Best movies like Studs Lonigan
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A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Studs Lonigan Starring Christopher Knight, Frank Gorshin, Venetia Stevenson, Carolyn Craig, and more. If you liked Studs Lonigan then you may also like: The Wanderers, Native Son, No Marriage Ties, The Racket, The Razor's Edge 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.
A young man tries to escape the South Side of 1920s Chicago.
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Native Son
A young black man named Bigger Thomas takes a job working for a highly influential Chicago family, a decision that will change the course of his life forever.
No Marriage Ties
An unemployed reporter, fired because of his drinking, takes a job at an advertising agency. Drama.
The Razor's Edge
An adventurous young man goes off to find himself and loses his socialite fiancée in the process. But when he returns 10 years later, she will stop at nothing to get him back, even though she is already married.
Robin and the 7 Hoods
In prohibition-era Chicago, the corrupt sheriff and Guy Gisborne, a south-side racketeer, knock off the boss Big Jim. Everyone falls in line behind Guy except Robbo, who controls the north side. Although he's out-gunned, Robbo wants to keep his own territory. A pool-playing dude from Indiana and the director of a boys' orphanage join forces with Robbo; and, when he gives some money to the orphanage, he becomes the toast of the town as a hood like Robin Hood. Meanwhile, Guy schemes to get rid of Robbo, and Big Jim's heretofore unknown daughter Marian appears and goes from man to man trying to find an ally in her quest to run the whole show. Can Robbo hold things together?
The Bells of St. Mary's
Father O'Malley is sent to St. Mary's, a run-down parochial school on the verge of condemnation. He and Sister Benedict work together in an attempt to save the school, though their differing methods often lead to good-natured disagreements.
A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon
A recent high school graduate is faced with two options, either go to a business school where his father wants him to go to, or get a full time job. However he decides to defy his father and go to Hawaii. Trouble is he has no money. Along the way he comes to understand his parents and eventually bonds with his father.
The Public Enemy
Two young Chicago hoodlums, Tom Powers and Matt Doyle, rise up from their poverty-stricken slum life to become petty thieves, bootleggers and cold-blooded killers. But with street notoriety and newfound wealth, the duo feels the heat from the cops and rival gangsters both. Despite his ruthless criminal reputation, Tom tries to remain connected to his family, however, gang warfare and the need for revenge eventually pull him away.
The Crowd Roars
A young boxer gets caught between a no-good father and a crime boss when he starts dating the boss's daughter, although she doesn't know what daddy does for a living.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
In Brooklyn circa 1900, the Nolans manage to enjoy life on pennies despite great poverty and Papa's alcoholism. We come to know these people well through big and little troubles: Aunt Sissy's scandalous succession of "husbands"; the removal of the one tree visible from their tenement; and young Francie's desire to transfer to a better school...if irresponsible Papa can get his act together.
Hoop Dreams
Every school day, African-American teenagers William Gates and Arthur Agee travel 90 minutes each way from inner-city Chicago to St. Joseph High School in Westchester, Illinois, a predominately white suburban school well-known for the excellence of its basketball program. Gates and Agee dream of NBA stardom, and with the support of their close-knit families, they battle the social and physical obstacles that stand in their way. This acclaimed documentary was shot over the course of five years.
Police Court
A once great stage and screen actor has fallen from fame because of his alcoholism; his young son is determined to see his father "make good" again.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Based on writer Maya Angelou's eloquent reminiscences of her days as a gifted youngster growing up in the South during the Depression years where she and her older brother were raised by their grandmother after the divorce of their parents.
Stolen Summer
Pete, an eight-year-old Catholic boy growing up in the suburbs of Chicago in the mid-1970s, attends Catholic school, where as classes let out for the summer, he's admonished by a nun to follow the path of the Lord, and not that of the Devil. Perhaps taking this message a bit too seriously, Pete decides it's his goal for the summer to help someone get into heaven - by trying to convert a Jew to Catholicism.
Gangs of Chicago
A criminal uses his knowledge of the law for his not-very-legal purposes, betraying friends along the way.
The Squealer
A gangster's wife, fearful that he is about to be murdered by his rivals, tips off the police to his whereabouts in order to save his life. Her husband, however, believes her reason was that she wanted him out of the way so she could have his best friend.
Man Trouble
A hard-boiled nightclub owner saves a beautiful young girl from drowning. He promptly falls in love with her, but she prefers a younger, more-genteel lover.
Sweet Daddies
Stage comedian Patrick O'Brien is fired from his job because of his drinking celebration of his son, Jimmy, graduating from college. After the show he meets his son on a cabaret and there meets Abel Finklestein and his daughter, Miriam, and the two fathers form a business alliance, suspected of being bootlegging. They are arrested but are released after it is found they were importing molasses - but Miriam has to promise to marry Sam Berkowitz to secure the release. Jimmy and both fathers are unhappy with this turn of events.
Wild Boys of the Road
At the height of the Great Depression, Tommy's mother has been out of work for months when Eddie's father loses his job. Eager not to burden their parents, the two high school Sophomores decide to hop the freight trains and look for work.
New Port South
A group of teenagers wish to rebel against the administrators and teachers (the system) in their suburban Chicago high school called New Port South
Sensation Hunters
A naive young girl, looking to escape from a bad family situation, falls in love with a man who turns out to be a cad, and leads her down the road to ruin.
Gangster Land
The story of America's most famous mobsters and their rise to power. Examine Al Capone's ascension through the eyes of his second in command, “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn.
The Man Who Dared
An "imaginative biography" of Anton Cermak, mayor of Chicago who was killed in the line of fire during an assassination attempt on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt in Miami on February 15, 1933.
Chicago at the Crossroad
While gun violence was on the decline in most major US cities, why did it continue to increase in Chicago's segregated communities? What is known about the systems that created the problem, the laws that isolated it, and the policies that abandoned it? Using dramatic footage, including interviews with residents on the front lines over the last 15 years, this documentary opens a rare historical window into the systematic creation of poverty stricken communities plagued by gun violence.
Inside The Mob's Bloody Valentine
The St. Valentine's Day massacre is the stuff of American legend, and the tale is familiar to nearly everyone. But the story of that bloody day in Chicago has never been told, or seen, like this before. Cutting-edge graphics and frenetic recreations accompany Johnny Fratto, son of onetime Al Capone-associate Louis "Lew" Fratto, back to Chicago, where he uncovers massacre myths and learns more about the life his father and uncles led when they roamed those lawless streets in the 1920s. Johnny gets guidance and opinions from a team of renowned Chicago gangster experts, and bridges the gap between the stories he heard as a little boy and the reality he lived growing up in a mob family. Johnny's take about what happened on Feb. 14, 1929 will surprise you.
We Grown Now
Two young boys, best friends Malik and Eric, discover the joys and hardships of growing up in the sprawling Cabrini-Green public housing complex in 1992 Chicago.
Cold Justice
When a washed-up boxer invites a British priest to minister in his South Chicago neighborhood, he never suspects that the priest is not who he says he is.
A young man tries to escape the South Side of 1920s Chicago.
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Studs Lonigan Starring Christopher Knight, Frank Gorshin, Venetia Stevenson, Carolyn Craig, and more. If you liked Studs Lonigan then you may also like: The Wanderers, Native Son, No Marriage Ties, The Racket, The Razor's Edge 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.
The Wanderers
The streets of the Bronx are owned by '60s youth gangs where the joy and pain of adolescence is lived. Philip Kaufman tells his take on the novel by Richard Price about the history of the Italian-American gang ‘The Wanderers.’