Top 250 Movies Like Buddenbrooks

When Benjamin Steed and Mary Ann Steed relocate their family to upstate New York in the early 1800's, they unwittingly settle in a town divided along religious lines. After their new hired help turns out to be at the center of the uproar, each member of the Steed family must come to terms with their own beliefs in the face of heavy persecution. Together they struggle to weather the raging controversy surrounding a young man named Joseph Smith.

Gipsy boy Heathcliffe is adopted by a god-fearing landowner in northern England and grows up as the soul-mate of the daughter, Cathy Earnshaw. When father dies, stern son Hindley returns and bans Heathcliffe to the stables; when they spy upon their upper class neighbors, Edgar Linton sends the dogs upon them and chases Heath but starts an affair -love comes only from him- with her. When Hindley's socialite wife Frances dies in childbirth, he is completely embittered, becomes a drunk unable to care for his son Hareton and has to sell Wuthering Hights- to Heathcliffe. After a misunderstanding Cathy marries Linton, Heath retorts by a loveless match with his sister. Even Cathy's death doesn't stop the cycle of spite, grief and harm so it poisons the next generation's lives as well while she keeps haunting Heathcliffe

Set during the Alaskan gold rush of the late 1800s. In his efforts to gain control of a small mining town, Sean McLennon is buying up every claim that becomes available, usually after the deaths of the previous owners at the hands of McLennon's 'assistants'. One of the miners targeted by McLennon, a half-Indian hunter named Hudson Saanteek, manages to escape his hired thugs and comes back into town looking to re-establish his claim and get revenge. McLennon and his men have the advantage of numbers and weapons, but Saanteek has his survival skills and knowledge of the Alaskan wilderness.

After the enforced absence of their father, the three Waterbury children move with their mother to Yorkshire, where they find themselves involved in several unexpected dramas along the railway by their new home.

From chicken thief to cabin boy, riverboat pilot to circus performer, Huck Finn outsmarts everyone on his way down the muddy Mississippi.

Eight circus performers known as the Grunato family perform their famous balancing act.

In Victorian England, wealthy patriarch Sir Harald Alabaster invites an impoverished biologist, William Adamson, into his home. There, William tries to continue his work, but is distracted by Alabaster's seductive daughter, Eugenia. William and Eugenia begin a torrid romance, but as the couple become closer, the young scientist begins to realize that dark, disturbing things are happening behind the closed doors of the Alabaster manor.

An eight-year-old boy discovers a family of tiny people, only a few inches tall, living beneath the floorboards of a Victorian country home.

Stodge City is in the grip of the Rumpo Kid and his gang. Mistaken identity again takes a hand as a 'sanitary engineer' named Marshal P. Knutt is mistaken for a law marshal. Being the conscientious sort, Marshal tries to help the town get rid of Rumpo, and a showdown is inevitable. Marshal has two aids—revenge-seeking Annie Oakley and his sanitary expertise.

In 1815, Tsar Alexander I romances a working-class glove seller, while his double takes his place at the Vienna Congress. English-language version of Der Kongreß tanzt.

A newlywed couple journeys west to make their fortune, and begins a banking empire.

A straitlaced turn-of-the-century father presides over a family of boys and the mother who really rules the roost.

Ephraim Cabot is an old man of amazing vitality who loves his New England farm with a greedy passion. Hating him, and sharing his greed, are the sons of two wives Cabot has overworked into early graves. Most bitter is Eben, whose mother had owned most of the farm, and who feels who should be sole heir. When the old man brings home a new wife, Anna, she becomes a fierce contender to inherit the farm. Two of the sons leave when Eben gives them the fare in return for their shares of the farm. Meanwhile, Anna tries to cause some sparks by rubbing up against Eben.

When she fails to meet an item on his list of requirements for a bride, Julia Thistlewaite is jilted by London’s most eligible bachelor, Mr. Malcolm. Feeling humiliated and determined to exact revenge, she convinces her friend Selina Dalton to play the role of his ideal match. Soon, Mr. Malcolm wonders whether he’s found the perfect woman...or the perfect hoax.

A rancher, his clairvoyant wife and their family face turbulent years in South America.

A German Marquise has to deal with a pregnancy she cannot explain and an infatuated Russian Count.

Prime Minister of Great Britain Benjamin Disraeli outwits the subterfuge of the Russians and chicanery at home in order to secure the purchase of the Suez Canal.

The emotional story of a boy, his grandfather, and his dog. The boy's dream of becoming a great classical painter appears shattered when his loving grandfather dies.

The extraordinary true story of eccentric British artist Louis Wain, whose playful, sometimes even psychedelic pictures helped to transform the public's perception of cats forever.

Jessie is an aging career criminal who has been in more jails, fights, schemes, and lineups than just about anyone else. His son Vito, while currently on the straight and narrow, has had a fairly shady past and is indeed no stranger to illegal activity. They both have great hope for Adam, Vito's son and Jessie's grandson, who is bright, good-looking, and without a criminal past.

This powerful adaptation of Thomas Hardy's classic novel spins a story of passion and destruction set in the nineteenth century. The proud, flighty and bewitching Bathsheba Everdene finds herself entangled into the passions of three men and her impulsive nature pushes her into a web of deceit and destruction.

A musical re-imagining of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, told from the perspective of Ebenezer Scrooge'a business partner Jacob Marley.

Louisa May Alcott's autobiographical account of her life with her three sisters in Concord Mass in the 1860s. With their father fighting in the civil war, the sisters: Jo, Meg, Amy and Beth are at home with their mother - a very outspoken women for her time. The story is of how the sisters grow up, find love and find their place in the world.

An English teacher brings soccer to a German school in the 19th Century.

The story of a Jewish family living in Hungary—through three generations—rising from humble beginnings to positions of wealth and power in the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire. The patriarch becomes a prominent judge but is torn when his government sanctions anti-Jewish persecutions. His son converts to Christianity to advance his career as a champion fencer and Olympic hero, but is caught up in the Holocaust. Finally, the grandson, after surviving war, revolution, loss and betrayal, realizes that his ultimate allegiance must be to himself and his heritage.

An episode from the war in 1806 when a small troop of Prussian soldiers digs in at a mill in order to defend itself against the overwhelming advance of the French army. 

Swiss girl Adelheid 'Heidi' is orphaned young. Aunt Detie brings her to grandpa Alp and his wife, who live isolated in the Alps since his murder charge. Heidi soon takes to the wild country, especially accompanying young goatherd Peter. Grandpa refuses to send her to school in the city, but aunt Detie returns and forces him to give in. She's sent to a posh lady in Frankfurt, where she'll be a companion for crippled daughter Clara after school hours.

Holmes and Dr. Watson tackle the case of a curse on the Baskerville bloodline in this ABC Movie of the Week adaptation.

Two ancient entities reincarnated through the centuries face off time and again for an innocent soul.

Adaptation of the Dickens novel.

Germany in the early 19th century. "Die Vermessung der Welt" follows the two brilliant and eccentric scientists Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Friedrich Gauss on their life paths.

A lesbian in the 1800s who keeps a detailed account of her life written in coded diaries attempts to live independently while juggling an affair with a married woman.

When a spoiled English girl living in 19th century India loses both parents in a cholera epidemic, she is sent back to England to live in a country mansion. The lord is a strange old man-- frail and deformed, immensely kind but so melancholy. She wishes to discover what has caused him so much sorrow and to bring joy back to the household. It all must have something to do with the screams and wails which echo through the house at night and no one wants to talk about.

A western set in New Zealand during the 1820s following a group of British pioneers seeking a new life Down Under.

At the beginning of the 19th century a man and his son settle in Arizona which used to be a frontier state and full of criminals at that time.

Living in Kentucky prior to the Civil War, Amantha Starr is a privileged young woman. Her widowed father, a wealthy plantation owner, dotes on her and sends her to the best schools. When he dies suddenly Amantha's world is turned upside down. She learns that her father had been living on borrowed money and that her mother was actually a slave and her father's mistress.

A drifter finds himself wrongly accused of murder by a power-crazed sheriff. The sheriff gives him a horse, some supplies, and a one-hour head start into the desert before sending his murderous posse after him.

The story of courtesan and dance-hall girl Emma Hamilton, including her relationships with Sir William Hamilton and Admiral Horatio Nelson and her rise and fall, set during the Napoleonic Wars.

Cass Bunning, a farm boy with a talent for shooting, meets up with Nellie, a naive woman from the East, who has been lured West by the promise of a waitressing job which turns out to be in a brothel.

An experienced bounty hunter helps a young sheriff learn the meaning of his badge.

When private tutor Thomas Arnold (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) becomes headmaster at Rugby, a boy's preparatory school in England, he puts into place a policy of strict punishment for unruliness and bulying. Arnold finds an ally in Tom Brown (Jimmy Lydon), a new student who is subjected to hazing and abuse by a group of older boys and is pressured by his friends to keep quiet about it. Fed up, he leads his fellow classmates in an underground rebellion against their tormentors. But certain unspoken rules still apply at the school and Brown loses his hero status when he is accussed of breaking the Rugby code of silence.

Tom Sawyer and his pal Huckleberry Finn have great adventures on the Mississippi River, pretending to be pirates, attending their own funeral and witnessing a murder.

There were two brothers - two dancers - in Communist Hungary. One defected, the other stuck it out. One gave his soul to commerce, the other to the Party. After twenty years, they meet again. And the dance begins.

A family saga taking place mostly in a small Slovak village over a period of thirty years (1887–1917). The first part captures the life of Martin Pichandu in the development of his craft, masonry; in the second part, his son is center stage living in a period of socio-political crisis, which ultimately results in the first World War. After originally airing on Czechoslovakian television in 1983 as a four-part 226-minute mini-series, this production received a 163-minute theatrical release in 1984.

Set during World War II, an upper-class family begins to fall apart due to the conservative nature of the patriarch and the progressive values of his children.

Mid-19th-century, Baltic Sea port city of Lubeck, Germany. Follows the fourth generation of the Buddenbrook mercantile family as Tony and Thomas reach the age of marriage. Fatefully impeded every step of the way, the Buddenbrooks struggle as economic hardship and personal defeats weigh down family relations.

Hooch is an inexpensive regional exploitation action-comedy (hicksploitation) about a small county in the Appalachians and its many moonshine-brewing inhabitants, who are all struggling to make a living. The older "brewers" are pissed off at the success of handsome young upstart Eddie Joe, who is charmingly stealing their regular customers. Meanwhile, the owner of the country store (also a moonshiner) conspires with a trio of carpetbagging Mafioso who want to take over the moonshine business in that county as an extension of their Northern business ventures.

Major John Peel returns to England, following Napoleon's Waterloo defeat, and renews his acquaintance with Lucy Merrall, but she tells him she is engaged to be married. He later learns that, Cravens, the man she is to marry already has a wife. He also learns that Craven cleaned out Lucy's father in a crooked gambling game, and Lucy is paying the price to hold the family home together.

The continued Westward journey of settlers Missie and Willie Lahaye. Their roots now firmly planted as they set up homestead in the far West, Missie begins to realize her passion for teaching as Willie cares for the couple's young daughter Kathy while expanding the family ranch with a little help from sons Jeff and Matthew. When the frontier railroad comes to town, the pleasure of a long-promised visit from Missie's father Clark is suddenly offset by the tragic death of young Kathy. As the untimely demise of their beloved daughter begins to drive an emotional wedge between Missie and Willie, the devastated father unexpectedly accepts an offer made by the powerful Samuel Doros to assume the role of town sheriff. Their faith shaken and their once close-knit bond suddenly torn asunder, Missie and Willie desperately attempt to bring their crumbling family back together as son Jeff faces a series of dangers while hopelessly falling for Doros' beautiful daughter Colette.

Old Mr. Cohen (Paul Graetz) simply walks away from his London department store, leaving his sons to run it.

The four brothers Peter, Uwe, Manni and Günter live together in the German town of Dernbach and run what is probably the most chaotic car recycling business in Germany. Nothing is the same here as in other junkyards. Over four million spare parts lie in huge piles in the brothers' warehouse. Nevertheless, they manage to find just the right spare part time and time again and get a car back into shape.

This is a story based on fact that follows a husband and wife who emigrate from Scotland to Wisconsin in the 1850s. They work very hard and become welcome citizens of their new town, Eureka. They have six children. They prosper in the husband's boat-building business. But when their eldest is 12, tragedy strikes the family, and the 12-year-old is burdened with a terrible task which he handles as well as any adult could.

Centers on Missy's adopted daughter Belinda Tyler as she follows her dream. Belinda wants to be a doctor, but this time period does not look kindly on women with careers, especially one in the medical field. But Belinda is a strong-minded woman and deeply wants a career as a doctor. She manages to prove her abilities while assisting the local doctor and caring for an old woman who recently experienced a stroke. Belinda nurses her back to health and helps her regain the use of her arm again. Belinda also meets the nephew of their deceased neighbor. Drew comes to town to get his uncle's farm in shape to sell. After that he intends on returning to New York to join his father's law practice. He has no desire to stay in this small, unsophisticated town. But after meeting Belinda he has second thoughts. Belinda also feels something for Drew, but she is conflicted because she wants to be a doctor...

While newspaper writer Church struggles with the death of his wife, he receives a "special" assignment. He must answer a little girl's question about whether Santa Claus really exists.

Yasha is a Jewish stage magician who tours through eastern Europe while destroying his career through personal problems. He has one more chance at theatrical success, but he needs to do a brand new trick in a Warsaw theater.

In early 19th century Wales, Catherine Morgan, a widow with two daughters, must endure the bumpy road to a distant market in order to sell her cattle to save her farm and family.

A young Texas Man who saw his father get killed by a group of bandits, decides years later to go to work for the Pony Express. But he is not just working around the country to deliver mail, he is actually finding the bandits who murdered his father.

The life and works of 19th-century circuit rider Robert S. Sheffey.

Oliver Twist the modern filmed version of Charles Dickens bestseller, a Roman Polanski adaptation. The classic Dickens tale, where an orphan meets a pickpocket on the streets of London. From there, he joins a household of boys who are trained to steal for their master.

Tom Sawyer has a head full of pranks and drives when he invents is not just a new adventure, preferably around with his best buddy Huck Finn - much to the chagrin of his Aunt Polly with Tom and his half-brother Sid in the town of St. Petersburg on the Mississippi river.

Leon has banished everything from his life that could remind him of his childhood. As an orphan, he grew up with his uncle Walter, the owner of a china factory, where he is currently working as a designer, trying to bring a breath of fresh air to the company. But Walter is a traditionalist. Since Leon’s girlfriend Marina is also dedicated to the company, children have no part in Leon’s life. Until he meets Esther who is raising 13 at once. Leon is trying to convince Esther on Walter’s behalf to forfeit her run-down house, so that Walter can use the estate for his investment plans. But then, Leon falls in love with Esther, and all his plans begin to crumble…

Missie three years later: being a single mother after her husband Willie was shot during a poker scuffle. She and Maddy move back in with her parents Clark and Marty. She finds a new home, and finds a new teaching position that she settles right into, but Missie has lost all faith in herself, until a chance encounter at her father's church where she adopts homeless orphan Belinda Marshall.

1815. A soldier becomes the governor of St. Helena and jailer of Napoleon

A boggy swashbuckler of Irish freedom-fighter Michael Martin. In 1815, Michael Martin, member of an Irish revolutionary society, turns highwayman to support it, and soon becomes an outlaw. In Dublin, he meets famous rebel "Captain Thunderbolt" and becomes his second-in-command, under the name "Lightfoot."

1828 in the German port city of Bremen: Two very different women collide in an age that has no place for either of them. One strives for a career in law, at a time when women aren't even admitted to universities. The other has lived life outside the law and may now have to pay the tab. One of them needs to get her head together – while the other would do anything not to lose hers. -- Based on a true story.

Outlaws disguised as Indians commit crimes against settlers but Winnetou and Old Surehand are determined to unmask the bandits and keep the peace.

During the 1800s, Peru's government sends 2 envoys to negotiate peace with the rebellious Incas but a treasure-hunter bandit shoots the Inca ruler and his son, leaving the 2 envoys to take the blame for it.

The closing years of the nineteenth century Old West. Dry River tells the story of a Mexican border town ravaged by severe drought, with the only water source controlled by a family of American renegades on the trail for a legend of lost gold. When a Mexican stranger arrives to reclaim his father’s land, a violent confrontation will cause the lives of all to be forever transformed.

A proud patriarch battles union organizers and a powerful conglomerate threatening the family-owned lumber and mining operation which he runs with his three sons, his daughter and his nephew in this pilot film to "The Yeagers" TV series that actually ended months before it aired.

Erin Cavendish goes undercover at her family's chocolate plant to see why sales are down when she meets head chocolatier, Bryan, who has new ideas on how to update the Easter product line.

An American engineer reaches Mombasa to finish the works of an African railroad and to find his predecessor, who has mysteriously disappeared. While the work continues, will have to face several obstacles, especially violent local tribes, Arabs slave traders and wild animals.

Saga about a proud band of Sioux Indians, and the efforts of one brave to save his people from destruction through the use of mysterious powers handed down by ancestors.

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.

The life story of Italian violinist and composer, Niccolò Paganini, who rose to fame as a virtuoso in the early 19th Century.

1779. Eight-year-old Ludwig van Beethoven, called "Louis", is already known as a musical prodigy. He learns to go his own way - much to the dismay of the people around him. Some years later, he meets Mozart during times of political upheaval. The unconventional genius and French Revolution are sparking a fire in Louis' heart; he doesn't want to serve a master - only the arts. Facing times of family tragedies and unrequited love, he almost gives up. However, Louis makes it to Vienna to study under Haydn in 1792, and the rest is history. Who was this man, whose music has since touched countless hearts and minds? At the end of his life, the master is isolated by loss of loved ones and hearing. Surely though, he was way ahead of his times.

Biography of the famous Italian violinist Nicola Paganini which focuses as much on the musician's romances as it does on his craft. Phyllis Calvert plays Jeanne de Vermond, the aristocratic French woman who captures Paganini's heart, and real-life violin virtuoso Yehudi Menuhin supplies the breathtaking Paganini solos.

A new look at the public and private life of one of the most important statesmen in the history of Europe: Winston Churchill (1874-1965), soldier, politician, writer, painter, leader of his country in the darkest hours, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, a myth, a giant of the 20th century.

This documentary contains dramatized episodes about the lives of Erika and Klaus Mann, the brilliant children of German writer Thomas Mann.

National-Socialist propaganda film that serves to memorialize one of the early representatives of colonialism: the German philologist Carl Peters. He is, at the end of the 1900′s, a noted advocate of the establishment of a German colony. Without support from Germany, he struggles on his own account against the English in East Africa. Later he is named Reichskommissar and promotes the expansion of a German colony. But Jewish and Social-Democrat opponents order him back to Germany and force him to resign.

Devil's Island is a bitter sweet tale of Iceland in the fifties. Life is rough in Reykjavik's post-war slum of Camp Thule, where the abandoned US military barracks have been turned into makeshift homes. Struggling wives and their hard-working husbands try to make ends meet. The younger generation dreams of dollars, Rock'n'Roll and the American way of life. To celebrate or to drown their misery - they're never short of a good reason to booze. Devil's Island vividly depicts the everyday life of a wacky family, their neighbours and friends and shows how some of their dreams come true and others don't.

Olaf and his wife have lost that magic spark in their marriage. He wipes huge boogers on her face and they keep putting things in each other’s food like toenails and dandruff. Marriage counselors in the form of Hitler and Bin Laden seem completely alien to them, a secret baby is accidentally cooked, their genitals seem mutated, etc.

In this Janette Oke sequel to "Love Comes Softly," the eldest child in an 1800s frontier family, Missie Davis is a bright and beautiful elementary schoolteacher whose love for the prairie is matched only by her passion for books. When Missie encounters Grant, a handsome New England railroad executive, she feels as though she's met a hero from one of her novels.

Set in a rustic English village in the mid 19th century, Under The Greenwood Tree tells the story of a poor young man who falls for a middle-class schoolteacher and attempts to win her over.

In this sequel, Lillian has been adopted and it's several years later. Annie, married and pregnant, visits her fellow doctor friend, Dr. Owen. Dr Owen desperately wants a baby, but seems unable to become pregnant. Lillian finds a love interest, an assistant to her adoptive dad, the latter has become quite overprotective.

When a Wall Street firm downsizes, a well-to-do trader finds himself living with his parents and driving their ice cream truck.

A mystery hidden for generations. Now the truth will finally be revealed.

In the 1850s, in a logging town on the Mississippi River, a conflict between the people of a mill town and the lumberjacks who work downriver. Romance and deceit are catalyzed by the arrival of the gambling river boat, River Lady, owned by the beautiful Sequin. Bauvais, a representative of the local lumber syndicate and Sequin's business partner, is trying to convince H.L. Morrison, the mill owner, to sell his business.

In the early 19th century, a young woman with a harelip falls foul of her family's ambition and the superstitions of the local community, but meets a man who may see her differently.

Spectacular account of the infamous Eureka Stockade, and the events leading up to it.

When Bertha dies, her granddaughter Iris inherits her house and finds herself back in the home where she and her cousin used to play dressing-up in the summer holidays. While she wanders from room to room, she gropes her way through memories and things she had forgotten: What did her grandfather really do before he went to war? Which men were Bertha’s daughters in love with? Who ate his apple with the seeds?

A young girl is sent to live with Amish relatives in post-war Pennsylvania, where her life dramatically changes.

The port city of Bristol, England, in the 1800s is home to Java Head, a sailing ship line company. The owner has two sons. One, a handsome seafarer, is in love with a local girl, but cannot marry her due to a long-running feud between their fathers. After a lengthy voyage, he returns with a very exotic, noble Chinese wife, which scandalizes the conservative town. His other son, a "landlubber", seeks to convert to steamships, to the disgust of his father. Even worse, he is secretly dealing in contraband.

Gathered one summer in a beautiful shoreline town, three generations are drawn together by their patriarch. With endearing moments of humor and uplifting spirit, Harvest is a portrait of a family awkwardly yet delicately hanging on to what was, what now is, and to one another.

Clark Davis adventurous dreams of seeing the world are put into jeopardy after he and a friend start a fight which damages a local cafe. Through a plea deal with the Sheriff and café owner Millie, Clark works off his sentence as a farmhand for the Barlow sisters, Ellen and Cassie. Older sister Ellen doesnt understand Cassies friendly nature with Clark; she agreed to the Sheriffs offer only because the farm has become too much to maintain alone. Clark is slowing winning Ellen over, but suddenly suffers a traumatic head injury in a fall. After Ellen nurses him back to health, her former fiancé returns to win her back. Will Clark travel on or stay behind where love begins?

Dimples Appleby lives with her pick-pocket grandfather in 19th century New York City. She entertains the crowds while he works his racket. A rich lady makes it possible for the girl to go legit.

An odyssey through time and memory, centered around a place in New England where—from wilderness, and then, later, from a home—love, loss, struggle, hope and legacy play out between couples and families over generations.