Best movies like Awakenings

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A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)

Plot Summary:

An award-winning cynical journalist, Lloyd Vogel, begrudgingly accepts an assignment to write an Esquire profile piece on the beloved television icon Fred Rogers. After his encounter with Rogers, Vogel's perspective on life is transformed.

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An Angel at My Table (1990)

Plot Summary:

Janet Frame grows up in a poor family. She is different than the other kids. She is considered abnormal and locked away in a mental institution for eight years. Everything changes when she starts writing books.

Similar in 79%

My Left Foot (1989)

Plot Summary:

In this true story told through flashbacks, Christy Brown is born with crippling cerebral palsy into a poor, working-class Irish family. Able only to control movement in his left foot and to speak in guttural sounds, he is mistakenly believed to be retarded for the first ten years of his life.

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The Miracle Worker (1962)

Plot Summary:

The true story of the frightening, lonely world of silence and darkness of 7-year-old Helen Keller who, since infancy, has never seen the sky, heard her mother's voice or expressed her innermost feelings. Then Annie Sullivan, a 20-year-old teacher from Boston, arrives. Having just recently regained her own sight, the no-nonsense Annie reaches out to Helen through the power of touch, the only tool they have in common, and leads her bold pupil on a miraculous journey from fear and isolation to happiness and light.

Similar in 79%

Angela's Ashes (1999)

Plot Summary:

Based on the best selling autobiography by Irish expat Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes follows the experiences of young Frankie and his family as they try against all odds to escape the poverty endemic in the slums of pre-war Limerick. The film opens with the family in Brooklyn, but following the death of one of Frankie's siblings, they return home, only to find the situation there even worse. Prejudice against Frankie's Northern Irish father makes his search for employment in the Republic difficult despite his having fought for the IRA, and when he does find money, he spends the money on drink.

Similar in 88%

Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (2009)

Plot Summary:

Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story is a movie based on the life story of world-renowned neurosurgeon Ben Carson from 1961 to 1987.

Similar in 81%

Frances (1982)

Plot Summary:

The true story of Frances Farmer's meteoric rise to fame in Hollywood and the tragic turn her life took when she was blacklisted.

Similar in 84%

Sully (2016)

Plot Summary:

On 15 January 2009, the world witnessed the 'Miracle on the Hudson' when Captain 'Sully' Sullenberger glided his disabled plane onto the frigid waters of the Hudson River, saving the lives of all 155 aboard. However, even as Sully was being heralded by the public and the media for his unprecedented feat of aviation skill, an investigation was unfolding that threatened to destroy his reputation and career.

Similar in 87%

Antwone Fisher (2002)

Plot Summary:

A sailor prone to violent outbursts is sent to a naval psychiatrist for help. Refusing at first to open up, the young man eventually breaks down and reveals a horrific childhood. Through the guidance of his doctor, he confronts his painful past and begins a quest to find the family he never knew.

Similar in 78%

The Doctor (1991)

Plot Summary:

Jack McKee is a doctor with it all: he's successful, he's rich, and he has no problems.... until he is diagnosed with throat cancer. Now that he has seen medicine, hospitals, and doctors from a patient's perspective, he realises that there is more to being a doctor than surgery and prescriptions.

Similar in 76%

St. Giuseppe Moscati: Doctor to the Poor (2007)

Plot Summary:

Giuseppe Moscati, Doctor saint of Naples, was a doctor of the early twentieth century, from an aristocratic family devoted his career to serving the poor. The film focuses on the human side, partially leaving aside the spiritual part.

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The Elephant Man (1980)

Plot Summary:

A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man being mistreated by his "owner" as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of great intelligence and sensitivity. Based on the true story of Joseph Merrick (called John Merrick in the film), a severely deformed man in 19th century London.

Similar in 77%

Philadelphia (1993)

Plot Summary:

No one would take his case until one man was willing to take on the system. Two competing lawyers join forces to sue a prestigious law firm for AIDS discrimination. As their unlikely friendship develops their courage overcomes the prejudice and corruption of their powerful adversaries.

Similar in 81%

Joy (2015)

Plot Summary:

A story based on the life of a struggling Long Island single mom who became one of the country's most successful entrepreneurs.

Similar in 82%

Lorenzo's Oil (1992)

Plot Summary:

Lorenzo Odone was a normal child until the age of 7. After then, strange things began to happen to him: he would have blackouts, memory lapses, and other strange mental phemonenons. He is eventually diagnosed as suffering from ALD: an extremely rare incurable degenerative brain disorder. Frustrated at the failings of doctors and medicine in this area, the Odones begin to educate themselves.

Similar in 87%

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

Plot Summary:

While serving time for insanity at a state mental hospital, implacable rabble-rouser, Randle Patrick McMurphy inspires his fellow patients to rebel against the authoritarian rule of head nurse, Mildred Ratched.

Similar in 86%

Dallas Buyers Club (2013)

Plot Summary:

Loosely based on the true-life tale of Ron Woodroof, a drug-taking, women-loving, homophobic man who in 1986 was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS and given thirty days to live.

Similar in 75%

Rain Man (1988)

Plot Summary:

Selfish yuppie Charlie Babbitt's father left a fortune to his savant brother Raymond and a pittance to Charlie; they travel cross-country.

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The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

Plot Summary:

The true story of Elle France editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who, in 1995 at the age of 43, suffered a stroke that paralyzed his entire body, except his left eye. Using that eye to blink out his memoir, Bauby eloquently described the aspects of his interior world, from the psychological torment of being trapped inside his body to his imagined stories from lands he'd only visited in his mind.

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Something the Lord Made (2004)

Plot Summary:

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

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The Blind Side (2009)

Plot Summary:

Oversized African-American, Michael Oher, the teen from across the tracks and a broken home, has nowhere to sleep at age 16. Taken in by an affluent Memphis couple, Michael embarks on a remarkable rise to play for the NFL.

Similar in 75%

Temple Grandin (2010)

Plot Summary:

A biopic of Temple Grandin, an autistic woman who has become one of top scientists in humane livestock handling.

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Flash of Genius (2008)

Plot Summary:

In this David vs. Goliath drama based on a true story, college professor Robert Kearns (Greg Kinnear) goes up against the giants of the auto industry when they fail to give him credit for inventing intermittent windshield wipers. Kearns doggedly pursues recognition for his invention, as well as the much-deserved financial rewards for the sake of his wife (Lauren Graham) and six kids.

Similar in 86%

The Aviator (2004)

Plot Summary:

A biopic depicting the life of filmmaker and aviation pioneer Howard Hughes from 1927 to 1947, during which time he became a successful film producer and an aviation magnate, while simultaneously growing more unstable due to severe obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Similar in 77%

The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)

Plot Summary:

A struggling salesman takes custody of his son as he's poised to begin a life-changing professional career.

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Good Will Hunting (1997)

Plot Summary:

Will Hunting has a genius-level IQ but chooses to work as a janitor at MIT. When he solves a difficult graduate-level math problem, his talents are discovered by Professor Gerald Lambeau, who decides to help the misguided youth reach his potential. When Will is arrested for attacking a police officer, Professor Lambeau makes a deal to get leniency for him if he will get treatment from therapist Sean Maguire.

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I Am Sam (2001)

Plot Summary:

Sam has the mental capacity of a 7-year-old. He has a daughter with a homeless woman who abandons them when they leave the hospital, leaving Sam to raise Lucy on his own. But as Lucy grows up, Sam's limitations start to become a problem and the authorities take her away. Sam shames high-priced lawyer Rita into taking his case pro bono and in turn teaches her the value of love and family.

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Patch Adams (1998)

Plot Summary:

Meet Patch Adams, a doctor who doesn't look, act or think like any doctor you've met before. For Patch, humor is the best medicine, and he's willing to do just anything to make his patients laugh - even if it means risking his own career.

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The Intouchables (2011)

Plot Summary:

A true story of two men who should never have met – a quadriplegic aristocrat who was injured in a paragliding accident and a young man from the projects.

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The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Plot Summary:

Framed in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.