Best tv shows like Life Goes On
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Life Goes On is a television series that aired on ABC from September 12, 1989, to May 23, 1993. The show centers on the Thatcher family living in suburban Chicago: Drew, his wife Elizabeth, and their children Paige, Rebecca, and Charles, who is known as Corky. Life Goes On was the first television series to have a major character with Down syndrome.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, realistic, contemplative
Best tv shows and movies like Life Goes On (1989):
Similar in 87%
Our House (1986)
Plot Summary:
Our House is an American television drama series that aired on NBC for two seasons from September 11, 1986 to May 8, 1988. The series centers on the Witherspoon family and the challenges they face adjusting to life with three generations living in the same house.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 885
Genere: Drama, Family
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: retro, sitcom, sentimental, feel good, serious, realistic
Similar in 80%
Promised Land (1996)
Plot Summary:
Promised Land is an American drama series which aired on CBS from 1996 to 1999. It is a spin-off from another series, Touched by an Angel.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 746
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic
Similar in 90%
Highway to Heaven (1984)
Plot Summary:
Highway to Heaven is an American television drama series which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The series aired for five seasons, running a total of 111 episodes. It was shot entirely in California.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: sentimental, uplifting, touching, serious, realistic, game show, feel good, telenovela
Similar in 77%
Thirtysomething (1987)
Plot Summary:
Thirtysomething is an American television drama about a group of baby boomers in their late thirties. It was created by Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick for MGM/UA Television Group and The Bedford Falls Company, and aired on ABC. It premiered in the U.S. on September 29, 1987. It lasted four seasons, with the last of its 85 episodes airing on May 28, 1991. The title of the show was designed as thirtysomething by Kathie Broyles, who combined the words of the original title, Thirty Something. In 1997, "The Go Between" and "Samurai Ad Man" were ranked #22 on TV Guide′s 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time. In 2002, Thirtysomething was ranked #19 on TV Guide′s 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, and in 2013 TV Guide ranked it #10 in its list of The 60 Greatest Dramas of All Time.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, clever, touching, serious, realistic, talky, stylized, telenovela
Similar in 82%
Resurrection Blvd. (2000)
Plot Summary:
The Santiagos are a proud East Los Angeles Latino family whose hopes and dreams are rooted in the world of professional boxing.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 229
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: sentimental, rough, serious, emotional, crime drama, realistic, hispanic
Similar in 81%
Sarah, Plain and Tall: Winter's End (1999)
Plot Summary:
The third installment of the Sarah trilogy provides a glorious and touching story of a family drawn together by adversity. On a cold winter day a stranger shows up at the farm. He is slow to reveal his identity. When they find out he is Jacobs father, John Witting, thought long ago dead, hard questions about the past are difficult to get answered.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 75%
Christy (1994)
Plot Summary:
Christy is an American historical fiction drama series which aired on CBS from April 1994 to August 1995, for twenty episodes. Christy was based on the novel Christy by Catherine Marshall, the widow of Senate chaplain Peter Marshall. The novel had been a bestseller in 1968, and the week following the debut of the TV-movie and program saw the novel jump from #120 up to #15 on the USA Today bestseller list. Series regular Tyne Daly won an Emmy Award for her work on the series.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Family, History
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, period drama
Similar in 89%
The Slap (2015)
Plot Summary:
A family drama that explodes from one small incident where a man slaps another couple's misbehaving child. This seemingly minor domestic dispute pulls the family apart, exposes long-held secrets, and ignites a lawsuit that challenges the core values of all who are pulled into it.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 42 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, psychological, captivating
Similar in 88%
32 Brinkburn Street (2011)
Plot Summary:
Drama moving between the lives, loves and lies of two generations of the same family who live at 32 Brinkburn Street in 1931 and 2011.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 95
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 45 min
Plot tags: realistic, captivating, serious, sentimental, suspense, period drama
Similar in 90%
Jewel (2001)
Plot Summary:
In the 1940s a 40-year-old woman with five healthy children gives birth to a girl with Down's syndrome.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 387
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, UK, USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 79%
The Cleaner (2008)
Plot Summary:
After hitting rock-bottom from his own addictions during the birth of his twins, William Banks strikes a tentative deal with God. In exchange for a second chance, he vows to kick his addictions and dedicate his life to helping others. Now, along with his unconventional team, he helps people get clean from their own addictions of sex, drugs, alcohol and gambling by any means necessary.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: uplifting, serious, realistic, suspenseful, sincere, rough, touching, suspense, contemplative
Similar in 78%
30 Degrees in February (2012)
Plot Summary:
From International Emmy Award-winning writer Anders Weidemann, compelling ten-part drama 30 Degrees in February follows a group of Swedes who've left the snow and cold of Scandinavia for the warm, sandy beaches of Thailand in the dead of winter. Why? To embark on a life-changing adventure, a fresh start and a new life, of course.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Sweden
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: realistic, touching, captivating, psychological, serious, sincere, gloomy
Similar in 75%
Too Young to Be a Dad (2002)
Plot Summary:
When 15-year-old, Matt Freeman, gets his girlfriend, Francesca, pregnant her family decides to put the unborn baby up for adoption. Matt agrees to the decision, but begins to rethink it. This movie is taken from the father's point of view.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 899
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, sentimental, captivating
Similar in 80%
Judging Amy (1999)
Plot Summary:
Judging Amy is an American television drama that was telecast from September 19, 1999, through May 3, 2005, on CBS-TV. This TV series starred Amy Brenneman and Tyne Daly. Its main character is a judge who serves in a family court, and in addition to the family-related cases that she adjudicates, many episodes of the show focus on her own experiences as a divorced mother, and on the experiences of her mother, a social worker who works in the field of child welfare. This series was based on the life experiences of Brenneman's mother.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, realistic, touching, serious
Similar in 81%
Higher Ground (2000)
Plot Summary:
Higher Ground is an American-Canadian drama action television show shot outside Vancouver, British Columbia. The series ran from January 14, 2000 - June 16, 2000 and aired on Fox Family. It stars Joe Lando, Hayden Christensen, A.J. Cook, Meghan Ory, Kandyse McClure, and Jewel Staite. Higher Ground told the story of Mount Horizon High School, a therapeutic boarding school for troubled teens, where the students learned to face their personal struggles with addiction, abuse, or disorders.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, emotional, existential, realistic, wild
Similar in 83%
The Time of Our Lives (2013)
Plot Summary:
The Time of Our Lives follows the lives of the extended Tivolli family as they navigate their way around relationships, raising kids, love, careers, divorce, disability and finding happiness. Elder brother Matt is a high-flying sports agent struggling with his obsessive wife Caroline. Younger brother Luce runs a much more relaxed household with long-time partner Bernadette, despite a chaotic schedule and financial pressures. Chai Li, the youngest, was adopted from Vietnam as a baby and is a successful and happy thirty-something until her world is shattered by a humiliating turn of events. Herb has known the family since childhood.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 781
Genere: Drama
Country: Australia
Duration: 54 min
Plot tags: realistic, sentimental, emotional, psychological, touching, serious, gloomy
Similar in 82%
Jerusalem Brew (2003)
Plot Summary:
The series opens as widow Shimon Sadeh, a successful general contractor, is finishing the year of mourning for his deceased wife. He marries Leah, his daughter's piano teacher. Shimon's eldest son, Ephraim, has become ultra-Orthodox, identifying with his grandfather, Eliahu, who lives with the family and has close bonds and a strong influence. The middle child, Itzik, rejects both going into his father's business to be a musician; and Orthodoxy. Strong-willed, feisty Ariella is finishing high school and considering her options. Many scenes take place in the small Tunisian synagogue headed by Eliahu, and involve the power struggles among the regulars there. The gut-punching drama is largely the work of Oscar-winning director Yankul Goldwasser, who previously directed the popular series Reaching for Heaven; and young director Nir Bergman, who won the Israeli Academy Award for his first film, Broken Wings.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 22
Genere: Drama
Country: Israel
Duration: 50 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, sincere, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 79%
All You Need (2001)
Plot Summary:
Beth's life was going backwards. Her husband suddenly walks out on her, she has an alcoholic mother, an ambivalent father and so she decides to begin making a change by going back to school in order to take charge of her life.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 146
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, realistic, semi serious, talky
Similar in 83%
Carry Me Home (2004)
Plot Summary:
A widow named Harriet and her two children Carrie and Brian are living in rural New York in 1947 and are still recovering from the death of Harriet's husband killed in World War II. Carrie is a tomboy and hangs around with boys and they have their own clubhouse. Carrie and her friends make mischief and taunt their mentally challenged neighbor Charlie by stealing one of his puppies. Harriet meets a man named Bernard and begin a courtship, but Carrie is furious that her mother is dating Bernard and wants it to stop. The jealousy and anger of Carrie raises to a fever pitch when Carrie and her friends destroy their neighbor Mr. Grizzle's garden and pour sugar into his tractor. Grizzle then takes Charlie's other puppies away from him and then Grizzle's barn is destroyed by fire. Carrie learns it's time for her to grow up and make amends with her mother and her neighbors for the grief and pain she caused them.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 229
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 85%
Everwood (2002)
Plot Summary:
After the death of his wife, world-class neurosurgeon Dr. Andrew Brown leaves Manhattan and moves his family to the small town of Everwood, Colorado. There he becomes a small-town doctor and learns parenting on the fly as he raises his talented but resentful 15-year-old son Ephram and his 9-year-old daughter Delia.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 15000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, realistic, serious, sincere, rough, suspenseful, medical drama, teen, light hearted
Similar in 75%
Wild Iris (2001)
Plot Summary:
A woman and her teenage son move back in with her mother to work together in the family bridal business.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 481
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, realistic, talky
Similar in 75%
Game of Life (2007)
Plot Summary:
In Game of LIfe, a children's soccer team is the common link for a multi-layered story giving a candid look into the intersecting lives of five families living in Los Angeles. Game of LIfe examines the complexities of racial and class divisions, and reveals that despite the fragile volatility of human relationships, family is what holds us together and unites us all.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 223
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, realistic, independent film
Similar in 90%
Family Ties (1982)
Plot Summary:
Former 1960s flower children Steven and Elyse Keaton raise their conservative son Alex, daughters Mallory and Jennifer, and later, youngest child Andrew.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 20000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Family
Country: USA
Duration: 30 min
Plot tags: sitcom, humorous, realistic, witty, semi serious, atmospheric, iconic, vintage
Similar in 85%
Soul Food (2000)
Plot Summary:
Soul Food: The Series is a television drama that aired Wednesday nights on Showtime from June 28, 2000 to May 26, 2004. Created by filmmaker George Tillman, Jr. and developed for television by Felicia D. Henderson, Soul Food is based upon Tillman's childhood experiences growing up in Wisconsin, and is a continuation of his successful 1997 film of the same name. Having aired for 74 episodes, it is the longest running drama with a predominantly black cast in the history of North American prime-time television.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 45 min
Plot tags: sentimental, humorous, semi serious, sincere, touching, realistic, talky, sitcom, black cinema
Similar in 82%
Lucky 7 (2013)
Plot Summary:
What would you do if you won the lottery? How would it change your life? Follow a group of seven gas station employees in Queens, New York, who have been chipping into a lottery pool for years, never thinking they'd actually win. They need to be careful what they wish for, because while the money could solve problems for each of them, it will forever change the close-knit bonds these friends have formed.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 669
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 42 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, captivating
Similar in 87%
My Louisiana Sky (2001)
Plot Summary:
A girl comes to terms with her mentally challenged parents.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 952
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, emotional, retro, melancholic, thought provoking, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 76%
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (2007)
Plot Summary:
The film follows Mr. Shi, a retired widower from Beijing. When his only daughter, Yilan, who lives in Spokane, Washington and works as a librarian, gets divorced, he decides to visit her to help her heal. However, Yilan is not interested. She tries keeping an emotional distance but when this finally fails she begins physically avoiding her father. He confronts her about an affair with a married Russian man and she, in turn, lets loose about all the gossip she'd heard as a young girl about his alleged affair with a female colleague back in China.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: serious, thought provoking, touching, realistic, emotional, contemplative
Similar in 87%
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993)
Plot Summary:
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman is an American Western drama series created by Beth Sullivan and starring Jane Seymour who plays Dr. Michaela "Mike" Quinn, a physician who leaves Boston in search of adventure in the American West and who settles in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The television series ran on CBS for six seasons, from January 1, 1993 to May 16, 1998. In total, 150 episodes were produced, plus two television movies which were made after the series was cancelled. It aired in over 100 countries. Since 1997, reruns have been shown in syndication and on ABC Family, Ion Television, the Hallmark Channel, gmc, Eleven, CBS Drama and INSP.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 13000
Genere: Drama, Family, Western
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: sentimental, serious, realistic, touching, medical drama, soap opera, juvenile, period drama, telenovela
Similar in 86%
Of Boys and Men (2008)
Plot Summary:
Robert Townsend stars as the patriarch of a family devastated when his wife is killed in a senseless auto accident. Reeling with grief, each family member must find courage and vision to carry on, ultimately eager to do the mother proud.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 192
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: realistic, psychological, sentimental, captivating, touching, serious, independent film
Similar in 84%
Face (2002)
Plot Summary:
Genie, a Chinese-American teenager, develops feelings for a charming African-American DJ, but her grandmother forbids their romance forcing Genie to choose between family and love.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 350
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, emotional, sentimental, serious, realistic, contemplative