Best movies like The Revolving Doors
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Set in a small Quebec town in the late '20s, this moving drama follows the life and exploits of Celeste Beaumont, a talented young pianist, who gains local celebrity at the town movie theater for her gifts as a silent film accompanist. As an added attraction, Celeste dons ornate gowns for each performance. Audiences are just as interested in her ever-changing apparel as they are in the film. Awkward Pierre Blaudell is her biggest fan and eventually convinces Celeste to be his wife. Shortly after she bears his son, Pierre joins the army. She insists on joining him at the base and his meddlesome, snooty parents insist she give them her son. After Pierre is killed in battle, Celeste flees to New York where she finds steady employment as a jazz pianist. She finds a life-long companion with a black musician and chronicles her experiences in a diary that she passes on to her son after he grows up.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 194
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Canada, France
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags:
Best tv shows and movies like The Revolving Doors (1988):
Similar in 79%
Stony Island (1978)
Plot Summary:
"Stony Island gives you a priceless look back at Chicago’s South Side neighborhood, at a time when very few films were made in within the city at all — and features a legion of legendary Chicago players (Gene Barge, Phil Upchurch, Larry Ball, Richie Davis, Tennyson Stephens, Ronnie Barron, and a young Susanna Hoffs) alongside Dennis Franz (“NYPD Blue”) and Rae Dawn Chong. Telling the story of a group of multiracial R&B performers, and how they’re affected by the death of a veteran musician from their circle, Stony Island is an incredible time capsule, and provides a sweetly funky soundtrack to boot!" -- The Cinefamily.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 139
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 81%
The King of Friday Night (1985)
Plot Summary:
A Nova Scotia singing group has a reunion concert 20 years after their successful start.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 37
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Canada
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 86%
Bix (1991)
Plot Summary:
Biopic of troubled jazz musician/composer Bix Beiderbecke (1903-1931), who played with the Paul Whiteman band, among others.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 162
Genere: Biography, Drama, Music
Country: Italy, USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 89%
Full Blast (1999)
Plot Summary:
Young sawmill workers try to get their band back together while waiting out a strike.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 201
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Canada
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 90%
Zinat (1994)
Plot Summary:
The conflict felt by a modern Iranian woman as she is forced to choose between her career and the traditional obligations of a housewife are examined in this drama. Until she married Hamed, Zinat worked in a public health clinic in a small Iranian town. She loved her job and was deeply committed to helping the community. After the wedding, her in-laws and family force her to quit and become a full-time housewife. She does try, but her former patients keep returning for help. Zinat cannot, in good conscience, turn them away so she helps them. She then suffers the wrath of her mother-in-law, but even after the irate in-law locks Zinat in the house, the plucky young woman still continues to help people.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 44
Genere: Drama
Country: Iran
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
Tango Argentino (1992)
Plot Summary:
A boy who is helping lonely, elderly people revives their urge to live and receives in return their love and understanding, which have been denied to him by his parents.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 849
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: pre war
Similar in 79%
Villa-Lobos: A Life of Passion (2000)
Plot Summary:
The film tells the story of an intuitive, adventurous man who loved his country and being Brazilian. This man fought to be loyal to himself. His music is a transparent portrait of his genius, intuition, freedom, adventure and passion for Brazil.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 293
Genere: Biography, Drama, Music
Country: Brazil
Duration: 132 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
The Last Passport (2009)
Plot Summary:
THE LAST PASSPORT takes place in a passport office...or so you think. George Miller is a 70 year old man who through a variety of encounters, takes us on a journey through his mysterious past to show us we are not all that different.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 99
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 87%
A Kid (2016)
Plot Summary:
Matthieu, a 33 year old Parisian who finds out that the father he never knew has died and decides to go to his funeral in order to meet his two siblings in Quebec. But once in Montréal, he realizes that nobody is aware of his existence or even interested in it. He is alone, in hostile territory…Filled with secrets, this story about one man’s coming to term with the foreign family he never knew he had is complex with interconnected themes such as masculinity, family, paternity and filial devotion coiling in the layers underneath.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: France, Canada
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 77%
Blind Man's Bluff (1993)
Plot Summary:
Based on a novel by Lilly Perry Amitai, Blind Man's Bluff takes a bittersweet look at the life of a young Israeli woman. Trying to distance herself from her Holocaust survivor parents and ex-boyfriend, pianist Micki Stav moves out of her parents' house in search of her own identity. She moves into a small apartment but remains caught in a lattice of demanding relationships. Tension increases as Micki tries to succeed in the classical music world. Her eclectic new neighbors, though, introduce her to a new world of desires in which Micki finds the courage to confront her problems and emerge as an independent and mature woman.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 13
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Israel
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
The Touch (1992)
Plot Summary:
Henry Kesdi is a silenced classical composer and a survivor of the Holocaust. He is coaxed out from retirement by an inspired musicologist, Stefan, who convinces him to compose a complex symphony on his neglected piano. As a help Kesdi gets his new musical secretary. His loyal wife reluctantly accepts her as his young lover.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 307
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Poland, UK, Denmark
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
Clover (1997)
Plot Summary:
Sara marries Gaten a single father who is African-American. Not long after they're married Gaten dies. So Sara has to take care of Gaten's daughter, Clover. Problem is she and Clover have not exactly bonded and several of Gaten's friends and relatives object to her being Clover's guardian.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 177
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
All the Way Home (1981)
Plot Summary:
A wife and mother in 1915 Tennessee copes with the loss of her husband and the necessity of raising their children alone.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 105
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
The Day the Ponies Come Back (2000)
Plot Summary:
Daniel Moulin goes to New York on a business trip and decides to take advantage of his time in the Big Apple to try and locate the father he never knew. The only thing he has to go on however is an address in the Bronx that is 25 years old.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 105
Genere: Drama
Country: France, USA
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
Blue Note (1991)
Plot Summary:
If you’re a fan of Ken Russell’s particular brand of stylistically dizzy biographies covering the lives of old-school classical composers, then you’re going to love The Blue Note, Zulawski’s outré ode to Frédéric Chopin (played here by concert pianist/first-time actor Janusz Olejniczak.) Simultaneously achieveing wistful and surrealistic tones, the film covers the last few days of fragile Chopin’s professional life, as well as the (ahem!) overzealous behavior from the phalanx of Chopin’s celebrity admirers. Set at a lush countryside estate, The Blue Note expertly drifts back and forth from tender “love triangle” mode to hyper-imaginary dream-like sequences, all aided by a near-constant beautiful stream of Chopin’s piano music on the soundtrack. As well, the film is one of Zulawski’s most personal projects, as Chopin’s Polish exile in France within the confines of the narrative mirrors Zulawski’s own similar post-’70s exile.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 697
Genere: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: France, Germany
Duration: 135 min
Plot tags: experimental, avant garde
Similar in 89%
The Plouffe Family (1981)
Plot Summary:
The lives of the average Quebecois Plouffe family during the final years of the depression and through World War II.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 476
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 227 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 90%
All Night Long (1962)
Plot Summary:
Over the course of one eventful evening, the anniversary celebration of the musical and romantic partners Aurelius Rex and Delia Lane, a jealous, ambitious drummer, Johnny Cousin, attempts to tear the interracial couple apart.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: UK
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: noir, neo noir, grindhouse, tense, atmospheric, offbeat, serious, realistic, independent film, british noir
Similar in 81%
Under the Pines (2013)
Plot Summary:
A young widow wants to carry on with her husband's work:managing a pine plantation where they extract resin;but most of all,she wants to have electricity installed in her valuable property.In this place,it seems that 1789 never happened and that time stood still:her workers,circa 1920,do not receive any salary and ,like the peasants in the middle ages,have to bring their production to their landlady. But her progressive ideas come up against men still remembering WW1 and against her bourgeois peers.Her foreman ,first bewildered ,is finally won over by his boss' resilience and strength of character.For her own good,the young heiress is too ahead of her time though.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 115
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium, France
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: sincere, atmospheric, serious, realistic
Similar in 80%
Madame Sousatzka (1988)
Plot Summary:
The relationship between a demanding piano teacher and her student, an Indian prodigy.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: UK, Canada
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, multicultural, serious, realistic, light, inspirational, sexy, enigmatic, unusual plot structure
Similar in 78%
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020)
Plot Summary:
Tensions rise when the trailblazing Mother of the Blues and her band gather at a Chicago recording studio in 1927. Adapted from August Wilson's play.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 57000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: rough, uplifting, serious, suspense, costume drama, deep, visual, cult classic, tension, crying
Similar in 78%
The Cat and the Moon (2019)
Plot Summary:
Nick comes to New York to temporarily live with a jazz musician friend of his late father's named Cal while his mom is in rehab. During his time in the city, he befriends a group of kids who show him what New York has to offer.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 569
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: USA
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: captivating, psychological, unusual plot structure, suspense, melancholic, contemplative
Similar in 88%
Autumn Sonata (1978)
Plot Summary:
After a seven-year absence, Charlotte Andergast travels to Sweden to reunite with her daughter Eva. The pair have a troubled relationship: Charlotte sacrificed the responsibilities of motherhood for a career as a classical pianist. Over an emotional night, the pair reopen the wounds of the past. Charlotte gets another shock when she finds out that her mentally impaired daughter, Helena, is out of the asylum and living with Eva.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 37000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: West Germany, UK
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: art house, depressing, emotional, philosophical, sincere, touching, mind bending, psychedelic, spiritual, ironic
Similar in 90%
Scott Joplin (1977)
Plot Summary:
Details the life story of Scott Joplin and how he became the greatest ragtime composer of all time.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 316
Genere: Biography, Drama, Music
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, period piece
Similar in 78%
The Mambo Kings (1992)
Plot Summary:
The Mambo Kings tells the story of César and Nestor Castillo, brothers and aspiring musicians who flee from Cuba to America in search of the American Dream.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: France, USA
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: sentimental, emotional, melancholic, serious, realistic, touching, captivating, fairy tale, romantic, sexy
Similar in 82%
New York, New York (1977)
Plot Summary:
An egotistical saxophone player and a young singer meet on V-J Day and embark upon a strained and rocky romance, even as their careers begin a long uphill climb.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 22000
Genere: Drama, Music, Musical
Country: USA
Duration: 155 min
Plot tags: sentimental, realistic, stylized, cult classic, atmospheric, serious, captivating, romantic, road movie, clever
Similar in 86%
'Round Midnight (1986)
Plot Summary:
Inside the Blue Note nightclub one night in 1959 Paris, an aged, ailing jazzman coaxes an eloquent wail from his tenor sax. Outside, a young Parisian too broke to buy a glass of wine strains to hear those notes. Soon they will form a friendship that sparks a final burst of genius in director Bertrand Tavernier.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: USA, France
Duration: 133 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, captivating, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, independent film, light, inspirational
Similar in 86%
August Rush (2007)
Plot Summary:
A drama with fairy tale elements, where an orphaned musical prodigy uses his gift as a clue to finding his birth parents.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 110000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: USA, South Korea
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: touching, inspirational, sentimental, feel good, romantic, sad, emotional, spiritual, crying, thought provoking
Similar in 81%
Cavedweller (2004)
Plot Summary:
A traumatic event sends a musician (Sedgwick) back to her hometown in an effort to reunite with the daughters she abandoned. To do so, she must confront her abusive ex-husband (Quinn), from whom she fled years ago.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 707
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing, sexy
Similar in 80%
Lackawanna Blues (2005)
Plot Summary:
In a story fueled by rhythm and blues, a young boy's life is shaped by love and the stories of a cast of characters in the boarding house where he lives in 1960s Lackawanna, New York.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, sincere, sentimental, captivating, crying, hispanic, entertaining
Similar in 87%
The Cotton Club (1984)
Plot Summary:
The story of the people that frequented Harlem's famous nightclubs, 'The Cotton Club', and those that ran it.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 19000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Music
Country: USA
Duration: 129 min
Plot tags: intense, atmospheric, captivating, realistic, entertaining, period piece, visually stunning, stylized, neo noir, cult classic