Best movies like Those Crazy Years

When ship's fireman Peter McCabe walks out on his long-suffering wife, he leaves her impoverished, with two young daughters and a boy born soon after his departure. After an absence of fourteen years McCabe returns, sacked and humiliated, trailing trouble in his wake.

A 1950s used-car salesman (Patrick Warburton) wants to make a low-budget film about a trucker who accidentally runs down a child.

The dream of Paul Dombey, the wealthy owner of the shipping company, is to have a son to continue his business. Tragically, Dombey's wife dies shortly after giving birth to their son.

American Movie is the story of filmmaker Mark Borchardt, his mission, and his dream. Spanning over two years of intense struggle with his film, his family, financial decline, and spiritual crisis, American Movie is a portrayal of ambition, obsession, excess, and one man's quest for the American Dream.

The Amish farming community of Painter’s Mill, Ohio, is shattered when a series of brutal murders leaves the town with a sense of frailty and loss of innocence. Among the most affected by the tragedy was Kate Burkholder, a young girl who survived the terror and, as a result, left the Amish life behind. Fifteen years later, Kate returns to Painter’s Mill as its Chief of Police. Certain she’s come to terms with her past, Kate’s renewed life in her hometown is shattered when a murder investigation triggers deep-seated emotions from her childhood and exposes a dark secret that could destroy her.

Drew Baylor is fired after causing his shoe company to lose hundreds of millions of dollars. To make matters worse, he's also dumped by his girlfriend. On the verge of ending it all, Drew gets a new lease on life when he returns to his family's small Kentucky hometown after his father dies. Along the way, he meets a flight attendant with whom he falls in love.

In the 1980s, a filmmaker begins a project to record the life of an average kid. In Perry, Ohio, he picks Rich Longfellow, a shy lad, and begins filming. Soon after, he dies in Mozambique. Sixteen years later, his son continues the project, finding Rich, now 23, in L.A., with dreams of being a Shakespearean actor, getting experience in porn films. We meet Betsy, Rich's sensible girlfriend, Lee, the impatient producer, and Carmichael, a director with artistic pretensions who inspires Rich. Problems with Besty and tension on the set bring Rich to a crisis; when his boyhood friend starts a Shakespeare company that tours nursing homes in the San Fernando Valley, Rich sees a way out.

A young woman marries the wastrel son of a British aristocrat. Her husband, who has been disinherited by his father, loses what little money he has left gambling in casinos and then dies, leaving her penniless and with an infant son. When her former father-in-law tries to get custody of the child, she leaves him with a couple she trusts, but when she later goes to reclaim her son, she can't find the people she left him with.

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.

A fortyish cancer-stricken, emaciated Frank Crosby and his fifteen-year-old son Clay, who is the healthful, youthful image of his father, are spending an afternoon enjoying the atmosphere of Venice Beach. They enter Oddities, a store where the gypsy woman owner gives them a pair of special wingtip shoes. Later that night in the hospital where Frank lay dying, he shares with Clay his memory of a postcard image: a golf course where people are playing and are leisurely sipping tea. Frank dies and leaves behind a distraught family: Clay, his little sister Maggie, and their mother Janice. Clay wistfully goes to his father's closet and finds the wingtips from earlier in the day. Putting them on, he is transported back in time and becomes his father as a child. He discovers he can travel back and forth in time just by putting on or taking off the shoes. Clay learns a great deal about his father's early years and is eager to learn more.

TV producer James has an extremely vivid dream, in which he is a prince struggling to keep the kingdom at peace against the wishes of his warfaring brother, while at the same time competing with his brother for a woman's love. The figures in his dream match those in his real life, with his brother being an aggressive business man trying to buy James out, the king being James' advisor, and the woman being an actress recently cast for a commercial at his studio. Seeing his dreams as a message about his life, James decides to act on their guidance, even though they lead him into the fight of his life.

A wily businessman plots with a sultry executive to swindle $40 million from his father. But who is conning who?

Convinced he'll graduate with honors because of his thesis paper, a stuffy Harvard student finds his paper being held hostage by a homeless man, who might be the guy to school the young man in life.

Earl Williams is a dreamer teenager obsessed with monsters, who fantasizes his life as if he were living in the world of the monsters of Universal Studios. Although being an excellent student, his intolerant and nasty school teacher Mrs. Perdue does not like him and punishes him for any minor fault. His supportive father Les Williams is also a dreamer, who has never been successful in life. When his father dies, his mother becomes lost with two boys, and tries to change the behavior of Earl. One day, the boy finds the "true Frankenstein" lost by a Carnival, and decides to bring the monster back to life.

They were a family torn apart by redemption...kept apart by pride...but brought together by a miracle.

The story of legendary jazz drummer, Gene Krupa. Since his youth, all Gene ever wanted to do is play the drums and make music. This is something his parents would not approve of- they want him to be a priest. When Gene's father dies he promises to enter the priesthood. He soon realizes that he doesn't belong there and leaves to join his friend, Eddie's band. Ethel, Eddie's girlfriend, convinces Gene to go to New York and make it big. The 3 of them head to New York. Here Ethel and Gene soon fall in love and Gene makes a name for himself. Gene starts to live in the fast lane, with drugs, alcohol, women and parties. Ethel, unhappy with Gene's lifestyle, leaves him. Gene soon "hits rock bottom" where he has to face reality and choose where to take his life.

American businessman Brian Chandler has a perfect life with a great job and beautiful fiancée. When his boss, renegade coffee mogul Calvert Jenkins sends him to Thailand to inspect a crop for purchase, Brian meets Ticha, a beautiful Bangkok executive who has long-since given up on the prospects of finding love.

An ambitious executive jeopardizes his career to marry a European refugee.

Billy is a rebellious teenager who lives with his mother and brother, and works in a foundry. His parents are separated and he has not seen his father, who lives in another state now, for years. After being arrested for joyriding in a car that was stolen by a friend, Billy is sent to a juvenile correction center. But when his grandfather dies, and Billy hears that his father will be coming into town for the funeral, he walks out of the facility, hoping to re-establish a relationship with him.

When a man's wife dies, the new executive of his company makes a move. Though they know that sexual relations could cause problems, that does not stop them.

After she had been raped by her father, a young woman leaves the town with her new born son. Years later, the son can't accept that his mother fell in love with someone else than the mythical father she had told him about.

Felipe is a teenager from La Paloma who attends an acting workshop behind the back of his mother, who opposes him becoming an actor. When the opportunity arises to attend a casting in Montevideo, Felipe escapes by bus for the day, but when he succeeds and finds it necessary to extend his stay, his lie gets out of hand.

A Palestinian boy becomes entranced with a beautiful Gypsy girl and a fairy tale world she weaves amidst conflict in Gaza. The children explore nature, mysticism and what their future holds, while learning to live with the surrounding brutality c. 1990. Yusef's family scrapes by in a seaside camp while his father's in prison and his heavily-armed brother's on the run, parrying with Israeli troops. Salah, Yusef's schoolmate from a well-off Arab family strives faithfully to assist them, while Yusef helps an elderly, blind neighbor escape from his lonely abandonment into the North American dreamworld he's waited so long for.

Advertising executive Gwen Taylor sends her art director Rick Todd on a mission to bring an artist back to the commercial fold. Meanwhile, Gwen's fatherless son Timmie, at a remote boys' school, is riding for a fall by manufacturing evidence of his "explorer father." By an amazing coincidence, Rick steps off the bus at just the right moment for Timmie to recruit him as "father" without his knowledge. With no intention of collaborating, the befuddled Rick is carried along by the sweep of events. Who can predict the outcome?

Manhattan fireman Mark Decker visits, for the first time, his Steven in his ex Emma's new apartment in one of her dad Donald Richardson's development estates, at the foot of Diamand-back Mountain. But Don's ambitious executive Stewart Hancock, who dreams of his own firm, has been cutting too many corners, at the expense of safety, causing a landslide. Mark gets trapped with Steven and the new concierge Harold, who knows everything about an additional danger: rattlesnakes awoken early from hibernation. Now Mark discovers artistic, nerdy Steven only did 'manly' stuff in the city because dad-son time is so rare. While they soldier on, landscape architect Emma discovers the truth and counters Stewart's plan B to literally cover it up.

When his best friend dies of an heart attack due to permanent stress at work, the Japanese businessman Yutaka Soto quits and fulfills himself a dream: he buys a ranch in Montana to live on. However the ranch turns out to be due for demolition and the welcome by the people is less than friendly: Hotel owner Cord Wingate wanted the ranch himself and now sabotages Yutaka. Only veterinarian Jessy and an old Cowboy help him. -- Tom Zoerner

Mary Class is a highly successful business executive - who just happens to be the daughter of Santa Claus. But when her father falls ill, Mary returns to the North Pole and the life she left behind to take over for her dad and implement her innovative ideas for running Christmas.

Lake, a young theater actor with no respect for the elderly, is forced to make himself look old, in order to land a part in a Broadway-bound play. His ego drives his girlfriend away, and when research for the play requires him to spend a week in a nursing home, he is forced to review his life choices. Lake eventually learns to abandon his preconceptions and rid himself of the anger that has been holding him back, in pursuit of his dreams.

A young woman's elderly husband dies and leaves her $5 million. She travels to Paris and becomes part of the "Continental" set and is pursued by a rich playboy and a lawyer who works for her.

Abel Mason is a man caught in a loveless marriage with a harridan wife who constantly berates him and beats their son Dick. When the one woman he loves dies at the hands of her husband after he was sent a letter by Mason's wife, exposing the affair, Abel leaves her for good taking to the road and young Dick with him.

Franco is a young man in search of his identity who appears after the death of his mother to meet his biological father. Malva is a young woman who has a magnetic attraction in men who know her. Oscar is a finance executive who lives immersed in transactions and excessive ambitions. The three will find themselves in an unexpected coexistence.

Pablo is in love with Dominique, whom he wants to marry. The girl leads them to a cemetery, where she convinces Pablo that should either of them die, the other will return and help them prepare for the afterlife. She leaves Madrid on a vacation in Bretagna, and dies en route. Pablo receives a call the next day. It is Dominique.

Medical intern Robert Morley is distraught after his wife dies in childbirth. He's resentful of his new son and wants nothing to do with him. He leaves the child with his aunt and uncle and heads off to Europe to pursue his medical studies. Morley returns to his hometown six years later, now a successful doctor and engaged to be married to a beautiful socialite. He also feels differently about the boy and attempts to gain custody from his aunt and uncle.

A teenage girl must ingratiate herself into her cult-follower mother's care before her chain-smoking grandmother dies of lung cancer.

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