Best movies like Monkey Business

Henry Graham lives the life of a playboy. When his lawyer tells him one day that his lifestyle has consumed all his funds, he needs an idea to avoid climbing down the social ladder.

The story of Oedipus' gradual discovery of his primal crime, killing his father and marrying his mother, filmed by the famed British theatrical director Sir Tyrone Guthrie. This elegant version of Sophocles' play adds a brilliant stroke: the actors wear masks just as the Greeks did in the playwright's day.

Follows 29-year-old immigrant sex worker Debra, and her self-aware 10-year-old daughter Mona, as they embark on a journey of emancipation. Debra attempts to escape cycles of abuse and poverty while learning to become a more nurturing mother and discovering her own self-worth.

A Czech refugee uses women to advance his business interest.

Macário spends an entire train journey to the Algarve talking to a woman he does not know about the trials and tribulations of his love life: straight after starting his first job as a book keeper at his Uncle Francisco's shop in Lisbon he falls madly in love with a young blonde, who lives across the road. No sooner does he meet her than he straightaway wants to marry her. His uncle, totally opposed to the match, fires him and kicks him out of the house. Macário departs for Cape Verde where he makes his fortune. When he finally wins his uncle’s approval to marry his beloved, he discovers the “singularity” of his fiancée’s character.

Will Montgomery, a U.S. Army Staff Sergeant who has returned home from Iraq, is assigned to the Army’s Casualty Notification service. Montgomery is partnered with Captain Tony Stone, to give notice to the families of fallen soldiers. The Sergeant is drawn to Olivia Pitterson, to whom he has delivered news of her husband’s death.

The bar in an old Pennsylvania steel town, housed with many of life's losers and disillusioned men, is the main setting for this slice-of-life film. Michael Madsen is the bar owner, who is deep in debt to the town's book-maker and loan shark Burt Young. Chris Penn is one of the bar's main inhabitants as he hides from his failing marriage to Mary Stuart Masterson. The bartender's sister (Virginia Madsen) is about to be married, and her former fiancé (Tom Sizemore) shows up in town, after leaving her at the altar years before. Con man James Belushi runs a con on Perry to steal the money for the wedding caterer. As every plot in this multi layered story seems to be at it's worst, things look up because of an unlikely hero.

Albert Steptoe and his son Harold are rag-and-bone men, complete with horse and cart to tour the neighbourhood. They also live amicably together at the junk yard. Always on the lookout for ways to improve his lot, Harold invests his father's life savings in a greyhound who is almost blind and can't see the hare. When the dog loses a race and Harold has to pay off the debt, he comes up with another bright idea. Collect his father's life insurance. To do this his father must pretend to be dead.

One of the most popular Lebanese films of the late 1990s, Around the Pink House is a story that explores the changing urban landscape of Beirut after the Civil War. La maison rose (the pink house) is an old mansion in Beirut where the Nawfal family found shelter during the Civil War. Unfortunately for them, their immediate environment is rapidly changing, as many of the old shell-ridden buildings are being torn down and replaced by new construction projects. When Mattar, the owner of the pink house, decides to sell it to make room for a large commercial centre, the residents of the neighbourhood become divided between the shopkeepers and businessmen in favour of a different kind of modernity.

Two teenagers, both newcomers to London, forge an unlikely friendship over the course of a hot summer. Tomo (Thomas Turgoose) is a runaway from Nottingham; Marek (Piotr Jagiello) lives in the district of Somers Town, between King's Cross and Euston stations, where his dad is working on a new rail link.

Broke and in debt, an otherwise honest cowboy and his buddy get mixed up in some shady dealings with a crooked cattle dealer.

In 19th century New Orleans creole Henriette must choose between love and devotion to the church. Neither choice is going to be easy, as there is great opposition to her ideas of breaking traditions.

Katy Devoux runs a gambling-drinking joint in British Columbia. She is a fair-playing business woman, but is ashamed of the source of her income, so she has had her daughter Nona raised in the states. Jeff Bowman, an unprincipled scoundrel and business rival, arranges for her daughter to come to town in hope of bringing shame to the mother. He overplays his hand and is killed by Tim Reed, a faithful retainer of Katy's and in love with Nona. The plea is self defense.

After the death of his wife, wealthy businessman Philip Emmenthal and his son Storey open their own private harem in their family residence in Geneva (they get the idea while watching Federico Fellini's 8½ and after Storey is "given" a woman, Simato (Inoh), to waive her pachinko debts). They sign one-year contracts with eight (and a half) women to this effect. The women each have a gimmick (one is a nun, another a kabuki performer, etc.). Philip soon becomes dominated by his favourite of the concubines, Palmira, who has no interest in Storey as a lover, despite what their contract might stipulate. Philip dies, the concubines' contracts expire, and Storey is left alone with Giulietta (the titular "½", played by Fujiwara) and of course the money and the houses.

A group of unemployed theater actors survive by working as illegal money collectors. The loan shark they are working for owns an Off-Broadway theater. As he decided to play "American Buffalo" there, a bloody battle for the favorite roles begin.

Ruinasa is a holding company dedicated to leisure and, why not say, to vice. But these businesses are about to go bankrupt. To avoid this, sincehis prestige is at stake, a company dedicated to protecting various groups of gangsters takes over the holding. However, as they are not specialists in these matters, the company is going even worse and they get together to try to find solutions

After a ten year absence, acclaimed filmmaker Molly Dineen is back with a new feature documentary: Being Blacker; an intimate portrait of Jamaican-born reggae producer, businessman, father, son and prominent community figure, Blacker Dread. 40 years after featuring in Dineen’s first film, Blacker and his family, friends and community in South London face the combined challenges of rapid social change, gentrification, inequality, poverty, crime and racism as they seek to secure their futures. Made with intimacy and warmth, the film takes us deep into Blacker’s world as he buries his mother, closes his business and faces prison for the first time. Being Blacker offers a rarely-heard perspective on life in Britain today.

Without the security of the job he wants or the future he dreamed of, Paul Dynan plans the perfect crime to help his struggling family – abduct the socialite children of three wealthy men and collect a ransom of $3-million dollars. Over the course of one long night, Paul and his accomplices hold the rich kids hostage awaiting the ransom with little idea of the secrets that will surface between the fathers when they are forced to choose between their children and their money.

In June 2003, Reg Keys and his wife Sally return to their home in the Welsh countryside. As they switch on the TV to hear six military policemen have been murdered in Iraq, two men arrive bearing the terrible news that their son, Tom, was among them.

Ronnie, Wal, Andy and Vic are four bored, unemployed teens in dreary, rainy Glasgow. Ronnie comes up with a great idea. He has noticed that stainless steel sinks are worth a lot of money and comes up with a complicated scheme: to steal sinks from a warehouse dressed as girls and using a stop-motion-potion.

This is the tale of two young lovers who flee from the miseries of their homelife to make it on there own. Nineteen year old Chris, rejected by his family, hopes to go to college and into forestry once he's out of the Army Reserves. Holly, who is fourteen, lives with her divorced, overprotective mother and her brother. She runs with an older crowd and soon attaches herself to Chris. Holly's mother is dead set against Chris because of his age, and she and Holly are at odd's over him. When she forbids them to see one another, and boots Chris out of her yard, Holly convinces a doubtful Chris to run off to the promises of California. The Trip West, with the couple penniless, avoiding the law, a lecherous trucker and other routine incidents, shows them that life will not be easy.

A prominent businessman's children become the target of a young, unemployed man, who sees them as his ticket to wealth.

At age 24, Rémi Bonnet, brilliant pianist, abandons Chopin and Toulouse to play the music he has secretly loved for years - Salsa! He heads for Paris, the salsa capital of Europe, only to discover to his great surprise, that nobody wants a white boy in Latin band! Felipe, his Cuban friend, sets him straight: " You don't have the Latino look, muchacho! Today, if your are not Cubano or Columbiano, you are out!". Undaunted, Rémi deliberately takes on the identity, accent and complexion of an unemployed alien in a city where most foreigners will do almost anything to become French. Barreto, 75, the legendary Cuban composer, who is about to close down the once famous Casa Cubana, offers Rémi a job giving dance lessons to the locals. It is here that Rémi falls in love with Nathalie. Her family's "secrets and lies" reveal parental links to Barreto. Do these links explain why this shy beauty ought to be a bomb on the dance floor?

Bill, an ex-boxer, is a failure in life but has no idea what to do about it -- until he meets local dodgy businessman Hamid 'Anything-U-Need' Choudhury. Hamid convinces Bill that there is serious money to be made in man vs animal boxing bouts. Bill cashes in his life savings to buy two meters of living, breathing, armor-plated giant mutant mantis shrimp with a smashing right hook, and sets off for London to fulfill his dreams. Along for the ride are his best friend Steve, ex-condom-factory employee and amateur boxer, Steve's highly-strung girlfriend Shaz, and a misunderstood, club-clawed crustacean who is not as stupid as it seems...

The famous soprano Marta Vélez decides to retire from the operatic stages to rebuild her marriage. Her husband, a heartless scoundrel, tries to swindle a large sum of money from her. But when his scam fails, he devises a plan to kidnap their daughter and get her mother to pay a ransom. Before the inevitable divorce of her parents, Mari-Tere, the child, is in an unexpected "no-man's-land", waiting for someone to love her.

A House on Fire follows brilliant doctor and mother Deborah Green (Stephanie March) who had the epitome of a picture-perfect life with two children, an adoring husband (Shaun Benson) and a beautiful house in an opulent neighborhood. But behind the curtain is a rocky marriage that includes Deb’s difficult bedside manner, her inability to get along with other doctors and an abuse of pills and alcohol, major envy of her husband’s successful medical career and his easy social manner, that takes a terrible turn and leaves her family and marriage in ruin.

A financially-strapped mother and her children relocate from the city to a small rural town.

In a Gypsy village, the fathers of Candela and José promise their children to each other. Years later, the unfaithful José marries Candela but while defending his lover Lucía in a brawl, he is stabbed to death. Carmelo, who secretly loves Candela since he was a boy, is arrested while helping José and unfairly sent to prison. Four years later he is released and declares his love for Candela. However, the woman is cursed by a bewitched love and every night she goes to the place where José died to dance with his ghost.

A gangster and his mob buy a small-town in this warm comedy. They, tired of trying to make it as big city hoods, buy the town to use as a hideout. The leader of the gang begins to have a change of heart after he begins falling for a local girl.

A saloon owner loans her lover the money to buy a house, which he has led her to believe they will live in after they're married. Instead, he takes the money and buys a saloon in another town.

Brian Owens was once a prominent professor of quantum mechanics until an accident stripped him of his credentials; he now teaches at a community college. In order to reclaim his stature, he is trying to build the world's first teleportation machine in his garage at night. All of this while being romantically pursued by one of the art professors at the college, avoiding the crazy old lady next door, and being harassed by the loan sharks he borrowed money from to build his machine. But his biggest problem is he can't get his machine to work.​

Jen is single and looking to find her match with online dating. She connects with Mike, who appears handsome and charming. But some things are too good to be true, and all is not what it seems. When he becomes aggressive Jen pushes away and tries to avoid him, however Mike has other ideas.

Mathieu is a brilliant neurosurgeon whose perfect life is falling apart. Impending divorce, job loss, substance abuse, and a mid-life crisis are all factors that can cause him to go off the rails. In addition, the sudden death of his father forces him to return home to Anishiinabe territory, a place he has tried to avoid since his youth. Nevertheless, Mathieu agrees to go and deposit his father's ashes in the heart of their ancestral territory and wishes to find himself at the same time. The break away from the city promises to be a nice getaway until Mathieu realizes that he is now the prey of an evil creature known as the Wendigo. Mathieu's pilgrimage quickly becomes an unimaginable nightmare that will change him forever. Like it or not, our vices always catch up with us eventually.

Two unemployed girlfriends, bored and needing money, decide to break into the local drug dealer's house and rip him off. However, when they get inside they find that he's been murdered. They decide to track down the killers in order to blackmail them, but they find that it's not going to be quite so cut-and-dried as they thought.

Graustark needs thirty million dollars to satisfy a Russian loan. The Prince of Dawsbergen, ruler of the adjoining principality, will advance the money if the young Prince of Graustark marries his daughter. Prince Robin, however, inherits an independent spirit, his father having been an American. He refuses absolutely to marry a Princess whom he has never seen. His councilors plead in vain. With the ruin of his country imminent, the boy ruler hastily sails for America to negotiate the loan, hoping at the same time to meet the girl of his dreams. The money is readily advanced by William W. Blithers, a self-made millionaire anxious to have his daughter marry into royalty. The daughter, however, avoids the Prince and he does not see her. He rescues a girl from drowning and falls in love with her. He believes her to be Blithers' daughter, but she does not reveal her identity.