Best movies like The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe

A tragic-comic tale with surrealistic tendencies about a lost 23-year-old who is haunted by her disappointed 13-year-old self.

A medicine show man tries to con people into believing he's a legitimate stage actor.

The colorful holiday classic is finally brought to the big screen, designed by famed children's story author and artist Maurice Sendak, and written for the first time to be as close as possible to the original story. A lavish, exciting and heart-warming celebration of dance, of music, and of life. Based upon the Pacific Northwest Ballet's original production.

An amoral lowlife accidentally stumbles into an acting career that sets him on a trajectory to Hollywood stardom. But everyone on whom he steps on the way to the top remembers when he is nominated for an Oscar and he runs a dirty campaign in an attempt to win.

David Byrne is a visual artist as well as a musician, and ever since his early days as a member of Talking Heads, he's wanted his concerts to be more than just a static performance. In 1984, Byrne and filmmaker Jonathan Demme redefined the boundaries of the concert film with the Talking Heads documentary STOP MAKING SENSE, and more than 25 years later Byrne has teamed up with David Hillman to create RIDE, RISE, ROAR, which documents Byrne's 2008-2009 concert tour, in which he performs new material written in collaboration with Brian Eno as well as favorites from his solo career as well as his tenure in Talking Heads. Using costumes and inventive choreography, Byrne and his musicians and dancers give his music a stage presentation as exciting as the music.

Biographical film based loosely on the life of 1920s stage star Jeanne Eagels.

Fred and Lilli are a divorced pair of actors who are brought together by Cole Porter who has written a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew. Of course, the couple seem to act a great deal like the characters they play. A fight on the opening night threatens the production, as well as two thugs who have the mistaken idea that Fred owes their boss money and insist on staying next to him all night.

"Jellicle" cats join for a Jellicle ball where they rejoice with their leader, Old Deuteronomy. One cat will be chosen to go to the "Heavyside Layer" and be reborn.

The Rocky Horror Show was born at the Royal Court's tiny Theatre Upstairs on June 16, 1973, and went on to become an international stage smash hit and a major motion picture.

Farmboy Harold moves to the city and there attends high school. Soon he is very popular, his spirited nature causing much excitement on the campus. He joins a fraternity, goes out for football, and directs his class theatrical effort. Instead of a school play, Harold suggests doing a western motion picture. Part of the plot requires them to blow up the dam that has cut off the water supply to Harold's homestead in the country. After the explosion Harold runs away because he is afraid of being arrested, but he returns just in time to win a football game for his team.

A Broadway actress with a problematic past falls hard for the author of her new play.

Winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor, Sir Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet continues to be the most compelling version of Shakespeare’s beloved tragedy. Olivier is at his most inspired—both as director and as the melancholy Dane himself—as he breathes new life into the words of one of the world’s greatest dramatists.

Trisha Rawlings, a Beverly Hills socialite suffering from loneliness following the separation from her womanizing husband, develops a May–December romance with a young drifter named Strip.

"Piñero" tells the story of the explosive life of a Latino icon, the gay poet-playwright-actor Miguel Piñero, whose urban poetry is recognized as a pre-cursor to rap and hip-hop. After doing time in hard-core Sing-Sing for petty thefts and drug dealing, Piñero's prison experiences developed into the 1974 Tony-nominated play Short Eyes. The resulting notoriety and fame was too much for the Latino bad-boy genius who retreated to the darker corners of New York City.

Winner of 7 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, The Wiz was a massive Broadway hit which spawned a dismal feature film starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson. Executive Producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron have assembled a Tony-winning creative team, the imaginative Cirque du Soleil Theatrical and a diverse cast of showstoppers designed to create an eye-popping new take on the musical unlike anything ever seen.

The ups and downs in the lives and careers of a group of ambitious young actresses and show girls from disparate backgrounds brought together in a theatrical hostel. Centres particularly on the conflict and growing friendship between Terry Randall, a rich girl confident in her talent and ability to make it to the top on the stage, and Jean Maitland, a world weary and cynical trouper who has taken the hard knocks of the ruthless and over-populated world of the Broadway apprentice.

Two old friends reconnect at their friend's funeral, and decide to exact revenge on the widower who wronged all three of them decades earlier.

Girl next door, activist, so-called traitor, fitness tycoon, Oscar winner: Jane Fonda has lived a life of controversy, tragedy and transformation – and she’s done it all in the public eye. An intimate look at one woman’s singular journey.

The National Theatre's live theatrical production of Tony Kushner's two-part play 'Angels In America' about New Yorkers grappling with the AIDS crisis during the mid-1980s.

The Anthony Newley/Leslie Bricusse London and Broadway musical hit Stop the World, I Want to Get Off is given literal treatment in this filmization. Newley stars as Littlechap, whose allegorical rise to success is countered by the instability of his private life. Like the play, the film is staged impressionistically, with Newley decked out in mime makeup and periodically stopping the action to address the audience, and with all the women in his life -- German, American and "Typically English" -- played by a single actress (Millicent Martin, taking over from the stage version's Anna Quayle). In Wizard of Oz fashion, the play itself is lensed in color, while the brief prologue, showing the actors preparing for their performance, is in black-and-white. The production includes such standards (and perennial audition pieces) as What Kind of Fool Am I? and Gonna Build a Mountain.

Helena Mora, the head of an eccentric theatrical family, has decided to sell her large estate in the Hamptons because of her recent money troubles. Before she completes the sale, she wants to have one last gathering of family and friends, with dramatic performances. Bringing everyone together, though, creates rivalries and tension, especially for Oona, a temperamental but successful movie actress who seeks the approval of her creative peers.

When a mysterious incident nearly claims the life of a beautiful actress during rehearsals for her upcoming play, everyone deduces that her ambitious understudy, Elizabeth (Mellara Gold), is the guilty party. But when Elizabeth discovers that she's become the object of a secret admirer's obsession, she begins to suspect that the murder attempt was a twisted effort to win her heart. Eric Gibson directs this erotic mystery.

Sad-eyed, uniquely talented child actress Edith Fellows was Columbia's "answer" to Shirley Temple, Jane Withers and Deanna Durbin. In Little Miss Roughneck, Fellows is cast as Foxine LaRue, a tomboyish sort who is being prodded into a show-biz career by her stage mother Gert (Margaret Irving). Young Mr. Partridge (Scott Colton) becomes Foxine's agent, principally because he's sweet on the girl's older sister Mary (Jacqueline Wells). Blackballed from Hollywood because of her mother's pushiness, Foxine tries to help out Partridge and her own family by cooking up a bizarre publicity stunt, enlisting the aid of easy-going Mexican "papacita" Pascual (Leo Carrillo).

In 1846, Anthony Hope sails into London with the mysterious Sweeney Todd, a once-naive barber whose life and marriage was uprooted by a corrupt justice system. Todd confides in Nellie Lovett, the owner of a local meat pie shop, and the two become partners, as Todd swears revenge on those that have wronged him and decides to take up his old profession.

SCARECROW IN A GARDEN OF CUCUMBERS is about an aspiring actress from Kansas who comes to New York and meets a host of zany characters. Warhol Superstar Holly Woodlawn plays both the female lead, “Eve Harrington,” and a male anti-hero, “Rhett Butler.” All of the characters’ names in the film are taken from popular motion pictures and books. Characters included “Mary Poppins,” “Ninotchka,” “Margo Channing,” “Walter Mitty,” “Blanche DuBois,” “Baby and Jane Hudson” (played by twin sisters), “Marjorie Morningstar,” “Joe Buck,” “Noel Airman,” “Ratzo Rizzo,” and “Stanley Kowalski.” The film also has musical numbers that were spoofs of 1930s and 1940s routines choreographed by famed dance director Busby Berkeley. One production number, “The Dusty Rose Hotel,” sung by Tally Brown, paid homage to Judy Garland’s “born-in-a-trunk” sequence in 1954’s A STAR IS BORN. (from: http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?pageID=13&threadID=88881&archive=0)

A celebrated Broadway actress and a wealthy widowed businessman are brought together through their shared affection for a young orphan.

A filmed stage performance of the 1993 London revival. Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Skyfall) directed this new production for the Donmar Warehouse in London's West End. It starred Jane Horrocks as Sally, Adam Godley as Cliff, Alan Cumming as the Emcee and Sara Kestelman as Fräulein Schneider. Cumming received an Olivier Award nomination for his performance and Kestelman won the Olivier for Best Supporting Performance in a Musical. Mendes's conception was very different from either the original production or the conventional first revival. The most significant change was the character of the Emcee. The role, as played by Joel Grey in both prior incarnations, was an asexual, edgy character dressed in a tuxedo with rouged cheeks. Alan Cumming's portrayal was highly sexualized, as he wore suspenders (i.e. braces) around his crotch and red paint on his nipples.

Applause is a musical with a book by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, lyrics by Lee Adams, and music by Charles Strouse. The musical is based on the 1950 film All About Eve and the short story on which the movie is based, Mary Orr's "The Wisdom of Eve". The story centers on aging star Margo Channing, who innocently takes a fledgling actress under her wing, unaware that the ruthless Eve is plotting to steal her career and her man. The musical opened on Broadway on March 30, 1970 and ran for 896 performances. It won the Tony Award for Best Musical, and Lauren Bacall won the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical. The musical was later adapted for television, starring Bacall, with Larry Hagman replacing Len Cariou in the role of Bill Sampson. It aired in the United States on CBS on March 19, 1973.

When theatrical producer Robert Chandler (E. Alyn Warren), believed drowned in a fishing accident, turns up as a lonely, broken amnesiac three months later, he arrives just in time to see his actress wife Carol Chandler (Claire Windsor), thought to be a widow, marrying her leading man Jimmy Keane (John Bowers). Rather than mar her new-found happiness, he takes a job washing cars. New York City is a small town. Will Carol need her car washed?

In this one-hour special taped between March 9-17, 1981, Lily Tomlin and Dudley Moore join the Muppets in a tribute to film classics. Kermit the Frog hosts the program, which begins with an all-cast rendition of "Hey a Movie!" from The Great Muppet Caper.

Dolly Parton leads a moving, musical journey in this documentary that details the people and places who have helped shape her iconic career.

An in-depth look at artist/filmmaker David Lynch's movies, paintings, drawings, photographs, and various other works of art. Features interview footage and commentary by family members, friends, fans, and people he's worked with, as well as behind-the-scenes antics of some of his most critically praised efforts.

A provocative and wholly unique hybrid of dance, theatre and music, FELA! explores the world of Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. Winner of three 2010 Tony Awards including Best Choreography (Bill T. Jones). Featuring many of Fela Kuti’s most captivating songs and Bill T. Jones’ visionary staging, FELA! – an original new creation – comes via Broadway to London and the National Theatre. FELA! explores the extravagant, decadent and rebellious world of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. Using his pioneering music (a blend of jazz, funk and African rhythm and harmonies), FELA! reveals Kuti’s controversial life as an artist and political activist.

In his small pub in the northern English town of Oldham, Harry is something of a local celebrity. But what's the second-best hangman in England to do on the day they've abolished hanging? Amongst the cub reporters and pub regulars dying to hear Harry's reaction to the news, his old assistant Syd and the peculiar Mooney lurk with very different motives for their visit.

The Magic Show is a one-act musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Bob Randall. It starred magician Doug Henning. Produced by Edgar Lansbury, it opened on May 28, 1974 at the Cort Theatre in Manhattan, and ran for 1,920 performances, closing on December 31, 1978. Henning was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical and director Grover Dale was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical. In 2001, a filmed performance staged especially for the cameras in 1980, directed by Norman Campbell at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Toronto, was issued on DVD by Image Entertainment. This production, originally intended for cinema release, differed notably from the original Broadway production, with several of the most memorable songs, such as "West End Avenue" and "Solid Silver Platform Shoes", removed. Doug Henning reprised his original starring role, while Didi Conn co-starred as Cal.

New Faces was a musical revue with songs and comedy skits tied together by a quirky plot. It ran on Broadway for nearly a year in 1952 and was then made into a motion picture in 1954. It helped jump start the careers of several young performers including Paul Lynde, Alice Ghostley, Eartha Kitt, Carol Lawrence, performer/writer Mel Brooks (as Melvin Brooks), and lyricist Sheldon Harnick. The film was basically a reproduction of the stage revue with a thin plot added. The plot involved a producer and performer (Ronny Graham) in financial trouble and is trying to stave off an angry creditor long enough to open his show. A wealthy Texan offers to help out, on the condition that his daughter be in the show.

Teenage orphan Jenny Yates becomes starstruck when a revival of an old Victorian melodrama passes through her small New England town, to the disapproval of her stern grandfather, Uriah. Stowing away in the car of Philip Greene, a wealthy young man working with the theater troupe, Jenny talks her way into the play's lead role. But director Archie Fisher doesn't tell her that the new version of the play is meant as a spoof.

Daydreaming waitress Jennie Hagen fantasizes about becoming a famous actress, while in reality she and her cook boyfriend, Orme Wilson, hope to one day own their own diner. Although Orme loves Jennie, he also has a weakness for stage stars -- so when a riverboat theatrical crew comes to their town, he is smitten by lead actress Lillian Lyons. Desperate to keep Orme, Jennie insists on going onstage to best Lillian, but is soon out of her depth.

A wealthy, eccentric collector of stuffed birds and a beautiful Russian singer provide refuge to an orphaned Irish child who has arrived illegally in New York.

A profoundly insightful and wickedly provocative performer, Obie Award winner Eric Bogosian (Talk Radio) has never shied away from the disturbing truths in life. Frequently compared to comedic social commentators Lenny Bruce and Spalding Gray, Bogosian keeps his finger on the pulse of our collective fears while satirizing contemporary American values. Based upon his critically acclaimed stage show, Wake Up and Smell the Coffee is Bogosian at his funniest, smartest, and angriest. Taking us for a ferocious ride through a cavalcade of colorful characters in his mind, Bogosian skewers pop culture, conformity, religious hypocrisy and human nature itself with a razor-sharp wit. Whether he’s playing Satan as a modern-day salesman, a Hollywood producer capitalizing on an airplane disaster, a spiritual guru with questionable motives, or mocking himself as an obsequious actor auditioning for a part, Bogosian tackles today’s relevant, post-9/11 themes with uncompromising honesty.

Springsteen on Broadway is a solo acoustic performance written and performed by Tony Award, Academy Award, and 20-time Grammy Award winner Bruce Springsteen. Based on his worldwide best-selling autobiography 'Born to Run,' Springsteen on Broadway is a unique evening with Bruce, his guitar, a piano, and his very personal stories. In addition, it features a special appearance by Patti Scialfa. Netflix will allow global audiences to see the show critics have been raving about from anywhere they are.

Emilia Clarke makes her West End debut as Nina in Anya Reiss’ unique 21st century modernisation of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, with direction by Jamie Lloyd.

Considered by many to be the greatest tragedy ever written, King Lear sees two ageing fathers – one a King, one his courtier – reject the children who truly love them. Their blindness unleashes a tornado of pitiless ambition and treachery, as family and state are plunged into a violent power struggle with bitter ends.

A comedy musical stage version of the Phantom of the Opera, filmed live on-stage during a performance in Florida.

When Peter Pan, leader of the Lost Boys, loses his shadow, headstrong Wendy helps him to reattach it. In return, she is invited to Neverland, where Tinker Bell the Fairy, Tiger Lily and the vengeful Captain Hook await. A riot of magic, music and make-believe ensues.

An all-star cast performs the music of one of the greatest composers of our time... Stephen Sondheim. Anxiously anticipated by the myriad fans of the legendary composer, Putting It Together marked the return of Carol Burnett to the Broadway musical stage for the first time in over 35 years. Stephen Sondheim has won a record seven Tony Awards for his songwriting, and the Pulitzer Prize for Sunday in the Park with George. His Broadway smash shows and movies include Gypsy, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Sweeney Todd, Dick Tracy, and West Side Story. This Cameron Mackintosh stage production was captured live in performance during its Broadway run and recorded in high definition with a widescreen format using ten cameras and over 40 microphones.

Smoke + Mirrors Live celebrates Grammy Award winners Imagine Dragons' decibel-busting, spectacular live show. Capturing one incredible night in Toronto, it sees the band rapturously received by a crowd of 15,000 screaming fans. The band's phenomenal performance features their multi-platinum hits including Radioactive, I Bet My Life, Shots, Gold and Demons, as well as fan favorites from their first two records and the never before played live, Thief. The Smoke + Mirrors tour has seen the band play 110 dates in 42 countries on 5 continents. Smoke + Mirrors Live perfectly encapsulates the band's hugely successful transition to arena shows, fusing multi-sensory production with an intimate fan experience to create an atmosphere that can only be described as electric. Directed by Dick Carruthers (Led Zeppelin, The Killers, Oasis, Beyoncé), this concert film offers a one-of-a-kind experience for fans of their sensational live show.

Ain't Misbehavin' is the televised version of the 1978 Tony Award-winning Broadway sensation celebrating the music, life and times of Thomas "Fats" Waller — featuring 29 songs written or inspired by him. The telecast won Emmy Awards for Nell Carter and André De Shields.

While playing Juliet in a barnstorming Shakespearean troupe, Jo Bishop is discovered by a motion picture director and brought to Hollywood. She becomes a star and quickly marries Wallace Foster. Another man, John Brand, also loves her, but is satisfied to remain her friend.

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.