Best movies like A Chance in the World

The marriage of an advertising man is jeopardized when he gets a chance to sell a novel he's been working on and quits his job to concentrate on writing. In order to support the family, the wife is forced to take a job as a dancer in a Broadway show. As the marriage begins to fall apart, complications ensue when she discovers that she's pregnant.

When a rich young man marries, he lets the books and letters left him by his dead mother guide his life.

A teenager journeys through a series of foster homes after her mother goes to prison for committing a crime of passion.

John, a 35-year-old window cleaner, has dedicated his life to bringing up his 4-year-old son, Michael, after the child's mother left them soon after giving birth. When John is given only a few months left to live, he attempts to find a new, perfect family for Michael, determined to shield him from the terrible reality of the situation.

During a heated argument with her sister Joan, Gail discovers the shocking news that she is adopted. With the reluctant support of her adoptive parents and baby sister Penny, Gail goes in search of her biological mother and true identity.

A former boyracer, who married his first love and took a job in one of the fish factories, now has a 17 year-old-son of his own following in his footsteps and can no longer ignore the fact he’s going nowhere. Unable to be physically or emotionally present with his family, he takes his son’s car out for one final joy ride and risks losing the love that surrounds him

Russ Millings has just been released from prison after serving 21 years for a 3rd strike conviction for possessing an ounce of marijuana. As he tries to adapt to a world he doesn’t recognize – including trying to learn how to use the internet – he finds an abandoned baby in a dumpster behind the fast food restaurant where he works as a dishwasher. Unsure of what to do, and caught between impulses of kindness and panic, Russ soon realizes this could be his chance at redemption. Starring Ethan Hawke in a critically acclaimed performance, Adopt a Highway “will simultaneously warm and shatter your heart” (Marisa Mirabal, Birth.Movies.Death.)

A retelling of L.M. Montgomery's story of Anne Shirley, an orphan who is accidentally sent to a couple looking to adopt a boy instead

An aspiring dancer and her two wicked sisters resent their mother's love for a foster daughter.

A young woman is returned home to her biological parents after living with her abductor for 17 years.

In 2008, New York mother Tiffany Rubin faced every parent's worst nightmare when her six year old son Kobe vanished into thin air. Upon learning that Kobe had been kidnapped by his biological father and taken to South Korea, Tiffany seeks the assistance of American Association for Lost Children representative Mark Miller, who guides her through the arduous process of traveling to Korea, and getting Kobe back.

A brother-sister team who fake paranormal encounters for cash get more than they bargained for when a job at a haunted estate turns very, very real.

Set in Harlem in 1987, Claireece "Precious" Jones is a 16-year-old African American girl born into a life no one would want. She's pregnant for the second time by her absent father; at home, she must wait hand and foot on her mother, an angry woman who abuses her emotionally and physically. School is chaotic and Precious has reached the ninth grade with good marks and a secret; She can't read.

A three-year-old boy disappears during his mother's high school reunion. Nine years later, by chance, he turns up in the town in which the family has just relocated.

Gil Cardinal searches for his natural family and an understanding of the circumstances that led to his becoming a foster child. An important figure in the history of Canadian Indigenous filmmaking, Gil Cardinal was born to a Métis mother but raised by a non-Indigenous foster family, and with this auto-biographical documentary he charts his efforts to find his biological mother and to understand why he was removed from her. Considered a milestone in documentary cinema, it addressed the country’s internal colonialism in a profoundly personal manner, winning a Special Jury Prize at Banff and multiple international awards.

After running away from her abusive mother, a streetwise teen seeks refuge with her father, but he rejects her when he learns that she's pregnant.

Director Alfred Hitchcock is revered as one of the greatest creative minds in the history of cinema. Known for his psychological thrillers, Hitchcock’s leading ladies were cool, beautiful and preferably blonde. One such actress was Tippi Hedren, an unknown fashion model given her big break when Hitchcock’s wife saw her on a TV commercial. Brought to Universal Studios, Hedren was shocked when the director, at the peak of his career, quickly cast her to star in his next feature, 1963’s The Birds. Little did Hedren know that as ambitious and terrifying as the production would be to shoot, the most daunting aspect of the film ended up coming from behind the camera.

When her boyfriend is arrested for marijuana possession, Joleen Reedy and her 11-year-old daughter, Tara, take refuge with Joleen's aimless brother, James. Joleen soon runs off with a truck driver, and James is unable to meet his responsibilities. After Child Protective Services takes possession of Tara, James abducts her from a foster home, and the two travel from California to Utah, where his abusive father lives.

Young Jeremiah lives in a stable environment with loving foster parents until the day his troubled mother, Sarah, returns to claim him. Jeremiah becomes swept up in his mother's dangerous world of drugs, seedy hotels, strip joints and revolving lovers. Salvation comes in the form of the boy's ultrareligious grandparents, but soon Jeremiah's mother returns. Maternal love binds the pair together on the road until Sarah's desperate and depraved lifestyle finally consumes her.

After losing her job, making out with her soon-to-be former boss, and finding out that her daughter plans to spend Thanksgiving with her boyfriend, Claudia Larson faces spending the holiday with her unhinged family.

When Pete and Ellie decide to start a family, they stumble into the world of foster care adoption. They hope to take in one small child but when they meet three siblings, including a rebellious 15 year old girl, they find themselves speeding from zero to three kids overnight.

Robert Townsend stars as the patriarch of a family devastated when his wife is killed in a senseless auto accident. Reeling with grief, each family member must find courage and vision to carry on, ultimately eager to do the mother proud.

Since they met the first time in boarding school as little kids, it was obvious that the orphans Kay and Dave would become a couple. But at sixteen, Dave foolishly attempted to rob a bank with a water pistol, and ended up in jail for eight years. Meanwhile Kay was sent to foster parents, where she met the successful business man Mike, whom she married and bore two kids. Now Frank is released from prison and immediately starts wooing Kay again. Although she's happy with Mike, she can't withdraw herself completely. Old memories and her husband's jealousy make her spend more and more time with him.

Filmmaker Jonathan Caouette's documentary on growing up with his schizophrenic mother -- a mixture of snapshots, Super-8, answering machine messages, video diaries, early short films, and more -- culled from 19 years of his life.

A New York schoolteacher hits a midlife crisis when, in quick succession, her husband leaves, her adoptive mother dies and her biological mother, an eccentric talk show host, materializes and turns her life upside down as she begins a courtship with the father of one of her students.

In this bittersweet comedy, four adult siblings gather at their dying mother's house in North Carolina for what they expect to be a quick, last goodbye. Instead, they find themselves trapped — together — for two weeks.

Frank, a single man raising his child prodigy niece Mary, is drawn into a custody battle with his mother.

Otto Wall is just a little unlucky in life, and unbeknownst to him, in love. When his wife suddenly asks for a divorce, he bounces between a search for answers, desperate attempts to stay connected to his daughter, and his fateful reentry into the dating pool.

Lacey Schwartz grew up in a typical upper-middle-class Jewish household in Woodstock, NY, with loving parents and a strong sense of her Jewish identity - despite the open questions from those around her about how a white girl could have such dark skin. She believes her family's explanation that her looks were inherited from her dark-skinned Sicilian grandfather. But when her parents abruptly split, her gut starts to tell her something different. At age of 18, she finally confronts her mother and learns the truth: her biological father was not the man who raised her, but a black man named Rodney with whom her mother had had an affair.

Twenty-three-year old Peter Foster is an only child who lives at home, where he constantly hears his parents arguing. Because Peter does nothing all day, the family goes to a clinic where a therapist videotapes them. After Peter watches his tape, he views the tape of a troubled Armenian family, who gave their only son away for adoption when they arrived in Canada. Peter decides to visit this family, and he pretends to be their son, Bedros Deryan. The Deryan family welcomes him with open arms, and Peter tries to patch up the poor relationship between George Deryan and his daughter Azah.

The chance to shine in a singing competition offers much-needed hope for a Southern middle-schooler who's drowning in worries, from bullies in the halls to turmoil at home -- and the news that his reservist father has been called back to Afghanistan.

Green Chimneys follows three young boys living at Green Chimneys, a residential treatment center for children with emotional, behavioral, social and learning challenges.

A teenage boy finds his mother and father murdered in their home but as the story goes on he reveals he knows more than he is letting on.

Ethan Bortnick plays the leading role as Nathan,a young boy who's separated from his mother when she goes missing during a trip to Japan to help after the tsunami. The movie explores issues like homelessness, military family life and adoption. Ethan co-wrote the music with Grammy award winning songwriter and producer, Gary Baker and will also score the entire film. Ethan will become the youngest actor to co-write the soundtrack and play the leading role in a feature film. When Army lieutenant, MARGARET PETERS (Lacy Chabert) goes missing during a tsunami rescue mission in Japan, back in Detroit, her son, NATHAN (Ethan Bortnick), discovers that his father GEORGE (Jonathan Bennett) isn't his biological father. Learning that Child Care Services could take him away, Nathan runs away before his father can explain. While George goes on a frantic search, Nathan takes to the streets of Detroit where he meets CAPTAIN MILES, a homeless Iraqi war veteran. Captain Miles takes the boy under his ...

Fact-based story of a legal battle fought over custody of five siblings.

Georgia Benfield, at her wit's end, loses control and begins physically abusing her elderly mother, just as Georgia had been abused herself as a child. As family and friends slowly begin to learn of the abuse, and long-buried family secrets come to light, both mother and daughter must learn to accept the past, to change what is happening at present in order to face a better future.

The story is located in Los Angeles in the sixties. An energetic widow, Frances Lacey, with her six children try to make a dream of theirs come true: to have a home of their own. Therefore they leave Los Angeles and head for the countryside, while facing all kinds of difficulties during their journey.

When a deranged woman and her carny boyfriend plot to abduct her biological daughter from the girl's foster parents, the foster mother is plagued by premonitions and psychic visions.

Two adventurous women in love are desperate to have their own biological child. They take a chance on an experimental scientific process and make sperm from their own stem cells. Pregnant with humor and unexpected twists, their journey ultimately confirms that all life is a gift and all families are crazy.

Missie three years later: being a single mother after her husband Willie was shot during a poker scuffle. She and Maddy move back in with her parents Clark and Marty. She finds a new home, and finds a new teaching position that she settles right into, but Missie has lost all faith in herself, until a chance encounter at her father's church where she adopts homeless orphan Belinda Marshall.

A man who stops into a foster home to drop off some donations soon tells the kids a story about two teenage friends who uncover a long-lost medallion that transports them back in time.

Jenna is getting married, her mother is delighted until Jenna announces she wants to find her birth mother.

Tom Acton: a strict but loving father whose only wish is for a safe, kind world for his family. His main worry: his l9·year old daughter, Kathy, a pretty and flirtatious girl who thinks nothing of having an affair with a married man. Even worse, she suspects that an old boyfriend is stalking her. Then one day, Kathy goes missing. Tom and his wife, Carol, are convinced that Kathy has been abducted and are devastated when the police find a body, shot to death and horribly mutilated. The Actons refuse to believe it could be Kathy, but as the police detective assigned to the case begins to dig deeper, he confronts Carol with a terrible possibility, that the truth behind the killing could lie very close to home.

A 12-year-old girl becomes jealous when her adoptive father develops a budding relationship with a woman and her teenage son.

IT guru Libby gets more than she bargained for when, after losing her job, she reluctantly agrees to help a cop with fostering two abandoned kids.

True story of Tom Butterfield and his crusade to provide family life for homeless children, becoming not only the first bachelor caretaker, but the youngest single adult to become a legal foster parent in the state of Missouri.

When eighteen-year-old Brendan King attempts to leave his turbulent gang life behind him, his past continues to threaten his new-found faith, family, and future

Californian widower Joel Wallace, a successful businessman, is a great catch in a grand mansion, but absorbed by his work. His daughter Felice writes to a TV Christmas special, hoping for a 'new mammy'.

Young Tyrone embarks on a fulfilling journey as an artist following a tumultuous start in life, subjected to horrific abuse in a foster home that violated their duty of care.

Cory (Dan Byrd) is a foster child nobody wants. Carlotta (Academy Award-nominee Julie Harris) is an elderly woman the world has forgotten. Together, they find friendship and family when they join a traveling circus. Also features Mickey Rooney and Joe DiMaggio, in his last screen appearance.