Best movies like Kentucky

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Kentucky Starring Loretta Young, Richard Greene, Walter Brennan, Douglass Dumbrille, and more. If you liked Kentucky then you may also like: Way Down South, Now I'll Tell, Kentucky Blue Streak, The Kentucky Derby, Kentucky Pride 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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Young lovers Jack and Sally are from families that compete to send horses to the 1938 Kentucky Derby, but during the Civil War, her family sided with the South while his sided with the North--and her Uncle Peter will have nothing to do with Jack's family.

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Way Down South

In the pre-Civil War South, a plantation owner dies and leaves all his possessions, including his slaves, to his young son. While the deceased treated his slaves decently, his corrupt executor abuses them unmercifully, beating them without provocation, and he is planning to sell off the father'e estate--including the slaves--at the earliest opportunity so he and his mistress can steal the money and move to France. The young boy doesn't want to sell his father's estate or break up an of the slave families, and he has to find someone to help him thwart the crooked executor's plans.

Now I'll Tell

A two-bit gambler somehow claws his way to the top. His love for riches is only matched by his love for his wife, but he is sometimes confused by which he loves most.

Kentucky Blue Streak

A nosy reporter (Nugent) befriends the dumb Coughlin and pushes the Governor to commute his sentence. Now, Coughlin can ride his family's pride and joy in the Kentucky Derby. BUT, the mean old Warden cancels all paroles--and the idiot decides to escape (even though he's only got 10 more months to serve). So, the reporter has a hunch and goes to see if he can find Coughlin--and the Warden deputizes him!! At this point you might wonder if the boy will make good and win the big race

The Kentucky Derby

Posing as relatives, Ralph and Helen Gordon visit Col. Moncrief Gordon's Kentucky mansion, hoping to marry Helen to the colonel's son, Donald. The colonel agrees, but Donald balks at the suggestion, then reveals his secret marriage to Alice Brown. The colonel turns them out, and Ralph conspires with Bob Thurston to frame Donald for theft of Colonel Gordon's wager money and to shanghai him. After 3 years Donald discovers the source of his misfortune, returns, finds his wife, hears of a plot against his father's best racehorse, wrings a complete confession from Thurston, and saves the Derby for his repentant father.

Kentucky Pride

This rare John Ford silent is a charming, sweetly sentimental tale of the relationship between humans and animals told largely from the point of view of a racehorse who observes as her breeder (Henry B. Walthall) is forced to sell her when he loses everything in a poker game. Several of the era’s most famous racehorses make appearances, including the legendary champion thoroughbred Man o’ War.

Secretariat

Housewife and mother Penny Chenery agrees to take over her ailing father's Virginia-based Meadow Stables, despite her lack of horse-racing knowledge. Against all odds, Chenery - with the help of veteran trainer Lucien Laurin - manages to navigate the male-dominated business, ultimately fostering the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years.

Emperor

An escaped slave travels north and has chance encounters with Frederick Douglass and John Brown. Based on the life story of Shields Green.

Girls' School

A young woman hides out at a school after inheriting $30,000 from her father.

Glory

A lovesick girl and her grandfather groom their filly for the Kentucky Derby.

Chasing the Win

There's only one way to win a race, and a million ways to lose it." Chasing the Win follows the meteoric rise of a rookie trainer, a down-on-his-luck owner, and their imperfect racehorse after an unprecedented victory thrusts them into the global spotlight of horse racing. Success and fame are followed by the hard-hitting reality of what it means to survive in the Sport of Kings

Hearts in Dixie

Nappus sends his grandson north for schooling to shelter him from their community.

Little Miss Marker

Big Steve Halloway, gambler and proprietor of New York's Horseshoe Cabaret, is in desperate need of money. He arranges for his fellow bookies, especially Sorrowful Jones, to each pay him $1,000 for his racehorse, Dream Prince, to lose. With all bets being placed at the window, Sorrowful encounters a gambler, having lost $500, wanting to place his bet but unable to come up with $20. Instead, he places his little girl, Marthy Jane, as security, or in bookie's terms a "marker". "Marky", as she comes to be known, winds up under the care of Sorrowful Jones and his lady friend, singer Bangles Carson.

Port of Missing Girls

Nightclub singer Della Mason witnesses a murder and is forced by the killer to flee with him from the scene of the crime. Escaping from the gangster, she secretly boards the ship of Captain Josiah Storm, a woman-hater, and the ship sails from San Francisco headed for China. Della is discovered by Jim Benton, the ship's first mate and he pleads her case to the captain. He leaves her in under the protection of Minnie at "Minnie's Joint in Shanghai, until her innocence can be established.

A House Divided

In the aftermath of the terrible Civil War which has devastated the South, Amanda America Dixon returns home to find she has become the sole heir to a vast cotton plantation. But the dreadful secret which has blighted her life threatens to deprive her of the birthright which her beloved father David had struggled for so long to create. Raised by her father and grandmother to be the perfect white Southern Belle, Amanda's true mother was a black slave Julia. Confronted with the forces of greed and bigotry, Amanda has to face not only the hatred of a racist world, but the complex truth of a family whose lives have been built on a lie.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

In 1856, slave Eliza plans to marry George with the consent of the Shelbys, her masters, but George's owner prevents the wedding. A few years later, Eliza flees with her son, Harry, after learning the Shelbys plan to hand them over to a crooked creditor to prevent foreclosure. George also escapes and goes on the run while Eliza and Harry are captured and brought back home. Mother and son are separated as George tries to find them both.

Suez

Ferdinand de Lesseps, disappointed in love, is sent as a junior diplomat to the Isthmus of Suez, and realizes it's just the place for a canal.

To the Last Man

In Kentucky just after the Civil War, the Hayden-Colby feud leads to Jed Colby being sent to prison for 15 years for murder. The Haydens head for Nevada and when Colby gets out of prison he heads there also seeking revenge. The head of the Hayden family tries to avoid more killing but the inevitable showdown has to occur, complicated by Lynn Hayden and Ellen Colby's plans to marry.

Girl Trouble

A South American in New York rents the apartment of a socialite who pretends to be his maid.

Kentucky Kernels

The Great Elmer and Company, two out-of-work magicians, help lovelorn Jerry Bronson adopt Spanky Milford, to distract him. When Bronson makes up and elopes, the pair are stuck with the little boy. But Spanky inherits a Kentucky fortune, so they head south to Banesville, where the Milfords and Wakefields are conducting a bitter feud.

The Foxes of Harrow

An Irish rascal and inveterate gambler uses his considerable skills at the gaming tables of New Orleans to become fabulously rich.

Heart of the North

A two-fisted Canadian Mountie leads lawmen in pursuit of the thieves who stole an Edmonton-bound freighter's cargo.

Hell-Bent for Heaven

Sid Hunt and Jude Lowery are Carolina sweethearts but hired-hand Rufe Pryer also has his eyes on her. Rufe lies to Andy, Jude's brother, and a family-feud is started when Andy goes gunning after Sid. But Sid quiets the drunken Andy, and is taking him home when a shot is fired from ambush and Sid's horse comes home riderless. But he shows up unhurt, and the jealous-maddened Rufe sends him on a ruse to the big dam. Rufe sets off a dynamite explosion to catch Sid in the swirling waters but Jude is the one who is caught.

Woman Trap

In Woman Trap, Hal Skelly is hard-bitten police sergeant Dan Malone, whose mission in life is to rid his community of gangsters. The revelation that Dan's own brother Ray is the secret head of all local criminal activities does not weaken Dan's resolve in the least. The barely relevant title is a reference to "heroine" Kitty Evans, the wife of a minor gang functionary. Screenwriter Joseph L. Mankiewicz, presumably on a dare, makes a brief appearance as a crime reporter.

Under Two Flags

Sergeant Victor comes to the French Foreign Legion after taking the blame for his brother's crime. Cigarette falls in love with him though Major Doyle is in love with her. Doyle sends Victor on dangerous assignments to be rid of him. He falls in love with Lady Venetia Cunningham, a visitor to the garrison

Spawn of the North

Two Alaskan salmon fisherman find their friendship at risk when one aligns with Russian fish pirates and the other aligns with local vigilantes.

Young Fugitives

A young man befriends the last surviving Civil War veteran, intending to rob him of $50,000.

Top Sergeant

An army sergeant recognises a young recruit as the man responsible for his brother's death, while attempting a robbery.

The Heart of Maryland

At the outbreak of the War Between the States, Maryland Calvert is loved by Maj. Alan Kendrick, son of a Virginia general, and Capt. Fulton Thorpe. Nancy, whom Thorpe has loved unwisely, follows him to Washington and commits suicide when she learns he will not marry her; as a result, Alan is forced to request his resignation. When Fort Sumter is fired upon, Alan, who admires Lincoln's principles, joins the Union Army though his father is among the Secessionist leaders; as a result, he is estranged from Maryland. Thorpe, who has joined the Confederacy as a spy, is responsible for Alan's arrest, but Maryland victoriously comes to his aid by ringing the alarm bell.

Domino Kid

A rancher vows revenge on the five men responsible for his father's death.

Fugitive Lady

In this thriller, a young woman marries a dashing young man who, unbeknownst to her, is a jewel thief.

Down the Stretch

A jockey tries to overcome the reputation of his father, who once threw a race.

Chetniks!

Subtitled The Fighting Guerillas, Chetniks tells the story of Yugoslavian guerilla fighter General Draja Mihailovitch. Based on the General's own memoirs, the film depicts Mihailovitch (played here by Philip Dorn) as a selfless idealist, leading his resistance troops, known as the Chetniks, on one raid after another against the Germans during WW II.

Bred in Old Kentucky

Katie O'Doone is left a worthless, run-down estate and a thoroughbred race horse. She mortgages the property in order to get the money needed to enter her horse in the Derby. Dennis Reilly, a wealthy sportsman, also has a horse in the race and his jockey accidentally runs Reilly's horse into Kate's horse, causing her horse to lose. She swears vengeance on O'Reilly. She is forced to go to work for a crooked bookie, Jake Trumbull, and a crooked competitor of Reilly's,Tod Cuyler, who plan on switching a dead-ringer horse for Reilly's favored-to-win horse, and clean up betting against Reilly's horse.

Barnyard Follies

A country orphanage puts on a show with some musicians to save their 4H club from being shut down by greedy politicians.

Big Boy

Gus, the trusty family retainer, has hopes of riding his boss' horse, Big Boy, to victory at the Kentucky Derby.

Spendthrift

A profligate, polo-playing playboy (Henry Fonda) is married to a beautiful but superficial heiress (Mary Brian). They divorce, and the wife gets all the money. But the humbled (and impoverished) Fonda finds true love in the arms of Pat Paterson, who cares nothing for material things.

50 to 1

A misfit group of New Mexico cowboys find themselves on the journey of a lifetime when they learn their crooked-footed racehorse qualifies to run in the Kentucky Derby. Based on the true story of Mine That Bird, the cowboys must overcome impossible odds even before they reach Churchill Downs and the land of Kentucky's blue bloods.

Hitler's Children

This lurid exposé of the Hitler Youth follows the woes of an American girl declared legally German by the Nazi government.

Hers to Hold

Deanna Durbin is all grown up in Hers to Hold, the unofficial sequel to her "Three Smart Girls" films of the 1930s. Durbin plays Penelope Craig, the starry-eyed daughter of wealthy Judson and Dorothy Craig (Charles Winninger, Nella Walker). Developing a crush on much-older playboy Bill Morley (Joseph Cotton), Penelope stops at nothing to land the elusive Morley as her husband. Highlights include Durbin's renditions of "Begin the Beguine" and the "Seguidilla" from Carmen, and a captivating sequence that includes highlights from Durbin's earlier films, presented as home movies!

Sporting Blood

A horse with great potential is reluctantly sold by the breeder and by chance passes through multiple hands who do not treat him well.

In Old Kentucky

Horse trainer Steve Tapley is caught between the feuding Martingale and Shattuck families. He sides with young Nancy Martingale and her grandfather Ezra, and the feud is to be resolved by a horse race between the favorites of each family. Unfortunately, the Martingale's horse, Greyboy, only runs well in mud. And it hasn't rained in a long time.

Run for the Roses

Juanito, a boy from Puerto Rico, finds himself in Kentucky and drawn to a thoroughbred horse. He believes the horse can win the Derby and eventually others around him start to think it's possible.

Blue Grass of Kentucky

The story revolves around a colt born in Kentucky and named "Blue Grass". and the training of the colt to win the Kentuck Derby. and how all of that affected the lives, fortunes and, relationships and romances of the people associated with the colt's race-track career.

Drums in the Deep South

Two old friends find themselves on opposite sides during the Civil War in a desperate battle atop an impregnable mountain.

Paroled - To Die

Meline is taking money from his own bank to drill an oil well. When he finds Doug Redfern's bandana, he has his gang rob his bank and uses the bandana to frame Doug. When Doug is convicted but immediately paroled, Meline has another plan that he thinks will put him away permanently.

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