Best movies like The Bad and the Beautiful
I took you out of the gutter... I can fling you back!
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Bad and the Beautiful Starring Kirk Douglas, Lana Turner, Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell, and more. If you liked The Bad and the Beautiful then you may also like: The Voice of the City, Nightmares in Red, White and Blue, Nobody's Darling, Nothing But the Truth, On With the Show! 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.
Told in flashback form, the film traces the rise and fall of a tough, ambitious Hollywood producer, Jonathan Shields, as seen through the eyes of various acquaintances, including a writer, James Lee Bartlow; a star, Georgia Lorrison; and a director, Fred Amiel. He is a hard-driving, ambitious man who ruthlessly uses everyone on the way to becoming one of Hollywood's top movie makers.
The Bad and the Beautiful
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Nightmares in Red, White and Blue
An exploration of the appeal of horror films, with interviews of many legendary directors in the genre.
Nobody's Darling
Ugly duckling Janie Farnsworth is a student at Pennington High School, and has a crush on Charles Grant, Jr., who is the writer and producer of the upcoming school play. But Chuck thinks that she is too untalented and unglamorous to have a part in his production....
On With the Show!
With unpaid actors and staff, the stage show Phantom Sweetheart seems doomed. To complicate matters, the box office takings have been robbed and the leading lady refuses to appear. Can the show be saved?
An Open Secret
An investigation into accusations of teenagers being sexually abused within the film industry.
America's Sweethearts
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 Barefoot Contessa
Has-been director Harry Dawes gets a new lease on his career when independently wealthy Kirk Edwards hires him to write and direct a film. They go to Madrid to find Maria Vargas, a dancer who will star in the film.
Bottoms Up
Promoter "Smoothie" King helps a pair of phonies con their way into a movie company. As Wanda heads toward stardom, she turns more and more from King toward the matinée idol. King must decide between his plans and her happiness.
The Broadway Melody
The vaudeville act of Harriet and Queenie Mahoney comes to Broadway, where their friend Eddie Kerns needs them for his number in one of Francis Zanfield's shows. When Eddie meets Queenie, he soon falls in love with her—but she is already being courted by Jock Warriner, a member of New York high society. Queenie eventually recognizes that, to Jock, she is nothing more than a toy, and that Eddie is in love with her.
The Charlatan
A woman goes to a sideshow fortune-teller to have her fortune told, and is astonished when the man looks into his crystal ball and goes into great detail about events in her past that few people ever knew about. Shaken, she leaves and later tells her girlfriend about the incident. The girlfriend insists that she invite the fortune-teller to a party they're having at her house. What the woman doesn't realize is that the "fortune-teller" is actually the ex-husband she abandoned years ago, when she took their daughter and ran off with her lover. When the "charlatan" is invited to the party, he sees an opportunity to take his revenge on his faithless ex-wife.
Sunset Boulevard
A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity.
Dangerous
Dan Bellows finds former stage star Joyce Heath a penniless drunk and takes her to his Connecticut home for rehabilitation. Unaware that she is married to Gordon, he asks his fiancée Gail to free him and offers to sponsor Joyce in a play. When Gordon refuses to give Joyce a divorce, she runs the car into a tree crippling him for life. Joyce urges Dan return to Gail, opens her play, and begs Gordon for forgiveness.
The Last Tycoon
Monroe Stahr, a successful movie producer, pursues a beautiful and elusive young woman — all the while working himself to death.
Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film
This historical and critical look at slasher films, which includes dozens of clips, begins with Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Prom Night. The films' directors, writers, producers, and special effects creators comment on the films' making and success. During the Reagan years, the films get gorier, budgets get smaller, and their appeal wanes. Then, Nightmare on Elm Street revives the genre. Jump to the late 90s, when Scream brings humor and TV stars into the mix.
Fancy Baggage
In order to get back some very important papers from her father's business rival, a young woman pretends to be the rival's new secretary. Complications ensue.
Inside Daisy Clover
A girl on the road to stardom fights the dehumanizing effects of Hollywood life.
Swimming with Sharks
Guy is a young film executive who's willing to do whatever it takes to make it in Hollywood. He begins working for famed producer Buddy Ackerman, a domineering, manipulative, coldhearted boss. When Guy also finds out that his cynical girlfriend, Dawn, has been using sex as a career move, he reaches his limit. Guy decides to exact revenge on Buddy by kidnapping him and subjecting him to cruel and unusual punishment.
Harlow
Loosely based biography of 1930s star Jean Harlow as she begins her climb to stardom. One of two "Harlow" film biographies that appeared in 1965, this one stars Carol Lynley in the title role that begins as Jean Harlow, a bit player in Laurel and Hardy comedies, is invited to test for director Jonathan Martin for the lead in Howard Hughes's "Hell's Angels." She is an instantaneous sensation, and in a series of films devoted more to her body than her talent, she becomes Hollywood's "Platanum Blonde."
Ladies' Day
A top baseball pitcher "loses" his pitching skills whenever he falls in love. After marrying a movie star extreme measures are taken for the benefit of the team.
Thunderbolt
A criminal known as Thunderbolt is imprisoned and facing execution. Into the next cell is placed Bob Moran, an innocent man who has been framed and who is in love with Thunderbolt's girl, without knowing of their relationship. Thunderbolt hopes to stave off the execution long enough to kill young Moran for romancing his girl.
The Broken Land
A cowboy rides into a small town that is ruled with an iron fist by a corrupt sheriff. He becomes involved with a pretty young town girl and some residents who are trying to oust the sheriff, resulting in a robbery, a murder and his being pursued by a vengeful posse.
The Trail of '98
Fortune hunters from all over the country rushing to the Klondike in 1897 to seek their fortunes in the gold are tested by hardships of the journey.
Act One
This autobiographical story traces the career of playwright Moss Hart. Moss struggles as a dramatic writer until he concentrates his efforts on writing comedy. He suffers through a series of professional and romantic failures before a meeting with George S. Kaufman which changes his fortunes.
The Girl from Everywhere
Mack Sennett comedy short subject spoofing filmmaking, with girls, lions, and limburger cheese.
Leave It to Henry
Henry Latham and town Mayor Colton continue their misadventures in Smalltown, America. This time, twelve-year-old David Latham is testifying at the trial of his father, Henry, who is accused of burning down the McCluskey bridge.
Battle Of Broadway
The wealthy owner of a Pennsylvania steel business travels to New York to break up his son's romance with a showgirl. Director George Marshall's 1938 comedy stars Victor McLaglen, Brian Donlevy, Gypsy Rose Lee, Raymond Walburn, Hattie McDaniel, Lynn Bari, Robert Kellard, Jane Darwell, Andrew Tombes, Esther Muir and Frank Moran.
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.
Cannes Man
Film producer Sy Lerner makes a bet with a fellow film executive that he can turn any nobody into a star at the Cannes Film Festival. A New York cab driver who is visiting the festival is chosen as the test subject to settle the bet and Sy uses his skills of hype and manipulation to try and turn the cab driver named Frank into the talk of the town. Many celebrities make cameos throughout the film.
The Lonely Lady
A young screenwriter allows others to exploit her in the hopes of "making it" in Hollywood.
The Passionate Stranger
Judith Wynter is a happily married novelist whose romantic works are eagerly devoured by scores of female readers. When Carlo, a handsome young Italian chauffeur, arrives to work for Judith and her husband, a professor currently recovering from an attack of paralysis, he causes quite a flutter; when he then reads the manuscript of Judith's latest novel, he jumps to a rather unfortunate conclusion... and life in the Wynter household becomes very complicated indeed!
One Dangerous Night
Reformed jewel thief the Lone Wolf investigates the murder of a playboy who was blackmailing three socialites.
The Death Kiss
When a movie actor is shot and killed during production, the true feelings about the actor begin to surface. As the studio heads worry about negative publicity, one of the writers tags along as the killing is investigated and clues begin to surface.
Full Tilt Boogie
A documentary about the production of From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) and the people who made it.
The Studio Murder Mystery
Philandering actor Richard Hardell is murdered at a movie studio. His jealous wife Blanche, his director Rupert Borka, and a girl he mistreated, Helen MacDonald, all have substantial reasons for having wanted him dead.
Strange Cargo
On board a yacht sailing from India to Britain, the owner of the vessel is murdered by one of the passengers. (This film was produced both in full sound and silent versions, the latter for theaters that had not yet been wired for sound.)
Hardboiled Rose
A Southern Belle must work in a gambling house to pay off her father's debts, which drove him to suicide. She then meets a man who sweeps her off her feet and takes her away from it all.
Something to Sing About
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.
Hijacking Hollywood
An aspiring director working as a lowly production assistant, conspires with his aspiring producer roommate to steal the reels of a mega budgeted film he's working on.
Behind That Curtain
Sir George hires Hillary Gatt to find out more about Eric who wants to marry Lois. Gatt is murdered and the couple, married, run off to India. Old friend John Beetham sympathizes with the bride who sees that her hubby is a liar and drunk. John and Lois fly to San Francisco. Eric shows up and tries to kill John, but Scotland Yard's Lt. Charlie Chan intervenes. Chan fans may be disappointed in this globe-trotting mystery, however, as the detective only appears in a few scenes. The film is more noteworthy for its introduction of Boris Karloff to sound features, in a small role as a servant from Sudan who mutters inscrutable nonsense about the whims of the desert.
Hearts of the West
Naive Iowa farm boy Lewis Tater dreams of being a famous Western novelist like his hero, Zane Grey. He leaves home to answer a writing correspondence course's ad for on-campus classes, only to discover that the school consists of a row of postboxes at an isolated Nevada train depot. On the run from the con men responsible, Lewis stumbles across "real" cowboys--cowboy actors shooting a movie in the desert. The would-be writer soon finds himself instead acting in Westerns, for the rundown Tumbleweed Productions studio, in Depression-era Hollywood.
Scream: The Inside Story
In 1996, the horror master Wes Craven unleashed Scream, a slasher movie aimed at a whole new generation of teenage movie-goers.
Mary Pickford: The Muse of the Movies
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.
Told in flashback form, the film traces the rise and fall of a tough, ambitious Hollywood producer, Jonathan Shields, as seen through the eyes of various acquaintances, including a writer, James Lee Bartlow; a star, Georgia Lorrison; and a director, Fred Amiel. He is a hard-driving, ambitious man who ruthlessly uses everyone on the way to becoming one of Hollywood's top movie makers.
The Bad and the Beautiful
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Bad and the Beautiful Starring Kirk Douglas, Lana Turner, Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell, and more. If you liked The Bad and the Beautiful then you may also like: The Voice of the City, Nightmares in Red, White and Blue, Nobody's Darling, Nothing But the Truth, On With the Show! 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 Voice of the City
An escaped convict and the detective tasked with hunting him down end up working in parallel to clear the convict's name and nab the gangsters that framed him.