Best movies like Young Tom Edison

This is a story of triumph.. the triumph of an American boy, who had courage, imagination and faith.

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Young Tom Edison Starring Mickey Rooney, George Bancroft, Fay Bainter, Virginia Weidler, and more. If you liked Young Tom Edison then you may also like: You're Telling Me!, News of the World, Our House, Kansas Pacific, The Aeronauts 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.

Inventor Thomas Edison's boyhood is chronicled and shows him as a lad whose early inventions and scientific experiments usually end up causing disastrous results. As a result, the towns folk all think Tom is crazy, and creating a strained relationship between Tom and his father. Tom's only solace is his understanding mother who believes he's headed to do great things.

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You're Telling Me!

Sam Bisbee is an inventor whose works (e.g., a keyhole finder for drunks) have brought him only poverty. His daughter is in love with the son of the town snob. Events conspire to ruin his bullet-proof tire just as success seems near. Another of his inventions prohibits him from committing suicide, so Sam decides to go on living.

News of the World

A Texan traveling across the wild West bringing the news of the world to local townspeople, agrees to help rescue a young girl who was kidnapped.

Our House

Ethan is suffering enormous guilt after his parents are killed in a car accident. He quits a promising future at MIT and work on a revolutionary experiment in order to care for his younger siblings.

Kansas Pacific

Just before the Civil War (but after the South has seceded), Southern saboteurs try to prevent railroad construction from crossing Kansas to the frontier; army captain Nelson is sent out to oppose them. As the tracks push westward, Nelson must contend with increasingly violent sabotage, while trying to romance the foreman's pretty daughter Barbara.

The Aeronauts

In 1862, daredevil balloon pilot Amelia Wren teams up with pioneering meteorologist James Glaisher to advance human knowledge of the weather and fly higher than anyone in history. While breaking records and advancing scientific discovery, their voyage to the very edge of existence helps the unlikely pair find their place in the world they have left far below them. But they face physical and emotional challenges in the thin air, as the ascent becomes a fight for survival.

Ben and Me

A revisionist version of American history as a small mouse comes to live with Benjamin Franklin and turns out to be responsible for many of his ideas; including the beginning of the Declaration of Independance!

Boys Town

Devout but iron-willed Father Flanagan leads a community called Boys Town, a different sort of juvenile detention facility where, instead of being treated as underage criminals, the boys are shepherded into making themselves better people. But hard-nosed petty thief and pool shark Whitey Marsh, the impulsive and violent younger brother of an imprisoned murderer, might be too much for the good father's tough-love system.

Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

Wayne Szalinski is at it again. But instead of shrinking things, he tries to make a machine that can make things grow. As in the first one, his machine isn't quite accurate. But when he brings Nick & his toddler son Adam to see his invention, the machine unexpectedly starts working. And when Adam comes right up to the machine, he gets zapped along with his stuffed bunny.

Edison And Leo

The film is about the relationship between crazy scientist George Edison and his son Leo. After being electrocuted as a child, Leo is no longer able to touch people without electrocuting them.

Edison, the Man

In flashback, fifty years after inventing the light bulb, an 82-year-old Edison tells his story starting at age twenty-two with his arrival in New York. He's on his way with the invention of an early form of the stock market ticker.

From the Earth to the Moon

Set just after the American civil war, businessman and inventor Victor Barbicane invents a new source of power called Power X. He plans to use it to power rockets, and to show its potential he plans to send a projectile to the moon. Joining him for the trip are his assistant Ben Sharpe, Barbicane's arch-rival Stuyvesant Nicholl, and Nicholl's daughter Virginia. Nicholl believes that Power X goes against the will of God and sabotages the projectile so that they cannot return to earth, setting up a suspenseful finale as they battle to repair the projectile.

Harriet

The extraordinary tale of Harriet Tubman's escape from slavery and transformation into one of America's greatest heroes. Her courage, ingenuity and tenacity freed hundreds of slaves and changed the course of history.

The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet

A 10-year-old child prodigy cartographer secretly leaves his family's ranch in Montana where he lives with his cowboy father and scientist mother and travels across the country on board a freight train to receive an award at the Smithsonian Institute.

The Man They Could Not Hang

Dr. Henryk Savaard is a scientist working on experiments to restore life to the dead. When he is unjustly hanged for murder, he is brought back to life by his trusted assistant. Re-animated he turns decidedly nasty and sets about murdering the jury that convicted him.

Powder Town

Director Rowland V. Lee's wacky 1942 comedy, about an absent-minded scientist working on a secret formula at an explosives plant, stars Edmond O'Brien, Victor McLaglen, Dorothy Lovett, June Havoc, Eddie Foy Jr., Marion Martin and Mary Gordon.

Something the Lord Made

A dramatization of the relationship between heart surgery pioneers Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas.

So Goes My Love

Country girl Jane Budden goes to the big city, determined to find and marry a wealthy man. Instead, she meets and marries Herman Maxim, a struggling inventor.

Tesla

The story of the Promethean struggles of Nikola Tesla, as he attempts to transcend entrenched technology—including his own previous work—by pioneering a system of wireless energy that would change the world.

Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey

After escaping Russia's communist revolution, Léon Theremin travels to New York, where he pioneers the field of electronic music with his synthesizer. But at the height of his popularity, Soviet agents kidnap and force him to develop spy technology.

Hauser's Memory

A scientist is persuaded by the government to inject himself with the brain fluid of a dying colleague in order to preserve missile-defense secrets. However, he finds that he is now torn between his own wife and that of his dead colleague, who was a Nazi sympathizer.

The Current War

Electricity titans Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse compete to create a sustainable system and market it to the American people.

Monster Family 2

To free Baba Yaga and Renfield from the clutches of Monster Hunter Mila Starr, the Wishbone Family once more transforms into a Vampire, Frankenstein's Monster, a Mummy and a Werewolf but when aided by their three pet bats, the Monster Family zooms around the world again to save their friends, make new monstrous acquaintances.

Ma and Pa Kettle

The Kettles and their fifteen children are about to be evicted from their rundown rustic home when Pa wins the grand prize by coming up with a new tobacco slogan. Birdie Hicks is jealous of the family's new wealth, which includes a completely automated modern home, and accuses Pa of stealing the slogan. Reporter Kim Parker proves Birdie wrong and marries Tom Kettle.

The Woodlanders

The story is set in late 19th century rural corner of South England. The daughter of timber merchant Melbury, Grace, returns to the town after finishing school. Her father now believes she can find a better husband than her childhood sweetheart, woodsman Giles. She marries handsome young doctor Fitzpiers, but soon finds out he's not the man of her dreams and she still loves Giles.

Threshold

Celebrated heart surgeon Thomas Vrain supports the research of an offbeat scientist who has invented an artificial heart. Against the advice of the Ethics Committee, Dr. Vrain decides to perform the first artificial heart transplant.

The Phantom of the Air

An adventure serial presented in 12 chapters. Inventor Thomas Edmunds uses a super plane, 'The Phantom,' to protect his new anti-gravity invention, the Contragrav, from theft.

Frankenstein General Hospital

A mad doctor puts together a new body by using body parts he steals from a mortuary at the hospital where he works.

Jules Verne's Rocket to the Moon

Phineas T. Barnum and friends finance the first flight to the moon but find the task a little above them. They attempt to blast their rocket into orbit from a massive gun barrel built into the side of a Welsh mountain, but money troubles, spies and saboteurs ensure that the plan is doomed before it starts...

Denver and Rio Grande

Jim Vesser and his team of railroading men try to build a rail line through a mountain pass, while a group of less scrupulous construction workers sabotages the entire operation in the hopes that they can get their tracks laid first and get the money from the railroad.

The Story of Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell falls in love with deaf girl Mabel Hubbard while teaching the deaf and trying to invent means for telegraphing the human voice. She urges him to put off thoughts of marriage until his experiments are complete. He invents the telephone, marries and becomes rich and famous, though his happiness is threatened when a rival company sets out to ruin him.

Men of Boys Town

Father Flanagan raises funds, helps a disabled boy, and saves an older boy from reform school.

Gallant Journey

Director William A. Wellman adds another to his long line of salutes-to-aviation films in this bio of an aviation pioneer, John Montgomery (Glenn Ford.) In 1883 he built a practical glider despite the opposition of his friends, who thought he was crazy, and of his family, who were afraid that his dreams of flying would hurt his father's political ambitions. He pursues his education at Santa Clara University where the Jesuits lend a helping and understanding hand. An earthquake destroys what appears to be a working model for an airplane, but a gold-sorting machine Montgomery invented, and then neglected, promises to provide for his financial needs to keep working on his aircraft until he gets involved in costly lawsuits defending his invention.

Tesla: Master of Lightning

This program recounts the life of scientist, inventor, and visionary Nikola Tesla, often remembered as more of an eccentric cult figure than an electrical engineering genius. Many of his achievements are still attributed to contemporaries Thomas Edison and Guglielmo Marconi. Tesla's surprising inventions are revealed in his autobiographical and scientific writings, supplemented by rare photographs and re-creations.

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