Best movies like Beat
Sex and Drugs before Rock and Roll
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Beat Starring Kiefer Sutherland, Courtney Love, Ron Livingston, Norman Reedus, and more. If you liked Beat then you may also like: Why Do Fools Fall In Love, Wonder Boys, Naked Lunch, Next Stop, Greenwich Village, On the Road and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.
The true story of two murders that shaped the lives of several college students who went on to become some of the most influential writers of the "Beat Generation."
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Wonder Boys
Grady is a 50-ish English professor who hasn't had a thing published in years—not since he wrote his award winning 'Great American Novel' 7 years ago. This weekend proves even worse than he could imagine as he finds himself reeling from one misadventure to another in the company of a new wonder boy author.
Naked Lunch
Blank-faced bug killer Bill Lee and his dead-eyed wife, Joan, like to get high on Bill's pest poisons while lounging with Beat poet pals. After meeting the devilish Dr. Benway, Bill gets a drug made from a centipede. Upon indulging, he accidentally kills Joan, takes orders from his typewriter-turned-cockroach, ends up in a constantly mutating Mediterranean city and learns that his hip friends have published his work -- which he doesn't remember writing.
Next Stop, Greenwich Village
An aspiring Jewish actor moves out of his parents' Brooklyn apartment to seek his fortune in the bohemian life of Greenwich Village in 1953.
On the Road
Dean and Sal are the portrait of the Beat Generation. Their search for "It" results in a fast paced, energetic roller coaster ride with highs and lows throughout the U.S.
Rich and Famous
Two literary women compete for 20 years: one writes for the critics; the other one, to get rich.
Kill Your Darlings
A murder in 1944 draws together the great poets of the beat generation: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs.
Before Night Falls
Spanning several decades, this powerful biopic offers a glimpse into the life of famed Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas, an artist who was vilified for his homosexuality in Fidel Castro's Cuba.
Bright Lights, Big City
A disillusioned young writer living in New York City turns to drugs and drinking to block out the memories of his dead mother and estranged wife.
Brother to Brother
A drama that looks back on the Harlem Renaissance from the perspective of an elderly, black writer who meets a gay teenager in a New York homeless shelter.
Burroughs: The Movie
An exploration of Burroughs’ life story, as told by Burroughs himself along with many of his contemporaries, including Allen Ginsberg, Brion Gysin, Francis Bacon, Herbert Huncke, Patti Smith, Terry Southern, and William Burroughs Jr.
Chappaqua
Semi-autobiographical story of Conrad Rooks, who travels to France to undergo a drug-withdrawal cure. Flashbacks to the beginings of psychedelia in San Fran. Though initially confusing, as Rooks blends drug-illusion with reality, and cuts color with black-and-white and monochrome tinted shots, "Chappaqua" is conventionally constructed with a beginning, middle, and end.
The Panic in Needle Park
A stark portrayal of life among a group of heroin addicts who hang out in Needle Park in New York City. Played against this setting is a low-key love story between Bobby, a young addict and small-time hustler, and Helen, a homeless girl who finds in her relationship with Bobby the stability she craves.
Party Monster
The New York club scene of the 80s and 90s was a world like no other. Into this candy-colored, mirror ball playground stepped Michael Alig, a wannabe from nowhere special. Under the watchful eye of veteran club kid James St. James, Alig quickly rose to the top... and there was no place to go but down.
Illuminata
It's the start of the 20th century, and Tuccio, resident playwright of a theatre repertory company offers the owners of the company his new play, "Illuminata". They reject it, saying it's not finished, and intrigue starts that involves influential critic Bevalaqua, theatre star Celimene, young lead actors and other theatre residents
Elena Undone
The wife of a pastor who preaches against homosexuality embarks on an affair with a female writer.
Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle
Dorothy Parker remembers the heyday of the Algonquin Round Table, a circle of friends whose barbed wit, like hers, was fueled by alcohol and flirted with despair.
The Hours and Times
A fictionalized account of what may have happened when John Lennon and Brian Epstein went on holiday together to Spain in 1963.
Howl
It's San Francisco in 1957, and an American masterpiece is put on trial. Howl, the film, recounts this dark moment using three interwoven threads: the tumultuous life events that led a young Allen Ginsberg to find his true voice as an artist, society's reaction (the obscenity trial), and mind-expanding animation that echoes the startling originality of the poem itself. All three coalesce in a genre-bending hybrid that brilliantly captures a pivotal moment-the birth of a counterculture.
Lovelife
Lovelife is a 1997 romantic comedy film written and directed by Jon Harmon Feldman. The ensemble cast includes Matt Letscher, Sherilyn Fenn, Saffron Burrows, Carla Gugino, Bruce Davison, Jon Tenney and Peter Krause. Lovelife was nominated for a Feature Film Award at the 1997 Austin Film Festival, and won an Audience Award at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival. The film was winner of the screenplay award at the L.A. Indie fest.
Permanent Midnight
Juggling increasing career success and a growing heroin habit, a television comedy writer attempts to go down a path of improvement.
Life Support
The true-life story of a mother who overcame an addiction to crack and became a positive role model and an AIDS activist in the black community.
Rent
This rock opera tells the story of one year in the life of a group of bohemians struggling in late 1980s East Village, New York, USA. The film centers around Mark and Roger, two roommates. While a tragedy has made Roger numb to new experiences, Mark begins capturing their world through his attempts to make a personal movie. In the year that follows, they and their friends deal with love, loss, and working together.
Purple Violets
Patti Petalson is a promising writer, but her marriage and conventional job keep her from her dream. She longs to return to her writing, especially after running into her first love Brian Callahan, a successful crime novelist. Kate is Patti's best friend since college; she's a tough-talking schoolteacher who plays therapist to all Patti's problems, while she's got a few of her own.
The Last Time I Committed Suicide
Neal Cassady is living the beat life during the 1940s, working at The Tire Yard and and philandering around town. However, he has visions of a happy life with kids and a white picket fence. When his girlfried, Joan, tries to kill herself he gets scared and runs away. But when Joan reappears will he take the chance at that happiness, or will he turn his back on it?
Starting Out in the Evening
Leonard Schiller once counted among New York's literary lions, but illness and ten years of writer's block have lowered his profile, almost to the point of obscurity. When Heather Wolfe, an ambitious literature major, asks to interview him for her thesis on his work, her interest forces him to address the issues that he has avoided all these years, and stirs in him feelings he has long forgotten, much to his daughter's consternation.
Race You to the Bottom
Nathan and Maggie are in the throes of a passionate affair. They're young, good-looking, and both have boyfriends. When Nathan is assigned to write a travel article on romantic hot-spots in Napa Valley, these unconventional lovers test the limits of the sensuality and fantasy that bond them.
Sweet Nothing
Angel celebrates the birth of his daughter by taking his first hit of crack cocaine. With the hesitant support of his wife, Monika, he joins a friend of his to deal drugs for a short time--enough time to get out of debt and buy some nice things for the family. Three years later, Angel is still dealing, and has not saved any money, instead spending it on crack. His addiction grows, straining his friendship and his family life, and he gradually loses control.
Cocaine Angel
Cocaine Angel captures a grinding and tragic week in the life of a weary young drug addict who is clinging to the remnants of his once hopeful existence amidst the stink, the sweat, and unforgiving heat of Jacksonville, Florida.
Boogie Boy
A man who has just been released from prison vows to start a new life, but is put to the test when an old cellmate appears.
The true story of two murders that shaped the lives of several college students who went on to become some of the most influential writers of the "Beat Generation."
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Beat Starring Kiefer Sutherland, Courtney Love, Ron Livingston, Norman Reedus, and more. If you liked Beat then you may also like: Why Do Fools Fall In Love, Wonder Boys, Naked Lunch, Next Stop, Greenwich Village, On the Road and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.
Why Do Fools Fall In Love
In the mid-80s, three women (each with an attorney) arrive at the office of New York entertainment manager, Morris Levy. One is an L.A. singer, formerly of the Platters; one is a petty thief from Philly; one teaches school in a small Georgia town. Each claims to be the widow of long-dead doo-wop singer-songwriter Frankie Lyman, and each wants years of royalties due to his estate, money Levy has never shared. During an ensuing civil trial, flashbacks tell the story of each one's life with Lyman, a boyish, high-pitched, dynamic performer, lost to heroin. Slowly, the three wives establish their own bond.