Best movies like Curtain Up

Out-of-work singer Victoria Grant meets a just-fired, flamboyant gay man in a club in 1920s Paris. He convinces her to pretend to be a man who is a female impersonator in order to get a job. The act is a hit in a local nightclub, but things get complicated when a gangster and nightclub owner from Chicago, King Marchan, falls in love with "him." Filmed live on Broadway, 1995.

Jenna is a pregnant, unhappily married waitress in the deep south. She meets a newcomer to her town and falls into an unlikely relationship as a last attempt at happiness.

Listening in to a conversation between his doctor and parents, 10-year-old Oscar learns what nobody has the courage to tell him. He only has a few weeks to live. Furious, he refuses to speak to anyone except straight-talking Rose, the lady in pink he meets on the hospital stairs. As Christmas approaches, Rose uses her fantastical experiences as a professional wrestler, her imagination, wit and charm to allow Oscar to live life and love to the full, in the company of his friends Pop Corn, Einstein, Bacon and childhood sweetheart Peggy Blue. Written by American Film Market

Director Mario Van Peebles chronicles the complicated production of his father Melvin's classic 1971 film, "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song." Playing his father in the film, Van Peebles offers an unapologetic account of Melvin's brash and sometimes deceptive conduct on the set of the film, including questionable antics like writing bad checks, tricking a local fire department and allowing his son, Mario, to shoot racy sex scenes at the age of 11.

An ex-theater actor is given one more chance to star in a musical yet his alcoholism may prevent it from happening.

Warren Nefron is a hopeless klutz who has some of the worst luck in the world: when he tries to end it all with a foolproof suicide plan, he still manages to mess it up. In desperation, he goes to a psychiatrist to see if there is some way for him to end his troubles.

Broke Gordon Miller tries to land a backer for his new play while he has to deal with with the hotel manager trying to evict him and his cast.

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

A girl from Yazoo City, Mississippi pins all her hopes on winning the local beauty pageant.

A young married physician discovers a mermaid, and gives into her request to be taken to see London. Comedy and romantic entanglements ensue soon after.

The film tells the tale of Maggie, a film star whose world collapses when her film director husband is outed by the paparazzi when it’s discovered his new leading lady is pregnant with his baby. Seeking solace and healing Maggie escapes to her ex-pat cousin’s beautiful hotel in Nevis. After a week in paradise she discovers herself and meets a new love interest. Then the outside world comes crashing back in.

Broadway producer Nickie North and press agent Scoop Trimble find an investor for their next show who insists that they cast his ex-girlfriend, Clarice Sheldon, in the lead role and rehearse out of town. The crew set up on a family farm, and all is well until the leading man falls for the farmer's daughter, Patience Bingham. When flighty starlet Sheldon finds out he has a new girlfriend, she takes off, leaving North and Trimble to find a new leading lady.

A fledgling producer finds himself at odds with his workers, financiers and his greedy ex-wife when he tries to produce live musicals for movie-going audiences.

A detective who has "four hours to kill" before delivering his prisoner, an escaped killer, spends the time in the lobby of a Broadway theater where a musical is playing. The film focuses on the relationship between the two men, and also between various characters in the theater audience, staff and cast.

The ice-cold diva Paula ruthlessly exploits the guys she dates. While blackmailing the married Don with a recent one-night-stand, she has a secret affair with Henry, who works as researcher for the weekly authentic TV show "Crime of the Week", which Don writes for. When Henry fails to help her to a role, she insults him deadly... and ends up dead herself. Now Don desperately tries to hide his traces, but Henry sabotages his efforts and suggests he write the unsolved murder case for next week's show...

Broadway producer, Max Bialystock and his accountant, Leo Bloom plan to make money by charming little old ladies to invest in a production many times over what it will actually cost, and then put on a sure-fire flop, so nobody will ask for their money back – and what can be a more certain flop than a tasteless musical celebrating Hitler.

A small-town janitor / motivational speaker, stumbles along through life, until he has a personal revelation and begins 'un-motivating' the town, turning everything upside down in the process.

Follows the first year of business for Alex, Charlie, and Nigel as they try to make their theatre, The Toronto Underground Cinema, a success in the dying world of repertory cinema. The film also places the cinema in context to the larger world of rep. Featuring interviews with theatres such as Film Forum in NYC, The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, and The New Beverly Cinema in L.A., and celebrities such as Kevin Smith, John Waters, Atom Egoyan, and George A. Romero, the world of repertory cinema will come alive as a vibrant and culturally significant medium that needs to be preserved

Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory, apparently playing themselves, share their lives over the course of an evening meal at a restaurant.

A producer decides to reopen a theater, that had been closed five years previously when one of the actors was murdered during a performance, by staging a production of the same play with the remaining members of the original cast.

Wildly optimistic chatterbox Eva Lovelace is a would-be actress trying to crash the New York stage. She attracts the interest of a paternal actor, a philandering producer, and an earnest playwright. Is she destined for stardom, or will she fade like a morning glory after its brief blooming?

A widowed theatre director moves to a small Connecticut town where he gets involved in solving the murder of a millionaire, who was the most despised man in town.

Jean and Bill are a married couple trying to scrape a living. Out of the blue they receive a telegram informing them Bill's long-lost uncle has died and left them his business—a cinema in the town of Sloughborough. Unfortunately they can't sell it for the fortune they hoped as they discover it is falling down and almost worthless.

TV producer James has an extremely vivid dream, in which he is a prince struggling to keep the kingdom at peace against the wishes of his warfaring brother, while at the same time competing with his brother for a woman's love. The figures in his dream match those in his real life, with his brother being an aggressive business man trying to buy James out, the king being James' advisor, and the woman being an actress recently cast for a commercial at his studio. Seeing his dreams as a message about his life, James decides to act on their guidance, even though they lead him into the fight of his life.

Three young movie theater employees are given the task of re-opening a long-closed, old-time theater at which, many years before, a shocking series of grisly murders took place. It seems many more murders have occurred since then but all of this remains unknown to these three young upstart employees hoping to finally make it big on their own. As they approach the grand re-opening night, things keep getting stranger and more unsettling with items suddenly starting to move around by themselves without any seen aid and a terrifying old man seemingly haunting the premises.

An actor and two songwriters become rural con men.

Is God really the giver of second chances? Can He take a worthless, selfish, self-serving and self-centered, drug addicted broken down life and restore it with forgiveness, mercy and love? Is he able to guide and direct someone facing hopelessly seeming impossible circumstances, and lead them through to amazing grace? TAKE TWO is the True Story about a decadent Hollywood film producer who bottoms out in Los Angeles California and loses everything. Frustrated that he continues to wake up every morning to his same failed life he decides to leave L.A. to seek a new life, only to quickly realize he has taken himself with him. In the beginning of his trek he meets a beautiful young woman in a small bar in Wyoming. Unaware that she is already married and has children, they have a one-night affair that leads to the birth of a baby girl.

The teenage daughter of a Brooklyn beauty-parlor owner blossoms under the influence of her recently-returned show-biz aunt.

Helena Mora, the head of an eccentric theatrical family, has decided to sell her large estate in the Hamptons because of her recent money troubles. Before she completes the sale, she wants to have one last gathering of family and friends, with dramatic performances. Bringing everyone together, though, creates rivalries and tension, especially for Oona, a temperamental but successful movie actress who seeks the approval of her creative peers.

A story centered around a transitional point in the life of Ave Maria Mulligan, the heart of her community in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia.

Locked away in the Jewish ghetto of an occupied Ukrainian town in 1941, a mother revisits her life in a last letter to her son.

The comedy group Firesign Theatre satirizes the old Saturday afternoon cliffhangers by taking clips from many Republic Pictures serials and substituting their own comedy dialogue.

An intimate portrait and saga of four film pioneers--Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack who rose from immigrant poverty through personal tragedies persevering to create a major studio with a social conscience.

Two ex-lovers get snowed in at a regional airport overnight. Indefinitely delayed, Willa, a magical thinker, and Bill, a catastrophic one, find themselves just as attracted to and annoyed by one another as they did decades earlier. But as they unpack the riddle of their mutual past and compare their lives to the dreams they once shared, they begin to wonder if their reunion is mere coincidence, or something more enchanted.

Daddy Daughter Trip tells the story of 2nd grader who dreams of a fun-filled spring break vacation her family can’t afford. Against the better judgement of her mom and with only coins in their pockets, her dreamer father decides to take her on a spring break trip anyway.

A documentary about the 1978 stage production of The Taming of the Shrew by the New York City Shakespeare company at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park. Includes scenes from the production, interviews with Meryl Streep (Kate) and Raul Julia (Petruchio) as well as an introduction by producer Joseph Papp and audience commentary.

The lives of three lifelong buddies in a small New England fishing town will never be the same after The Week That Girl Died, a touching romantic comedy about finding Ms. Right-at all the wrong times. Vinnie (Erik Palladino) bumps into the attractive Jessie(Brigitte Bako) at his uncle's wake, and when his aunt mistakes her for his latest girlfriend, she gladly plays the part-leaving out one small detail. Jimmy(Robert Longstreet) sets his sights on the seedy part of town-only to find love (Justina Machado) waiting for him in the least likely of places. And Ralph (Patrick Fischler) woke up a virgin on Friday morning only to have that situation reversed two times over by Saturday night. With an original score by jazz musician Kevin Eubanks (The Tonight Show with Jay Leno) "The Week That Girl Died" takes the notion of the romantic comedy and gives it a dose of what real people go through.

New Faces was a musical revue with songs and comedy skits tied together by a quirky plot. It ran on Broadway for nearly a year in 1952 and was then made into a motion picture in 1954. It helped jump start the careers of several young performers including Paul Lynde, Alice Ghostley, Eartha Kitt, Carol Lawrence, performer/writer Mel Brooks (as Melvin Brooks), and lyricist Sheldon Harnick. The film was basically a reproduction of the stage revue with a thin plot added. The plot involved a producer and performer (Ronny Graham) in financial trouble and is trying to stave off an angry creditor long enough to open his show. A wealthy Texan offers to help out, on the condition that his daughter be in the show.

WORDS AND MUSIC is the story of one of Broadway's iconic figures: the composer/lyricist of Hello, Dolly!, Mame and La Cage aux Folles. Jerry Herman and an all-star cast, chart his rise from 1950s off-Broadway through all of his smash hits. Featuring never-before-seen footage of original stage performances, and a score full of classic show tunes.

On the streets of Hollywood, a recently retired NFL player is saved from scandal by a homeless veteran. With their "glory days" behind them, the two men bond in search of purpose and identity.

Two couples rent a secluded house for a weekend getaway, and encounter an odd caretaker while facing a dangerous secret.

In the tradition of Stephen King’s Stand by Me, Chiller’s original film Ghoul – based on the celebrated novel by author Brian Keene — tells the story of three damaged children who set out to find who, or what, is behind a rash of local disapperances. Staring Modern Family‘s Nolan Gould, the film explores the darkness that hides behind small town life. It is the summer of 1984 when a teenage couple goes missing among the gravestones of the local cemetery. Twelve-year-old Timmy and his best friends, Barry and Doug, have grown up hearing stories about a sinister Ghoul that haunts the cemetery. Eventually, they begin to wonder if the horrific legend might actually be real. Timmy and his friends are forced to put their friendship to the ultimate test when they dig up long-buried secrets, facing their personal demons and the one hiding underground.

Aspiring actress Louise Muban attends the prestigious Paris School of Drama during the day and works at a dreary factory assembling gas meters at night. She daydreams and "acts" her way through life, and her fellow students at school begin to suspect her stories are just that - fabrications. After Louise begins to weave an actual meeting with a debonair playboy into a fantasy of club dates and romance, her classmate Nana discovers the lie when she too meets the playboy. Nana sets a trap for Louise, and the result is an end to one fantasy and the realization of another.

In this modern-day vision of Mother Mary's pilgrimage, a woman crosses the American Southwest playfully deconstructing the woman’s role in a world of roles.

Anthony Sher and Harriet Walter star in a highly-acclaimed screen version of William Shakespeare's classic story of tyranny and ambition. On the stage this Royal Shakespeare Company presentation was universally lauded. Following sell-out seasons at Statford's Swan Theatre and in London, the production played Japan and in the United States, where The New York Times praised director Gregory Doran's interpretation as a "harrowing and disturbingly funny parable for the dawn of the 21st century". To make this compelling screen version, Gregory Doran worked with all of the original cast and filmed at London's Roundhouse. Brilliantly shot by director of photography Ernie Vincze, the production uses the edgy techniques of fly-on-the-wall documentaries. The effect is raw, intimate and strikingly dynamic.

Film version of the Royal Shakespeare Company's 2012 production of Shakespeare's fast-moving thriller. A vivid story about a struggle for democracy, Julius Caesar is also a love story between two men united by an explosive act of political violence. The setting is a modern African state in which the tyrant Caesar is about to seize power. Cassius persuades Brutus to join the conspirators plotting an assassination. Featuring a distinguished cast of black actors, the film is shot on location and in the RSC's theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon

Love That Boy is the story of Phoebe, a socially inept overachiever, unrecognized in a world run by C students. Phoebe’s life is totally dominated by her “To Do Before Graduation” list. When Phoebe’s best friend Robyn dumps Phoebe two weeks before college graduation, Robyn points out that Phoebe’s list is missing one essential thing - a boyfriend. Not wanting to be alone at graduation, the most important day of her life, Phoebe begins an ill-fated quest to find a boyfriend. After the demise of her first relationship - her “boyfriend” didn’t even know that they were going out - Phoebe inadvertently falls in love. The only problem is, he’s fourteen.

Perhaps the most popular ballet video ever released, this version of Tchaikovsky's beloved work stars one of the most famous classical dance partnerships of all time, Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn. Nureyev choreographed this production for the Vienna State Opera Ballet. Two icons of 20th-century dance in magnificent form. Ballet authority John Lanchbery, former music director of the Sadler's Wells and Royal Ballet companies, as well as of American Ballet Theatre and Australian Ballet, conducts the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in Tchaikovsky's enchanting score.

Suzanne Ercoll, a young widow who believes in women's suffrage. When the handsome Foxcroft Grey proposes marriage, Suzanne isn't sure she wants to give up her freedom, so she strikes a deal: From Saturday to Monday they will be husband and wife, but the rest of the week, she is single.

Encouraged by his quirky grandfather, a young boy faces his fears at summer camp.