Best movies like Free to Be... a Family

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Free to Be... a Family Starring Jon Bon Jovi, Mel Brooks, Kevin Clash, Phil Donahue, and more. If you liked Free to Be... a Family then you may also like: You've Got To Walk It Like You Talk It or You'll Lose That Beat, The Nut, Quiet City, The Jensen Project, Miracle 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.

Seminal TV special about two groups of children, one in New York City and the other in Moscow, who befriend each other over a satellite connection and find common ground. The Muppets and several celebrities make a cameo.

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You've Got To Walk It Like You Talk It or You'll Lose That Beat

This oddball counterculture comedy/drama follows Zalman King through a series of kooky misadventures while he searches for his life's purpose in New York City.

The Nut

Eccentric inventor Charlie Jackson tries to interest wealthy investors in his girlfriend's plan to help children from poor neighbourhoods.

Quiet City

Jamie is 21. She's from Atlanta. She's come to Brooklyn to visit her friend Samantha, but she can't find her. Jamie meets a stranger named Charlie on the subway and spends 24 hours hanging out with him.

The Jensen Project

After a sixteen-year absence, married scientists Claire and Matt Thompson reunite with The Jensen Project. The Jensen Project is a secret community of geniuses doing cutting edge research they share anonymously to help the world.

Miracle

When college coach Herb Brooks is hired to helm the 1980 U.S. men's Olympic hockey team, he brings a unique and brash style to the ice. After assembling a team of hot-headed college all-stars, who are humiliated in an early match, Brooks unites his squad against a common foe: the heavily-favored Soviet team.

The Concert for Bangladesh

A film about the first benefit rock concert when major musicians performed to raise relief funds for the poor of Bangladesh. The Concert for Bangladesh was a pair of benefit concerts organised by former Beatles guitarist George Harrison and Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar. The shows were held at 2:30 and 8:00 pm on Sunday, 1 August 1971, at Madison Square Garden in New York City, to raise international awareness of, and fund relief for refugees from East Pakistan, following the Bangladesh Liberation War-related genocide.

Topaz

Copenhagen, Denmark, 1962. When a high-ranking Soviet official decides to change sides, a French intelligence agent is caught up in a cold, silent and bloody spy war in which his own family will play a decisive role.

Minyan

In a rapidly changing New York of the 1980s, a Russian Jewish teenager wrestles with his identity, faith, and sexuality, all of which seem irreconcilable until he befriends two closeted men in his grandfather's senior housing complex.

Mad Hot Ballroom

Eleven-year-old New York City public school kids journey into the world of ballroom dancing and reveal pieces of themselves and their world along the way. Told from their candid, sometimes hilarious perspectives, these kids are transformed, from reluctant participants to determined competitors, from typical urban kids to "ladies and gentlemen," on their way to try to compete in the final citywide.

Hurricane Streets

Marcus is a kid on Manhattan's mean streets. He's turning 15, his father is dead, his mother is in prison for smuggling undocumented aliens. His grandmother is raising him. He has four close buddies who have a basement clubhouse; they shoplift and sell the wares to kids. One is moving toward selling drugs. Marcus wants to take a breather from the city and visit family in New Mexico. He also meets Melena, 14, a sweet kid who dreams of going to Alaska; her father is not just protective but angry and uncommunicative. The gang pressures Marcus to move up to burglary and car theft. He just wants to breathe open air. Can anything go right?

Nursery University

Set in New York City, the epicenter of a phenomenon cropping up in communities across the United States, "Nursery University" reveals the oddly competitive process of nursery school admissions. The film tells the story of five families attempting to place their toddlers in preschool classrooms that have limited space and high price tags.

Incendiary Blonde

Paramount's highly-fictionalized 1945 musical biography of Texas Guinan, the Roaring '20s New York nightclub owner and celebrity with alleged underworld connections who famously greeted her customers with the phrase, "Hello, suckers!"

Mimic 2

When a cockroach-spread plague threatened to decimate the child population of New York City in the original Mimic, biologist Susan Tyler and her research associates developed a species of "Judas" bugs and introduced them into the environment, where they were to "mimic" the diseased roaches and infiltrate their grubby habitats. The plan worked until the bugs evolved to mimic their next prey... humans! Just when they were all thought to be dead, the giant cockroaches are back, and this time they've mutated to take on human form!

Moscow on the Hudson

A Russian circus visits the US. A clown wants to defect, but doesn't have the nerve. His saxophone playing friend however comes to the decision to defect in the middle of Bloomingdales. He is befriended by the black security guard and falls in love with the Italian immigrant from behind the perfume counter. We follow his life as he works his way through the American dream and tries to find work as a musician.

Spy Games

A romantic suspense-comedy about CIA agent Harry (Bill Pullman) and SVR agent Natasha (Irene Jacob) fighting to save the world, their lives and secret love in the post cold war Helsinki

Jigsaw

New York Assistant District Attorney Howard Malloy is working hard on investigation about a series of murders related to an extremist group.

Man on a String

U.S. spies catch a Moscow-born U.S. citizen helping spies, and they force him to counterspy.

Stand Clear of the Closing Doors

When autistic teen Ricky is scolded for skipping class, he escapes into the subway for a days-long odyssey among the subway’s disparate denizens. Meanwhile, his mother wages an escalating search effort above ground. Based on a true story and set in Far Rockaway, Queens, in the days leading up to Hurricane Sandy, these parallel stories of mother and son take the viewer on a touching journey of community and connection in and below New York City.

The Reckless Hour

Seduced and abandoned, with child, by a charming cad, a former New York fashion model learns to detest the male race in general until befriended by a warm-hearted artist-type who shows her that life -- and men -- ain't so bad in this early talkie drama.

Love Etc.

LOVE ETC. is a witty, poignant and humorous exploration about the universal stages of love, depicted through five real stories over the course of one year in New York City. Young, old, gay, straight – everyone has experienced love – and the joy and frustration that come with it. From teen romance to a decades-long marriage; newlyweds to a recent divorcee, and even a bachelor so frustrated in his search that he chooses to have children without a partner, LOVE ETC. documents the intimate journeys of engaging characters aged 18-89 who reflect the city’s diversity, and takes an honest look at life's most challenging pursuit.

Missed Connections

Lonely Neal attempts to get over a recent break-up by responding to "Missed Connections" ads on Craigslist, then swooping in like a knight in shining armor when the expected guy fails to show up at the scheduled meeting. For a while Neal's plan works great, but when he tries it on Jane, she proves that women are just as crafty as men when it comes to playing the dating game.

The Miracle of Stairway B

Survivors tell how 12 fire-fighters, a police officer and an office worker survived inside the North Tower of the World Trade Center as it collapsed on top of them

Law of the Underworld

A respected citizen with secret ties to the local mob is faced with revealing his criminal connections to save two innocent people from execution

Barbie: Big City, Big Dreams

Barbie swaps the sunny shores of Malibu for the bright lights of Broadway to attend an excusive summer performing arts program and meets…Barbie! Fast friends, the two discover they share more than a name as they explore New York City and all the amazing things they have in common. As they compete for the coveted once-in-a-lifetime Spotlight Solo from Times Square, the friends discover competition isn’t all about winning, it’s about striving to be your best, overcoming doubts, and sharing the spotlight.

An Englishman in New York

Biographical drama based on the last 20 years of Crisp's life. The literary figure and gay iconoclast emigrated to New York in 1981 and lived there until his death. The film observes Crisp in both his public and private lives, from his seemingly cavalier response to the outbreak of AIDS to his tender relationship with his friend Patrick Angus and his own response to growing old.

All the Vermeers in New York

A parable of the missteps of life enacted in the hothouse world of late 1980’s New York, in which the art market and the stock market each boomed, and in process spawned a smorgasbord of “yuppie” delusions which still persist. Anna, a French actress studying in New York, crosses paths with a successful stock-broker, Mark, standing before a Vermeer portrait at the Metropolitan, thence ensues a peculiar romance of missed meanings and connections, with tangential asides to the steaming arts world and stock market, loft-mate conflicts, and, perhaps, love. Wrapped up in their blindered worlds, Anna and Mark deflect away from their chances, leaving at the conclusion the wistful face of Vermeer’s portrait enigmatically asking questions. All the Vermeers in New York is a comedy of manners which, as gently as a Vermeer, looks beneath the skin of this time and place, and of these characters.

Hit the Dutchman

In early 1920s New York, a young man is befriended by a neighborhood mobster. He learns the trade then decides to go straight and join the police force. It isn't long before he uses his connections to destroy the mob from within.

Nine Innings from Ground Zero

Short, well-made documentary showing how the NY Yankees vs. AZ Diamondbacks world series games, just a month after 9-11, provided welcome relief from the uncertainty New Yorkers, and the nation, felt about how to proceed with their lives. The Yankees, during the series, came to symbolize and re-strengthen everything that was, and is, New York... and America.

Sandy: Anatomy of a Superstorm

A dramatic minute-by-minute account of the superstorm that brought New York State to its knees. Using satellite imagery, CGI mapping and the powerful personal testimony of those who lived through it, this is a forensic analysis of the meteorological, engineering and human devastation wreaked by Sandy.

High Strung

When a hip hop violinist busking in the New York subway encounters a classical dancer on scholarship at the Manhattan Conservatory of the Arts, sparks fly. With the help of a hip hop dance crew they must find a common ground while preparing for a competition that could change their lives forever.

The Good Journey

Based on the New Testament parables The Prodigal Son and The Good Samaritan, this is the story of two estranged brothers sent on a cross country journey by their father in the hope that they can find common ground while offering gratitude and forgiveness to others.

WTC View

A gay man in Soho looking for a new roommate tries to come to terms with a new reality after 9/11.

Rocket Attack U.S.A.

It's the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union with the Communists launching a spy satellite that has the Free World leaders in a panic. Fears about the nature of the satellite force the United States to send an agent undercover behind the Iron Curtain to discover what the Soviets have learned. What he finds is the Communists have used the information acquired from their spy satellite to help them perfect a new and even more deadly nuclear weapon.

The Common Law

Based on the Novel by Robert W. Chambers of New York City life among the upper-crust, Valerie West , artist/model and philosopher, undergoes much sorrow and joy, many trials and tribulations, and final triumph on her journey to become the living personification of sweet and noble womanhood.

Small Wonders

A dedicated music teacher in East Harlem instructs a gaggle of underprivileged children in the art of the violin. In the climax, they play Carnegie Hall with some of the world's foremost fiddlers.

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