Best movies like Shakes the Clown

Tells the seemingly random yet vitally connected story of a set of incidents that all converge one evening at 11:14pm. The story follows the chain of events of five different characters and five different storylines that all converge to tell the story of murder and deceit.

"Touring makes you crazy," Frank Zappa says, explaining that the idea for this film came to him while the Mothers of Invention were touring. The story, interspersed with performances by the Mothers and the Royal Symphony Orchestra, is a tale of life on the road. The band members' main concerns are the search for groupies and the desire to get paid.

Kyle Fisher has one last night to celebrate life as a single man before marrying Laura, so he sets out to Vegas with four of his best buddies. But a drug and alcohol filled night on the town with a stripper who goes all the way, turns into a cold night in the desert with shovels when the stripper goes all the way into a body bag after dying in their bathroom. And that's just the first of the bodies to pile up before Kyle can walk down the aisle...

Vulgar is about a man who is a children's clown but has not been getting much luck lately. He lives in a cheap apartment which he can't even afford. Bums are constantly sleeping in his run down car and crashing on his lawn. He has a nagging mother who lives in a nursing home, and his best friend is a moocher. One day he comes up with the idea to become a bachelor clown.

Two out-of-work actors -- the anxious, luckless Marwood and his acerbic, alcoholic friend, Withnail -- spend their days drifting between their squalid flat, the unemployment office and the pub. When they take a holiday "by mistake" at the country house of Withnail's flamboyantly gay uncle, Monty, they encounter the unpleasant side of the English countryside: tedium, terrifying locals and torrential rain.

The story centers on a small-town sheriff who witnesses what he believes is a kidnapping and rushes to rescue a woman. The kidnappers turn out to be FBI agents assigned to protect her and deliver her to a big Enron-type corruption trial in Chicago but are later found to be on the take and are villains who are bent on killing her

Peter and Katherine Witner are Southern California super-yuppies with great jobs but no center to their lives. When they both lose their jobs and begin marital infidelities, their solution is to start their own business together. In order to find meaning to their empty lives, they follow various New Age gurus and other such groups. Eventually, they hit rock bottom and have to make some hard decisions.

A dentist finds himself a murder suspect after a sexy patient seduces him into prescribing her drugs.

Ex-convict Eddie and his wife, Kristine, attempt to build a new life for themselves and their daughter Kathy in San Francisco, but police officer Mike Vido is determined to send Eddie back to prison.

After being captured and tortured by the psychopath Otis, teen cheerleader Riley Lawson escapes and informs her parents, who quickly sidestep sluggish FBI agents and take matters into their own hands. But the Lawsons' revenge plan hits a snag when Otis's unusual brother enters the picture.

With the aid of his girlfriend, Phyllis Potter, and best friend, Loomis, Grimm enters a Manhattan bank dressed as a clown, creates a hostage situation and executes a flawless robbery. The only thing left for the trio to do is make their getaway out of the city and to the airport. It sounds simple enough, but it seems that fate deserts them immediately after the bank heist. One mishap after another conspires to keep these robbers from reaching freedom.

When the Earl of Gurney dies in a cross-dressing accident, his schizophrenic son, Jack, inherits the Gurney estate. Jack is not the average nobleman; he sings and dances across the estate and thinks he is Jesus reincarnated. Believing that Jack is mentally unfit to own the estate, the Gurney family plots to steal Jack's inheritance. As their outrageous schemes fail, the family strives to cure Jack of his bizarre behavior, with disastrous results.

An alcoholic becomes involved in a fellow A.A. member's plan to kidnap her young son from the boy's wealthy grandfather.

A young man inherits a nearly bankrupt funeral home from his estranged father. He falls in love with the alluring young mortician, only to find out she's offing people to keep the place in business!

An adaptation of Herman Melville's short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener" told in the setting of a modern office.

When three redneck brothers agree to help a woman save her son from an abusive father, they become targets on the run from an odd cast of characters.

Remy McSwain is a New Orleans police lieutenant who investigates the murder of a local mobster. His investigation leads him to suspect that fellow members of the police force may be involved.

To remedy his financial problems, a travel agent has his eye on a frozen corpse, which just happens to be sought after by two hitmen.

Still recovering from a heart transplant, a retired FBI profiler returns to service when his own blood analysis offers clues to the identity of a serial killer.

Upon his release from a mental hospital following a nervous breakdown, the directionless Anthony joins his friend Dignan, who seems far less sane than the former. Dignan has hatched a hair-brained scheme for an as-yet-unspecified crime spree that somehow involves his former boss, the (supposedly) legendary Mr. Henry.

A pharmaceutical scientist creates a pill that makes people remember their happiest memory, and although it's successful, it has unfortunate side effects.

Bernice "Bernie" Rhodenbarr is a burglar by trade, and she runs a bookstore as well. Her friend Carl Hefler is a dog groomer. After a successful burglary, it's discovered that a dead body was in the house she burgled. As she's the only one who can be placed at the scene of the crime, she has to use her criminal skills to clear her name of the murder AND avoid getting charged with the burglary.

An uncompromising British school headmaster finds himself beset by one thing going wrong after another.

A card shark and his unwillingly-enlisted friends need to make a lot of cash quick after losing a sketchy poker match. To do this they decide to pull a heist on a small-time gang who happen to be operating out of the flat next door.

Chicklet is a sixteen-year old tomboy who's desperate to be part of the in-crowd of Malibu beach surfers. She's the typical American girl - except for one little problem: her personality is split into more slices than a pepperoni pizza.

A low-budget, sci-fi satire that focuses on a group of scientists whose mission is to destroy unstable planets. 20 years into their mission, they have to battle their alien mascot, that resembles a beach ball, as well as a "sensitive" and intelligent bombing device that starts to question the meaning of its existence.

LAPD Sgt. Joe Friday -- the equally straight-laced nephew of the famous police sergeant of the same name -- is paired up with a young, freewheeling detective named Pep Streebeck. After investigating some strange robberies at the local zoo and the theft of a stockpile of pornographic magazines, they uncover cult activity in the heart of the city and are hot on the case to figure out who's behind it all.

Three related women, all named Cissie Colpitts, share a solidarity for one another which brings about three copy-cat drownings. The local coroner is in love with all three women and helps to disguise the murders.

Craig and Smokey are two guys in Los Angeles hanging out on their porch on a Friday afternoon, smoking and drinking, looking for something to do.

Craig and his cousin Day Day have finally moved out of their parents' houses and into their own crib, working nights at a local mall as security guards. When their house is robbed on Christmas Eve they set out to track down the culprit.

A man and a woman are on the run from gangsters whom he has stolen $12.5 million. When the gangsters show up, he takes them supposedly to where the money is hidden but instead leads them into a trap at a backwoods crystal-meth factory. The gangsters and the drug dealers start a shoot-out for unknown reasons and both go gunning for Belushi. Meanwhile an unscrupulous cop is secretly having an affair with the girl friend and planning to make off with the money.

Two teenage couples traveling across the backwoods of Texas searching for urban legends of serial killers end up as prisoners of a bizarre and sadistic backwater family of serial killers.

Norman Reedus stars as Harry Odum, a henpecked, 18-year-old momma's boy in Youngstown, Ohio, who -- with his violent temper -- impresses a local boss of the Jewish Mafia. Soon he's found his calling as a hit man alongside his crack addict partner Arnie Finklestein (Adrien Brody), and he discovers that his rage and complicated psychosis fuel his murderous abilities. Harry also falls for the organization's limping, Hungarian-born maid Iris (Elina Lowensohn), a romance complicated by Harry's Oedipal, sexual relationship with his domineering mother Kate (Deborah Harry).

Chevy Chase makes his film debut in this riotous collection of live skits. Directed by Ken Shapiro and featuring Chase, Richard Belzer and others, The Groove Tube mocks TV Land and its trappings by spoofing kids' shows -- from a marijuana-smoking Koko the Clown who resides in Make Believe Land, to Safety Sam, the penis with a plan who gleefully informs the audience of the perils of casual sex.

In this irreverent comedy, a failed actor-turned-worse-high-school-drama-teacher rallies his Tucson, AZ students as he conceives and stages politically incorrect musical sequel to Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Three laborers on a Northern California marijuana plantation become increasingly paranoid when they learn that their boss has been murdered. They know enough to run, taking with them enough of the crop to pay them for services rendered. Hooking up with go-between Lucy in the next town, they plot their next move.

A career officer and his wife work with a police detective to uncover the truth behind their son's disappearance following his return from a tour of duty in Iraq.

A group of idealistic, but frustrated, liberals succumb to the temptation of murdering rightwing pundits for their political beliefs.

Nick is the director of a low-budget indie film. He tries to keep everything together as his production is plagued with an insecure actress, a megalomaniac star, a pretentious, beret-wearing director of photography, and lousy catering.

Warwick Wilson is the consummate host. He carefully prepares for a dinner party, the table impeccably set and the duck perfectly timed for 8:30 p.m. John Taylor is a career criminal. He’s just robbed a bank and needs to get off the streets. He finds himself on Warwick’s doorstep posing as a friend of a friend, new to Los Angeles, who’s been mugged and lost his luggage.

A suburban Baltimore housewife's life is upended when her husband reveals he's been serially unfaithful and her teenage children go wayward. Then she meets a handsome stranger...

Substance-addicted Hollywood actress, Suzanne Vale is on the skids. After a spell at a detox centre her film company insists as a condition of continuing to employ her that she live with her mother, herself once a star and now a champion drinker. Such a set-up is bad news for Suzanne who has struggled for years to get out of her mother's shadow, and who still treats her like a child. Despite these and other problems, Suzanne begins to see the funny side of her situation, and also realises that not only do daughters have mothers—mothers do too.

Two pals embark on a road trip full of funny pranks that pull real people into mayhem.

After a friend overdoses, Spoon and Stretch decide to kick their drug habits and attempt to enroll in a government detox program. Their efforts are hampered by seemingly endless red tape, as they are shuffled from one office to another while being chased by drug dealers and the police.

A young woman (Tanya Allen) rally races across Canada with her boyfriend (Breckin Meyer) and another couple (Jake Busey and Denise Richards) to bail her brother out of a marijuana charge.

For Tammy, a burger-joint employee, a bad day keeps getting worse. She wrecks her car, loses her job and finds that her husband has been unfaithful. It's time for Tammy to hit the road, but without money or transportation, her options are limited. Her only choice is a road trip with her hard-drinking grandmother, Pearl, who has a car, cash and an itch to see Niagara Falls. It's not the escape Tammy had in mind, but it may be what she needs.

Tommy has lost his job, his love and his life. He lives in a small apartment above the Trees Lounge, a bar which he frequents along with a few other regulars without lives. He gets a job driving an ice cream truck and ends up getting involved with the seventeen-year-old niece of his ex-girlfriend. This gets him into serious trouble with her father.

After being thrown away from home, pregnant high school dropout Maria meets Matthew, a highly educated and extremely moody electronics repairman. The two begin an unusual romance built on their sense of mutual admiration and trust.

A struggling screenwriter inadvertently becomes entangled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld after his oddball friends kidnap a gangster's beloved Shih Tzu.

An aging out of work clown returns to his small hometown, resigned to spend the rest of his days in a drunken stupor. But when his passion for clowning is reawakened by the local amateur circus he finds his smile.