Best movies like Imitation of Life

Molly Gunn, the freewheeling daughter of a deceased rock legend, is forced to get a job when her manager steals her money. As nanny for precocious Ray, the oft ignored daughter of a music executive she learns what it means to be an adult while teaching Ray how to be a child.

Aaron and Angela, two young adults living in the Harlem ghetto of New York City, are deeply in love with each other. The only thing standing in the way of their love is their families. Aaron is black, while Angela is Puerto Rican, and neither family wants one of their own to associate with the others. As the pair rebel against the prejudices of their families, they soon find the conflict spreading out to their friends and neighbors, until the hatred threatens to spiral out of control.

Single mother Adele August is bad with money, and even worse when it comes to making decisions. Her straight-laced daughter, Ann, is a successful high school student with Ivy League aspirations. When Adele decides to pack up and move the two of them from the Midwest to Beverly Hills, Calif., to pursue her dreams of Hollywood success, Ann grows frustrated with her mother's irresponsible and impulsive ways.

A privileged rich debutante and a cynical struggling entertainer share a turbulent, but strong childhood friendship over the years.

A four-member teen girl group named the Cheetah Girls go to a Manhattan High School for the Performing Arts and try to become the first freshmen to win the talent show in the school's history. During the talent show auditions, they meet a big-time producer named Jackal Johnson, who tries to make the group into superstars, but the girls run into many problems.

Lola is an ambitious teenager who aspires to be a famous stage actress, but ger dream of performing on Broadway suffers a setback when her family moves from New York City to suburban New Jersey. Determined to make the best of it, however, Lola embarks on a mission to become the most popular girl at her high school, a goal that sets her on a collision course with the catty Carla Santini.

In 1920s New York City, a Black woman finds her world upended when her life becomes intertwined with a former childhood friend who's passing as white.

Havoc is created in a small Southern community when a 12-year-old shows up, causing a couple 13-year-old friends to fall in love with her, thus possibly jeopardizing their friendship.

Sixteen-year-old Poppy has everything her unlimited credit cards can buy, and a spoiled attitude to match. After a final thoughtless prank, her exasperated father ships her off to boarding school in England. There, Poppy meets her match in a stern headmistress and a class full of girls who will not tolerate her selfishness.

Marian Medford Woodstock gave up a chance twenty years ago to compete for the Miss USA beauty title in order to marry Jeffrey Woodstock. She hopes to realize her past ambitions for fame and fortune through her daughter Kay, whom she persuades to enter a local beauty contest. Kay wins and is interviewed by reporter Gil McRoberts, who advises her to get married and settle down. Jeffrey is very upset with his wife's and daughter's passion for beauty contests and, when Kay enters the national contest, he informs Marian that she must choose between him and her chase after empty honors for Kay.

When a young African-American woman brings her fiancé home to meet her parents, she's neglected to mention one tiny detail - he's white.

A struggling widow and her daughter take in a black housekeeper and her fair-skinned daughter. The two women start a successful business but face familial, identity, and racial issues along the way.

Tracy, an aspiring designer from the slums of Chicago puts herself through fashion school in the hopes of becoming one of the world's top designers. Her ambition leads her to Rome spurring a choice between the man she loves or her newfound success.

Three sisters start out singing in their church choir in Harlem in the late 1950s and become a successful girl group in the 1960s.

Shelby Coles (Halle Berry) is engaged to marry talented white jazz musician Meade Howell, but the pair face opposition from both Meade's family, who object to an inter-racial marriage, and Shelby's parents, who want her to marry a professional. As Shelby is afflicted by pre-marital doubts, handsome Lute McNeil arrives on the scene, determined to make Shelby his at any cost.

Follows the story of Ernest Green, one of the Little Rock Nine who were the first blacks to integrate into an all white school.

The relationship between Lelia, a light-skinned black woman, and Tony, a white man is put in jeopardy when Tony meets Lelia’s darker-skinned jazz singer brother, Hugh, and discovers that her racial heritage is not what he thought it was.

Gertrude Lawrence rises to stage stardom at the cost of happiness.

The extraordinary life of Chickasaw Nation citizen Mary Thompson Fisher is given a heartfelt tribute in this moving look at a culture in transition, and the way one woman used her voice to keep Native traditions and stories alive. Raised in Indian Territory, Fisher left home to pursue her dream of becoming an actress, only to find that her true calling was at home all along. From Chautauquas to Broadway and even the White House, Fisher traveled the world performing Native American songs and stories for heads of state, American presidents, and European royalty. Featuring Chickasaw citizens both in front of and be-hind the camera, this touching portrait starring Q’orianka Kilcher (“The New World”) and Graham Greene honors a woman whose own story was the most inspiring one she never told. -TCFF database

A light-skinned African-American family are "passing" in an all-white New England town. When the truth comes out, the more prejudiced neighbors demand their expulsion from the community.

A high school in a small-town in Mississippi prepares for its first integrated senior prom.

Grace Leonard, a typical woman of the New York stage, beautiful but old in sin, seduces William Craig, who becomes a thief in order to shower luxuries upon her. He is sentenced to prison and emerges five years later as a sad-faced, gray-haired man, entirely cured of his mad passion for La Valencia. But she sees him and her old passion is stirred, meaning nothing to her that since his release from prison, he has fallen in love and married a good woman who knows nothing of his past. When William is not swayed by her fascinations, Grace threatens to expose his past life.

A quiet painter, separated from his wife for a year, receives a suitcase in the mail from his mother, whom he hasn't seen since infancy. He believes she abandoned him to his wealthy, paternal grandparents. The suitcase contains mementos and a diary, a long letter to him, written over the years, with details of her youth, her first job as a pianist at a cinema, the coming of talkies, her marriage, and how he came to live with his grandparents. As he reads through the materials and her story comes to life, his son Antoine, who's about 10 or 12, tries to break through his father's silence and sorrow by taking matters into his own hands.

A Broadway director rescues a starlet from mobsters who blame her for a shooting.

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.

Story of a rising stage star and the trouble she causes by her ambition.

Two neighboring families in Florida, one black and one white, struggle with the problems of race, poverty, prejudice, and absent fathers, as their children become friends over the course of one summer and fall.

Lily Covington, a Manhattan housekeeper, embarks on a trip to the rural Alabama town of her youth. To Lily's surprise, her employer's nine-year-old son Michael stows away for the ride. Together, Lily and Michael realize just how alike and how different their worlds really are. Michael explores a way of life he never knew existed, while Lily discovers some tender truths about the family she left behind.

In this documentary on the life of Joan Crawford, we learn why she should be remembered as the great actress she was, and not only as "mommie dearest." caricature she has become. Friends, fellow actors, directors, and others reminisce about their association with her, and numerous film clips show off her talent from her start in silents to bad science fiction/horror movies at the end of her career.

An American story. Traces the career of Joe Louis (1914-1981) within the context of American racial consciousness: his difficulty getting big fights early in his career, the pride of African-Americans in his prowess, the shift of White sentiment toward Louis as Hitler came to power, Louis's patriotism during World War II, and the hounding of Louis by the IRS for the following 15 years. In his last years, he's a casino greeter, a drug user, and the occasional object of scorn for young Turks like Muhammad Ali. Appreciative comment comes from boxing scholars, Louis's son Joe Jr., friends, and icons like Maya Angelou, Dick Gregory, and Bill Cosby.

A teenage girl living in Baltimore in the early 1960s dreams of appearing on a popular TV dance show.

Vera Parks, an overly intense and demanding Broadway director, gets fired from yet another job, leaving her no choice but to take a gig directing a small town Christmas pageant in upstate New York. Stunned at how basic the production is, Vera attempts to back out, but is convinced by some of the locals to give their town a chance. To her surprise, the warmth and charm of the small town grows on Vera and she even enjoys the experience of directing the pageant. When Vera discovers her former fiancé Jack recommended her for the job, she is outraged. But over time Vera appreciates the gesture, as she grows close to both Jack and his young daughter. Will love stay in the wings this time around?

As the Harlem Renaissance flourishes in jazzy New York City, Pauline, Esther and Alice struggle to survive. By day, they toil at dreary jobs, dreaming of stardom, riches and happiness. By night, they dance their troubles away at the famous Savoy Ballroom. But when World War II appears on the horizon, the girls find their fortunes unfolding too unevenly to reconcile, and they inevitably begin to drift apart.

Broadway dancing star Adele Dorey who, overworked and exhausted, suddenly ups and leaves New York in favor of a country village. But when promoter Bobby Lewis (Egan) of the barnstorming Gay Girlies Burlesque Company arrives in town, he picks an incognito Adele among all the pretty village girls to star in his new show. On a lark, Adele introduces her maid Jane (Louise Fazenda) as her mother and accepts a contract. When Adele's identity is finally revealed, the slumming star apologizes for her deception by offering Bobby a Broadway job.