Best movies like The Lady in the Van

Similar in 78%

When Did You Last See Your Father? (2007)

Plot Summary:

The story of a son's conflicting memories of his dying father.

Similar in 83%

Man on the Moon (1999)

Plot Summary:

A film about the life and career of the eccentric avant-garde comedian, Andy Kaufman.

Similar in 89%

Prick Up Your Ears (1987)

Plot Summary:

Stephen Frears directs this biographical drama focusing on controversial British playwright Joe Orton, revealed in flashback after his murder by lover Kenneth Halliwell. Born in 1933 in Leicester, in the English Midlands, John 'Joe' Orton moves to London in 1951, to study at RADA, and enjoys an openly gay relationship with Halliwell in their famous Islington flat in the 1960s. However, when Orton achieves spectacular success with such plays as 'What the Butler Saw' and 'Loot', Halliwell begins to feel alienated and the pair's future looks increasingly uncertain.

Similar in 86%

The Madness of King George (1994)

Plot Summary:

King George III's erratic behaviour leads to a plot in Parliament to have him declared insane and removed from the throne.

Similar in 78%

Ed Wood (1994)

Plot Summary:

The mostly true story of the legendary "worst director of all time", who, with the help of his strange friends, filmed countless B-movies without ever becoming famous or successful.

Similar in 77%

American Splendor (2003)

Plot Summary:

An original mix of fiction and reality illuminates the life of comic book hero everyman Harvey Pekar.

Similar in 81%

Chaplin (1992)

Plot Summary:

With the use of flashback, an elderly Charlie Chaplin discusses his autobiography with his editor, who urges him to be more vulnerable and emotionally honest with his memoirs while journeying through his poverty-stricken childhood, closest friendships, many marriages, merciless pursuit by J. Edgar Hoover, and ingenious invention of The Little Tramp. Highlighted works such as The Gold Rush and The Great Dictator illustrate significant turning points in Chaplin's prolific filmography. Also treated is Chaplin's exile from America and his eventual return to receive an honourary Academy Award in 1972.

Similar in 78%

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.

Similar in 78%

The History Boys (2006)

Plot Summary:

The story of an unruly class of bright, funny history students at a Yorkshire grammar school in pursuit of an undergraduate place at Oxford or Cambridge. Bounced between their maverick English master, a young and shrewd teacher hired to up their test scores, a grossly out-numbered history teacher, and a headmaster obsessed with results, the boys attempt to pass.

Similar in 77%

Somers Town (2008)

Plot Summary:

Two teenagers, both newcomers to London, forge an unlikely friendship over the course of a hot summer. Tomo (Thomas Turgoose) is a runaway from Nottingham; Marek (Piotr Jagiello) lives in the district of Somers Town, between King's Cross and Euston stations, where his dad is working on a new rail link.

Similar in 89%

High Hopes (1988)

Plot Summary:

Slice-of-life look at a sweet working-class couple in London, Shirley and Cyril, his mother, who's aging quickly and becoming forgetful, mum's ghastly upper-middle-class neighbors, and Cyril's pretentious sister and philandering husband. Shirley wants a baby, but Cyril, who reads Marx and wants the world to be perfect, is reluctant. Cyril's mum locks herself out and must ask her snooty neighbors for help. Then Cyril's sister Valerie stages a surprise party for mum's 70th birthday, a disaster from start to finish. Shirley holds things together, and she and Cyril may put aside her Dutch cap after all.

Similar in 90%

Gods and Monsters (1998)

Plot Summary:

It's 1957, and Whale's heyday as the director of "Frankenstein," "Bride of Frankenstein" and "The Invisible Man" is long behind him. Retired and a semi-recluse, he lives his days accompanied only by images from his past. When his dour housekeeper, Hannah, hires a handsome young gardener, the flamboyant director and simple yard man develop an unlikely friendship, which will change them forever.

Similar in 85%

Life Is Sweet (1990)

Plot Summary:

Just north of London live Wendy, Andy, and their twenty-something twins, Natalie and Nicola. Wendy clerks in a shop, leads aerobics at a primary school, jokes like a vaudevillian, agrees to waitress at a friend's new restaurant and dotes on Andy, a cook who forever puts off home remodeling projects, and with a drunken friend, buys a broken down lunch wagon. Natalie, with short neat hair and a snappy, droll manner, is a plumber; she has a holiday planned in America, but little else. Last is Nicola, odd man out: a snarl, big glasses, cigarette, mussed hair, jittery fingers, bulimic, jobless, and unhappy. How they interact and play out family conflict and love is the film's subject.

Similar in 75%

Saving Mr. Banks (2013)

Plot Summary:

Author P.L. Travers travels from London to Hollywood as Walt Disney Pictures adapts her novel Mary Poppins for the big screen.

Similar in 88%

A Walk in the Woods (2015)

Plot Summary:

After spending two decades in England, Bill Bryson returns to the U.S., where he decides the best way to connect with his homeland is to hike the Appalachian Trail with one of his oldest friends.

Similar in 79%

Riding in Cars with Boys (2001)

Plot Summary:

A single mother, with dreams of becoming a writer, has a son at the age of 15 in 1965, and goes through a failed marriage with the drug-addicted father.

Similar in 77%

Calendar Girls (2003)

Plot Summary:

Members of a Yorkshire branch of the Women's Institute cause controversy when they pose nude for a charity calendar.

Similar in 89%

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015)

Plot Summary:

As the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel has only a single remaining vacancy - posing a rooming predicament for two fresh arrivals - Sonny pursues his expansionist dream of opening a second hotel.

Similar in 85%

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011)

Plot Summary:

British retirees travel to India to take up residence in what they believe is a newly restored hotel. Less luxurious than its advertisements, the Marigold Hotel nevertheless slowly begins to charm in unexpected ways as the residents find new purpose in their old age.

Similar in 88%

Iris (2001)

Plot Summary:

True story of the lifelong romance between novelist Iris Murdoch and her husband John Bayley, from their student days through her battle with Alzheimer's disease.

Similar in 75%

Victoria & Abdul (2017)

Plot Summary:

Queen Victoria strikes up an unlikely friendship with a young Indian clerk named Abdul Karim.

Similar in 75%

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.