Film

Try Harder!

Name: Try Harder!
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2021

Coming-of-age

A portrait of hyperachievement and its costs at one of America's most competitive high schools. Smart, funny, and unexpectedly moving, it tracks the pressure cooker of elite academics through the eyes of students chasing impossible standards. For anyone who remembers the weight of expectation—or who's watching their kid carry it now.

If you liked this

Bully2011

Intimate documentary following teen victims of bullying through a school year. Like *Try Harder!*, it finds unexpected warmth and resilience in young people navigating brutal social hierarchies, with real stakes underneath the everyday drama.

But The subject matter is genuinely painful; some scenes are hard to sit with. It moves slowly and doesn't resolve everything neatly.

Hoop Dreams1994

A landmark about two basketball-obsessed teenagers and the machinery grinding around their dreams. Both films capture the particular loneliness of being talented and watched, with deep empathy for the people caught in the system.

But It's long, methodical, and structured like an investigation rather than a story. The ending doesn't feel like closure.

American Factory2019

A story about ambition, class, and what it means to work hard in modern America. Like *Try Harder!*, it refuses easy answers and finds dignity and struggle existing together in people's real lives.

But It's about manufacturing workers, not students—feels like a different world. Slower pacing and less immediate drama.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Try Harder!

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

CODA2021

Both made the same year, both center Asian or immigrant-descended young people, both ask hard questions about obligation and ambition—but one sees the truth directly, the other through the filter of cinema.

A young woman navigates family duty, artistic ambition, and the pressure to be the bridge between two worlds. It's about the same fundamental tension as *Try Harder!*—what you owe others versus what you owe yourself—but told through narrative fiction with stunning craft.

But It's a feel-good movie with a happy ending, which undercuts its own complexity. If you wanted the rawer documentary truth, this will feel polished and resolved.

Waiting for "Superman"2010

Follows four students hoping charter schools will change their lives. Same setup as *Try Harder!*—following individual kids through an education system—but zooms out to ask systemic questions about opportunity and fairness.

But More advocacy-minded than *Try Harder!*, which some find manipulative. The argument overshadows the people sometimes.

La Haine1995

A day in the lives of three young men navigating a society that wasn't built for them. Shares *Try Harder!*'s gift for capturing how systemic pressure lives in the bodies and choices of individuals, with sharp humor threading through darkness.

But It's a French film in black and white about poverty and police violence—tonally much heavier. Doesn't have the documentary access to real life that *Try Harder!* does.

Moonlight2016

A portrait of a young person's inner life across three time periods. Like *Try Harder!*, it's interested in quiet moments of becoming, in how identity forms under pressure, with tremendous emotional precision and no wasted scenes.

But Understated and poetic; if you want clarity and plot, you'll feel it's slow. Deals with trauma and sexuality in ways that require patience.

Eighth Grade2018

Bo Burnham's comedic and tender film about anxiety, ambition, and the machinery of approval in middle school. Captures that same nervous energy of *Try Harder!*, the performance of self, the hunger to be good enough.

But Uses social media and contemporary references heavily. Some will find it dated already; others will find it anxiety-inducing rather than cathartic.

The Farewell2019

Lulu Wang's film about family, duty, and the gap between what's expected and what's felt. Shares *Try Harder!*'s interest in Asian-American identity and the specific weight of family expectation, with intelligence and humor.

But A narrative film rather than documentary, which changes the texture entirely. More stylized, less raw access to real life.

Three Colors: Red1994

Where *Try Harder!* documents the visible machinery of ambition, this film suggests the invisible machinery underneath—luck, accident, the things we can't control even when we're trying hardest. It's the existential complement.

Krzysztof Kieślowski's meditation on chance, connection, and whether our lives matter. Sounds abstract, but it's about individual people caught in systems larger than themselves, trying to live with meaning and integrity. Profound and strange.

But It's deliberately oblique and philosophical. If you want clarity or plot momentum, it will feel remote and frustrating. Requires patience and a willingness to sit with ambiguity.