Best movies like The Life of Riley
Based on the Hit Radio Show
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Life of Riley Starring William Bendix, Rosemary DeCamp, James Gleason, Beulah Bondi, and more. If you liked The Life of Riley then you may also like: Johnny Holiday, Judge Hardy and Son, Kill the Umpire, The Big Broadcast, Death of a Cheerleader 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.
Inspired by the popular '40s radio show of the same title, director Irving Brecher's 1949 comedy stars William Bendix as a hard-working husband-and-father with no shortage of family problems.
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Judge Hardy and Son
Judge Hardy guides Andy through problems with girls, money and an essay contest.
Kill the Umpire
Ex-baseball player Bill Johnson, failing at many jobs when his ball-playing days are over, reluctantly takes the advice of his father-in-law, Jonah Evans, a retired umpire, and enters an umpire-training school. Assigned to the Texas League, he does fine until the championship play-offs when a riot develops over one of his calls. The involved player is knocked unconscious in the proceedings and cannot verify that Bill made the correct call. Despite lynch mob plans to at least tar-and-feather him, Bill's family - his daughters Lucy (Gloria Henry and Susan and his wife Betty - help Bill reach the ballpark safely the next day through a series of hair-raising encounters.
The Big Broadcast
The top brass at a radio station believe their popular new star singer is paying more attention to his love life than to his career.
Death of a Cheerleader
A remake of the cult classic, inspired by Randall Sullivan’s Rolling Stone article of the same name about the real life murder of a popular, affluent and beautiful Northern California high school cheerleader at the hands of a classmate.
Young Ones
In a future where water is scarce, a farmer defends his land and hopes to rejuvenate his parched soil. However, his daughter's boyfriend schemes to steal the land for himself.
Miss Firecracker
A girl from Yazoo City, Mississippi pins all her hopes on winning the local beauty pageant.
It's a Great Feeling
A waitress at the Warner Brothers commissary is anxious to break into pictures. She thinks her big break may have arrived when actors Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan agree to help her.
It's in the Bag!
The ringmaster of a flea circus inherits a fortune...if he can find which chair it's hidden in.
Maybe It's Love
Director William C. McGann's 1935 film stars Gloria Stuart and Ross Alexander as a young couple in love who face economic woes once they're wed.
That Midnight Kiss
Opera singer Prudence Budell, overhears truck driver Johnny Donnetti singing opera, and persuades her opera company to give him a chance in her new opera. They fall in love, but on meeting his colleague Mary while visiting Johnny's work, Prudence becomes convinced Johnny is in love with her.
Twister
An oddball family on a Kansas farm are trapped in their farmhouse by an impending storm. The patriarch of the clan is a retired soda pop tycoon. He is currently dating a children's TV evangelist. Also living at the farm is his layabout daughter and her precocious 8 year old daughter, his would-be artist son, the son's fiancée, and the black maid. Also thrown into the mix is the daughter's ex-husband, a ne-er-do-well who is seeking to get back in his ex-wife's good graces.
My Dream Is Yours
Conceited singer Garry Mitchell refuses to renew his radio contract, so agent Doug Blake decides to find a new personality to replace him. In New York, he finds Martha Gibson, a single mother with a great voice. He arranges for her to move to Hollywood, but then has a problem trying to sell her to the show's sponsor. Doug tries every trick he can think of to make Martha a star, and as the two work more closely, he falls in love with her. Complicating matters further, Martha meets and becomes attracted to Garry.
The Baroness and the Butler
A Butler gets elected to the Hungarian parliament where he opposes his master's government.
Father Was a Fullback
Coach George Copper's college football team is losing game after game, much to the dismay of stiff-and-stuffy but influential alumni Roger Jessup, and also having trouble at home with his oldest daughter, Connie. The team keeps losing and Coach Cooper is about to lose his job as his efforts to win the last game of the season, against the team's Big Rival, end in disaster. But, unknown to he and his wife, Elizabeth, Connie has sold an article, called "I Was a Bubble Dancer" to a 'True-Confession" magazine, and the girl-who-couldn't-get-a-date becomes suddenly popular and, because of her, the high-school football star from another town decides to play his college-ball for Coach Cooper. Jessup is forced to keep Cooper on as the school's football coach.
The Green Promise
A stubborn farmer is raising his children alone. When his oldest daughter gets a suitor, the father nearly goes on the rampage, but he is forced to change his tune when he is injured, leaving her in charge of the farm.
Pillow to Post
With a war on and most men being drafted, Howard Oil Supply Company has no salesmen left. So daughter Jean hits the road and does not make one sale. She finally gets one tentative sale with the Black Hills Oil Co., but Earl wants dinner with her. With the shortage of housing due to the war, Jean needs a military husband to get a place to stay in Clayfield, which is next to Camp Clay. She gets Lt. Mallory to act as her husband just to register. Then things go wrong as his commanding officer is there and believes them to be married. It gets worse as Don's mother shows up and then Jean's father.
Roseanna McCoy
It's the Hatfields vs. the McCoys in this 1949 film, with Farley Granger and Joan Evans as the hillbilly Romeo and Juliet whose forbidden romance rekindles a long-standing feud between their respective families.
Lost Boundaries
A light-skinned African-American family are "passing" in an all-white New England town. When the truth comes out, the more prejudiced neighbors demand their expulsion from the community.
Down Memory Lane
This film is a compilation, with narration by Steve Allen, of comedies from the old Mack Sennett silent studio. Sennett, himself, appears in a cameo at the end of the film.
Sentimental Journey
An actress becomes taken with Hitty, a young orphan prone to dreaming. Julie soon finds out that she is ill and has only a short time to live. She decides to adopt the child so that her husband Bill will not be alone when she dies. Unfortunately, Bill is not charmed by Hitty.
Special Agent
A California railroad agent hunts two brothers for murder and robbing a payroll express.
Many Happy Returns
Gracie Allen assumes the "management" of the shop owned by her papa Horatio Allen, turning it into a radio station and then an aviary---with the usual Gracie Allen logic---while distracted Papa is trying to get younger daughter, beauty contest winner Florence, married before she can head to Hollywood and get into the movies.
A Family Affair
Judge Hardy faces problems at work and at home. Powerful men in town are upset with his decisions and want to see him impeached; his daughters, Joan and Marion, have romantic problems; and his son, Andy discovers Polly Benedict. As usual, Judge Hardy is concerned with everyone in the family and lends wisdom and calmness to all.
Mother Is a Freshman
Widow Abby Abbott is having serious money problems and has to dip into the family trust in order to pay for her daughter Susan's college tuition. The catch: Abby must also become a co-ed or she can't touch the money. After passing her entrance exams, Abby goes to college and becomes very popular, especially with a handsome English professor whom Susan has a crush on.
John Loves Mary
After four long years apart, there are so many things returning World War II soldier John Lawrence wants to tell his sweetheart, Mary McKinley. That he loves her. That he's missed her. And that he's married.
The Goldbergs
Feature film using characters from the popular radio show and the pioneering 1949 TV series, about a Bronx family coping with everyday problems.
Dear Wife
In this sequel to Dear Ruth, teenaged Miriam starts a political campaign to nominate Bill Seacroft, her brother-in-law, for state senator in opposition to the local political machine. Unknown to Miriam, said machine nominates her father, Judge Wilkins. As support grows for Bill, the presence of rival candidates under one roof poses problems, especially for Ruth, wife to Bill and daughter of the judge.
Something About Amelia
Counseling helps family deal with the discovery that their child was sexually abused by the closest relative.
Meet Simon Cherry
Meet Simon Cherry was based on a popular BBC radio program of the 1940s titled Meet the Rev. Hugh Moxey plays the title role, a Father Brown-style clergyman who solves crimes when he isn't saving souls
Inspired by the popular '40s radio show of the same title, director Irving Brecher's 1949 comedy stars William Bendix as a hard-working husband-and-father with no shortage of family problems.
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Life of Riley Starring William Bendix, Rosemary DeCamp, James Gleason, Beulah Bondi, and more. If you liked The Life of Riley then you may also like: Johnny Holiday, Judge Hardy and Son, Kill the Umpire, The Big Broadcast, Death of a Cheerleader 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.
Johnny Holiday
A guard (William Bendix) befriends a wayward youth (Allen Martin Jr.) sent to the Indiana Boys School.