Film

Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire

Name: Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire
Genre: Drama
Released: 2009
Cast: Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, Sherri Shepherd

Drama
Very dark

A blunt, unsentimental drama about a 16-year-old Harlem girl surviving her mother's abuse, illiteracy, and a second unwanted pregnancy, and finding a sliver of self-worth through an alternative school teacher. Gabourey Sidibe and Mo'Nique give performances that refuse easy sympathy or easy villainy. It's for viewers who want raw, hard-won hope rather than comfort — not a film to put on lightly.

TMDb rating

3.7

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want an unflinching character study where a fierce lead performance and small flickers of tenderness matter more than plot, and you can sit with cruelty without needing it softened.

Skip it if the subject is abuse and the film stays close to it; if you need relief or brisk momentum, the bleakness may feel like too much.

What it asks of you: Around 110 minutes of slow, close-quarters scenes, mostly in cramped rooms, with little relief between them; it wants patience more than attention to plot.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Color Purple1985

Spielberg's adaptation of Alice Walker's novel follows a similarly abused Black woman across decades, tracing the same journey from silence to selfhood, with Whoopi Goldberg's breakout performance anchoring it.

But It's more polished and sentimental than Precious, softening some of the novel's harsher edges into uplift.

Moonlight2016

Barry Jenkins traces a poor Black boy's growth into manhood in three tender, fractured chapters, trading melodrama for stillness and beauty amid a similarly hard Miami upbringing.

But Its quiet, poetic pacing is the opposite of Precious's rawness; those wanting confrontation may find it too restrained.

Short Term 122013

Brie Larson plays a counselor at a group home for troubled teens, and the film finds unexpected warmth and humor inside cycles of abuse and institutional failure.

But Its ensemble structure means less time with any single teen's story than Precious gives Precious.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

To Sir, with Love1967

Ms. Rain's belief that Precious is worth teaching has a cheerier, decades-earlier ancestor here — same faith in a written-off student, wildly different register.

Sidney Poitier plays a teacher who wins over a class of written-off London teens through respect rather than punishment, the same conviction that a good teacher can undo years of damage.

But It's warm where Precious is unsparing; the class's problems are far milder and the ending comforts rather than earns its hope.

Beasts of the Southern Wild2012

A six-year-old girl in the Louisiana bayou faces parental neglect and encroaching disaster with fierce, mythic resilience, told through a child's-eye view that turns hardship into wonder.

But Its fantastical, allegorical style is far gentler and stranger than Precious's grounded realism.

Antwone Fisher2002

Derek Luke plays a Navy sailor working through a violently abusive childhood with a Navy psychiatrist, unearthing memory and rage in a story of hard-won healing.

But It leans more redemptive and tidy than Precious, with a therapeutic arc that resolves more cleanly.

The Florida Project2017

Sean Baker follows a six-year-old and her broke young mother scraping by in a rundown motel near Disney World, finding both joy and precarity in poverty's daily texture.

But It's looser and more observational, without the escalating crisis structure that drives Precious.

Roxanne Roxanne2017

A true story of a teenage rap prodigy in 1980s Queens rising out of an unstable, sometimes abusive home, echoing Precious's mix of raw talent and daily survival.

But Less widely seen than the others here, and its music-biopic beats can feel familiar.

Fruitvale Station2013

Michael B. Jordan plays a young Bay Area father on the last day of his life, a lean, devastating portrait of how systemic pressure closes in on Black lives.

But It's shorter and more singularly tragic, without Precious's slow-building arc toward hope.

Winter's Bone2010

Jennifer Lawrence's teenage Ozark girl holds her family together against poverty, absent parents, and a hostile community, with the same unglamorous, unflinching eye on survival.

But Its rural setting and near-silent tension feel worlds away from Precious's urban, interior intensity.

Paris Is Burning1991

Same Black and Latino New York of Precious's era, but about people rejected by biological family building fierce chosen families — the found-family idea Ms. Rain's classroom only hints at, taken all the way.

This landmark documentary about New York's ball culture finds joy, wit and radical self-invention among people abandoned by their families, turning survival itself into performance and art.

But It's a documentary with no plot to follow, and its tone is celebratory where Precious stays mostly inside pain.

The Breadwinner2017

Literacy and storytelling as the only escape route from a hostile world, reimagined in animation and an entirely different culture.

This animated Afghan story follows a girl who disguises herself as a boy to support her family, using storytelling itself as a way to survive a world stacked against her.

But Animation and a gentler certificate make it feel much softer than Precious, even though its subject matter is grim.