Best movies & TV Shows like The Comeback Kids

Italian immigrant Rudolph Valentino makes it big in silent Hollywood, but he ends up struggling between his career and the woman he loves.

Gavin Stone, a washed-up former child star, is forced to do community service at a local megachurch and pretends to be Christian so he can land the part of Jesus in their annual Passion Play, only to discover that the most important role of his life is far from Hollywood.

Released two years after James Dean's death, this documentary chronicles his short life and career via black-and-white still photographs, interviews with the aunt and uncle who raised him, his paternal grandparents, a New York City cabdriver friend, the owner of his favorite Los Angeles restaurant, outtakes from East of Eden, footage of the opening night of Giant, and Dean's ironic PSA for safe driving.

Danny, an ambitious singing and dancing cat, goes to Hollywood and overcomes several obstacles to fulfill his dream of becoming a movie star.

A disgraced reporter investigates an abandoned luxury hotel where five people mysteriously disappeared sixty years earlier.

Former child star Joe Davis, reduced to living in a cheap Hollywood motel while struggling for acting jobs, is lusted after by nearly every woman he meets, including Jessica Todd, a tightly wound feminist who has recently come out as a lesbian. When Jessica's mother, Sally, an emotionally needy has-been actress, meets Joe, she moves him into her enormous, tacky mansion as her new boy toy and attempts to get him acting work.

TV child star of the '70s, Dickie Roberts is now 35 and parking cars. Craving to regain the spotlight, he auditions for a role of a normal guy, but the director quickly sees he is anything but normal. Desperate to win the part, Dickie hires a family to help him replay his childhood and assume the identity of an average, everyday kid.

An intergalactic dog pilot from Sirius (the dog star), visits Earth to verify the rumors that dogs have failed to take over the planet.

A dictatorial film director hires an unknown actress to play the lead role in a planned movie biography of a late, great Hollywood star.

Michael Chapman, a former child TV star, runs a struggling talent agency specilizing in child acts. When a young girl off the street puts on a real performance after he catches her picking his pocket, he may have just found the next big thing.

A girl on the road to stardom fights the dehumanizing effects of Hollywood life.

A grocery clerk, longing to become a cowboy actor, goes to Hollywood in search of fame and fortune. Unfortunately, his acting ability is non-existent.

In an attempt to sign a Hollywood starlet, struggling talent agent and former child star Howard Holloway must contend with her volatile father, a scheming long-time rival, and a producer and casting director who despise him.

An Eddie Cantor look-alike organizes an all-star show to help the war effort.

Down-on-his-luck film director Jimmie Dale takes a job at a fly-by-night acting school. He is drawn into the plans of the school's owner to bilk a wealthy young man out of the funds he has supplied to shoot a movie starring pretty student Alice Perkins. But Jimmie hopes to bilk the bilkers by actually completing the movie as ostensibly planned.

Sheridan O'Connor and Riccardo Rossi were destined to meet on the set of their first big movie together when barely out of their teens. What they didn't know was that their on-screen chemistry would translate into a hot and heavy off-screen romance destined only for disaster. Now, living continents apart and a lifetime later, expecting their paths never to cross again, they are thrown back together to star in an updated version of their original film. The studio has high hopes that they will be able to attract the same audience who loved them the first time around. But working together again could demand greater acting skills than either ever imagined: long hours filming awkward romantic scenes, reliving the past and coming face to face with what fate has in store for them. Only slightly shaken and gently stirred by family and friends, Sheridan and Riccardo must find a way to make the perfect martini out of life so as not to waste a single drop of happiness.

The story of a child star attempting to mend his relationship with his law-breaking, alcohol-abusing father over the course of a decade, loosely based on Shia LaBeouf’s life.

First Down. Second Chance. Skylar is a star quarterback of his football team. He's got the skills, the looks, and the girls. His next-door neighbor, Walter is a loving husband, good father and all-round decent family man. When their worlds start to crumble they find themselves in jail together and suddenly these former enemies must rely on each other to rebuild their lives...

Lucy Freers has a long-standing marriage, a nine-year old daughter, and a great family life in the suburbs of Hollywood. Great, that is, until the Hollywood set decides that motherhood is the newest way to go. When local neighbor Julia Prentice, the wife of a famous movie actor, adopts a baby in full view of the show-business media, the parenthood craze hits its peak. Soon after, Julia is found lying dead in Lucy's swimming pool, with Lucy and her husband labeled as suspects. Now Lucy must determine the truth to clear the name of both herself and her family.

An 11 year old radio star decides to throw in her scripts and go undercover to get a better feel for her roles, but when she is kidnapped, trouble soon follows in this comedy.

Virginia Perry, a former movie star, leaves her family and returns to Hollywood to make a comeback, but age has taken its toll and she is cast in small character roles. Meanwhile, her daughter, Betty Ann, has won a beauty contest, and heads for Hollywood. They end up in the same, film, with Mom playing her Mom. Marshall tries to take advantage of the naive Betty. Somebody gets shot. Somebody is put on trial.

Marguerite Sydney is a celebrated Hollywood star attempting a comeback after a stay in a mental hospital, as well as trying to re-establish a relationship with her teenage son, and risking a romance with a mysterious stranger.

When Hollywood film studios reject her because she's too young, an Arkansas woman sets out to build a career as an actress on her own.

An account of the rise and fall of a silent film comic, Billy Bright. The movie begins with his funeral, as he speaks from beyond the grave in a bitter tone about his fate, and takes us through his fame, as he ruins it with womanizing and drink, and his fall, as a lonely, bitter old man unable to reconcile his life's disappointments. The movie is based loosely on the life of Buster Keaton.

Following a terrible car accident, a child tells a lawman that the woman claiming to be her mother is an impostor.

Biographical documentary about the life and career of the film star. What lies behind the extraordinary success of a man sometimes described as a nice guy who came first.

A silent Western star has trouble adjusting to the coming of sound.

Sketchy producers hire an ailing movie star, hoping to cash in on the insurance when he dies.

Over the hill film starlet Gaye Roman lounges around her rundown Hollywood home and ekes out a living coercing innocent young men into taking her carnal acting courses. Meanwhile, smarmy con artist photographer Rodney Lecoq manipulates lovely and naive hippie girls into doing revealing poses for him.

Former child star Jackie Cooper headlines this sentimental behind-the-scenes comedy drama. He plays an ex-child star who now jerks sodas for a living in Hollywood. He gets back into the movie business when he overhears a conversation between producers discussing their newest prodigy. Cooper butts in and suggests the producers remake Skippy (a real-life 1931 film that made young Cooper a star). The bigwigs like the idea and then hire Cooper to become the boy's acting coach. Once back on the backlot, Cooper finds both trouble and romance while helping the young boy adjust to life as a movie star.

This one-hour film, narrated by Actor BURT LANCASTER, explores the lingering effects of The Hollywood Blacklist, which occurred in the late forties and early fifties as part of the Anti-Communist witch-hunts that terrorized the nation. This film is seen through the eyes of the wives and children of the now deceased Hollywood figures whose careers were destroyed when studio bosses, along with guild and union officials capitulated to the demands of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Following the life of Marlene Dietrich through her films (including home movies) and interviews with family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, and presumed lovers. From the cabaret scene in 1920's Berlin, silent films in Germany, her triumph in _The Blue Angel_ in 1930 (for which her screen test is included in this film), to Hollywood with Josef von Sternberg. The highest paid female star of her time, the luster dimmed by 1935. and in the later part of the decade she might be the most valuable actress in the world but also the most unemployable. But with _Destry Rides Again_ Marlene became a sex symbol who could play comedy and the most remarkable comeback in Hollywood was a reality. She was one of the most active entertainers of the allied troops during WW II. After the war movies were infrequent, but a new career on the stage continued for another 20 years, until she retired into seclusion for the last decade of her life.

A short kid from a Canadian army base becomes the international pop culture darling of the 1980s—only to find the course of his life altered by a stunning diagnosis. What happens when an incurable optimist confronts an incurable disease?

His love of film began as an escape from a rocky childhood. From underdog to Hollywood legend, Sylvester Stallone tells his story in this documentary.

E! True Hollywood Story is an American documentary series on E! that deals with famous Hollywood celebrities, movies, TV shows and also well-known public figures. Among the topics covered on the program include salacious re-tellings of Hollywood secrets, show-biz scandals, celebrity murders and mysteries, porn-star biographies, and "where-are-they-now?" investigations of former child stars. It frequently features in-depth interviews, actual courtroom footage, and dramatic reenactments. When aired on the E! network, episodes will be updated to reflect the current life or status of the subject.

In this improvised comedy, the three former child stars - Jodie Sweetin, Christine Lakin, and Beverley Mitchell - play exaggerated versions of themselves in their current Hollywood lives. With the support of one another, this girl squad can take on anything when it comes to parenting, marriage, friendship and revived careers in Hollywood.

With stardom come challenges that make celebrities face the reality of Tinsel Town. Five actresses profiled on "Hollywood Divas" experience the dark side of fame, like being blackballed by the industry over a personal relationship or confronting image issues over what others say about them. Golden Brooks thinks reality stars usurp actresses' roles; Countess Vaughn believes her physique limits her roles; Paula Jai Parker feels shunned for marrying a production aide; Lisa Wu strives for respect as an actress; Elise Neal, nearing 50, reignites her dance troupe.

Ricky Sprocket: Showbiz Boy is an animated TV series that aired on Nickelodeon and now airs on Nicktoons. Its first airing was on September 1, 2007 in the United Kingdom. The series was produced in 2007 and it is seen in over 150 countries. In Canada, it is aired on Teletoon. In the UK, it aired on Nickelodeon UK in the United Kingdom. It is a Canadian production made in Vancouver, BC.

Ruth Jones stars as a 40-something mum juggling the ups and downs of family life amid the chaos of her eccentric friends, relatives and children's fathers.

For Valerie Cherish, no price is too high to pay for clinging to the spotlight. Desperate to revive her career, she agrees to star in a reality TV series, allowing cameras to follow her every move as she lands a part on a new network sitcom.

The series stars Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges as Arnold and Willis Jackson, two African American boys from Harlem who are taken in by a rich white Park Avenue businessman named Phillip Drummond and his daughter Kimberly, for whom their deceased mother previously worked. During the first season and first half of the second season, Charlotte Rae also starred as the Drummonds' housekeeper, Mrs. Garrett.

Michael Hayes is a TV series that ran on CBS from 1997 to 1998. It stars David Caruso and Ruben Santiago-Hudson. David Caruso plays in the title role as Michael Hayes. Hayes is an Irish Catholic ex-New York City police officer appointed acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York State. This series was Caruso's first attempt at a comeback on television, after he infamously left NYPD Blue a few years earlier and a failed launch into movies, when both Kiss of Death and Jade were box office and critical failures. Despite this, Michael Hayes was cancelled at the end of its first season, and Caruso slowly continued into supporting roles in film and guest spots on television before reaching new heights once again with CSI: Miami, which ran from 2002 until 2012.

Seven 40-year-olds are drawn together by a disturbing school reunion. Long-standing sexual tensions and emotional conflicts come to a head as the surreal secrets of apparently normal lives are revealed. Acting as a catalyst, the reunion forces the seven friends into a re-evaluation of their past and the present—and brings about an unexpected future.

Does (sex) life end for gay men as they face 50? Watch Nathan, Brad, Muscles & Ross stumble through middle-age in an alternate universe called West Hollywood.

From the minds of Kate Berlant, John Early and Andrew DeYoung, 555 is an anthology miniseries of five short films that unfold in a stark, humid, surreality of Hollywood. These short, cinematic fairy tales are set in tinsel town, where status is everything and the stakes are high. The backdrop is big dreams, and in the foreground, the humiliations of clawing one’s way toward them. Each episode focuses on a fraught relationship between two characters, where ambition prevails over empathy. Among the wildly varied characters: a young Mama Rose type and her mute child, two sensual but ignorant acting students, an agent turned artist by tragedy and his partner who must watch his grotesque fall. Each episode zooms in on characters toiling in different corners of a Hollywood hellscape. Will greed, egotism, ignorance and desire consume them? Or can they escape dark fates by clinging to rare moments of tenderness?

13 year old British film star Isaac Mensah was sexually abused by a producer on the set of a Hollywood film, the family decide to take action after learning the truth and Deal with US Lawyers who offer the family 3 million to stay silent.

Discover the untold story of the toxic and abusive environment inside '90s kids' TV. Hear harrowing accounts from former child stars and crew who probe the balance of power in the industry and reveal an era that inflicted lasting wounds still felt today.

Acting Dead is a satirical dark comedy about the world of Hollywood zombies, and not just the ones leaving their Botox appointments in Beverly Hills. What if your acting career took a turn for the worse, and the only way to be cast in the ever-growing number of zombie-based TV show and movies was to...actually become one? Welcome to the afterlife of Tate and Alex, both struggling to get by, living in their new skin, or what's left of it. But life doesn't slow down just because your heart stopped beating. Sometimes you have to go six feet under to get to the top.

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.