Best movies like Black Diamonds

DISASTER! Doomed to death in a dynamite-loaded mine!

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Black Diamonds Starring Richard Arlen, Andy Devine, Kathryn Adams, Paul Fix, and more. If you liked Black Diamonds then you may also like: Nightmare on the 13th Floor, October Sky, Road Gang, Kentucky Woman, Act of Vengeance 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.

A reporter on a visit to his hometown hears of dangerous conditions at the local coal mine, and proceeds to investigate.

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Nightmare on the 13th Floor

In this made-for-cable television horror thriller, a travel writer visits a historic hotel to write a story about it and inadvertently finds herself on the 13th floor where she witnesses a Satanic rite and tangles with an axe-wielding killer. She escapes, but no one believes her story because the hotel has no 13th floor.

October Sky

Based on the true story of Homer Hickam, a coal miner's son who was inspired by the first Sputnik launch to take up rocketry against his father's wishes, and eventually became a NASA scientist.

Road Gang

A crusading young reporter planning a series of articles about a corrupt politician is framed for a crime and sentenced to serve five years at a prison farm.

Kentucky Woman

A woman faces harassment and humiliation when she goes to work as a coal miner to support her small son and ailing dad.

Act of Vengeance

In 1969, an administrator runs against the corrupt president of the United Coal Miners Union, and becomes the target of a murder plot.

Escaping the Madhouse: The Nellie Bly Story

An investigative reporter Nellie Bly, who’s on a mission to expose the deplorable conditions and mistreatment of patients at the notorious Women’s Lunatic Asylum, and feigns mental illness in order to be institutionalized to report from the inside. The movie is an account of actual events surrounding Nellie’s stay beginning after she has undergone treatment, leaving her with no recollection of how she came to the asylum or her real identity.

Coal Face

1935 documentary about the hard working life of Welsh coal miners.

Beneath

A crew of coal miners becomes trapped 600 feet below ground after a disastrous collapse. As the air grows more toxic and time runs out, they slowly descend into madness and begin to turn on one another. Inspired by true events.

Once a Year on Blackpool Sands

A moving comedy-drama about the love, identity and courage of the LGBTQ community during the first walk towards Gay Pride in 1950s England. Based on the real-life events of Yorkshire coal miners and secret gay lovers, Tommy and Eddy, who spend their annual week holiday at a quirky B & B in Blackpool, along with a few other alternative members of society – the transgender Mr. Elbridge, the ex-show girl Red Ethel and the eccentric owner Gladys and her flirty daughter Maureen.

The Molly Maguires

Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, 1876. A secret society of Irish coal miners, bond by a sacred oath, put pressure on the greedy and ruthless company they work for by sabotaging mining facilities in the hope of improving their working conditions and the lives of their families.

Dangerous Ground

Vusi Madlazi returns to the South African village he left as a young boy to bury his father. He meets up with his brother Ernest, who tells him their other brother Stephen couldn't be contacted. Vusi goes to Johannesburg to find him, but at first can only find his neighbor/girlfriend, Karin, a stripper. Vusi proceeds to learn how conditions have changed since the end of apartheid, not always for the better for black men.

Fighting Mad

An evil corporation tries to pressure a bunch of Arkansas farmers and ranchers to sell their land so they can strip-mine it for coal. The fiercely proud and stubborn Hunter family refuse to give in. This leads to a bitter conflict that results in several casualties. Eventually the take-charge no-nonsense Tom Hunter exacts a harsh revenge on the villains with the help of his bow and arrow.

Sons and Lovers

The son of a working-class British mining family has dreams of pursuing an art career, but when he strikes up an affair with an older, married woman from the town it enrages his kind but possessive mother.

The Devil Below

A group of four amateur adventurers who specialize in exploring remote and forsaken places pay a visit to Shookum Hills, a town in the remote Appalachian Mountains which was abandoned decades ago due to a mysterious coal mine fire.

Tornado

The owner of an Illinois coal mine struggles to keep his business in operation, all the while unaware that among his employees is a saboteur planning destruction and chaos.

Harlan County U.S.A.

This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastovers refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA.

How Green Was My Valley

A man in his fifties reminisces about his childhood growing up in a Welsh mining village at the turn of the 20th century.

Iron Man

In Coaltown, Pennsylvania, miner Coke Mason hopes to better himself, buy a radio store, and marry Rose Warren. His gambler brother George thinks Coke can be more successful as a boxer, knowing that when he fights he's consumed with a murderous rage that makes him an "iron man." Seeing dollar signs in Rose's eyes, Coke reluctantly agrees, though he's fearful of the "killer instinct" that makes him a knockout success in the ring...and brings him the booing hatred of the fans. Will Coke throw off his personal demon before he kills someone?

Lust for Life

An intense and imaginative artist, revered Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh possesses undeniable talent, but he is plagued by mental problems and frustrations with failure. Supported by his brother, Theo, the tormented Van Gogh eventually leaves Holland for France, where he meets volatile fellow painter Paul Gauguin and struggles to find greater inspiration.

Margaret's Museum

In a town where half the men die down the coalpit, Margaret MacNeil is quite happy being single in her small Cape Breton island town. Until she meets Neil Currie, a charming and sincere bagpipe-playing, Gaelic-speaking dishwasher. But no matter what you do, you can't avoid the spectre of the pit forever.

Little Accidents

In a small American coal town living in the shadow of a recent mining accident, the disappearance of a teenage boy draws three people together—a surviving miner, the lonely wife of a mine executive, and a local boy—in a web of secrets.

Bug Buster

After the mayor uses a potentially dangerous substance to protect the local plantation, the lakeside town of Mountview, in California, is attacked by a lethal species of large cockroach. After some of the town's inhabitants are killed, the mayor enlists the help of eccentric pest exterminator General George S. Merlin in order to prevent further harm to the local dwellers.

Big Bad John

Jimmy Dean's popular 1950 song is translated into a feature length movie about a young couple who elopes to escape the girl's evil stepfather.

Mine 9

Two miles into the earth, nine Appalachian miners struggle to survive after a methane explosion leaves them with one hour of oxygen.

The Brave Don't Cry

The Brave Don't Cry aspires to the "feel" of a documentary, right down to the deliberate absence of background music. A mine in Scotland falls victim to a cave-in, trapping some one hundred workers. Rescue parties are formed as the tremulous families of the miners wait in agony. As in the actual incident upon which this film is based, the rescue is nip and tuck and times, but eventually successful. The faces of real-life Scottish mining folk are melded with the professional actors in The Brave Don't Cry, adding poignancy to this otherwise cut-and-dried film.

On Dangerous Ground

Vusi Madlazi returns to the South African village he left as a young boy (he was organizing against apartheid, and left in fear of his life) to bury his father. He meets up with his brother Ernest, who tells him their other brother Stephen couldn't be contacted. Vusi goes to Johannesburg to find him, but at first can only find his neighbor/girlfriend, Karin, a stripper. Vusi proceeds to learn how conditions have changed since the end of apartheid, not always for the better for black men.

Luck

A young man is bet $100,000 that his famous luck can hold out and he can make that sum in one year's time, literally starting with nothing. He proceeds to Pennsylvania, where prize fight winnings are used to build a new town.

Fury Below

Jim Cole, heir to a mining operation, takes over the mine, which is suffering from unexplained low production, and is facing a strike by the miners. Jim will soon loose the mine if production doesn't increase and the sabotage continues. Mary Norsen, office-secretary, accidentally learns of a plot by Fred Johnson to wreck the mine and force Cole to sell his coal-mine. She and her brother, Joe, join Cole in his fight to stop Johnson.

Joe Hill

In the early 1900s, the legendary Joe Hill emigrates with his brother to the United States. But after a short time, he loses touch with his brother. Joe gets a few jobs but is struck by all the injustice and tragedy going on. He becomes active in the forbidden union IWW, a union for workers without trades. It is forbidden to demonstrate and to speak in public but Joe gets around that by singing his manifests with the Salvation Army. He manages to get more and more people to go on strike with him but he also makes powerful enemies doing that. Finally he gets connected with a murder and during the trial he fires his lawyer and takes upon himself to become his own defender.

Hemingway

When a wealthy publisher dies, leaving behind the family fortune, his son and heir apparent is shocked to discover that the business has been left in the hands of the man s trusted lawyer, who has been instructed to divide the wealth equally among the family members under the condition that they resolve life-long family issues within eight hours or the company will be sold, and the proceeds given to charity. In the aftermath of this shocking revelation, secrets and conflicts are exposed, and a family s love and faith are put to the test.

The 13th Man

A tough district attorney has been cleaning up the town, and has already imprisoned twelve dangerous criminals. As he is about to name the target for his next investigation, he is murdered in the midst of a crowd. The police have many suspects and hardly any clues, so two reporters decide to investigate for themselves.

Pit Pony

Glace Bay, Nova Scotia Canada, 1901. Willie MacLean is a 10-year-old boy with a love for horses and liking to school to cape the difficult times his family has. Willie's stern, but benevolent father is a coal miner in a local mine along with his older brother John. But when Willie's father is injured and John is killed in an accident at the mine, Willie is forced to step into his brother's shoes to support his older sister Nelle, and two younger sisters until their father recovers. Willie soon finds work at the mine lonely (aka: the pit) and unfriendly in which he forms a bond with a pit pony horse in order to make it though each day.

Roses Are for the Rich

In a small town in Appalachia, Autumn's young husband is killed in a suspicious mine explosion. She vows vengeance on mine owner Douglas Osborne and dedicates her life to destroying him, even at the cost of her own happiness. When her attempts at financial ruin fail, she manipulates Osborne into marriage by claiming she is carrying his child. After Osborne dies from cyanide poisoning, Autumn is arrested for his murder, but she professes her innocence.

The Adventures of Nellie Bly

A "Classics Illustrated" account of pioneer female journalist Nellie Bly, who became a legend through her exposes of corruption and inhumane conditions in New York of the 1880s in "The New York World."

She Went Missing

When investigative reporter Maya learns that her childhood best friend has gone missing, she decides to cover the story herself. But just as her return to her hometown unearths memories and rekindles past relationships, it also brings a long dormant (and still totally unknown) stalker that she had years ago. As her investigation deepens, the danger strikes closer and closer to home. Will she uncover the truth about her friend’s disappearance? Or will Maya herself wind up being the next tragic news story?

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