Best movies like Publish or Perish

The road to tenure can be deadly.

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Publish or Perish Starring Timothy McCracken, James Shanklin, Anastasia Davidson, Amie MacKenzie, and more. If you liked Publish or Perish then you may also like: Urban Legends: Final Cut, Vampire Bats, Wonder Boys, Nobel Son, The Nutty Professor 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.

A tenure-obsessed English professor accidentally takes a student's life. Desperate to protect his career, he makes a fateful decision, sending his life spiraling out of control.

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Urban Legends: Final Cut

The making of a horror movie takes on a terrifying reality for students at the most prestigious film school in the country. At Alpine University, someone is determined to win the best film award at any cost - even if it means eliminating the competition. No one is safe and everyone is a suspect.

Vampire Bats

A biology professor discovers a deadly species of vampire bats are responsible for a series of bizarre murders and now she must find a way to stop them before they are completely out of control.

Wonder Boys

Grady is a 50-ish English professor who hasn't had a thing published in years—not since he wrote his award winning 'Great American Novel' 7 years ago. This weekend proves even worse than he could imagine as he finds himself reeling from one misadventure to another in the company of a new wonder boy author.

Nobel Son

Soon after his insufferably arrogant father wins the Nobel Prize for chemistry, Barkley Michaelson is kidnapped by Thaddeus James, a young genius who claims to be Barkley's illegitimate half-brother. Motivated not so much by money as revenge, Thaddeus tries to convince Barkley to help him carry out a multimillion-dollar extortion plot against their patriarch.

The Nutty Professor

A timid, nearsighted chemistry teacher discovers a magical potion that can transform him into a suave and handsome Romeo. The Jekyll and Hyde game works well enough until the concoction starts to wear off at the most embarrassing times.

Accident

Stephen is a professor at Oxford University who is caught in a rut and feels trapped by his life in both academia and marriage. One of his students, William, is engaged to the beautiful Anna, and Stephen becomes enamored of the younger woman. These three people become linked together by a horrible car crash, with flashbacks providing details into the lives of each person and their connection to the others in this brooding English drama.

The Accused

A prim psychology professor fights to hide a murder she committed in self-defense.

American Psycho II: All American Girl

Rachel is a criminology student hoping to land a position as a teacher's assistant for professor Robert Starkman. She's sure this position will pave the way to an FBI career, and she's willing to do anything to obtain it -- including killing her classmates. The school psychiatrist, Dr. Daniels, becomes aware that Rachel is insane, but Rachel is skilled at her dangerous game of death and identity theft.

Back to School

Self-made millionaire Thornton Melon decides to get a better education and enrolls at his son Jason's college. While Jason tries to fit in with his fellow students, Thornton struggles to gain his son's respect, giving way to hilarious antics.

Brad's Status

Although Brad has a satisfying career, a sweet wife and a comfortable life in suburban Sacramento, things aren't quite what he imagined during his college glory days. When he accompanies his musical prodigy son on a university tour, he can't help comparing his life with those of his four best college friends who seemingly have more wealthy and glamorous lives. But when circumstances force him to reconnect with his former friends, Brad begins to question whether he has really failed or if their lives are actually more flawed than they appear.

The Chocolate War

A surreal portrait of a Catholic Private School and its hierarchy. A new student must submit to the bizarre rituals of his peers and the expectations of the school's administration by selling chocolates.

The Perfect Student

A criminology professor becomes a target herself when she tries to establish the innocence of her star student in a murder.

Conrack

A young, white school teacher is assigned to Yamacraw Island, an isolated fishing community off the coast of South Carolina, populated mostly by poor black families. He finds that the basically illiterate, neglected children there know so little of the world outside their island.

P.S.

Louise, an unfulfilled divorced woman with regrets, gets the chance to relive her past when she meets a young man who bears an uncanny resemblance, in name and appearance, to her high school sweetheart who died many years before.

The Freshman

After a film student gets his belongings stolen, he meets a mobster bearing a startling resemblance to a certain cinematic godfather. Soon, he finds himself caught up in a caper involving endangered species and fine dining.

God's Not Dead

After he refuses to disavow his faith, a devout Christian student must prove the existence of God or else his college philosophy professor will fail him.

Last Wedding

Three couples in Vancouver navigate their relationships: first jobs, first crises, professional jealousy, an affair, and lack of communication. Noah and Zipporah marry after a brief courtship. She wants to be a singer and stalls out when she fails. He's working hard at a business that may go under. Sarah and Shane are architects; he can't handle her success at a downtown firm. Leslie is a librarian, sour and prickly; her mate, Peter, is a college teacher whose head is turned by a student. Can any of these couples sort things out and stay together? Should they?

Loser

On a university scholarship, a good natured student from the midwest gets a crash course in city life while dealing with three evil roommates. He befriends a virtually homeless college student whom he falls for, but she's dating a nasty professor.

Dr. Alien

When the mysterious and sexy Ms. Xenobia takes over the biology class at the local college, the dating life of supergeek Wesley Littlejohn takes a serious turn. Littlejohn agrees to be a lab rat for the professor's unusual vitamin research study. Now, thanks to some out-of-this-world supplements, he's been transformed into the campus stud. But Xenobia has ulterior extraterrestrial motives in this sci-fi sex comedy.

An Acceptable Loss

Former top U.S. security adviser Elizabeth "Libby" Lamm is threatened by associates from her dark past including Rachel Burke a steely, commanding politician with an unwavering knack for achieving her goals. Colluding with Rachel is Adrian, an unyielding, patriotic chief of staff. Martin harbors another type of obsession with Libby in this story of betrayal and regret.

High Time

Despite the dissapproval of his grown son and daughter, 51 year old widdower and wealthy restauranteur Harvey Howard (Bing Crosby) decides it's 'high time' to he gets his college degree. And he's in for the full ride: living in the dorms, joing a fraternity, falling in love, and even getting some studying in.

The Plastic Age

Hugh Carver is an athletic star and a freshman at Prescott College. He falls in love with Cynthia Day, a popular girl who loves to party, and finds that it's impossible to please her and still keep up with his studies and athletic training. Soon the two face some difficult decisions.

The Sorcerers

The great hypnotist Professor Montserrat has developed a technique for controlling the minds, and sharing the sensations, of his subjects. He and his wife Estelle test the technique on Mike Roscoe, and enjoy 'being' the younger man. But Estelle soon grows to love the power of controlling Roscoe, and the vicarious pleasures that provides. How far will she go, and can the Professor restrain her in time?

Storytelling

College and high school serve as the backdrop for two stories about dysfunction and personal turmoil.

Tenure

Despite his outstanding intellect, associate professor Charlie Thurber is a chronic underachiever and has never received university tenure. Aided by his nutty best friend, Charlie launches a final effort to make the grade at Gray College. But a beautiful new teacher whose ascending star threatens to eclipse him shakes up Charlie's plans.

Oleanna

Carol, a college student, comes to John's office, her professor, to discuss the grade she has received for one of her papers.

Submission

A well-respected professor who is a celebrated novelist and loving husband loses himself when he becomes obsessed with an ambitious and talented student.

Biology 101

A College professor finds his life unraveling when a new student joins his class, a student who may or may not be the very subject of his darkest secret. His obsession could kill him and his family.

A Matter of Faith

A Christian girl, Rachel Whitaker (Jordan Trovillion) goes off to college for her freshman year and begins to be influenced by her popular Biology professor (Harry Anderson) who teaches that evolution is the answer to the origins of life. When Rachel’s father, Stephen Whitaker (Jay Pickett) senses something changing with his daughter, he begins to examine the situation and what he discovers catches him completely off guard. Now very concerned about Rachel drifting away from her Christian faith, he tries to do something about it!

Easy Sex

Packard Schmidt is a burnt-out, middle-aged college English professor. In a desperate attempt to restore some sense of vitality to his lonely existence he embarks on a series of impulsive romantic exploits resulting in a cavalcade of disaster both personally and professionally. These disasters change and educate Pack and serve eventually as a meditation on the meaning and power of desire, loss, and love.

Butley

Butley is set in Queen Mary’s College, London and focuses on two English instructors, Ben Butley, a middle-aged former T. S. Eliot expert whose life is now in a shambles, and his protégé, Joey, a homosexual. With both Joey and his wife leaving, Butley faces a life alone, fighting back with wit, obscenity and booze.

With Honors

Convinced he'll graduate with honors because of his thesis paper, a stuffy Harvard student finds his paper being held hostage by a homeless man, who might be the guy to school the young man in life.

Gurov & Anna

With his marriage to Audrey almost at an end, Ben begins a torrid affair with Mercedes, a young French student in his writing class. The affair soon spins out of control, their emotions and Ben and Audrey's family hanging in the balance.

Surviving Desire

Jude, a college professor, is obsessed with Sophie, his student. She, in turn, is intrigued by his scholarly charm. Flirtation turns to lust and the two become lovers.

Higher Education

A naive young man from the countryside moves to the big city to study art. Soon he has some strange experiences: His roommate turns out to be the bodyguard-protected son of a mafia boss, his fellow student is desperate to initiate him into love, and his attractive art professor also seems to have it in for him.

Out of Control

Having had a one night stand with an obsessive prison inmate, the college professor teaching his prison literary soon lives the nightmare of her decision.

Critical Assembly

Critical Assembly is based on two college students (Katherine Heigl and Kerr Smith) who build a nuclear device, which is stolen by a fellow student. When it ends up in the hands of a terrorist, they work with an FBI agent (Beach) in a race against time.

Bloomington

A former child actress attends college in search of independence and ends up becoming romantically involved with a female professor. Their relationship thrives until an opportunity to return to acting forces her to make life-altering decisions.

Xtra Credit

A young offender on the mend, 19-year-old Cole Hurley agrees to attend a university devoted to prisoner reform. But hope for a turnaround is endangered by his impulsive affair with the seductive Kay Weller, a professor desperate to escape her abusive husband - and Cole is her only way out. But when Kay's husband is found murdered, Cole's education comes with a new lesson: trust no one.

Vamp U

Wayne Gretzky is a vampire who can't grow his teeth. His impotence began when he inadvertently killed Mary Lipinsky, the love of his life, 300 years ago. To take his mind off the pain, he teaches college history - who better? Attempting to regain his full power, he enlists help from his friend and colleague, Dr. Levine. Nothing works until a new semester brings freshman Chris Keller. She's a dead ringer for Mary and they have a lurid affair, while rumors fly around the campus. But it all sours when he turns Chris into a vampire and her newfound bloodlust spins out of control in a bloody rampage, making the rumors a little too real.

The Rewrite

An Oscar-winning writer in a slump leaves Hollywood to teach screenwriting at a college on the East Coast, where he falls for a single mom taking classes there.

Porn 'n Chicken

In 1996, five overworked Yale undergrads formed a club to watch porno films on weekends while ingesting mass quantities of fried chicken and Miller High Life. As the "Porn 'n' Chicken Club" gained members and notoriety, the hide-bound Yale Establishment ordered that the club be closed down. Defiantly, the original members scraped together enough money to produce their own X-rated movie – and much to the dismay of the faculty and administration, the club became more popular and renowned than ever.

A Dogwalker's Christmas Tale

Spoiled 21-year-old Luce Lockhart faces a tough decision when a handsome new friend asks her to help protect a dog park from her wealthy employer.

Gossip

For a class project, three college students decide to invent an unfounded rumor about the most popular girl on campus. But as the rumor spreads, it begins to spiral out of control.

Gramps Goes to College

Ty Bounds, a workaholic as a computer programmer for 35 years, has retired. No longer forced to work for a living, he seeks how he can spend his time serving God. Following the lead of the Holy Spirit, he returns to college to wage war against secular humanism and to mentor a new generation in truth seeking.

I Met My Love Again

In Vermont, college student Ives Towner refuses to marry his longtime girlfriend, Julie Weir, until he has a career. Soon after, Julie meets and grows infatuated with handsome writer Michael Shaw, and they marry and move to Paris. Years later, after Michael's accidental death, Julie and her daughter move back to Vermont to live with her aunt and Julie finds Ives, now a professor, disinterested in resuming their romantic relationship.

The Circle

A University professor takes four archaeology students on a field trip to a remote Scottish island. With tensions already present in the group, they unearth clues to an ancient mystery that will threaten their lives.

Fated

When the charismatic and eccentric art teacher Tatty falls in love with Amy, one of his students, he believes he has met the love of his life. Unfortunately Amy dies in an accident. Distraught and blaming himself, Tatty loses all focus on his own life and drinks heavily. In a state of delirium he creates a statue of Amy that he places in the dark interior of a haunted, burnt-out church. Tatty lives there, protecting his creation, and devoted to her for the next 13 years. On New Year s Eve, a magical night with the sky lit with fireworks, a clubhouse burns. Cal is on the run and takes refuge in the church and accidentally breaks the statue. The magic of the night and the mystery of the church combine to cast a spell and Amy comes alive. However, in order to remain alive, Amy must kiss the first man she sees.

Her Deadly Sugar Daddy

After graduating from college, 21-year-old Bridget moves to a new town with her best friend Lindsay. Desperately needing a job to support her budding writing career, she takes a job as an Executive Assistant to business tycoon Anthony Gloss. The salary is eye-watering and the perks keep on coming, but she will soon learn that a life of luxury can come at a deadly price.

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