Best movies like Carnival

You'll Laugh with 'Em and at 'Em!

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Carnival Starring Lee Tracy, Sally Eilers, Jimmy Durante, Florence Rice, and more. If you liked Carnival then you may also like: X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes, The Unholy Three, The Wrecker, O'Shaughnessy's Boy, Over the Top 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.

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"Chick" Thompson is a puppet-master in a traveling carnival whose wife dies in childbirth and leaves him with an infant son he names "Poochy." His father-in-law and the baby's grandfather sues him for custody of the baby and Chick takes his son and hides out for a couple of years. He joins his former assistants, Daisy and "Fingers", in a circus act only to find that the persistent grandfather is still on his trail.

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X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes

A doctor uses special eye drops to give himself x-ray vision, but the new power has disastrous consequences.

The Unholy Three

A trio of former sideshow performers double as the "Unholy Three" in a scam to nab some shiny rocks.

The Wrecker

The Wrecker is a flinty-eyed demolition engineer named Regan (Jack Holt). While he's off on another assignment, Regan's wife Mary (Genevieve Tobin) and supposed best friend Cummings (Sidney Blackmer) engage in some heavy petting. About to wash his hands of his faithless wife and his back-stabbing chum, our hero is compelled to save both their lives when they're pinned under the wreckage of a collapsed schoolhouse. George E. Stones supplies some good-natured ethnic humor as Regan's junk-dealer pal Shapiro.

O'Shaughnessy's Boy

A circus wild animal trainer searches for the son who was taken away from him by a meddling relative years earlier.

Over the Top

Sylvester Stallone stars as hard-luck big-rig trucker Lincoln Hawk and takes us under the glaring Las Vegas lights for all the boisterous action of the World Armwrestling Championship. Relying on wits and willpower, Hawk tries to rebuild his life by capturing the first-place prize money, and the love of the son he abandoned years earlier into the keeping of his rich, ruthless father-in-law.

My Own Love Song

A wheelchair-bound singer and her best friend embark on a roadtrip to Memphis.

My Family

Traces over three generations an immigrant family's trials, tribulations, tragedies, and triumphs. Maria and Jose, the first generation, come to Los Angeles, meet, marry, face deportation all in the 1930s. They establish their family in East L.A., and their children Chucho, Paco, Memo, Irene, Toni, and Jimmy deal with youth culture and the L.A. police in the '50s. As the second generation become adults in the '60s, the focus shifts to Jimmy, his marriage to Isabel (a Salvadorian refugee), their son, and Jimmy's journey to becoming a responsible parent.

Earth Mama

A pregnant single mother, with two children in foster care, embraces her Bay Area community as she fights to reclaim her family.

It's a Small World

Harry Musk is one in a million. That means that he's the one out of a million children who is perfectly proportioned but will never grow larger than a typical six-year-old. Adult, pint-sized Harry longs to be part of the big world.

Paid in Full

Two sisters fall in love with the same man. After the wedding, the new husband realizes he may have married the wrong sister.

Private Detective

A female private eye joins forces with a police detective to investigate the suspicious murder of a millionaire.

Thunder Road

A police officer faces a personal meltdown following a divorce and the death of his mother.

Circus Shadows

A phoney "psychic" ring tricks a pretty young circus performer into working for them.

Lone Star State of Mind

Earl and Baby, two young lovers with a plan to escape their small Texas town. But when Baby's dim-witted cousin Junior gets tangled up in a whole heap of trouble, Earl has just 48 hours to save the day, rescue Junior and keep his promise to get his Baby to Los Angeles in time for sweeps.

Spell of the Circus

The manager of The Big Circus plots to marry the owner's daughter and gain control of the outfit.

The Covered Trailer

The Higgins family prepares for a long-awaited cruise to Rio, but while father Joe bids farewell to his co-workers at the bank, mother Lil unwittingly sabotages their plans by telling insurance representative Wells that Joe is only forty-four, not forty-five, and is therefore ineligible to collect the annuity insurance that was to pay for the cruise.

Heaven

A struggling architect, being sued for divorce by his wife and struggling with booze and gambling, finds work remodeling a friend's strip club, the Paradise. There he meets a transsexual stripper who is bothered by accurate, but extremely violent visions of future events. The increasingly violent visions start including the architect, who doesn't believe in the prophesy. One who does however is a psychiatrist who is seeing both the stripper and the architect and is sleeping with the ex-wife. He uses the prophecies for his own financial gain. Finally the scenes from the vision move into reality amidst many plot turns.

Man on Fire

Bitter over their divorce, a wealthy businessman prevents his ex-wife from seeing their child. She then takes him to custody court and a judge tries to determine what will be best for the child.

Firecracker

A tale of murder in small-town Kansas. When Jimmy is lured away from his abusive family by a traveling sideshow carnival, he encounters Sandra, one of the main attractions. The happiness they find together causes them to confront the darkness in their lives

Relative Fear

Linda and Peter Pratman's son Adam is autistic, but they still love him and hope that he'll at least start talking some day. However he's teased and abused by the kids of the neighborhood and his grandpa . When several people around Adam die an unexpected death, his parents start to suspect Adam - is he just simulating to be so ignorant about his environment?

Hearts and Spangles

Steve Carris, a medical student, is expelled from college, disowned by his father and joins a circus.

Swing High

To avoid hostilities, Maryan, the ward of Doc May, a medicine show owner, induces Pop Garner, a circus owner, to join forces with her guardian. Doc May and Daphne, his wife, work as clowns; and Garry, a singing soldier of fortune, sings along with Maryan's act. Ruth, Maryan's partner, quits to get married; and Joe, who is jealous of Garry, replaces her with Trixie, his former assistant. When Garry announces his engagement to Maryan, Trixie persuades him to join a strip poker game in a drunken state and "compromises" him in the presence of his fiancée. Grief-stricken, Maryan falls during her act, and Garry, robbed of circus funds, is arrested. In spite of her injuries, Maryan, learning of Trixie's treachery, performs the act with her and forces a confession by threatening to drop her; Garry is released and is welcomed back to the show.

A Father for Brittany

Keith and Kim Lussier are a childless couple who are given custody of a 3-month-old foster child, Brittany. However, tragedy strikes when Kim dies of cancer in the middle of the adoption process, leaving Keith to fight for Brittany's custody alone.

Lightning: Fire from the Sky

Overwhelmed by a disastrous lightning storm that his son predicted, a man must learn to trust his son in order to save his family and the whole community.

Custody of the Heart

Claire's number one priority is her family. When her husband Dennis loses his stockbroker job, the couple's traditional family roles switch. As Dennis takes on his new stay-at-home role, Claire's furniture design business takes off. Just as she's beginning to master the art of balancing her home and work life, Dennis serves her with divorce papers and charges her with being an unfit mother. Claire discovers that in a modern courtroom there are still traditional biases unsympathetic to the idea of a woman working three jobs, as a wife, an entrepreneur and a mother.

Sideshow

While visiting a traveling carnival full of human freaks, high school students nearly join as permanent members.

Homicide for Three

While on shore leave to celebrate his first anniversary, Lt. Peter Duluth (Warren Douglas) takes his wife, Iris (Audrey Long), to a Los Angeles hotel but is turned away. When mysterious Colette (Stephanie Bachelor) offers them her suite, the young couple becomes entangled in a murder plot. Aided by two PIs, Peter and Iris find two corpses and are desperate to locate Colette before she becomes the next victim, but the killers are one step ahead.

She Freak

Jade is a waitress who leaves the greasy-diner business for the excitement of the carnival. She quickly discovers that she despises freaks and human oddities.

Her Desperate Choice

Despite allegations of child sexual abuse against Jody's ex-husband Marcus, the court orders joint custody of their daughter Samantha. Jody faces a choice of turning Samantha over to Marcus, or taking her on the run and risk kidnapping charges. Pursued by both the FBI and a private detective, Jody and Samantha are hunted, fleeing from town to town with the help of an underground network set up to help women and children escape from abuse. Based on a true story. 

Death Flies East

Evelyn Vail (Florence Rice) is a nurse convicted of poisoning a patient. Out on parole, Evelyn decides to fly to Sing-Sing and confront death row inmate who accused her of the deed in the first place. On board the airliner, Evelyn makes the acquaintance of John Robinson Gordon (Nagel), who is transporting a revolutionary munitions formula to Washington, D.C. Another passenger, Baker (Robert Allen), complains of having been poisoned and leaves the plane during a stopover in Dallas. Back in the air, Gordon's bodyguard, Lieutenant O'Brien (Fred Kelsey), suffers the same fate, but this time the poison proves fatal. The plane returns to Dallas, where Police Captain Barrie (William B. Davidson) accused poor Evelyn of the crime. Happily, Gordon can prove otherwise and the real culprit is unmasked.

Bengal Tiger

After causing his friend's death, an animal trainer marries the man's daughter to atone.

Broken Dreams

Medical intern Robert Morley is distraught after his wife dies in childbirth. He's resentful of his new son and wants nothing to do with him. He leaves the child with his aunt and uncle and heads off to Europe to pursue his medical studies. Morley returns to his hometown six years later, now a successful doctor and engaged to be married to a beautiful socialite. He also feels differently about the boy and attempts to gain custody from his aunt and uncle.

Joe Navidad

In a small western town in Arizona called Jaspen, a boy is born on Christmas Day. Joseph "Joe" Novak is born in a makeshift shelter, but his mother, Marika Novak (Alejandra Rojo) dies during childbirth. Because of the day he was born, the boy will be nicknamed Christmas Joe. Joe's father (Jack Taylor) will never forgive him for the death of his wife, which will lead Joe toward a rebellious attitude. He will become a troubled teenager, and will end up learning how to shoot. Joe will also reject his father's pacific attitude.

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