Best movies like Try Harder!

Lowell High School: Where your best hasn't been good enough since 1856.

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Try Harder! . If you liked Try Harder! then you may also like: The Wave, Orange County, Race the Sun, Real Genius, Admission 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.

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In a universe where cool kids are nerds, the orchestra is world class and being Asian American is the norm, seniors at Lowell High School compete for the top prize: admission to the college of their dreams.

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The Wave

A teacher conducts an experiment in an American high school where students learn how easy it is to be seduced by the same social forces which led to the horrors of Nazi Germany. Based on a true story.

Orange County

Shaun Brumder is a local surfer kid from Orange County who dreams of going to Stanford to become a writer and to get away from his dysfunctional family household. Except Shaun runs into one complication after another, starting when his application is rejected after his dim-witted guidance counselor sends in the wrong form.

Race the Sun

A bunch of high school misfits in Hawaii, introduced by their new teacher, attend a science fair in which they draw up inspiration to build their own solar car and win a trip to compete in the 1990 World Solar Challenge in Australia.

Real Genius

Chris is the top brain who just wants to party, Mitch is the 15-year-old college wiz kid. Supposedly hard at work on a lab project with a mysterious deadline, they still find time to use their genius to discover new ways to have fun.

Admission

Straitlaced Princeton University admissions officer, Portia Nathan is caught off-guard when she makes a recruiting visit to an alternative high school overseen by her former college classmate, the freewheeling John Pressman. Pressman has surmised that Jeremiah, his gifted yet very unconventional student, might well be the son that Portia secretly gave up for adoption many years ago.

The Art of Getting By

George, a lonely and fatalistic teen who's made it all the way to his senior year without ever having done a real day of work, is befriended by Sally, a popular but complicated girl who recognizes in him a kindred spirit.

Dirty Teacher

When a high school senior discovers her teacher is seducing her boyfriend, events turn deadly after the teacher tries to cover it up.

Psycho Prom Queen

Following the suspected suicide of her friend and fellow teacher, Julie Taylor is hired to take over the senior math class for the last few weeks of school. It's been a difficult year for Julie and this is a fresh start for her and her teenager daughter Miya. Though Julie hopes that being both the new kid and the new teacher's daughter won't be too hard on Miya, she can't help but worry when her daughter becomes fast friends with the school's resident mean girl, Amy Turner.

Cheaters

In the fall of 1994, a teacher at Chicago's run-down Steinmetz High conspires with the school's academic decathlon team to cheat on an academic competition.

Ice Princess

With the help of her coach, her mom, and the boy who drives the Zamboni machine, nothing can stop Casey from realizing her dream to be a champion figure skater.

Prom

At “Prom,” every couple has a story and no two are exactly alike. As the big dance approaches for Nova Prescott, it’s a battle of wills as she finds herself drawn to the guy who gets in the way of her perfect prom. Fellow seniors Mei and Tyler harbor secrets, while others face all the insecurity and anticipation that surrounds one of high school’s most seminal events.

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.

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.

The Education of Charlie Banks

College student Charlie Banks has to face old problems when the bully he had an unpleasant encounter with back in high school shows up on his campus.

Fame

A chronicle of the lives of several teenagers who attend a New York high school for students gifted in the performing arts.

Remember the Daze

During the summer of 1999, a group of teenagers, through interconnected narratives, live through their last day of high school and prepare for the future. Holly, once the new girl in school, does whatever it takes to remain popular. Dawn, who is secretly a lesbian, battles drugs. Tori is the valedictorian of her class, but, on the eve of graduation, she decides to experiment with drugs for the first time.

Underclassman

A young detective goes undercover at an elite private school to destroy an international stolen car ring.

Dear Lemon Lima

Vanessa gets a dose of reality when Philip, her one true love, ends their relationship, again. The quirky teen enrolls in his school to win him back, but ends up making matters worse. Downgraded to social outcast, Vanessa struggles to reclaim Phillip's affection. Luckily, when Vanessa is declared a captain for the school's Snowstorm Survivor competition, she assembles a team of like-minded misfits to prove they deserve to compete and hopefully win her love's heart again.

Stand and Deliver

Jaime Escalante is a mathematics teacher in a school in a hispanic neighbourhood. Convinced that his students have potential, he adopts unconventional teaching methods to try and turn gang members and no-hopers into some of the country's top algebra and calculus students.

There Goes My Baby

It's the summer of 1965, and the members of the graduating class of upscale Westwood High are eager to reinvent themselves. Valedictorian Mary Beth wants to attend a liberal university. Surfer bum Stick plans to enlist to fight in Vietnam. Calvin lives in the poor Watts section of Los Angeles, which is slowly erupting in violence. As the summer nights grow long, they'll all be forced to make decisions that will affect the rest of their lives.

Spork

A frizzy-haired, pink-cheeked outcast named Spork navigates her way through the annals of junior high.

Spare Parts

With the help of their high school's newest teacher, four Hispanic students form a robotics club. Although they have no experience, the youths set their sights on a national robotics contest. With $800 and parts scavenged from old cars, they build a robot and compete against reigning champion MIT. Along the way, the students learn not only how to build a robot but something far more important: how to forge bonds that will last a lifetime.

High School

Documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman takes us inside Northeast High School as a fly on the wall to observe the teachers and how they interact with the students.

How I Got Into College

The simple story of two young Michigan high school students, Jessica, Class President, Local Smart Girl, and object of Marlon's affections attempt to get into a small Pennsylvania college. Jessica fights off her parent's expectation of going to their alma mater of the University of Michigan, while Marlon fights his grades and SAT scores.

Lambada

Kevin Laird is a Beverly Hills school teacher by day and a mystery man by night. Using his lambada dance moves to first earn the kid's respect and acceptance, Kevin then teaches them academics. But when a jealous student exposes Kevin's double life, his two worlds collide, threatening his job and reputation.

Mac & Devin Go to High School

A comedy that follows two high school students -- one overachiever struggling to write his valedictorian speech, the other a senior now going on his 15th year of school.

Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit

Deloris Van Cartier is again asked to don the nun's habit to help a run-down Catholic school, presided over by Mother Superior. And if trying to reach out to a class full of uninterested students wasn't bad enough, the sisters discover that the school is due to be closed by the unscrupulous chief of a local authority.

Step Up 2: The Streets

When rebellious street dancer Andie lands at the elite Maryland School of the Arts, she finds herself fighting to fit in while also trying to hold onto her old life. When she joins forces with the schools hottest dancer, Chase, to form a crew of classmate outcasts to compete in Baltimore s underground dance battle The Streets.

The To Do List

Feeling pressured to become more sexually experienced before she goes to college, Brandy Klark makes a list of things to accomplish before hitting campus in the fall.

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.

Dismissed

A straight-edged teacher finds trouble when an honors student is willing to do anything to get an A.

New Port South

A group of teenagers wish to rebel against the administrators and teachers (the system) in their suburban Chicago high school called New Port South

Mamitas

A teenager in Echo Park deals with the loss of his mother and his attraction to a girl not considered "cool" by his friends.

American Promise

In 1999, filmmakers Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson turned the camera on themselves and began filming their five-year-old son, Idris, and his best friend, Seun, as they started kindergarten at the prestigious Dalton School just as the private institution was committing to diversify its student body. Their cameras continued to follow both families for another 12 years as the paths of the two boys diverged—one continued private school while the other pursued a very different route through the public education system.

Dangerously Close

Rebel without a cause or a clue at an elite but uptight college discovers some of his classmates have formed an even more elite clique more or less hell-bent on ridding the school, and quite possibly American society, of what they deem to be its undesirables because of ethnicity, politics, etc. Our hero recruits a teacher and some other "less desirable" classmates to undermine the elitists, and, naturally, things get quite violent.

Candy Jar

Dueling high school debate champs who are at odds on just about everything forge ahead with ambitious plans to get into the colleges of their dreams.

The Explosive Generation

Peter Gifford is a likable, dedicated schoolteacher that teaches a senior life skills class. When student Janet Sommers brings up the topic of sex and dating, he asks students to write questions on the topic, and will cover them in the next class. The parents get wind of what Gifford is about to do, notify the principal, and he warns Peter not to read the questions in class. Gifford decides to go against this and is suspended. The whole student body protests, and the administration gets worried on what to do.

Bloody Homecoming

Three years after a tragic accident leaves a student dead at the annual Homecoming dance, a group of senior friends anxious about the return of Homecoming Night to their sleepy Southern town find themselves visited by a deadly presence from their past in the dark and desolate halls of their very own high school.

High School Hellcats

The Hellcats are an all-female gang bent on bucking authority and terrorizing the schools by doing things like having a bad attitude toward their teachers and parents. When Joyce, a new student, moves into the neighborhood, she draws the attention of The Hellcats. Desperate for acceptance and unhappy with her homelife, Joyce goes along with the gang, and is soon drinking, dancing and meeting boys. Can her parents stop her descent into depravity?

Precious Knowledge

Disenfranchised high school seniors become academic warriors and community leaders in Tucson, Arizona's embattled Ethnic Studies classes while state lawmakers attempt to eliminate the program.

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.

Two Million Minutes: A Global Examination

Six students from 3 Countries, USA, India and China are moving to College. They soon find themselves in a global competition and it narrows down to: Engineering and Science.

Schoolhouse Rocked: The Homeschool Revolution

A once reluctant homeschool family sells their home and everything in it, packs up in an RV and travels the country to tell the story of the millions of American families who are a part of the Homeschool Revolution. After talking with education experts, homeschooling pioneers, and regular families at every step in their home education journey, they learn come away convinced that it's time for America to bring their children home. The movie follows host, Yvette Hampton, as she travels the country with her family talking with education experts, curriculum developers, college and university faculty and administrators, and homeschooling families at every stage in the process, from kindergarten to college graduation and beyond. As viewers follow Yvette on this journey and share in her challenges and victories as a homeschool mom, they will gather the necessary resources and encouragement to homeschool their own children with excellence.

High School U.S.A.

Set in a senior high school class, J.J. pursues the girlfriend of a rival from a higher clique which culminates in a race at the end of the movie between the two rivals in this light comedy.

Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal

An examination that goes beyond the celebrity-driven headlines and dives into the methods used by Rick Singer, the man at the center of the shocking 2019 college admissions scandal, to persuade his wealthy clients to cheat an educational system already designed to benefit the privileged.

The Mighty Pawns

Inner city kids are given new direction when they are convinced to join the school chess team.

Cotton Candy

An uncool high-schooler forms his own group to beat the local hotshots in a battle of the bands.

General Education

Levi Collins' future is looking great. He's set to attend the local university on a tennis scholarship, but there s just one small problem, he didn't graduate. Now he s got to take summer school before his parents find out he failed senior science, and a budding romance with a classmate may show him there's more to education than grades.

Coin Heist

When a crisis threatens to destroy their high school, four teens hatch a daring plan to raise $10 million. Step one? Breaking into the U.S. Mint.

Radical

In a Mexican border town plagued by neglect, corruption, and violence, a frustrated teacher tries a radical new method to break through his students’ apathy and unlock their curiosity, their potential… and maybe even their genius. Based on a true story.

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