Best tv shows like The Education of Max Bickford
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Plot Summary:
The Education of Max Bickford is a television drama that aired from 2001 to 2002 on CBS. It starred Richard Dreyfuss as the title character, a college professor of American Studies at Chadwick College, an all-women's school in New Jersey. Also starring was child actor Eric Ian Goldberg, who portrayed the young Lester Bickford, Max's son. Max's colleagues included Marcia Gay Harden as Andrea Haskell, his former student who had recently joined the faculty, and Helen Shaver as his best friend Erica, previously known as Steve before her transition. Max's daughter Nell, played by Katee Sackhoff, attended the college.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 306
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, semi serious, offbeat
Best tv shows and movies like The Education of Max Bickford (2001):
Similar in 80%
Far North (1988)
Plot Summary:
After being severly injured in a horse-riding accident,the family patriarch Bertram lies in a hospital bed plotting revenge against Mel, the four legged "enemy" he blames for putting him there. So when his eldest daughter Kate comes to visit,the father has but one request "Shoot that horse!" Meanwhile back at the house, Kate's mom is losing her grip on reality and Kate's sister Rita has her own problems with a teenage daughter who has recently discovered booze and boys. Between her ornery father,her fed up sister, her wild niece and her spaced out mom, Minnesotan turned New Yorker Kate is in for one helluva family visit!.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 747
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: independent film, clever, offbeat, humorous, realistic, semi serious
Similar in 77%
Minder (2009)
Plot Summary:
Archie Daley's a bit of a rogue, always up for some dodgy dealings in the hope of making a nice little earner, but sometimes it can cause him to lose his moral compass, which is where Jamie usually steps in to put him right.
IMDB Rating: 4.4
IMDB Votes: 207
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: humorous, semi serious, realistic, light, feel good
Similar in 77%
Radio Free Roscoe (2003)
Plot Summary:
Radio Free Roscoe was a Canadian television series filmed in Toronto, Ontario. The show was produced by Decode Entertainment, and it first aired on 1 August 2003 on Family, in Canada. It has also been dubbed in French in the province of Quebec and aired on VRAK.TV. The show was later aired on The N in the United States, where the show received funding for a second season. The series ended on 27 May 2005 because The N decided to stop funding the show, and Family, along with Decode Entertainment, could not fill the gap in the production budget. The show was shown on Family until 2007, when it was replaced. In early 2008, The N began rebroadcasting reruns. The pilot was first filmed in New Jersey, with an entirely different cast. Then, the show was going to be based in Nutley, New Jersey and was titled Radio Free Nutley. The show was never picked up until Decode Entertainment decided to move production to Toronto and change the cast and title of the show. However, the show was still set in suburban New Jersey.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 30 min
Plot tags: realistic, humorous, psychological, sincere, teen, offbeat, sitcom, semi serious
Similar in 85%
The Bedford Diaries (2006)
Plot Summary:
The Bedford Diaries is an American television series that premiered March 29, 2006 on The WB and concluded its first season on May 10, 2006. It was canceled on May 18, 2006. The series was created by Tom Fontana and Julie Martin. A week prior to its premiere, The WB posted scenes from the pilot, which might have prompted FCC fines, on its website. A version without explicit images was broadcast on television.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 504
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, semi serious, sentimental, humorous, sexy, realistic, sexual
Similar in 89%
In His Father's Shoes (1997)
Plot Summary:
A fortyish cancer-stricken, emaciated Frank Crosby and his fifteen-year-old son Clay, who is the healthful, youthful image of his father, are spending an afternoon enjoying the atmosphere of Venice Beach. They enter Oddities, a store where the gypsy woman owner gives them a pair of special wingtip shoes. Later that night in the hospital where Frank lay dying, he shares with Clay his memory of a postcard image: a golf course where people are playing and are leisurely sipping tea. Frank dies and leaves behind a distraught family: Clay, his little sister Maggie, and their mother Janice. Clay wistfully goes to his father's closet and finds the wingtips from earlier in the day. Putting them on, he is transported back in time and becomes his father as a child. He discovers he can travel back and forth in time just by putting on or taking off the shoes. Clay learns a great deal about his father's early years and is eager to learn more.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 283
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, offbeat, feel good, humorous, semi serious
Similar in 89%
Dragon Sakura (2005)
Plot Summary:
A struggling lawyer, Kenji Sakuragi, takes a position at private school Tatsuyama Gakuen to pay off his debts. Kenji decides to try to turn this hopeless school into one of the elite institutions in Japan to help rejuvenate his career. His barometer of success will be to get five of his students admitted to the prestigious Tokyo University the following year. But rather than cramming them with lots of general information, his down-to-earth class concentrates on unknown techniques for passing the entrance examination and how to live a good life in these turbulent times. His refreshing outlook and strategy may just be what is needed to turn around the future prospects of himself and his students, and teach the rest of us a thing or two as well!.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration:
Plot tags: sincere, dorama, touching, captivating, semi serious, entertaining, realistic
Similar in 77%
Quiz Me Quick (2012)
Plot Summary:
The story of five underdogs, meeting by chance during a quiz in a local pub. They get the idea of taking part in the "Superprestige", the most important quiz. The selection procedure turns out to be difficult, requiring more than just knowledge. There's even more at stake than the five had in mind. "Quiz Me Quick" follows their successes as well as their failures.
IMDB Rating: 8.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium
Duration:
Plot tags: humorous, tragicomedy, realistic, semi serious, captivating, offbeat
Similar in 76%
Britannia High (2008)
Plot Summary:
Britannia High is a British musical drama television series co-produced by Granada Television and Globe Productions for the ITV network. The series focused on the lives of a group of teenagers and their mentors at a fictional London theatre school. It aired on ITV and TV3 Ireland, premiering on 26 October 2008. The show starred Sapphire Elia, Georgina Hagen, Mitch Hewer, Rana Roy, Matthew James Thomas and Marcquelle Ward, as well as Adam Garcia as the dance mentor, Lorraine Pilkington as the music mentor and Mark Benton as the school principal and acting mentor. In addition to the main cast, the series featured cameo performances from Girls Aloud, Boyzone, Matt Willis and Gemma Bissix. Also, Aston Merrygold, lead singer of hit boyband JLS, auditioned for the role before his success in the boyband - but only made it to the final 16. George Ure who attended Mountview Academy also auditioned before his success in the Musical Wicked where he played Boq. Pixie Lott also auditioned as did Ed Sheeran and Danielle Peazer. The show featured an original soundtrack which was created by a team of pop producers and writers in the UK, led by Take That member Gary Barlow.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 535
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 630 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, captivating, semi serious, realistic
Similar in 83%
Truckers (2013)
Plot Summary:
Funny, moving and at times painful - Truckers tells stories of real life, ordinary people pushed to extremes. In each episode, one character undertakes a journey and we are along for the ride. In an age when technology would make us seem ever more connected, the series uses the truck driver, alone in his cab, as a way to explore how isolated we can become within modern society and the importance of real human connection. These are powerful, moving stories, but the tone is always joyous and each story is one of redemption.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 113
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 300 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, humorous, realistic, semi serious
Similar in 77%
HAPPYish (2015)
Plot Summary:
Thom Payne is a 44 year-old man whose world is thrown into disarray when his 25 year-old "wunderkind" boss arrives, saying things like "digital," "social" and "viral." Is he in need of a "rebranding," or does he just have a "low joy ceiling?" Maybe pursuing happiness is a fool's errand? Happiness after all is pretty high bar. In a world as absurd as ours, maybe the best anyone can hope for is happyish.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 30 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, cynical, semi serious, dark comedy, captivating, psychological, funny, satirical, offbeat
Similar in 82%
Small Time Gangster (2011)
Plot Summary:
Small Time Gangster is an Australian drama series produced by Boilermaker-Burberry Entertainment for Movie Extra subscription television channel. The series follows the adventures of Tony Piccolo, a man who works hard to support his wife Cathy and two kids. While they think he's cleaning carpets, his real profession is as an underworld enforcer, a brutal standover man.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 148
Genere: Drama
Country: Australia
Duration:
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, psychological, captivating, rough, semi serious
Similar in 79%
Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You (2011)
Plot Summary:
A vulnerable teenager with a deep perception of the world and no idea how to live in it.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, touching, talky, semi serious, independent film, offbeat, queer cinema
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Happyland (2014)
Plot Summary:
Having grown up in a world of manufactured happiness, Lucy, the cynical teenage daughter of a idealistic theme park princess mom, wants to get out and experience something real. When Ian, the new park owner's son, arrives and sweeps her off her feet, Lucy is left wondering if fairy tale endings do exist after all. But when a scandalous secret turns her life upside down, she learns Happyland is far from a walk in the park.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 21 min
Plot tags: sentimental, semi serious, humorous, realistic
Similar in 76%
The Best Years (2007)
Plot Summary:
The Best Years is a Canadian teen drama series set in Boston, Massachusetts. The series was created by producer and writer of Degrassi: The Next Generation, Aaron Martin. The first season was shown on Global in Canada and The N in the United States. The second season was shown in the U.S. on The N and in Canada on E!, CanWest's secondary network.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: realistic, semi serious, sincere, touching, sexual, sexy
Similar in 78%
Class of '96 (1993)
Plot Summary:
Class of '96 is an American drama series that aired on Fox from January to May 1993. The series was created by John Romano and filmed mostly at the University of Toronto.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 236
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: sentimental, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 79%
Life Unexpected (2010)
Plot Summary:
Life Unexpected is a coming-of-age family drama that centers around 16-year-old Lux, who was given up for adoption at birth but never adopted. When she is put back into the custody of her estranged-since-high-school birth parents, Cate and Baze, the three form an unlikely family.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 15000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: sentimental, feel good, semi serious, touching, humorous, sincere, captivating, teen, realistic, teen comedy
Similar in 78%
Student Confidential (1986)
Plot Summary:
Four high school students are led into the world of adult vices by their guidance counselor, a shadowy, suicidal millionaire.
IMDB Rating: 3.4
IMDB Votes: 201
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: entertaining, grindhouse, independent film, erotic, sexy, offbeat, humorous, realistic, semi serious, sexual
Similar in 86%
Young Americans (2000)
Plot Summary:
Young Americans is an American television drama created by Steven Antin. The show debuted on July 12, 2000 on The WB network as a summer replacement for, and spin-off from, another Columbia TriStar Television production, Dawson's Creek. The series was originally ordered for the fall 1999-2000 season but was delayed due to unresolved matters between the ColumbiaTriStar and The WB. The main character, Will Krudski, was introduced late in season three of Dawson's Creek as a childhood friend of the group who has kept in contact with Pacey Witter. Will goes to Capeside to visit with old friends while on spring break. After briefly dating Andie McPhee he returns to Raleigh. The show explores themes of forbidden love, morality, social classes and gender roles.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: touching, humorous, realistic, semi serious, queer cinema
Similar in 89%
Lotto Land (1995)
Plot Summary:
This film tells two interwoven stories of two single-parent families in a poor, racially-mixed neighborhood in Brooklyn. The first story is about a young black man (with aspirations of getting away from his friends who are involved in drugs) who falls in love with a latino girl (who is heading off to college on a full scholarship). The second is about their parents, (she works in the neighborhood liquor store; he works for the phone company). The story takes place against the backdrop of a winning lottery ticket worth $27 million being sold to someone in the neighborhood from the liquor store.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 65
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: independent film, feel good, humorous, realistic, semi serious, light, thought provoking, clever, psychedelic, enigmatic
Similar in 87%
Brooklyn Bridge (1991)
Plot Summary:
Brooklyn Bridge is an American television program which aired on CBS between 1991 and 1993. It is about a Jewish American family living in Brooklyn in the middle 1950s. The premise was partially based on the childhood of executive producer and creator Gary David Goldberg. Brooklyn Bridge won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Emmy Award as for outstanding television series in 1992, after its first season. The cast was led by Marion Ross; Art Garfunkel performed the theme song, which was titled "Just Over The Brooklyn Bridge." In 1997, "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" was ranked #46 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time.
IMDB Rating: 8.6
IMDB Votes: 453
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 30 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, humorous, realistic, semi serious, period drama
Similar in 78%
The Sacred Family (2005)
Plot Summary:
It's Easter in the beach house of a Chilean well-to-do and nowadays family. A self-centered and successful father, a disoriented mother and a son overshadowed by his successful father. The three of them, wait for the arrival of the son's first official girlfriend; a disturbing and rebellious young lady who will invade the house with her powerful sexual load and other "gifts", breaking loose an emotional cataclysm with no stepping back.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 470
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: touching, humorous, semi serious, realistic, sexual, sexy
Similar in 84%
The New Year (2010)
Plot Summary:
A young woman is forced to return to her hometown to take care of her ailing father and, in turn, finds herself living a life she never imagined for herself.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 357
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: humorous, semi serious, contemplative, psychological, captivating, realistic
Similar in 84%
Copy (2015)
Plot Summary:
Mesh Kilbourne is a tenacious, ambitious student journalist whose quest for the truth outweighs social niceties, friendships, and protocol. When he stumbles on a possible cheating scandal involving his editor in chief, he begins sniffing out the truth. But when the story leads him to investigate the president of the school, he may have uncovered more than he bargained for and made a powerful enemy in the process. Will truth win out over intrigue? Will Mesh learn how to make friends while alienating people? Has he got the scoop of a lifetime? Or will the whole story blow up in his face?.
IMDB Rating:
IMDB Votes:
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Duration:
Plot tags: realistic, semi serious, humorous, captivating
Similar in 76%
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 84%
Hellcats (2010)
Plot Summary:
Pre-law student Marti Perkins' world is flipped upside down when she loses her scholarship, and realizes the only way she can stay in school is by reigniting her dormant teen gymnastic skills to win a place on Lancer University's legendary cheerleading team.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: humorous, feel good, semi serious, entertaining, teen, realistic
Similar in 76%
Underemployed (2012)
Plot Summary:
Five friends learn to deal with the harsh realities of life after college.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 40 min
Plot tags: humorous, semi serious, captivating, light, realistic, independent film
Similar in 87%
More Sex & the Single Mom (2005)
Plot Summary:
Single, divorced lawyer Jess Gradwell returns in this sequel as she tries to raise her new three-year-old son, Jake, while dealing with her teenage daughter, Sara's, growing carnal desires with a photographer she meets while planning her high school graduation. It all comes to a head when Jess' former flame and father of Jake, Alex Lofton, returns never knowing he has a son out of his and Jess' lustful fling and wants to be a part of her life again, despite Jess not wanting anything to do with Alex.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 349
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: touching, humorous, emotional, realistic, semi serious, sexy, sexual
Similar in 86%
Two Shots Fired (2014)
Plot Summary:
One early morning, at the beginning of a very hot summer, Mariano, a sixteen-year-old teenager, returns home, jumps into the pool and does some laps with a stopwatch. Then he gets out and mows the lawn, where he accidentally cuts the mower’s power cord when he runs over it. Set on fixing it, he goes to find tools but stumbles across a gun that he brings back to his room to shoot himself twice. But Mariano survives: one bullet just grazed his head and the other one, he believes, is stuck somewhere inside his body even if the doctors can’t find it anywhere, nor any exit wound for that matter. The only aftereffect he seems to have is a mysterious double-note when he plays music with his friends, which according to him is probably the result of the bullet still being inside him. But Mariano’s impulsive act will have other consequences on the people surrounding him….
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 669
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Argentina, Chile, Germany, Netherlands
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: semi serious, realistic, disturbing, offbeat, humorous
Similar in 83%
The Paper Chase (1978)
Plot Summary:
Critically lauded drama about the life and pressures of a group of students at a prestigious Eastern law school, with a strict and domineering contract-law professor named Charles Kingsfield, who alternately inspires and terrifies the students.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: clever, intellectual, serious, realistic, witty, contemplative, talky
Similar in 84%
Love That Boy (2003)
Plot Summary:
Love That Boy is the story of Phoebe, a socially inept overachiever, unrecognized in a world run by C students. Phoebe’s life is totally dominated by her “To Do Before Graduation” list. When Phoebe’s best friend Robyn dumps Phoebe two weeks before college graduation, Robyn points out that Phoebe’s list is missing one essential thing - a boyfriend. Not wanting to be alone at graduation, the most important day of her life, Phoebe begins an ill-fated quest to find a boyfriend. After the demise of her first relationship - her “boyfriend” didn’t even know that they were going out - Phoebe inadvertently falls in love. The only problem is, he’s fourteen.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 449
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: humorous, atmospheric, captivating, light, touching, realistic, semi serious