Best movies like Beautiful Dreamers
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
When the superintendent of the Canadian insane asylum, Dr. Maurice Bucke, meets poet Walt Whitman, his life and that of his wife and patients is radically changed. Like Dr. Bucke, Whitman has avant-garde ideas on the subject of mental illness. "Dreamers" is based on true events. Dr. Bucke became an important biographer of Walt Whitman.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 207
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, realistic, independent film
Best tv shows and movies like Beautiful Dreamers (1990):
Similar in 87%
Glasgow Girls (2014)
Plot Summary:
Glasgow Girls is a specially commissioned musical drama for BBC Three that tells the inspirational true story of a group of schoolgirls whose petition to save their friend from deportation inspired a movement which would eventually help change immigration practices in Scotland.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 97
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration:
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, uplifting
Similar in 83%
When Harvey Met Bob (2010)
Plot Summary:
Bob Geldof and Harvey Goldsmith set up one of the world's greatest ever concerts, Live Aid in 1984 to help ease the Ethiopian Famine.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 298
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: realistic, uplifting, serious, psychological, captivating, sentimental
Similar in 86%
The Wild Dogs (2002)
Plot Summary:
Set during the cull of the stray dogs in the city of Bucharest, The Wild Dogs weaves together a week in the lives of several citizens of and visitors to the hauntingly beautiful city. Geordie, a visiting Canadian pornographer, Bogdan, a reluctant city dog-catcher, and Natalie, a lonely Diplomat's wife - each risks losing everything as they become embroiled in the struggles of Bucharest's abandoned children, gypsies, dogs and beggars.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 188
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic, disturbing, bleak
Similar in 76%
Within These Walls (2001)
Plot Summary:
Female prisoners train dogs to aid people with disabilities in a program started by a nun (Laura Dern).
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 278
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sentimental, uplifting, touching, feel good, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 85%
A Piano for Mrs. Cimino (1982)
Plot Summary:
Esther Cimino, a music teacher who has reached retirement age, finds that her mental faculties are slipping somewhat. The film is a trenchant, realistic study of the ravages and displacements, socially, physically, and mentally, that are visited upon a once-proud, sensitive, and still highly intelligent woman who is declared mentally incompetent by her children. She is subjected to a hearing, where her blurred responses prompt the judge to put her in a nursing home, and she begins to deteriorate. However, her granddaughter who loves her rouses her back to life and helps her learn how to live again.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 774
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sincere, uplifting, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 82%
Octavia (1982)
Plot Summary:
Everybody has a little murder in their heart... somewhere.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 140
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: independent film, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy, sexual, sexy
Similar in 86%
David's Mother (1994)
Plot Summary:
Sally Goodson has been raising her autistic son David alone since her husband left many years ago. Now a social worker discovers that Sally has been dodging 'The System' to keep her son with her, instead of putting him in an institution. Each feels they know what's best for David. But their opinions are not the same. Sally's developing relationship with John Nils is caught in the middle.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 371
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 78%
Girlfriend (2010)
Plot Summary:
A young man with Down's Syndrome romantically pursues a small town single mom who is still mixed up with her volatile ex-boyfriend.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 713
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, melancholic, independent film, realistic
Similar in 77%
The New Man (2007)
Plot Summary:
Sweden 1951. A new society is developing, a society where there is no room for the socially and mentally weak.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 858
Genere: Drama
Country: Finland, Sweden
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, emotional, touching, bleak, serious, realistic, disturbing, biting, suspense
Similar in 89%
Damaged Care (2002)
Plot Summary:
Anesthesist Doug Peeno hopes to pay for the legal costs of preventing his son Bryan being left in his first wife's bad custody with he proceeds of his present wife Linda's new job. She's the first graduate in her family and eagerly accepted a posting as medical officer in a coldly-greedy medical insurance company. Bening confronted with the medically unacceptable consequences of technically denied treatments, she rebels and finds even payments she approved were often withheld anyway.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 294
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 79%
On the Edge (2009)
Plot Summary:
Alfredo and Susanna are two well-off fifty-year-olds who lead a stimulating cultural life. He is an architect and she is a psychologist; they live in Rome but spend their weekends at their country home in Umbria, where they love to spend their days walking in the forests or relaxing poolside with a good book. One day, as she goes into town, Susanna sees a girl prostituting herself in the bushes on the side of the road and decides to save her from her unhappy existence, despite the enormous differences that separate their ways of life.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 580
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, emotional, realistic, erotic
Similar in 79%
The Caretakers (1963)
Plot Summary:
This movie chronicles the trials of the mentally ill and their care-givers in an over-crowded ward of a hospital.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 927
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: psychotronic, psychological, serious, realistic, disturbing, campy
Similar in 90%
The Wool Cap (2004)
Plot Summary:
This film, originally made for tv, stars William H. Macy as a mute superintendent of a apartment building that is falling apart who becomes the unwilling guardian to a young girl with a bit of an attitude. The film is an updated and Americanized version of the 1962 feature film Gigot starring Jackie Gleason, who also wrote the original story.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: touching, sincere, serious, realistic, feel good, spiritual
Similar in 78%
Profoundly Normal (2003)
Plot Summary:
Based on a true story. Donna Lee Shelby (Kirstie Alley), a mentally retarded girl who lives in Forest Haven, an institution for the developmentally disabled, meets Ricardo Thornton (Delroy Lindo), a fellow resident. When Forest Haven is closed by a court order, Donna and Ricardo venture into the real world on their own. Their friendship and dependency on each other blossoms into love. They marry and have a child together, who does not suffer from mental retardation.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 360
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, sentimental, sincere, uplifting, touching, realistic
Similar in 82%
Phantom Pain (2009)
Plot Summary:
Marc is a passionate cyclist and urban slacker who avoids work and responsibility. Marc's life changes from one moment to the next when he suffers a life-changing accident. He can either wallow in self-pity or tackle the beast called life with the help of love and willpower.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 930
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, psychological, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 85%
The End of Innocence (1990)
Plot Summary:
Seemingly autobiographical story of a woman overwhelmed with trying to please everyone except herself, and not finding any answers until she's admitted to a rehab center by her parents. Eventually here is where she finds her answers.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 233
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, psychological, serious, emotional, contemplative, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 86%
The Incredible Mrs. Ritchie (2003)
Plot Summary:
A troubled teen is given the chance to redeem his criminal debt to society.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 594
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, UK, USA
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: touching, sentimental, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 88%
Eden (1996)
Plot Summary:
Story of a New England boys' school and of one of the students who is infatuated with an instructor's wife who has Multiple Sclerosis. The woman struggles to show her strict husband how love rather than demands helps the student to blossom, but finally she falls into a coma. While she is able to have some 'looking down' awareness of what is happening, her coma is what brings her husband to an understanding of the needs of others.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 356
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: independent film, sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 79%
Samaritan: The Mitch Snyder Story (1986)
Plot Summary:
No overview found.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 128
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: sincere, uplifting, thought provoking, serious, realistic
Similar in 77%
Angus Buchan's Ordinary People (2012)
Plot Summary:
The plot follows the individual journeys of three ordinary South African men in the build up to their attendance of the 2010 Mighty Men Conference, where their lives are forever changed by God's message for them.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 146
Genere: Drama
Country: South Africa
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: uplifting, serious, emotional, realistic, art house, christian film, independent film
Similar in 90%
Touch the Top of the World (2006)
Plot Summary:
The story of the first blind man ever to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 334
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: uplifting, touching, realistic, serious
Similar in 84%
More Than Meets the Eye: The Joan Brock Story (2003)
Plot Summary:
Based on the true story of a beloved teacher for the blind who discovers she herself is losing her eyesight.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 175
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: sentimental, uplifting, touching, emotional, serious, realistic
Similar in 89%
Cet amour-l? (2001)
Plot Summary:
Cet Amour-là is an intimate portrait of a legendary love affair. Set against the beauty of the Breton seaside, it is also a film that revels in the insights that Marguerite Duras' writing affords.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 367
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: psychological, emotional, sentimental, sincere, serious, captivating, clever, realistic, talky, gloomy
Similar in 83%
Taking Back Our Town (2001)
Plot Summary:
A true story about a concerned housewife, Pat Melancon, who tries to block Shintech, a massive Japanese petrochemical conglomerate, from building a plant in her toxic township already known as "cancer alley". Pat and a few newly recruited, fledgling activitsts face the full force of Shintech's wealth and influence peddling, which has bought the cooperation of the government from the local level all the way up to the Governor's office.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 123
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: sincere, thought provoking, serious, realistic
Similar in 88%
Dawn Anna (2005)
Plot Summary:
The true story of a single mom who overcomes many of life's obstacles.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, realistic, touching, serious, emotional
Similar in 90%
The Elephant Man (1982)
Plot Summary:
A taped version of the stage play about a hideously deformed 19th-century London man and how he managed to triumph over his disease.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 302
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: sincere, uplifting, touching, serious, realistic, talky, psychotronic
Similar in 90%
The Miracle of the Cards (2001)
Plot Summary:
"The Miracle of the Cards" is based on the true story of Marion Shergold and her son, Craig, an eight-year-old English boy who had a brain tumor. Several events convinced Marion that God was leading her to a cure for Craig and that the get-well cards he was receiving had the power to keep him alive, so she launched a worldwide campaign to break the Guinness record for receiving the most get-well cards. At the time, the world record seemed an impossible 1,000,265, but Craig received over 350 million cards from all over the world. Against the advice of her doctors, Marion followed one of those cards to America for Craig's miraculous cure.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 569
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, serious, realistic
Similar in 90%
My Name Is Bill W. (1989)
Plot Summary:
Based on the true story of Bill W. (James Woods), a successful stock broker whose life falls apart after the stock crash of the 20's and how he comes to grips with his alcoholism. Along with a fellow alcoholic (James Garner) he forms a support group that would eventually become Alcoholics Anonymous.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, sincere, uplifting, thought provoking, serious, spiritual, contemplative
Similar in 87%
Bill: On His Own (1983)
Plot Summary:
Bill Sackter struggles to cope after his best friend and guardian, Barry Morrow and his wife Beverly move away. Bill moves into a group home run by Mae Driscoll who teaches him how to read. Bill soon discovers his religious heritage, overcoming the fire that accidentally destroyed his small canteen business, and then travels to California to search for the Morrows.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 342
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, realistic, semi serious
Similar in 75%
Red Like the Sky (2006)
Plot Summary:
A nearly sightless boy is sent to a school for blind children, where he secretly discovers the possibilities of the recorded sound.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: uplifting, touching, serious, realistic, contemplative, educational, fairy tale, factual