Best movies like Jess

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Jess Starring Marguerite Snow, Florence La Badie, James Cruze, William Russell, and more. If you liked Jess then you may also like: The Unwelcome Guest, The War, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, Who Goes There!, The Woman Michael Married 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.

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Silas Croft was a kindly old Englishman who had a farm in South Africa. With him resided his two nieces, whom he had taken from their drunken, worthless father when they were of a tender age. Jess, the elder, was brilliant and educated; Bess, the younger was beautiful, but frankly admitted that she did not possess the mental attainments of Jess. The two were great friends, and Jess, although the senior by only three years, had almost a motherly affection for her pretty little sister. Croft, finding old age stealing upon him, advertised for a partner, stipulating that he must be a gentleman. Probably it was his secret idea that the right man might come along, and fall in love with his favorite, beautiful Bessie.

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The Unwelcome Guest

Just before she dies, an elderly married woman stashes the horde of money she's secretly accumulated beneath the false bottom of an old shipping trunk. After her death, her husband, believing himself penniless, has to leave their old home and move in with his son's family, where he's treated with no respect or consideration. Also on the scene is a newly-hired kindly young housekeeper. She and the old gentleman become close friends and eventually run away together (taking the old shipping trunk with them).

The War

The son of a Vietnam War Veteran must deal with neighborhood bullies as well as his dad's post-traumatic stress disorder while growing up in the deep south in the 1970's.

Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins

When a celebrated TV show host returns to his hometown in the South, his family is there to remind him that going home is no vacation!

Who Goes There!

When Miles Cornwall returns suddenly to the home he shares with his father and sister in a grace-and-favour house at St. James's Palace, he's amazed to find a pretty Irish girl in his favorite armchair. Intrigued, he turns on the charm but, as she explains her situation, he finds himself unaccountably falling in love with this pretty interloper.

The Woman Michael Married

Mira Sacky (Bessie Barriscale) will inherit a fortune if she is able to come up with ten thousand dollars for lawyers' fees. Since she has no money of her own, the only way she can think of raising the funds is to marry someone wealthy. When she gets the attention of Michael Ordsay (Jack Holt), she quickly asks him to marry her. It seems to be a mismatch, so Mira obtains the needed money from his kindly father (Tom Guise), and heads for Rome, where she undergoes voice training and becomes an operatic star.

Words on Bathroom Walls

Diagnosed with a mental illness halfway through his senior year of high school, a witty, introspective teen struggles to keep it a secret while falling in love with a brilliant classmate who inspires him to open his heart and not be defined by his condition.

The Other Sister

A mentally challenged girl proves herself to be every bit as capable as her "perfect" sister when she moves into an apartment and begins going to college.

Our Man in Havana

Expatriate Englishman Jim Wormold lives in pre-revolutionary Havana with his teenage daughter. Owning a poorly-performing business, he accepts an offer from the British Secret Service to recruit a network of agents in Cuba. Wormold hasn't got a clue where to start, so he decides to manufacture a list of agents and provide fictional tales for his masters in London, and is soon known as the best agent in the Western Hemisphere. However, it all unravels when the local police decode his cables and start rounding up his 'network' and he learns that he's the target of a group out to kill him.

Ratcatcher

James Gillespie is 12 years old. The world he knew is changing. Haunted by a secret, he has become a stranger in his own family. He is drawn to the canal where he creates a world of his own. He finds an awkward tenderness with Margaret Anne, a vulnerable 14 year old expressing a need for love in all the wrong ways, and befriends Kenny, who possesses an unusual innocence in spite of the harsh surroundings.

Rebound

A woman struggles to rekindle the affection of her husband.

Johnny Get Your Gun

While Bill Burnham is jailed for drunkenly shooting up the town, he receives a letter saying that his father has died, his sister Janet is about to marry a worthless count, and the family fortune is in danger. Unable to leave, he convinces his friend, Johnny Wiggins, a motion picture cowboy, to go to his home in Palm Beach, which Bill left as a boy, and impersonate him.

Kangaroo

In turn-of-the-century Australia, two criminals ingratiate themselves with a rancher in order to swindle him. However, the two partners become rivals for the affection of the rancher's beautiful daughter.

The Keeping Room

In this radically reimagined American Western set towards the end of the Civil War, Southerner Augusta encounters two renegade, drunken soldiers who are on a mission of pillage and violence. After escaping an attempted assault, Augusta races back to the isolated farmhouse that she shares with her sister Louise and their female slave Mad. When the pair of soldiers track Augusta down intent on exacting revenge, the trio of women are forced to take up arms to fend off their assailants, finding ways to resourcefully defend their home––and themselves––as the escalating attacks become more unpredictable and relentless.

Fortune in Diamonds

As the Boer War ends a South African soldier hides a cache of diamonds he finds on a body. He returns to the town he left three years earlier where his girl has married a disgraced English officer. Needing funds to get back to pick up the diamonds the Boer enlists the help of a fellow soldier as well as the Englishman and a local hotel keeper. This ill-assorted bunch set off into the bush intent on finding their fortune.

The Color of Friendship

Mahree Bok lives on a farm in South Africa. Her father is a policeman who cannot hide his joy when activist Steve Biko is caught by the South African authorities. Piper Dellums is the daughter of a US congressman from California and who lives in a nice home in Washington DC. When Mahree is chosen to spend a semester at the Dellums' house, she doesn't expect that her host family would be black. Nor do her hosts suspect that she is not a black South African.

Enduring Love

Two strangers become dangerously close after witnessing a deadly accident. On a beautiful cloudless day a young couple celebrate their reunion with a picnic. Joe has planned a postcard-perfect afternoon in the English countryside with his partner, Claire. But as Joe and Claire prepare to open a bottle of champagne, their idyll comes to an abrupt end. A hot air balloon drifts into the field, obviously in trouble. The pilot catches his leg in the anchor rope, while the only passenger, a boy, is too scared to jump down. Joe and three other men rush to secure the basket. But fate has other ideas...

The Little Foxes

The ruthless, moneyed Hubbard clan lives in, and poisons, their part of the deep South at the turn of the 20th century. Regina Giddons née Hubbard has her daughter under her thumb. Mrs. Giddons is estranged from her husband, who is convalescing in Baltimore and suffers from a terminal illness. But she needs him home, and will manipulate her daughter to help bring him back. She has a sneaky business deal that she's cooking up with her two elder brothers, Oscar and Ben. Oscar has a flighty, unhappy wife and a dishonest worm of a son. Will the daughter have to marry this contemptible cousin? Who will she grow up to be - her mother or her aunt? Or can she escape the fate of both?

Duma

An orphaned cheetah becomes the best friend and pet of a young boy living in South Africa.

A Feud in the Kentucky Hills

The two brothers and their adopted daughter of the household grew up from childhood together. The girl and the younger brother were childhood sweethearts. His elder brother was considered the bad man and dead shot of the hills. The younger brother has been living in the valley for a long time and returns home to his family. He is now refined, educated, and, of course, a revelation to the little girl, who, though betrothed to the elder brother, is strongly attracted by him. Hence there is a renewal of childhood affection which the elder brother does not take kindly to.

The Sound and the Fury

Drama focusing on a family of Southern aristocrats who are trying to deal with the dissolution of their clan and the loss of its reputation, faith, fortunes and respect.

Paranoiac

Simon Ashby is a wealthy psychotic who is is coddled by his aunt in their palatial mansion outside of London. One day, Ashby's long lost brother mysteriously arrives at the house, but events prove that he is an impostor, sent by Keith Kossett, son of the attorney for the family estate, who has been dipping into the family trust fund.

Seducing Maarya

Vijay Chatterjee is a lonely widower and a successful restaurateur in Montreal. His thoroughly Westernized son Ashish works at his father's eatery but is more interested in the rock band that he started with his friend Michael. One day, Vijay meets the elegant, strikingly beautiful Maarya, who recently emigrated from Calcutta. He immediately hires her for his restaurant and introduces her to Ashish, thinking that she would make the perfect wife. Though Maarya soon realizes that the young Chatterjee has a closer relationship to Michael than she originally thought, she plays along, keeping the secret from Ashish's dad so that she can remain in the country. When the elder Chatterjee starts to pursue Maarya and her jealous knife-wielding brother arrives on the scene, this volatile situation turns downright explosive.

Tender Is the Night

Against the counsel of his friends, psychiatrist Dick Diver marries Nicole Warren, a beautiful but unstable young woman from a moneyed family. Thoroughly enraptured, he forsakes his career in medicine for life as a playboy, until one day Dick is charmed by Rosemary Hoyt, an American traveling abroad. The thought of Dick possibly being attracted to someone else sends Nicole on an emotional downward spiral that threatens to consume them both.

South of Suez

Greedy diamond mine owner Eli Snedeker, resentful that his ex-foreman John Gamble stopped him from taking over kindly, but drunken, mine owner Roger Smythe's mine just as he was about to strike it rich, kills Smythe and blames it on Gamble. Grabbing the diamonds, Gamble flees Africa to England where he changes his name and begins a new life. What he hasn't counted on, though, is meeting and falling in love with Smythe's daughter Katherine, who falls in love with him but can't marry him until she can deal with her hatred of John Gamble, the man she believes killed her father.

The Spanish Gardener

British diplomat Harrington Brande takes up his new lowly post in Spain accompanied by his son Nicholas. That his wife had left him seems to have affected his career. Nicholas sees it all as something of an adventure and soon becomes friends with the new gardener, Jose. As Nicholas begins to spend more time with Jose, his father takes offense and is concerned at the boy's loss of affection for him. It leads him to bar Nicholas from even speaking to the gardener. And soon tensions mount.

Friends & Lovers

Friends for ten years, a group of twenty-somethings head for the ski slopes as guests of Ian's father. (Ian and dad are estranged because dad worked too many hours when Ian was a lad.) Dad has something to say, but Ian won't listen. Meanwhile, David is gay and virginal; Ian's business partner, Keaton, is unhappy that his sister Jane is pregnant with no plans to tell the father; Lisa is everybody's pal and no one's lover; John, stuck in adolescence, is always on the make. He brings German-born stunner, Carla, and promptly loses her affection to Hans, a fast-talking ski instructor. David meets Manny: they have chess in common. Soon, surprises abound as relationships take new turns.

Climate of the Hunter

Two beautiful sisters vie for the affections of a man who may or may not be a vampire.

The Magic of Ordinary Days

Pregnant out of wedlock, an educated young woman is pressured by her father into an arranged marriage with a lonely farmer in this drama set during WWII.

Endgame

The time is the late '80s, a crucial period in the history of South Africa. President P.W. Botha is hanging on to power by a thread as the African National Congress (ANC) takes up arms against apartheid and the country tumbles toward insurrection. A British mining concern is convinced that their interests would be better served in a stable South Africa and they quietly dispatch Michael Young, their head of public affairs, to open an unofficial dialogue between the bitter rivals. Assembling a reluctant yet brilliant team to pave the way to reconciliation by confronting obstacles that initially seem insurmountable, Young places his trust in ANC leader Thabo Mbeki and Afrikaner philosophy professor Willie Esterhuyse. It is their empathy that will ultimately serve as the catalyst for change by proving more powerful than the terrorist bombs that threaten to disrupt the peaceful dialogue.

Lily in Winter

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.

The Broken Gate

Aurora Lane (Bessie Barriscale) lives in a small town loaded with small-minded residents. She had an illegitimate child and with the earnings from her millinery shop, she has sent him away to be educated. When Don, her son (Arnold Gregg), returns from college, he finds he has to defend his mother constantly. He is accused of murdering a man who made a snide remark about Aurora and is put on trial.

Uncle Joe

A pretty Chicago teenager (Gale Storm), who's being courted by an older man, is sent by her worried parents to live with her uncle on his Iowa farm.

Living on Velvet

A lay-about falls for his best friend's fiancee. The two of them run away from a life of privilege to one of middle-class normalcy. When an influx of money enters their life, their differences come to light.

Darwin's Struggle: The Evolution of the Origin of Species

Documentary telling the little-known story of how Darwin came to write his great masterpiece, On the Origin of Species, a book which explains the wonderful variety of the natural world as emerging out of death and the struggle of life. In the twenty years he took to develop a brilliant idea into a revolutionary book, Darwin went through a personal struggle every bit as turbulent as that of the natural world he observed. Fortunately, he left us an extraordinary record of his brilliant insights, observations of nature, and touching expressions of love and affection for those around him. He also wrote frank accounts of family tragedies, physical illnesses and moments of self-doubt, as he laboured towards publication of the book that would change the way we see the world. The story is told with the benefit of Darwin's secret notes and correspondence, enhanced by natural history filming, powerful imagery from the time and contributions from leading contemporary biographers and scientists.

Sweet Pecan Summer

Amanda must work with her ex-boyfriend, J.P., to sell her favorite aunt’s pecan farm. Putting aside their differences, old feelings start to rekindle and they question their life paths.

Beautiful Loser

His parents named him Reginald Regineld. His friends call him "Ditto." At the age of eleven he decided he wasn't going to do anything with his life. And that was going pretty well until senior year when he saw Tracy. This wasn't so much love at first sight as much as it was "completely-head-over-heels-gonna-get-her-at-any-price-even-if-I-make-a-complete-fool-of-myself" love at first sight. And it would burn for decades. Whether she loved him or not.

Aliki My Love

Barry, a wretched playboy, expects to get rich from the legacy of an uncle of his, the king of roast meat sauce, but his lawyer informs him that the secret of the sauce recipe has been lost along with his uncle, and there is nothing to inherit except for a small island in the Aegean - called Eftychia - where his uncle came from. A hotel keeper, Richard, is interested in the island and plans to create a tourist resort on it, so the two men come hastily to Greece to arrange the sale. On the island of Eftychia they meet a beautiful young teacher, Aliki, and her mother Anna, who are determined to stop foreigners and tourist development from coming to the island. Aliki's beauty and charm seduce Barry, while Richard is enslaved by the wonderful cooking of Anna. One day while they are tasting her food, Richard discovers that Anna possesses the secret of the famous sauce, by which Barry can really become rich. Thus the island is saved, and everyone celebrates their unexpected good fortune.

The Last Gentleman

In New England circa 1933, a niece is reported missing and presumed dead and Cabot Barr (George Arliss) summons his relatives to the family estate for a memorial service. Once there, Barr taunts each one, claiming their only interest in him is his money, and sends them away when the report about the niece proves to be false. Only niece Marjorie, who has ridiculed one of his pet eccentricities, seems to be the object of any sentimental affection.

Amandla

Amandla is an anti-apartheid resistance slogan and means power. Apartheid in South Africa is still in full force when, in 1987, the two brothers Impi and Nkosana grew up on a farm as the sons of servants. The white owners are liberal people who aren't too particular about racial segregation. Black Africans have it relatively good there. Even a tender love bond develops between Impi and the blond daughter Elizabeth. But they have to be on their guard when neighboring farmers come to visit. When three racist upstart Boers arrive on the farm one day, tragic incidents occur with terrible consequences. The two Zulu boys are now on their own. Several years after surviving this childhood tragedy, the now grown brothers each find themselves on the opposing sides of the law. One is a gangster, the other is a police officer. A heinous gang crime tests their loyalty to one another.

A Woman's Rage

Beautiful Allison, 30, has no trouble finding a man. It's keeping them that's the problem...

Oliver's Story

Oliver Barrett IV is emotionally devastated by the death of his wife Jenny, and, while he tries to lose himself in his work as a lawyer, the long hours don't ease his pain, especially when he finds that his leftist views conflict with those of the senior partners at the firm. Eventually, Oliver's inconsolable grief begins to alienate those around him, until he finds new love with Marcie Bonwit, the wealthy and beautiful heiress to the Bonwit Teller fortune. Despite his affection for her, Oliver finds it difficult to leave the memory of Jenny behind, which causes major problems in their relationship.

Jess + Moss

Jess, age 18, and Moss, age 12 are second cousins in the dark-fire tobacco fields of rural Western Kentucky. Without immediate families that they can relate to, and lacking friends their own age, they only have each other. Over the course of a summer they venture on a journey exploring deep secrets and hopes of a future while being confronted with fears of isolation, abandonment and an unknown tomorrow.

The Singing Kid

Neurotic Broadway star Al Jackson faces professional ruin when he loses his voice. While recuperating in the country, he falls in love with farm girl Ruth Haines, the pretty aunt of precocious little Sybil Haines.

Backsliding

While in prison, Jack had two momentous experiences: he got religion, and met the woman who would become his wife. He and Alison are devoted to the idea of staying in God's good graces, so they have moved to a remote power station in central Australia, far from anything. Into this possibly idyllic arrangement comes a rootless young man who the power company has hired on to be the station's handyman. Tensions escalate between the men as their conflicting values rub up against one another.

Secret Summer

Appraiser Rachel (Lindsey Shaw) receives the news that her top-notched client wants to buyout a small town’s beloved library to build a resort and spa on the land. Rachel is completely against the idea of leaving NYC but loses the argument to her boss. So Rachel packs her bags and flies out to California. During her first visit to the library she runs into writer, Jake (Derek Theler), who is researching the tale of Captain Black Bart’s hidden treasures for his next novel. With hopes of saving the library, Mrs. Archer (Rachel Ticotin), the librarian, pushes Jake to show Rachel what the library means to the town. Jake’s already got a lot on his plate with his research and taking care of his niece, Hailey (Chiara Aurelia), and nephew, Noah (Max Page), for the summer but he agrees to help out. As Rachel learns what the library means to the community she must find away to save it before it’s too late.

A Son of His Father

'Big Boy' Morgan and his friend, invalid Charlie Grey, must overcome the efforts of the villainous Holdbrook to foreclose on the Los Rosas ranch and make off with the beautiful Nora Shea.

African Gothic

On an isolated farm in Apartheid South Africa two lovers find themselves at risk of losing everything to a big city lawyer; they will stop at nothing to prevent him from exposing a dark family secret.

The Faker

Rita Martin, the partner of a phony spiritualist who uses information supplied by her to gull and astonish the rubes, gets work as private secretary to John Clayton, a wealthy man who has just disinherited his worthless son, Frank, and left his entire fortune to his upright stepson, Bob Williams. At Frank's request, the spiritualist later performs for the elder Clayton a seance during which Rita impersonates the late Mrs. Clayton and arranges for a reconciliation between Frank and his father. Rita falls in love with Bob, however, and, in order to protect Bob's interests against Frank's, exposes the spiritualist as a faker. Frank is disgraced in his father's eyes, and Bob quickly forgives Rita for her past complicity in Frank's schemes.

Thank You

Young Kenneth Jamieson's millionaire father, fed up with his son's wild escapades, sends him to stay on a chicken farm in the small village of Dedham. On the day he arrives there pretty Diane Lee, the niece of local Rev. David Lee, arrives from Paris. A few days later Kenneth, reverting back to his wild ways, gets drunk and makes a spectacle of himself, but rather than reproving him, Rev. Lee gives him a heart-to-heart talk and gets Kenneth to turn his life around. Meanwhile, the reverend--barely able to get by on the pittance the local vestrymen pay him--asks for a raise but is denied it, being told that he must send Diane away before they'll even consider giving him any extra money. Soon afterward Kenneth falls gravely ill. His father, hearing of Kenneth's condition and of his infatuation with Diane, arrives at the village to see his son and isn't ready for what he finds.

Beautiful Accidents

With its unique blend of romance, satire, and playful blurring of fact and fiction, Beautiful Accidents is about a madcap indie film crew shooting a cheesy rom-com. The film-within-a-film concerns Henry, a young man who invites his girlfriend Charlotte to his family cottage for the winter holidays. As a surprise for Charlotte, Henry also invites his eccentric mother Sally and Charlotte's overbearing father Gordon. The surprise, however, is the truth about Sally and Gordon. Hilarity, the occasional tender moment, and the promises and pitfalls of filmmaking ensue as all try to keep their various secrets from being spilled.

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