Best movies like Emil and the Detectives

Rachel is the daughter of a wealthy media tycoon. Her husband dies in a car crash. Years later she meets Eric a photographer for New Woman magazine. They fall in love and quickly marry. On honeymoon in a remote cottage we discover that Eric's plan all along has been to get some of her father's money and sets in motion a faked kidnap of himself and Rachel. Rachel is unaware of his plan but begins to suspect something due to his suspicious behaviour. As her father hires a investigator to catch the kidnappers, Rachel begins to fear for her safety as Eric's plan becomes clearer.

When eccentric candy man Willy Wonka promises a lifetime supply of sweets and a tour of his chocolate factory to five lucky kids, penniless Charlie Bucket seeks the golden ticket that will make him a winner.

After the enforced absence of their father, the three Waterbury children move with their mother to Yorkshire, where they find themselves involved in several unexpected dramas along the railway by their new home.

In this fictionalised account of the Great Train Robbery, career criminal Paul Clifton plans an audacious crime: the robbery of a mail train carrying millions in cash.

When a cold medicine causes Sach to be able to smell diamonds, he and the rest of the Bowery Boys are induced by a diamond dealer to accompany him to Darkest Africa in search of a legendary cache of them.

When Emil travels by bus to Berlin to visit his grandmother and his cousin, his money is stolen by a crook who specializes in digging tunnels. Emil must get the money back as it is for his grandmother. While following the thief, Emil runs into Gustav, an enterprising young boy who gathers up all his friends to help Emil find the money. Emil's cousin also gets involved and they get into more trouble than they bargained for when Emil's pickpocket turns out to be mixed up with a couple of notorious bank robbers.

Three friends on a wilderness excursion must outrun a white collar criminal hellbent on retrieving his cash, but soon their greed turns them against each other. A modern re-telling of Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).

A thief jumps a fence and removes the shutter from a house. He enters, but a lad who's witnessed the crime runs off to hail the coppers. The first officer on the scene climbs the fence, enters the house, and is soon fighting with the thief on the roof. Falling from the roof, the officer is injured and requires an ambulance. Meanwhile, the thief flees, pursued by more men in blue.

A female boxing trainer discovers that her champion cage-fighter boyfriend has been cheating on her with her sister and decides to seek revenge by training up his arch-rival to challenge him.

Erich Kästner’s beloved novel has been adapted for film or television six times since its publication in 1929; this 1935 British version was the first in English. Believed lost for decades, it was recently rediscovered by the BFI and has now been restored. The film moves the action from Berlin to London, where Emil goes to stay with his grandmother and cousin. Thereafter, the tale of Emil’s adventures with a gang of streetwise London children faithfully follows the original plot.

Emil goes to Berlin to see his grandmother with a large amount of money and is offered sweets by a strange man that make him sleep. He wakes up at his stop with no money. It is up to him and a group of children to save the day.

The twelve-year-old Emil and his father are haunted by bad luck. To take a break from a series of family disasters, Emil is allowed to spend a few days with a friend of the family, the female priest Hummel in Berlin. In the train he runs across the slick Max Grundeis who anaesthetizes Emil and steals his savings of 1500 DM. When he finally arrives in Berlin, Emil and a gang of street kids, led by the cheeky girl Pony Hütchen, try to find the gangster, who haunts the posh Hotel Adlon as a hotel thief. Meanwhile, to prevent anyone from finding out about Emil's mishap, Gypsi, a member of the gang of kids, passes himself off as Emil, thus wreaking havoc on the home of the priest.

Emil Svensson lives with his mother and father, little sister Ida, farmhand Alfred, and maid Lina on a picturesque farm in Småland. He is an unusually lively little boy, who just can't resist trying out every whim that enters into his white-haired head. Always with the best intentions in mind, because he is a good-hearted child, but often with catastrophic results, especially for his short-tempered father. As a result, Emil spends a lot of quality time in the wood shed carving wood figurines and waiting for Anton's temper to cool down. And the father's patience is certainly tried, as Emil gets his head stuck in the family's only soup bowl, hoists little Ida up the flag pole, and arranges a lavish Christmas party for the poor.

When a trio of ex-convicts led by Mattie Appleyard is released from prison, they hope to open a general store using money Mattie has saved during his 40-year sentence. This attempt is met with great resistance from a corrupt prison official and the banker who issued Mattie the check.

When the infamous Robber Hotzenplotz leaves his hideout in the forest to steal a beloved musical coffee grinder belonging to Kasperl’s grandmother, the town’s clumsy police sergeant proves to be of little help with arresting him. The young Kasperl and his friend Seppel decide that they will track down the thief themselves, but stopping him will not be easy – especially when Hotzenplotz involves the wicked magician Petrosilius who lives in a terrifying castle where he will imprison our heroes. Joined by a fairy-turned-toad, Kasperl and Seppel must escape the castle, catch the two vicious crooks, and bring the coffee grinder back to Kasperl’s beloved grandmother!

An orphaned young boy is guided by his great-grandfather and strives to go to university to become a doctor. However, the boy's harsh grandfather stands in his way.

When unemployed dockworker Joey Coyle finds $1.2 million that fell off of an armored car, he decides to do the logical thing: take the money and run. After all, he says, finders keepers. He turns to his ex-girlfriend Monica, who works in an investment firm, for advice, before turning to the mob for help laundering the money. While Joey makes plans to leave the country, however, a detective is following his ever-warmer trail in order to recover the cash.

The story of the rough collie hero, Sunnybank Lad.

Willi is 18 years old and lives on the street. Without a goal in his life he walks around the city and meets several people, helping but also cheating him. When he meets a girl, Monica, he realizes that there are people out there whose lives are even more desperate than his. So he's trying to help her (and him) by planning a great robbery on a supermarket's money transporter.

A German serial killer preys on boys and young men during the so-called years of crisis between the wars. Based on the true story of Fritz Haarmann, aka the Butcher of Hanover and the Vampire of Hanover.

The classic Roald Dahl tale gets a modern twist when Tom and Jerry enter the amazing world of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.

When Santa's helper La Befana falls ill and must take off a Christmas Eve, she recruits Scarafoni to help deliver all the toys. No one but the toys knows is that Scarafoni plans to auction off the toys to the highest bidder, which means the toys won't make it to the children who have been good all year and deserve them. The toys decide to deliver themselves, and the story follows them as they struggle to avoid the heartless Scarafoni and to find their true homes.

Nono, a Dutch kid lacking two days being thirteen, runs away from problems at home and, disguised as a girl, takes up with the world's cleverest thief, who unbeknownst to Nono, may hold the bizarre key to his true identity.

A charming but ruthless criminal holds the family of a bank manager hostage as part of a cold-blooded plan to steal 97,000 pounds.

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.

Lee, a Chinese man, works as a waiter in a hotel in England, despite speaking very little English. Told that a girl called Iris might be interested in him, on his afternoon off work he buys a box of chocolates and sets off to find her.

A meek teller thinks he's killed his boss. He flees with a box of cash hoping for a new life with his younger mistress.

Preteen Moochie Daniels just wants a dog, but his dad, Daniel, is allergic to canines, like Bundles, the shabby sheep dog of neighbor Charlie Mulvihill who secretly trained his pet to help him steal jewels. Mooch's big brother Wilbert 'Wilby' is smart, shy and a promising inventor, but hopelessly clumsy when it comes to girls, and is jealous of his slick mate Trey who has no problems. Desperate Wilby resorts to a spell from the ring of Lucrezia Borgia (he accidentally got from dad's museum of curiosities), which magically turns him into Bundles and back at uncontrollable times. This is how he also knows that the diamond on loan in his father's museum is Charlie's next target.

An attractive cop is assigned the task of tracing millions of dollars of stolen church funds. The thief, is locked up in prison, and the plan is to break him out, and follow him to the hidden money. When she falls for the convict, things get complicated. The ex-boyfriend cop is jealous and suspicious.

Bethany Lockwood, a naive nineteen year old, has just moved to Prince Edward Island when she catches the attention of Gary Gallant, the reigning ‘King of Pogey Beach’. Also vying for Bethany’s attention is Lyle Macdonald, a spiritual pogey bum and the nemesis of Gary Gallant. After Bethany gets a taste of working for cash under the table, she plans the ultimate job that goes horribly wrong. With everyone in pogey jail, can Gary and Lyle put aside their differences and save Pogey Beach?

A boy who was once a perpetual outcast finds friends in a new boarding school. United with his new peers, he gets involved in a heated rivalry with a group of students from a neighboring school.

Frank, a man without a criminal record, attacks a money transporter and then turns himself in to the police. His behavior is a mystery. In prison he meets the unscrupulous and suspicious Arab Fuad, who is protected by his clan. To get closer to Fuad, Frank intervenes in the drug business within the walls and gets caught between the two rival groups of German and Arab inmates. It is only the prison guard Susanna with whom Frank will be able to build a relationship of trust, not knowing that she is part of Fuad’s business and has a sexual relationship with him. However, they come emotionally close. What only Frank knows is that his wife and his daughter died in a car accident. Fuad was the hit-and-run driver that remained unpunished. Frank seeks revenge.

Keti (36) and her son Nika (16) find themselves in a precarious situation when Nika hits an old man in a car accident. The victim’s family promises to refrain from pressing charges against Nika if he compensates their loss in cash. Within a single day Keti has to raise a large amount of money to prevent her son Nika from being imprisoned. An unexpected turn gives the drama a tragicomical air.

The attic of Brad and Franky's apartment building holds a suitcase full of cash. Now, these two good-hearted Robin Hoods are on a mission of mercy to save some needy neighbors with gifts of money and presents. But the suitcase belongs to a bank robber and now the two young heroes must figure out a way to capture the thief and return the money while saving their neighbors one last time!

A dark and sensuous thriller positioned at the intersection of faith, greed and lust - when a corrupt clergyman is ambushed and nearly killed over the cash meant for a bribe, the money's intended recipient has no intention of letting the issue drop.