, he meets Miss Dolly Travers and increases his 'hatred of women' because she does not accept his schoolboy pranks. Back at school, in the fall, he is more difficult than ever until his philosophy is changed by a teacher.

In the Shadow of the Moon

Archival material from the original NASA film footage – much of it seen for the first time – plus interviews with the surviving astronauts, including Jim Lovell, Dave Scott, John Young, Gene Cernan, Mike Collins, Buzz Aldrin, Alan Bean, Edgar Mitchell, Charlie Duke and Harrison Schmitt.

SpaceCamp

Andie Bergstrom, an astronaut eagerly awaiting her first trip to space, runs a summer camp for teenagers with her NASA-employed husband, Zach. One night during an engine test, Andie and four teenage campers are accidentally shot into space. Together, the group -- which includes Kathryn, a pilot-in-training, and Tish, a ditz with a perfect memory -- must work together to operate the spacecraft and return home.

Thrill of a Lifetime

"Howdy" Nelson believes there is no such think as real love and that romance can be cooked up between any eligible persons (of the opposite sex.) He is so imbued with the idea that he has established a summer camp for that reason,and has written a play on the subject. The Yacht Club Boys visit the camp, misrepresenting themselves as Broadway producers, and the talented guest of the camp put on Nelson's play...which all ends up with a lot of marriage mating; Judy and Skipper, Betty Jane and Stanley and...Gwen and "Howdy,' the guy who was positive there was no such thing as true love.

Thunderpants

An 11-year-old boy's amazing ability to break wind leads him first to fame and then to death row, before it helps him to fulfill his ambition of becoming an astronaut.

Zoe and the Astronaut

Zoe has suffered with Leukemia her whole life. When her condition worsens, she's given months to live. One day, a Young Astronaut crash lands near her home. Zoe spends her last days showing the Astronaut the wonders of Planet Earth.

Radio

High school football coach, Harold Jones befriends Radio, a mentally-challenged man who becomes a student at T.L. Hanna High School in Anderson, South Carolina. Their friendship extends over several decades, where Radio transforms from a shy, tormented man into an inspiration to his community.

1 Mile To You

After a teenager's friends die in an accident, he finds running allows him to remember them perfectly. Running, however, also brings him notoriety. He is caught between keeping the past alive and making new memories in the present.

Summer School Teachers

A trio of naive, but eager young Midwestern women go to California to teach summer school classes at Regency High School: Perky and willful Conklin T. starts up and coaches an all-female football team, stuffy chemistry teacher Sally Hanson manages to loosen up after she falls hard for a surly juvenile delinquent student, and pert and liberated photography instructor Denise Carter becomes involved with both a two-faced male chauvinist jerk and a more decent and understanding guy.

American Teacher

As the debate over the state of America's public school system rages on, one thing everyone agrees on is the need for great teachers. Yet, while research proves that teachers are the most important school factor in a child's future success, America's teachers are so woefully underpaid that almost a third must divide their time between a second job in order to make a living. Chronicling the stories of four teachers in different areas of the country, American Teacher reveals the frustrating realities of today's educators, the difficulty of attracting talented new teachers, and why so many of our best teachers feel forced to leave the profession altogether. But this wake-up call to our system's failings also looks at possibilities for reform. Can we re-value teaching in the United States and turn it into a prestigious, financially attractive and competitive profession? With almost half of American teachers leaving the field in the next five years, now is the time to find out.

Mutiny in Outer Space

An expedition to the lunar ice caves contracts a deadly moon-fungus. Stopping en route they contaminate a space station with the fungus, which soon begins to take over the entire place.

Robot World

50 years from now, a pilot (Ian Rowe) is sent 60 light years across the galaxy through a new device capable of crossing the extra spatial dimensions. His mission is to orbit and reconnoiter the planet then return home. The planet is known to be populated by intelligent life. Once at his destination the pilot has to perform an emergency landing and becomes marooned on the alien planet, and soon discovers the planets only inhabitants are predatory machines.

Space Dogs

Belka, the amazing flying dog is unexpectedly hurdled into the streets of Moscow when the rocket she is in malfunctions during one of her circus routines. Fortunately the crash leads her to meet a streetwise dog named Strelka and her irredeemable rat friend Venya. Together with other amusing friends found along the way, the three find themselves in a space program-training center where they get sent away in a rocket, leaving planet Earth...

Michigan vs. Ohio State: The Rivalry

Steeped in a rich tradition dating back to their inaugural meeting in 1897, this rivalry extends beyond the pursuit of a Big Ten title, and is renewed each year through the pageantry and colliding cultures that distinguish the two schools.

Shuttle Discovery's Last Mission

With more than 27 years of service, the space shuttle Discovery has clocked more time in space than any other shuttle. She has flown more than 148 million miles, and has become one of the most storied spacecraft in American history. Join us as we celebrate her remarkable past and follow her final flight: to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. It's an emotionally charged mission full of logistical challenges. Discovery is a robust, but very fragile aircraft, and getting her to D.C. in one piece will require some innovative engineering.

Approaching the Unknown

Captain William Stanaforth is on a one-way solo mission to take the first steps in colonising Mars. Like all pioneers throughout history, Stanaforth will face insurmountable odds and life and death decisions as he rockets bravely through space.

Mission Mars

Three American astronauts who land on Mars discover the body of a frozen Russian cosmonaut and a mysterious talking orb.

Assassinaut

Assassinaut is a science-fiction adventure film about a young girl who braves the alien wilderness of a faraway planet to save the President of Earth from a murderous astronaut.

Apollo 11

A look at the Apollo 11 mission to land on the moon led by commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin.

Return to Space

The inspirational rise of SpaceX as well as Elon Musk's two-decade effort to resurrect America’s space travel ambitions.

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