Best movies like Chicago Calling

The editor of a sleazy tabloid newspaper has been borrowing money from his lover, the wife of a rich theatrical producer, and promises to marry her when she gets a divorce. However, the husband refuses to grant her a divorce, and takes back all the money and jewelry he has given her. The editor sees her husband leaving her apartment and, seeing his opportunity, kills her, takes all his IOUs (and the jewelry) and frames the husband for the murder.

After stealing a gangster's money and his girlfriend, a doctor heads for a small village in Mexico to hide out.

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.

Ex-baseball player Bill Johnson, failing at many jobs when his ball-playing days are over, reluctantly takes the advice of his father-in-law, Jonah Evans, a retired umpire, and enters an umpire-training school. Assigned to the Texas League, he does fine until the championship play-offs when a riot develops over one of his calls. The involved player is knocked unconscious in the proceedings and cannot verify that Bill made the correct call. Despite lynch mob plans to at least tar-and-feather him, Bill's family - his daughters Lucy (Gloria Henry and Susan and his wife Betty - help Bill reach the ballpark safely the next day through a series of hair-raising encounters.

An African-American man working at a slaughterhouse in the Watts area of Los Angeles leads a dissatisfied and listless existence.

At breakfast, Jane announces that she and Ralph are getting married the next week. All Jane and Ralph want is a small wedding with the immediate family and no reception. This is because Jane's parents are poor and Jane and Ralph can borrow a car for their honeymoon. However, at dinner that night all Ralph's parents talk about are the big weddings they gave their daughters and everything escalates. All of a sudden, it is a big wedding breakfast with hundreds of guests. The problem is that for 12 years, Tom has been saving money to buy his own cab and license, but now that he can, all of his money is going towards a wedding neither he, or Jane or Ralph really want.

Burt Lancaster plays Steve Thompson, a man who seals his dark fate when he returns to Los Angeles to find his ex-wife Anna Dundee (Yvonne DeCarlo) eager to rekindle their love against all better judgement. She encourages their affair but then quickly marries mobster Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea). To deflect suspicion of the affair, Steve Thompson leads Dundee into a daylight armored-truck robbery.

Head railroad man Dan is as ugly as he is honorable. When he spots a drifter who'd hopped a freight held up by a landslide, Dan offers the man a job; then he finds the man was a railroader, too, and takes him under his wing. Engaged to Mary, Dan doesn't notice the growing attraction between his protégé and his intended but focuses instead on running the railroad.

Workaholic Thomas Johnson dies in an auto accident and comes back to life as a dog. Remembering some of who he was, he returns to his wife and son to protect them from the man who caused his accident. But, as time goes by, he remembers more of his life, and realizes he wasn't such a good husband and father.

Grand Canyon revolved around six residents from different backgrounds whose lives intertwine in modern-day Los Angeles. At the center of the film is the unlikely friendship of two men from different races and classes brought together when one finds himself in jeopardy in the other's rough neighborhood.

In East Texas, the summer after high school, Jack falls in love with Ginny, the daughter of the town's banker (Jack's mom's high school sweetheart). Ginny's been at boarding school; she's headed for Vassar. Over her father's strenuous objections, she spends time with Jack. At summer's end, Jack and Ginny elope to Louisiana (where 17-year-olds can marry without their parents' permission), and he gets a job in the oil fields. Her dad hires a menacing private eye to find them, Ginny's pregnant, her town doctor gives her horrible news, and Jack's mom has her own agenda. It seems that Jack and Ginny have grown up under a liar's moon. What will these sweethearts do?

Every school day, African-American teenagers William Gates and Arthur Agee travel 90 minutes each way from inner-city Chicago to St. Joseph High School in Westchester, Illinois, a predominately white suburban school well-known for the excellence of its basketball program. Gates and Agee dream of NBA stardom, and with the support of their close-knit families, they battle the social and physical obstacles that stand in their way. This acclaimed documentary was shot over the course of five years.

As a young New York couple goes from college romance to marriage and the birth of their first child, the unexpected twists of their journey create reverberations that echo over continents and through lifetimes.

Earl Pilcher Jr., runs an equipment rental outfit in Arkansas, lives with his wife and kids and parents, and rarely takes off his gimme cap. His mother dies, leaving a letter explaining he's not her natural son, but the son of a Black woman who died in childbirth; plus, he has a half brother Ray, in Chicago, she wants him to visit. Earl makes the trip, initially receiving a cold welcome from Ray and Ray's son, Virgil. His birth mother's sister, Aunt T., an aged and blind matriarch, takes Earl in tow and insists that the family open up to him.

A quick-witted drifter wanders into a lawless town in the midst of a gold rush. Shocked by the prices of food and meals he reluctantly takes the job of sheriff by amazing the Mayor with his lightning quick, dead eye pistol accuracy. He makes the town council know that he is really just passing through on his way to Australia and he will pull up and leave anytime he chooses (including at the first sign of real trouble). His first day on the job he takes on the biggest, meanest ranching family and meets his klutzy love interest.

Colin McCormack thinks he has it all - a great job, a steady stream of hot younger guys, and a best friend whose devotion he takes for granted. But when a charming and mercurial intern sweeps him off his feet, Colin sees a chance for something more: A family of his own. What he discovers instead is a shattering secret that may cost Colin everything -- and everyone -- he holds dear.

A young Mexican/American learns about life both inside and out of the ring when he takes up boxing.

Clara and her two sons escape from her abusive husband with little more than their car and plan to start over in New York. After the car towed away, the family meets Alice, who gets them into an emergency shelter. While stealing food at a Russian restaurant called ‘Winter Palace’, Clara meets Marc, who has been given the chance to help the old eatery regain its former glory. The ‘Winter Palace’ soon becomes a place of unexpected encounters between people who are all undergoing some sort of crisis and whom fate has now brought together.

Gloria is a free-spirited divorcée who spends her days at a straight-laced office job and her nights on the dance floor, joyfully letting loose at clubs around Los Angeles. After meeting Arnold on a night out, she finds herself thrust into an unexpected new romance, filled with both the joys of budding love and the complications of dating, identity, and family.

A down-on-his-luck divorced father struggles to get his life and family back together before it's too late.

Against the anxieties and fears of post-9/11 America, an Arab cab driver picks up a troubled professional woman with unexpected results.

George Periolat plays a dual role in this film, initially as Joseph Sayles a sickly old man who has taken his daughter, Rhoda (played by Mary Miles Minter), overseas after a quarrel with his family. She yearns to return home, but he has disowned his past. After his death, Rhoda ventures to America on her own. She nearly becomes destitute for a lack of money but happens upon some questionable fortune as she takes on the chores of Rosy Taylor after inadvertently finding an envelope with money in it. Rosy had been hired as a housekeeper (thus the money), but has passed away before actually showing up for employment.

After a ten year absence, acclaimed filmmaker Molly Dineen is back with a new feature documentary: Being Blacker; an intimate portrait of Jamaican-born reggae producer, businessman, father, son and prominent community figure, Blacker Dread. 40 years after featuring in Dineen’s first film, Blacker and his family, friends and community in South London face the combined challenges of rapid social change, gentrification, inequality, poverty, crime and racism as they seek to secure their futures. Made with intimacy and warmth, the film takes us deep into Blacker’s world as he buries his mother, closes his business and faces prison for the first time. Being Blacker offers a rarely-heard perspective on life in Britain today.

Based upon a description in a film publication,[3] Katherine Van Riper (Clayton) is an extravagant young society girl who is very much in debt, and her wealthy aunts and uncle refuse to give her any money. Katherine is desperate enough that she is considering marrying the wealthy Montee Buck (Hiers), although she is in love with the westerner Tom Jaffrey (Fillmore), who says he is poor. Finally, Katherine decides to sell the famous Van Riper pearls, pay off her debts, and marry Tom. However, upon examination the jewelry turns out to be paste, with her father having sold the genuine pearls several years earlier before his death. Montee is assured by the aunts that Katherine will marry him and tells this to Tom. Tom is about to leave town when Uncle James (Ricketts) steps in and pays off Katherine's debts, leaving the niece free to marry Tom.

After directing him as the title character in Huckleberry Finn, William Desmond Taylor again used boy actor Lewis Sargent in this picture. His character, known merely as "the boy," has been raised in an orphanage where he has caused as much trouble as possible. He finally can't stand living there anymore and runs away. On the streets he finds a friend in Mike (Ernest Butterworth), a newsboy. Mike teaches him how to survive but inevitably the boy gets hauled into court. However, the judge sees potential in him and hands him over to be adopted by a young politician. The judge, incidentally, is played by Judge Ben Lindsey, who was famous in his day for his efforts to give delinquent boys a decent chance in life.

The daughter of iconic actor John Barrymore is reunited with her father after a ten year estrangement and engages in his self-destructive lifestyle.

When his drinking problem takes control of his life, a father tries to leave the bottle behind while putting his and his family's lives back together.

The plot centers around the Johnson family (consisting of Chris (Rob Hartz) and Ellen (Kathleen Cameron) Johnson, and their son Casey (Hy Rillero)) of Los Angeles, California, one of a small number of families to survive a global pandemic that, according to the opening of the film, occurs "sometime in the future..." The disease began as a particularly virulent flu strain in Southeast Asia. Efforts made to contain the virus in that portion of the world are ineffective as global transportation networks carry infected individuals all around the world. Hospitals become overloaded, and the public works infrastructure begins to shut down. Eventually, the main characters leave L.A., encountering many hardships along the way. They make it to a friendly small town, where life begins again.

Alejandro, a tough and ambitious Latino street orphan on the verge of adolescence, lives and works in an auto-body repair shop in a sprawling junkyard on the outskirts of Queens, New York. In this chaotic world of adults, young Alejandro struggles to make a better life for himself and his 16-year-old sister, Isamar.

A teacher's world is torn apart when his wife and children are brutally murdered at the hands of a ruthless gang. Left for dead and with no one to turn to, he takes matters into his own hands and hits the streets in search of justice.

Melody, high powered corporate workaholic for a retail conglomerate, is happy to spend the holidays jet-setting with her girlfriends. However, she's in for an unpleasant surprise when her boss sends her to her sleepy hometown to convince the reluctant townspeople to allow them to build a new discount store. Now, forced to reconnect with her family and her childhood sweetheart Carter, her task is not so simple, as all are vehemently opposed to everything Melody's company stands for. Desperate to get out of town and back to her real life, Melody takes a spill and wakes up in an alternate universe where she never left home and is married to Carter! Once determined to leave her small town life behind, Melody must make sense of her new life and decide if you truly can go home again. - Written by ABC

Feeling lost and disconnected, with no family of his own, veteran Sherman Oliver sets out to the countryside in search of the soldier who saved him back in the war. That man, Franklin Page, has long since moved on - to a wife, two children, and a reliable job in a reliably safe and quiet rural town. The stability Franklin worked so hard to establish is soon threatened, and the violence he believed he'd left behind in the war begins to re-emerge and cloud over both the household and the town itself.

Following his mother's death, Hector arrives in Manila to live with his grandmother. Unable to speak Tagalog, Hector falls in with a street gang before a photographer takes him under his wing. Haunted by memories of his mother, Hector photographs an anonymous woman when suddenly, these seemingly disconnected lives collide.

Matt, a home arcade games programmer runs into an old acquaintance who saved his life years earlier from a burning automobile. The rescuer, Simon, is down on his luck, living like a bum. The grateful Matt feels obligated to help Simon, so he takes him into his home and gets him a job in the mail room of his company. However, what Matt doesn't know is it was no accident running into Simon, and Simon has an old score to settle with Matt, going all the way back to the night Simon saved Matt's life.

Zoe, a young Acadian woman, decides to head home to her mother in Prince Edward Island after a failed relationship on the West Coast. Out of money, she decides to hitchhike and to rely on the kindness of strangers to carry her across the country. The first person to offer her a couch to sleep on is Alex, a musically gifted francophone who moved to Vancouver a few years ago to work for a software company. Alex decides to leave his job and follow Zoe. A romantic who is convinced he's found his soul mate, Alex's love is challenged throughout the trip. From one couch to the next, from one city to the next, they learn to trust and draw strength from one another giving new meaning to their lives.