Best movies like A Jewel in Pawn

The daughter of a struggling musician forms a symphony orchestra made up of his unemployed friends and through persistence, charm and a few misunderstandings, is able to get Leopold Stokowski to lead them in a concert that leads to a radio contract.

A slum girl is forced to steal for a living. After she swipes a rich society's matron's necklace, she hides out at the home of a man who turns out to be the socialite's former fiance.

After precipitating the death of a tenant with whom he has been feuding, Squire Fairfield brings the dead man's young daughter to live in Wyvern Manor. Alice grows up thinking the squire is her kind benefactor, and falls in love with one of his two sons.

"Nora" is based on true stories of the dancer Nora Chipaumire, who was born in Zimbabwe in 1965. In the film, Nora returns to the landscape of her childhood and takes a journey through some vivid memories of her youth. Using performance and dance, she brings her history to life in a swiftly-moving poem of sound and image. A girl who is constantly embattled - struggling against all kinds of intimidation and violence - but who slowly gathers strength, pride and independence.

"Buttsy" Gallagher is a harmless young product of the slums. In all his life he has never been of the slightest importance. His spirit is so submerged that he has almost forgotten how to get angry. One night the gaiety going on in Judge Winters' home attracts him, and he crouches on the fire-escape to watch it. He becomes interested in the Judge, in his pretty daughter Peggy, in her cousin Flo, in Flo's admirer, the Count, and in Bob Ewing, a struggling young lawyer.

The Great McGonigle and his troupe of third-rate vaudevillians manage to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors and the sheriff.

With a father suffering from neurodegenerative disease, a young woman lives with her eight-year-old daughter. While struggling to secure a decent nursing home, she runs into an unavailable friend with whom she embarks on an affair.

A young girl overcomes her disadvantaged upbringing in the slums of Uganda to become a Chess master.

Hapless driving instructor and former Gunnery Sergeant Rafferty, living in squalor near Hollywood, California, doesn't put up too much of a fight when two ladies hitch a ride and attempt to kidnap him in their attempt to get to New Orleans; while initially put off, Rafferty finds he's charmed by the kooky pair of misfits and the three of them drive to Las Vegas, Nevada and later Tucson, Arizona, where their bond eventually unravels.

Josh and Buddy move from basketball to football in this first of several sequels to the original Air Bud.

Old sailor Chris Christofferson eagerly awaits the arrival of his grown daughter Anna, whom he sent at five years old to live with relatives in Minnesota. He has not seen her since, but believes her to be a decent and respectably employed young woman. When Anna arrives, however, it is clear that she has lived a hard life in the dregs of society, and that much of spirit has been extinguished. She falls in love with a young sailor rescued at sea by her father, but dreads to reveal to him the truth of her past. Both father and young man are deluded about her background, yet Anna cannot quite bring herself to allow them to remain deluded.

The coming-of-age tale of 16-year-old Lina Vilkas who is deported to Siberia amid Stalin's reign of terror in the Baltic region during WWII. An aspiring artist, she secretly documents her harrowing journey with her drawings.

In the back country of South Africa, black minister Stephen Kumalo journeys to the city to search for his missing son, only to find his people living in squalor and his son a criminal. Reverend Misimangu is a young South African clergyman who helps find his missing son-turned-thief and sister-turned-prostitute in the slums of Johannesburg.

An incognito Hollywood star (Carole Lombard) in Paris meets a penniless nobleman (Fernand Gravet) who follows her to London.

A family of Russian Jews living in New York struggles to survive, while the mother strives to better their lives, but she finds that most of her efforts costs more then they are worth.

In 1976, a lower-middle-class teenager struggles to cope living with her neurotic family of nomads on the outskirts of Beverly Hills.

Looking for a brighter future in metropolitan Manila, Oscar Ramirez and his family leave their miserable life in the rice terraces of Banaue, in the northern Philippines. In the sweltering capital, where all kind of perils lurk in every corner, Oscar catches a lucky break when he is offered a steady work for an armored truck company and the senior officer Ong takes him under his wing.

Depressing and realistic family drama about the struggles of unemployment and poverty in 1930s Lancashire. The 20-year-old Kerr gives an emotionally charged performance as Hardcastle, one of the cotton workers trying to make life better. Interlaced with humour that brings a ray of sunshine to the pervasive bleakness, this remains a powerful social study of life between the wars, and was a rare problem picture to come out of Britain at the time.

Country girl Annabel Lee has big dreams of being a famous artist. Her widowed mother encourages her to go to the city so she can study. Annabel works hard, but she sells only one painting. She discovers that a renowned artist is spending the summer at a nearby resort, so she sends him her best work for a critique. A friend recommends that she see him in person, so Annabel pawns a piece of jewelry and heads for the resort. The artist informs her that she doesn't have enough talent to achieve much.

Sally is an orphan who was named by the telephone exchange where she was abandoned as a baby. In the orphanage, she discovered the joy of dancing. Working as a waitress, she serves Blair (Alexander Gray), and they both fall for each other, but Blair is engaged to socialite Marcia. Sally is hired to impersonate a famous Russian dancer named Noskerova, but at that engagement, she is found to be a phoney. Undaunted, she proceeds with her life and has a show on Broadway, but she still thinks of Blair.

An aging widower fights family disapproval when he falls in love with a gangster's widow.

A poor-but-charming father and son try to enter high society by marrying rich English widows.

Working girl Margie Evans has decided there are two kinds of opportunities for a slum kid during the Depression: Those you make and those you take. Determined to help her family out of its financial bind, she is ready to do both after she shows up at the penthouse pool bash of a wealthy playboy.

A wealthy banker wants to tear down a tenement slum to build a factory, but a charming girl who lives there begins to persuade him otherwise.

Exiled from Hollywood due to the blacklist, director Edward Dmytryk briefly operated in England in the late 1940s. Though filmed in its entirety in London, Dmytryk's Give Us This Day is set in New York during the depression. Fellow blacklistee Sam Wanamaker is starred as the head of an Italian immigrant family struggling to survive the economic crisis.

Hank Dingo is the world's smallest private detective with the world's biggest ego. A rough, tough gumshoe full of attitude, he doesn't crack cases... he smashes them! Hank throws himself into the "Case of the Missing Lawn Jockeys," beating the hell out of suspects left and right. But he'll have to survive a widow's scorn and an oil Sheik's fury - not to mention a room full of ravenous, sex-starved concubines - to solve this mystery.

A Suitable Girl follows three young women in India struggling to maintain their identities and follow their dreams amid intense pressure to get married. The film examines the women's complex relationship with marriage, family, and society.

A young man, framed and sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit, is released after serving his stretch and vows to find those responsible for framing him. Meanwhile he sets up a mission in the slums he came from, and falls in love with a girl he meets there.

"A Man Called Jon" is a light-hearted dramedy about Pastor Jon Terrell Carson's unusual style of worship. Jon's church is very traditional and is not accustomed to outbursts during service. One day after embarrassing the church along with his family, Senior Pastor Stannum decides to reach out to the Bishop requesting that Jon be assigned to a church more suited to his style of praise. Jon and his family find themselves at an African American Church, where he is confronted by Associate Pastor Dickens, who later informs him that he was sent to the wrong church due to mix-up in paperwork. Jon is moved to his third church where he struggles to fit in. Will Jon be able to control his celebration or will he be moved for a fourth time?

Trying to put her life back together after the death of her husband, Libby and her children move to her estranged Aunt's goat farm in central Texas.

A 75-year old widow with battles herself as she struggles with being a burden to those she loves. Though determined not to rely on her children, she is forced to move in with her daughter after a serious fall, and the family learns to face the future with dignity and hope.

In Victorian London, young Adelaide is born into luxury, but marries starving artist Henry. His alcoholism and their lack of money lead to many quarrels. During one such fight, Henry slips down a flight of stairs and dies. A neighbor, Mrs. Mounsey, is the only witness, and she blackmails the young widow by threatening to tell the cops that Adelaide killed her husband. Luckily, lawyer Gilbert swoops in to help Adelaide.

On return from Europe Dr. Decker foils glamour girl Georgi from jumping overboard. At Decker's suggestion to keep busy, she assists at his clinic in the slums.

18-year-old Rosie Kaplan O'Grady was found as an abandoned baby by O'Grady, an Irish policeman, and Kaplan, a Jewish pawnbroker, and raised by them as their own. She is being courted by two men; prizefighter Terry Callahan and a rich socialite, Tommy Sinclair and has to choose between them.

The Cisco Kid rides again! This time, he robs a bank to save pretty widow Sally Benton and her ranch. After developing a good relationship with Sally’s children, he risks life and limb in order to save her little one.