Best movies like Keep Smiling

Italian immigrant Rudolph Valentino makes it big in silent Hollywood, but he ends up struggling between his career and the woman he loves.

Sassy and ambitious waitress Mary Evans amuses and befriends amiable seldom-sober Hollywood film director Max Carey when he stumbles into her restaurant. Max invites Mary to his film premiere and, after a night of drinking and carousing, Mary is granted a screen test. A studio contract follows. Just as Mary finds her dreams coming true, Carey’s life and career begins its descent.

An exploration of the appeal of horror films, with interviews of many legendary directors in the genre.

An amoral lowlife accidentally stumbles into an acting career that sets him on a trajectory to Hollywood stardom. But everyone on whom he steps on the way to the top remembers when he is nominated for an Oscar and he runs a dirty campaign in an attempt to win.

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.

In the midst of a nasty public breakup of married movie stars, a studio publicist scrambles to put a cap on the escalating situation as the couple's latest film has found it's only print kidnapped by the director.

The career of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo is halted by a witch hunt in the late 1940s when he defies the anti-communist HUAC committee and is blacklisted.

A teen and his friends get into trouble for vandalizing the Hollywood sign, and rather than going to prison he opts to work for his uncle's hot tub repair company. The sleazy salesman drums up business by sabotaging the tubs at Hollywood Hot Tubs and by wooing the owner. The nephew begins falling in love with the secretary at his uncle's company, but risks losing her when caught in compromising but unintentional situations while he goes about his duties as tub repairman.

Esther Blodgett is just another starry-eyed farm kid trying to break into the movies. Waitressing at a Hollywood party, she catches the eye of her idol Norman Maine, is sent for a screen test, and before long attains stardom as newly minted Vicki Lester. She and Norman marry, though his career soon dwindles to nothing due to his chronic alcoholism.

Newly arrived in Hollywood from England, Dennis Barlow finds he has to arrange his uncle's interment at the highly-organised and very profitable Whispering Glades funeral parlour. His fancy is caught by one of their cosmeticians, Aimee Thanatogenos. But he has three problems - the strict rules of owner Blessed Reverand Glenworthy, the rivalry of embalmer Mr Joyboy, and the shame of now working himself at The Happy Hunting Ground pets' memorial home.

A grocery clerk, longing to become a cowboy actor, goes to Hollywood in search of fame and fortune. Unfortunately, his acting ability is non-existent.

With commentary from Hollywood stars, outtakes from his movies and footage from his youth, this documentary looks at Stanley Kubrick's life and films. Director Jan Harlan, Kubrick's brother-in-law and sometime collaborator, interviews heavyweights like Jack Nicholson, Woody Allen and Sydney Pollack, who explain the influence of Kubrick classics like "Dr. Strangelove" and "2001: A Space Odyssey," and how he absorbed visual clues from disposable culture such as television commercials.

To Hell and Back: The Kane Hodder Story is the harrowing story of a stuntman overcoming a dehumanizing childhood filled with torment and bullying in Sparks, Nevada. After surviving a near-death burn accident, he worked his way up through Hollywood, leading to his ultimate rise as Jason Voorhees in the Friday the 13th series and making countless moviegoers forever terrified of hockey masks and summer camp. Featuring interviews with cinema legends, including Bruce Campbell (Ash vs. Evil Dead), Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger), and Cassandra Peterson (Elvira: Mistress of the Dark), To Hell and Back peels off the mask of Kane Hodder, cinema's most prolific killer, in a gut-wrenching, but inspiring, documentary. After decades of watching Kane Hodder on screen, get ready to meet the man behind the mask in To Hell and Back - an uniquely human story about one of cinema's most vicious monsters.

A movie producer who made a huge flop tries to salvage his career by revamping his film as an erotic production, where its family-friendly star takes her top off.

After making a disastrous 3-hour documentary on New York City's water supply, two young filmmakers focus on the goings-on of life in the LA offices of Boone and Murphy, private investigators. Cheating husbands and missing dogs fail to bring in the big bucks, however, and after sleeping with the wife of one of their clients Murphy leaves. To stop Boone from having to close down the business, the filmmakers must resort to a more hands-on approach in the investigations to ensure the completion of their movie.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Peter Fonda host an examination of the history of decency standards for movies from the early 1920s onwards.

Career overview of Hollywood director "Wild Bill" Wellman,

Three sisters come to Hollywood to be movie stars. Complications arise when two of them fall in love with the same man.

Alexa and Jason are competing for a position at an advertising firm when their partners break up with them. Alexa mistakenly texts Jason, and they start a phone-only relationship. When they meet and the truth comes out, will true love prevail?

A radio commentator avenges an old wrong by blowing the whistle on Hollywood scandals

James Cagney has a rare chance to show his song-and-dance-man roots in this low-budget tale of a New York bandleader struggling with a Hollywood studio boss.

A small-town blowhard runs for water commissioner while fighting to win custody of his niece and nephew.

Brad Pitt is a singular actor in Hollywood's glamorous world, breaking through his "playboy image" and embodying American cinema's renewal. At the beginning there was a humble Midwestern aware of being a smokescreen for the illusions of his time, who has managed to keep control of his image to better serve the most talented directors of our time. To name but a few: David Fincher, Quentin Tarantino, the Coen brothers, Terrence Malick, James Gray and soon Damien Chazelle. This documentary dives into the brain of a complex, brilliant and endearing personality, far from the cliché of a world-famous movie icon to discover the hidden side of the most handsome man in the world.

Since the early days, Jerry Lewis—in the line of Chaplin, Keaton and Laurel—had the masses laughing with his visual gags, pantomime sketches and signature slapstick humor. Yet Lewis was far more than just a clown. He was also a groundbreaking filmmaker whose unquenchable curiosity led him to write, produce, stage and direct many of the films he appeared in, resulting in such adored classics as The Bellboy, The Ladies Man, The Errand Boy, and The Nutty Professor.

Documentary about the legendary American film director from his introduction to the film industry in its early years to his death in 1959.

A retrospective on the career of Robert Mitchum through interviews with friends and co-workers, scenes from his films, and the actor himself.

A young woman goes to New York and finds success in advertising thanks to her legs while her boyfriend spends the summer in Europe with his band.

Upon receiving an inheritance from her late uncle, a woman starts a fortune-telling business designed to make her dreams come true.

The second part of a BBC documentary on the latter half of the career of French director Jean Renoir.

Director Robert Parrish's 1955 drama, spanning many years, stars Jane Wyman as a spirited western shopkeeper who watches as her small store flourishes and grows into a hugely profitable business empire. The cast also includes Charlton Heston, Claire Trevor, Thelma Ritter, William Demarest and Wallace Ford.

Playwright James Lee adapted his off-Broadway play for the screen in this high-strung adaptation, directed by Joseph Anthony. In this simplistic, backroom show-business-success saga, Anthony Franciosa plays Sam, a struggling young actor who will forsake his family and take any type of menial job in order to become a Broadway star. Dean Martin is on hand as Maury, an aspiring director also trying to claw his way up the ladder of success. When Maury gets his big break, Sam wants a part in his show, but when Maury, who is unwilling to cast Sam in the production, turns down Sam's request, Sam seduces and marries Maury's girlfriend (Shirley MacLaine). In spite of everything, Maury wants his girl back, and Sam agrees to a divorce on the stipulation that Maury cast him as the star in his next show. Once again, Maury reneges and, before Sam can exact his revenge, Uncle Sam comes to the rescue and he is drafted into the army.

Out of the approximately 600 players in the National Hockey League, thirty are Black. Mattie Slaughter, a hockey phenom from the rural Black community of North Preston, wants to make it thirty-one. To reach his goal, Mattie needs to keep his nose clean and avoid trouble. Hard to do though, when you go to a school where racism taints every interaction, your older brother is a hustler and you’re crushing on a girl who’s already hooked up.

Largely improvised with only two people privy to the "secret" - that a fictional movie was being made using the players, crew, and settings of the adult movie industry as its background. Canadian television director Ethan dreams of making it big in Hollywood. It's hard finding work, so he takes a job in the porn business to make money. Much to his fiancée's chagrin, Ethan ends up enjoying the industry more than he'd expected.

This documentary traces the life and work of the legendary "America's Sweetheart" Mary Pickford, silent film star, movie pioneer and keen businesswoman. Pickford's life also parallels an even larger story, telling of the birth of the cinema itself.

Documentary exploring the career of noted film directer William A. Wellman.