Movies Like CODA to Watch Next for More Empowering Stories - Collider

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One of the most surprising developments from this awards season is that an independent family movie about a girl growing up with a deaf family in a Massachusetts fishing town has fared so well. For those that have seen the film, however, it’s no surprise at all. It’s an incredibly endearing and relatable story with great writing and acting. The recent Best Picture winner Coda tells the story of Ruby, the teenage daughter of Deaf parents who finds herself torn between staying home to help with the family fishing business or going away to pursue her passion: music. Not only has the film introduced us to great talents like Troy Kotsur and given great opportunities to veterans like Marlee Matlin, but it has also shown us the importance of telling stories about disabled people. Hopefully, this film's success will lead to others like it becoming more common but until then, please enjoy these 7 films centered on disabled people.

La Famille Belier

Any list of films like Coda would not be complete without mentioning La Famille Belier. This delightful French film served as the inspiration for Coda. Like the American remake La Famille Belier follows an outcast teenage girl who has to choose between helping her deaf family’s dairy farm and going away to music school. The main differences in the films don’t come from the storyline but from their tone. While Coda takes on a more inspirational tone filled with American soul music, La Famille Belier contains way more outrageous laughs and classic French songs. Though La Famille Belier gives us much less understanding of our protagonist’s deaf family than Coda, it serves as an interesting companion to show just how far we’ve come. You can see how from 2014 to 2021, just how much western society’s perceptions of Deaf people have changed.

Children of a Lesser God

By now, Marlee Matlin is a household name, but she first became famous in 1986 when she starred in Children of a Lesser God and subsequently became the first Deaf person to win an acting Oscar. Based on the play of the same name, the film follows James (the late William Hurt), a new speech teacher at a school for the deaf who meets and falls in love with Sarah (Matlin), a former pupil who decided to stay and work as a janitor. Their relationship is strained by Sarah’s aversion to the outside hearing world and James’ inability to fully enter her world. This was one of, if not the, first mainstream American movie to question why deaf people have to adapt to the hearing world and never the other way around. For an insightful conversation on the politics of the deaf community as well as a beautiful love story, this is a must-watch.

For years, Riz Ahmed was an established and respected rapper, but not as well known as an actor. Ahmed gained his much deserved respect from the acting community for his performance in Sound of Metal. In the movie, Ahmed plays Ruben, a drummer who discovers that he is losing his hearing at a rapid pace and decides to go to a shelter for Deaf recovering addicts. Previously, many other movies would frame this story as a tragedy of someone who slowly loses touch with their passion and loved ones. Not this film. Ruben learns how to find beauty in the silence and finds a community and a culture at the shelter that he previously had not known. Sound of Metal shows losing your hearing is not a curse.

Crip Camp

The only documentary on this list, Crip Camp shows how the disabled heroes of the 1970s created a radical and more inclusive world for all of us to live in. This Netflix documentary focuses on the creation of a summer camp for disabled kids in upstate New York. For the first time in their lives, these kids felt normal and empowered and later many would participate in the 504 Sit-In, a protest that got major disability rights passed into law. There are some movies that make you want to stand up and cheer and Crip Camp is exactly that kind of movie. The inspireing documentary educates us on the dystopian world disabled people had to live in, the ways they scratched and clawed together to create a brighter future, and the progress that is yet to be made.

The Peanut Butter Falcon

On one side of town, Zak, a young man with Down syndrome escapes from a state-run care facility for the elderly with the hopes of becoming a professional wrestler under the tutelage of the famous Salt Water Redneck. On the other side of town, Tyler, a man fired for bringing in illegal crab catchers, decides to evade his tormenters and break for an escape. These two very different men share one common goal and become more than an unlikely pair. They become brothers for life. The Peanut Butter Falcon and Coda are those rare films that can’t help but uplift you. It’s an updated American classic. Following these two outlaws and misfits as they travel through the American wilderness, we gain a deep understanding of American mythology as well as Zak and Tyler’s own personal motivations.

The Intouchables

Omay Sy in The Intoucables — Image via Gaumont

Many of you may be familiar with the watered-down American remake starring Bryan Cranston and Kevin Hart called The Upside, but rest assured, the original French film, The Intouchables is a modern classic. The movie tells the story of Driss, a young man from the projects in Paris who decides to apply for the position of caretaker to an extremely wealthy paraplegic man. He is just there to get a signature on a document showing he was interviewed and rejected so that he can continue receiving his welfare benefits, but to his surprise, he gets the job anyway. Based on a true story, the two form a long-lasting and unlikely friendship. Like Coda, the film does not treat its disabled characters like tragedies but insetad finds humor in their everyday life that is not at their expense. With great performances from Omar Sy and Francois Cluzet, this is a great choice for a night in viewing.

The Sessions

Helen Hunt, John Hawkes — Image via Searchlight Pictures

In most films and television shows, disabled people have been robbed of their agency, their joy, and most of all, their sexuality. The Sessions focuses exactly on that discrepancy and delves into the sexuality of a man dependent on an iron lung. It follows Mark, a man who has been left disabled from a childhood bout with polio. One day, he decides to make an appointment with a sex surrogate, Cheryl (Helen Hunt), in order to lose his virginity. She teaches him the practical mechanics of sex as well as makes him feel comfortable in his body for the first time in a long time. When you finish Coda and want to watch a film that is equally inspiring but less family friendly, The Sessions is a great choice.