Best movies like Generation Why?

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Generation Why? Starring Andrea Burns, Manny Galan, Jared Johnston, Sandor Juan, and more. If you liked Generation Why? then you may also like: The Voice of the Turtle, Why Girls Go Back Home, Next Stop, Greenwich Village, The Notorious Bettie Page, The James Dean Story 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.

A woman pursues her acting dreams in New York City while enduring her very Cuban and conservative parents.

selected filters: Sort: Default

You may filter the list of movies on this page for a more refined, personalized selection of movies.

Still not sure what to watch click the recommend buttun below to get a movie recommendation selected from all the movies on this list

Know any good movies to watch like Generation Why? 2021. With a similar plot or stoyline. Suggest it.

The Voice of the Turtle

An aspiring Broadway actress falls in love with a soldier on leave during a weekend in New York City.

Why Girls Go Back Home

Trusting country girl Marie Downey falls in love with touring stage-actor Clifford Dudley. As he becomes a matinee idol on Broadway, she turns a chorus girl.

Next Stop, Greenwich Village

An aspiring Jewish actor moves out of his parents' Brooklyn apartment to seek his fortune in the bohemian life of Greenwich Village in 1953.

The Notorious Bettie Page

Bettie Page grew up in a conservative religious family in Tennessee and became a photo model sensation in 1950s New York. Bettie's legendary pin-up photos made her the target of a Senate investigation into pornography, and transformed her into an erotic icon who continues to enthrall fans to this day.

The James Dean Story

Released two years after James Dean's death, this documentary chronicles his short life and career via black-and-white still photographs, interviews with the aunt and uncle who raised him, his paternal grandparents, a New York City cabdriver friend, the owner of his favorite Los Angeles restaurant, outtakes from East of Eden, footage of the opening night of Giant, and Dean's ironic PSA for safe driving.

Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.

Chantel Mitchell, a hip, articulate, black high-school girl in Brooklyn, is determined not to become "just another girl on the IRT" (the IRT is one of NYC's subway lines). She dreams of medical school, a family, and an escape from the generational poverty and street-corner life her friends seem to have accepted as their lot. But personal and sexual challenges confront Chantel on her way to fulfilling these dreams.

Barefoot in the Park

In this film based on a Neil Simon play, newlyweds Corie, a free spirit, and Paul Bratter, an uptight lawyer, share a sixth-floor apartment in Greenwich Village. Soon after their marriage, Corie tries to find a companion for mother, Ethel, who is now alone, and sets up Ethel with neighbor Victor. Inappropriate behavior on a double date causes conflict, and the young couple considers divorce.

Chutney Popcorn

Reena is a young Indian American lesbian who lives and works in New York. Her sister Sarita, who is happily married, discovers that she is infertile. Reena offers to be a surrogate mother for her sister's baby, hoping to improve her relationship with their mother, who disapproves of Reena's sexual orientation. Reena has second thoughts when her girlfriend Lisa feels left out.

City Island

The Rizzos, a family who doesn't share their habits, aspirations, and careers with one another, find their delicate web of lies disturbed by the arrival of a young ex-con brought home by Vince, the patriarch of the family, who is a corrections officer in real life, and a hopeful actor in private.

Dark Water

Dahlia Williams and her daughter Cecelia move into a rundown apartment on New York's Roosevelt Island. Dahlia is in the midst of divorce proceedings, and the apartment, though near an excellent school for her daughter, is all she can afford. From the time she arrives, there are mysterious occurrences—and there is a constant drip from the ceiling in her daughter's bedroom…

Dutchman

A young conservative black man, minding his own business, rides a nearly empty subway car. The only other passenger, a blonde vixen looking for trouble, sizes him up. Sexual tension, racial bigotry and righteous fury collide in a razor's edge confrontation between this unlikely pair.

Fame

A chronicle of the lives of several teenagers who attend a New York high school for students gifted in the performing arts.

Godspell

A modern day musical telling of the ministry of Jesus Christ set in New York. The Apostles, portrayed as an acting troupe re-enact the parables and teachings of Jesus.

My Dinner with Andre

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

Metropolitan

A radical student is adopted by a group of young New Yorkers, serves as a catalyst to alter his and their lives. Gathering in a Manhattan apartment, the group of friends meet to discuss social mobility, Fourier's socialism and play bridge in their cocoon of upper-class society - until they are joined by a man with a critical view of their way of life.

Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams

Rita, a middle aged New York City homemaker, finds herself in an emotional crisis which forces her to re-examine her life, as well as her relationships with her mother, her eye doctor husband, her alienated daughter and estranged son.

A Christmas Dream

In this NBC Christmas Special from 1984, Mr. T plays a street Santa Claus who meets a young boy, played by Emmanuel Lewis of TV's Webster, who doesn't share the spirit of Christmas. Mr. T sets out to change Billy's mind, taking him around the city to FAO Schwartz, where he gets a magic lesson from David Copperfield, and then to Radio City Music Hall, where he listens to Christmas songs sung by Maureen McGovern, imagines himself as one of the toy soldiers in the Rockettes' Christmas Show, meets Willie Tyler and his dummy Lester, and finally is moved to realize the true meaning of Christmas, before being reunited with his parents.

Dream Lover

After she's been attacked in her apartment, Cathy starts reliving the event in her dreams. She seeks help at a sleep disorder research center, but in doing so she encounters some unexpected results.

Whom the Gods Destroy

Broadway's most successful producer, John Forrester, is deeply in love with his wife Margaret and dreams of the future when his son Jack will step into his shoes. He sails to England to produce a show but the ship strikes a derelict wreckage and is sinking rapidly. In the ensuing wild panic, Forrester saves many lives, until finally, panic stricken by sudden fear, he dons a woman's clothes and is among the rescued. On the coast of Newfouldland, the villagers, not aware of his true identity, curse him but he is befriended by Alec who helps him conceal his identity. With a planned story of his survival, he returns to New York but cannot face his family or friends after he sees the plaque to his heroism on his New York theatre. Deciding to remain thought of as dead, he becomes a derelict himself, surviving on odd jobs as he watches from afar his now-grown son begin his career as a producer.

Passion of Mind

When Marie, a widow in Provence with two daughters, locks her bedroom door and goes to sleep, she dreams about Marty, a literary agent in Manhattan who dreams equally vividly about Marie. The women look alike. Marie meets William who begins to court her. Marty meets Aaron, an accountant, becomes his friend and then his lover. Both women tell their lovers about their dream life. William is jealous, Aaron is accepting. Even though they've become lovers, Marie won't fall asleep next to William. Marie goes on holiday with William to Paris, and Marty wakes up with an ashtray from the hotel on her night stand. Are they the same person? What will unlock reality

The Audrey Hepburn Story

The film spans from Hepburn's early childhood to the 1950s which details her life as a Dutch ballerina, coming to grips with her parents' divorce, and enduring life in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands during World War II. She then settles in the U.S. where she succeeds in making it big as a movie actress, in such movies as Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Daddy

Oliver Watson has never been luckier: he is a successful advertising executive, shares a marriage of eighteen years with Sarah and has three loving kids: 17-year-old Ben, 15-year-old Melissa, and 9-year-old Sam. His perfect life suddenly falls apart when his wife Sarah announces that she wants to enter a graduate school 200 miles away from home, as she regrets that she gave up her bohemian protester's life and promising writing career to become the wife of a conservative traditionalist. Oliver unsuccessfully tries to save his marriage, until Sarah announces that she is seeing someone else. The children start acting out as a reaction and life is complicated by the death of Oliver’s mother and accepts a job in L.A. where he falls in love with Charlotte Sampson. Life again challenges Oliver when Charlotte is offered her dream job on Broadway.

My Sassy Girl

A guy has his life planned out until he is wooed, groomed and then dumped by an elusive woman.

Undiscovered

A group of aspiring entertainers try to establish careers for themselves in the city of Los Angeles.

College Debts

A Midwest college student eager to pay for his tuition at a prestigious acting program in New York City.

Buds For Life

This story follows four friends transplanted from New York to Los Angeles to follow thier acting dreams. The four get distracted in four very different ways but all involve women. From obsession with the unreal to the older and wiser woman, to the how many beautiful ladies can their be in this town, and lets not forget the focus on will she ever come back to me syndrome. Trials and tribulations occur between their friendship and their relationships with very different women in this romantic comedy Written by Ellen N English

Boogie

Alfred “Boogie” Chin is a basketball phenom living in Queens, New York, who dreams of one day playing in the NBA. While his parents pressure him to focus on earning a scholarship to an elite college, Boogie must find a way to navigate a new girlfriend, high school, on-court rivals and the burden of expectation.

For Ladies Only

An aspiring young actor moonlights as a male stripper while looking for work in the theatre.

Between Us

Abruptly abandoned by her husband in a country completely foreign to her, Colombian native Mariana (Paola Mendoza) struggles to take care of herself and her two young children on the unforgiving streets of New York City. Sebastian Villada, Laura Montana and Anthony Chisholm also star in this gritty independent drama jointly written and directed by Mendoza and her collaborator Gloria La Morte.

Roy Cohn/Jack Smith

When Jill Godmilow’s documentary Roy Cohn/Jack Smith premiered at the 1994 Toronto International Film Festival, the number of AIDS-related deaths was reaching an all-time high in the United States (over 270,000). In New York City, the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic, many artists and filmmakers were grappling with the disease. While Broadway was hosting the second part of Tony Kushner’s award-winning play Angels in America, downtown New Yorkers were fondly recalling another recent production, Ron Vawter’s one-man show Roy Cohn/Jack Smith, in which the actor, who died of AIDS in April 1994, performed two monologues, first as Cohn, the conservative lawyer, and secondly, as Smith, the flamboyant experimental filmmaker—both of whom died of AIDS-related causes in the late 1980s.

Harlem Is Heaven

Bill "Bojangles" Robinson made his movie acting debut in this 1932 film, featuring Putney Dandridge, James Baskett (Oscar winner for "Song of the South"), Cotton Club dancer Anita Boyer, Henri Wassell, Alma Smith, Bob Sawyer, and composer/bandleader Eubie Blake and his orchestra.

Callback

Larry is an ardent evangelical Christian, lives in New York, works as a mover, and dreams of breaking into the world of commercial acting. As he seeks his big break, he argues with his boss and leads a solitary life. His fate takes an unexpected turn the day he meets Alexandra.

Bread

Bread is a socially engaged drama which follows the fate of a woman struggling to pull herself out of poverty as she’s ruthlessly exploited by a string of men.

A Sporting Chance

John Stonehouse (William Russell) checks into a hotel, intending to commit suicide. But instead he winds up helping a girl, Gilberte Bonheur (Fritzi Brunette), out of a jam. He finds her bending over a man who she has apparently killed, and since he's about to kill himself anyway, he offers to assume the blame. Throw a valuable emerald into the works, and the fact that the dead man suddenly comes back to life, and Stonehouse -- not to mention the audience -- becomes thoroughly befuddled by it all. Everything clears up, however, when Gilberte gives him a theater ticket -- it turns out that everything he went through was the plot to a stage play, enacted in real life by the actors. The critics roasted the play, saying it wasn't true to life, and this was their proof that the situations really could happen. Gilberte retires from acting when Stonehouse proposes.

Sly

His love of film began as an escape from a rocky childhood. From underdog to Hollywood legend, Sylvester Stallone tells his story in this documentary.

More related lists

Sort results by:

X close
Default
Clear filters
...