Best movies & TV Shows like Just So Stories

A Russian spy is sent out to steal sensitive information from NATO about military mobilization. Without much intelligence of his own, the distrusted agent of Soviet intelligence needs all the help he can get from his "talented" partner Penelope Lightfeather as they scatter around the French countryside for secret rendez-vous' while trying to avoid being caught by counter intelligence agents and distrustful communist operatives.

With only 12 percent of its pupils obtaining their baccalaureate, Jules Ferry High School is the worst school in France. The Inspector of Schools has already exhausted all the conventional means to raise standards at the school and he has no choice but to take the advice of his deputy. It is a case of having to fight fire with fire: the worst pupils must be taught by the worst teachers...

Jakub, an astronaut sent to the edge of the galaxy to collect mysterious ancient dust, finds his earthly life falling to pieces so he turns to the only voice who can help him try to put it back together. It just so happens to belong to a creature from the beginning of time lurking in the shadows of his spaceship.

The film contains three Jan Werich's fairy tales, each directed by one artist. The first story sets out to the Sumava mountains in Southern Bohemia to find out whether Ogres ever lived there. The middle tale The Hat and the Little Jay Feather concerns a king who sends his three sons to bring back a hat he left at a tavern when he was young. The third and longest fairy tale Reason and Luck is about the two virtues of the title try to prove their importance by changing the life of a pig herder named Louis. Written by

The luxuriantly bearded Pirate Captain is a boundlessly enthusiastic, if somewhat less-than-successful, terror of the High Seas. With a rag-tag crew at his side, and seemingly blind to the impossible odds stacked against him, the Captain has one dream: to beat his bitter rivals Black Bellamy and Cutlass Liz to the much coveted Pirate of the Year Award. It’s a quest that takes our heroes from the shores of exotic Blood Island to the foggy streets of Victorian London. Along the way they battle a diabolical queen and team up with a haplessly smitten young scientist, but never lose sight of what a pirate loves best: adventure!

The wife and mistress of a cruel school master collaborate in a carefully planned and executed scheme to murder him. The plan goes well until the body, which has been strategically dumped, disappears. The psychological strain starts to weigh on the two women when a retired police investigator begins looking into the man's disappearance on a whim.

Victor Vautier is incorrigible: he's in constant motion, working several cons at once, using different names and changing disguises. He's charming and outrageous, incapable of uttering a sentence that isn't embellished or an outright lie. His life goal is to make enough money to build a sea wall to protect Mont-Saint-Michel. Charlotte, a parole officer, shows up: she's young and seems taken in by Victor. He discovers she lives above the Senlus Museum, where her parents are the curators. With two pals he decides to steal a priceless El Greco triptych and then ransom it back to the cultural ministry. What will Charlotte do when she realizes he's used her to make a fortune?

HBO Standing Room Only presentation of the 1981 stage revival. From the Neil Simon Book. New Yorkers Paul Bratter and Corie Bratter née Banks have just gotten married. He is a stuffed shirt just starting his career as a lawyer. She is an independently minded free spirit who prides herself on doing the illogical purely out of a sense of adventure

During World War II, two allied soldiers escape from a Nazi POW camp to Lyons, where they accept the hospitality of mademoiselle Helene.

Shapely burlesque dancer Hot Garters Gertie aka Angela Gardner meets her future drama professor. Her new landlady proves to be the professor's wife. Angela helps breath life into the annual school stage show...but someone has discovered her secret past.

"René la Canne" was the second collaboration between Francis Girod and Ennio Morricone, coming after "Le Trio Infernal" (1974) and before "La Banquière" (1980). His film is an adaptation of a story by Roger Borniche about the gangster René Girier and relates the fantastic adventures of a flamboyant mobster (René/Gérard Depardieu) and a maverick police inspector (Fernand la Sournoise/Michel Piccoli), through the 1940s.

A wrestler and a bookseller disgraced by life fall in love with each other.

The girlfriend of an associate of a gangland boss, is persuaded by a police detective to inform about her lover's associates.

A tramp falls asleep in the woods. He dreams of observing a range of insects that stand in for various human characteristics in terms of their lifestyle and morality: the flighty, vain butterfly, the obsequious, self-serving dung beetle, the ants, whose increasingly mechanized behavior leads to a militaristic society.

A musician named Jacques Christens, is given a proposition by an old man. For ten million Francs he is asked to impersonate a certain Paul de Baer – a man who is supposedly exiled in the Amazone. Christens is told this scheme will save Mr. Baer from ruin. An adaptation of Boileau and Narcejac's "D'entre les Morts".

Madeleine, a young nurse, makes a fatal mistake that costs the life of the patient Léopold Sicard. She leaves the hospital after her colleague, Dr. Senez, writes a damning report against her. Some time later, the young psychologist Paul Forest receives at the end of one of his lectures a visit from his childhood friend, Roger, who tells him of his fears about the strange behavior of his wife, who is none other than Madeleine.

Paris, 1996. Parisian editor Pierre Duval has an affair with Claire, wife of wealthy architect Bernard Jaillac. The latter has to supervise a large-scale operation in Morocco, he asks Pierre to join them in the desert. Bernard is obssessed by another woman, but who is she really?

Lionel Fribourg, a great composer (at least that's what he thinks) has a problem with his noisy environment: he can't complete his unfinished symphony. Of course there is a market for unfinished symphonies but, for all he knows, only one became famous. So he had better find a way to finish it. At long last, he comes across Agnès, a divorced woman who agrees to let him her quiet home. Lionel, full of hope, resumes work...

Derived from the 1947 movie with the same name, a house is haunted by a deceased sea captain who wreaks havoc with the new tenants who were not advised of his existence.

My World and Welcome to It is an American half-hour television sitcom based on the humor and cartoons of James Thurber. It starred William Windom as John Monroe, a Thurber-like writer and cartoonist who works for a magazine closely resembling The New Yorker called The Manhattanite. Wry, fanciful and curmudgeonly, Monroe observes and comments on life, to the bemusement of his rather sensible wife Ellen and intelligent, questioning daughter Lydia. Monroe's frequent daydreams and fantasies are usually based on Thurber material. My World — And Welcome To It is the name of a book of illustrated stories and essays, also by James Thurber. The series ran one season on NBC 1969-1970. It was created by Mel Shavelson, who wrote and directed the pilot episode and was one of the show's principal writers. Sheldon Leonard was executive producer. The show's producer, Danny Arnold, co-wrote or directed numerous episodes, and even appeared as Santa Claus in "Rally Round the Flag."

The biggest names from the world of art, film, music, literature and dance. Alan Yentob gets close up with those shaping today's cultural world.

Journey to exciting places and build a lasting connection with your favorite books. Each episode centers on a theme from a book, or other children's literature, which is explored through a number of segments or stories.

A physician sues a novelist for publishing statements implicating the doctor in Nazi war crimes.

Young Gerald explored his passion for the animal kingdom with his inspirational tutor, Dr Theodore Stephanides. The backdrop was sunshine, happiness and the love and laughter of a doting, slightly eccentric family

John Green teaches you literature in an exciting, entertaining, and endlessly informative manner.

Adaptation of the Daphne du Maurier novel.

In 1935, financially strapped widow Louisa Durrell, whose life has fallen apart, decides to move from England, with her four children (three sons, one daughter), to the island of Corfu, Greece. Once there, the family moves into a dilapidated old house that has no electricity and that is crumbling apart. But life on Corfu is cheap, it's an earthly paradise, and the Durrells proceed to forge their new existence, with all its challenges, adventures, and forming relationships.

Almost a decade into his new devoted married life Nathan is rocked to the core when Bob, an unwelcome face from the past, turns up on his doorstep with shocking news, triggering a series of catastrophic decisions.

Pan Tau is a kind gentleman who wears an elegant suit and is always there when families need him. Although it radiates from a completely different time and not a word is spoken, but everything is there and responds to problems in its own way. There can be magic appearing seemingly randomly among families across all social strata in any way possible by tapping the bowler hat on his head for magical perspective shifts. By doing this, it seems to be ignoring all the laws of physics.

As the Cold War rages, ex-smuggler turned reluctant spy Harry Palmer finds himself at the centre of a dangerous undercover mission, on which he must use his links to find a missing British nuclear scientist.

An extraordinary range of writers turned to a form of writing where they created “Wonderlands”, “Neverlands” – places of happiness in which children were portrayed as living in a happy world, where sorrow and the difficulties and tragedies of adult life were simply removed. But the authors of these magical stories had lives that consisted of great unhappiness, often using their creativity to overcome terrible adversities.

This web drama is adapted from Xing Ling's novel "Bai Shuo Shang Shen." It tells the story of Bai Shuo, the daughter of the general's mansion, who aspires to cultivate immortality in order to repay her kindness. Love, running in both directions, even though there are thousands of difficulties, love is enough to break through all restrictions and embrace the truest stories of each other.

Simon Schama celebrates the life and work of one of Britain's greatest love poets, John Donne.