20 best movies like Ally McBeal (1997)

Ren MacCormack is transplanted from Boston to the small southern town of Bomont where loud music and dancing are prohibited. Not one to bow to the status quo, Ren challenges the ban, revitalizing the town and falling in love with the minister’s troubled daughter Ariel in the process.

An on-the-lam punk rocker and a young woman obsessed with his band go on an unexpected and epic journey together through the decaying suburbs of the American Midwest.

Eleanor Shellstrop, an ordinary woman who, through an extraordinary string of events, enters the afterlife where she comes to realize that she hasn't been a very good person. With the help of her wise afterlife mentor, she's determined to shed her old way of living and discover the awesome (or at least the pretty good) person within.

'Pleasantly Plump' teenager Tracy Turnblad achieves her dream of becoming a regular on the Corny Collins Dance Show. Now a teen hero, she starts using her fame to speak out for the causes she believes in, most of all integration. In doing so, she earns the wrath of the show's former star, Amber Von Tussle, as well as Amber's manipulative, pro-segregation parents. The rivalry comes to a head as Amber and Tracy vie for the title of Miss Auto Show 1963.

Gary, a musician, is trapped in an unhappy relationship with his live-in lover, Dora. He becomes enthralled with a beautiful seductress who enters his dreams, and tries to control his dream-state so he can spend more and more time with her. When Gary sees his mystery woman's face on a bus billboard, he discovers she is real, and fate brings him an opportunity to meet her.

In this rock opera hybrid of Phantom of the Opera and Faust, fledgling singer-songwriter Winslow Leach finds himself double-crossed by the nefarious music producer Swan, who steals both his music and the girl Leach wants to sing it, Phoenix, for the grand opening of his rock palace, The Paradise. After Swan sends Leach to prison for trespassing, Leach endures a freak accident which leaves him disfigured and plans his revenge on both Swan and The Paradise, becoming the Phantom of the Paradise.

Nina is totally heartbroken at the death of her boyfriend Jamie, but is even more unprepared for his return as a ghost. At first it's almost as good as it used to be - hey, even the rats that infested her house have disappeared. But Jamie starts bringing ghostly friends home and behaving more and more oddly.

Director helmut Dietls and Patric Susskinds illustrate a legendary story of two lovers who cant keep themselves away from death.

A long lost music producer finds a singer-songwriter right about the moment he has given up all hope on life.

A girl from New York attends a college in Atlanta to join their once-famous marching band.

It's a comedy about a guarded woman who finds out she's dying of cancer, but when she meets her match, the threat of falling in love is scarier than death

Kate is a young woman subscribed to bad decisions. Her last date with disaster? That of having accepted to work as Santa's elf for a department store. However, she meets Tom there. Her life takes a new turn. For Kate, it seems too good to be true.

As a child, Michael Walker wished every day could be Christmas. That is, until a tragic accident crushed his holiday spirit. Thirty years later, Michael still can't muster any joy for the holidays, despite encouragement from his playful wife and well-intentioned parents. But when his young son faces a tragedy, Michael needs to make amends with his past. A mysterious man named Nick gives Michael a gift and instills in him the courage to find the joy that he lost.

When a devastating attack shatters Mark Hogancamp and wipes away all memories, no one expected recovery. Putting together pieces from his old and new life, Mark meticulously creates a wondrous town named Marwen where he can heal and be heroic. As he builds an astonishing art installation — a testament to the most powerful women he knows — through his fantasy world, he draws strength to triumph in the real one.

A couple who can't stop fighting embark on a last-ditch effort to save their marriage: turning their fights into songs and starting a band.

A man, shaken by fate after his wife's death, chooses to be a monk.

A joyous family reunion becomes a hilarious nightmare as Madea and the crew travel to backwoods Georgia, where they find themselves unexpectedly planning a funeral that might unveil unpleasant family secrets.

A timid magazine photo manager who lives life vicariously through daydreams embarks on a true-life adventure when a negative goes missing.

A woman at rock bottom must find her way across Los Angeles in order to crash her ex-boyfriend's engagement party.

Lovely Linda Mason has crooner Jim Hardy head over heels, but suave stepper Ted Hanover wants her for his new dance partner after femme fatale Lila Dixon gives him the brush. Jim's supper club—Holiday Inn—is the setting for the chase by Hanover and manager Danny Reed. The music's the thing.

A businessman is reunited with the four lost souls who were his guardian angels during childhood, all with a particular purpose to joining the afterlife.

Punk's Dead, the sequel to 1999 cult hit SLC Punk, is a punk romp through the Utah hinterlands. Ross, Penny and Crash, young outsiders from different tribes, embark on a road trip to a huge punk show. Ross, 19, is the love child of Trish and Heroin Bob, who died before Ross was born. During their odyssey, and with the help of a healthy dose of drugs, alcohol and punk music, Ross shreds his darkly Gothic outlook and embraces life. His mother Trish, who raised Ross alone in her steam punk shop, discovers that he is in a crisis. She recruits his 'uncles,' Bob's old SLC gang, to help find him. When all collide at the concert, they are forced to deal with their unresolved relationships with Bob.

A realistic character study of a young man in his early 20s negotiating a disintegrating relationship with an ambitious artist/photographer girlfriend and an ascending fling with an adventurous floater, as well as pressures from his family and society to go to college/make steps toward success, all the while becoming increasingly interested in the questionably viable life of playing guitar.

Under hypnosis while trying to quit smoking, Daisy Gamble revisits past lives and different personalities.

After a talent scout spots her performing with her dog Boi at a charity gala, Sharpay Evans sets off for the bright lights of NYC, convinced instant fame and fortune are in the bag. But theatre's a dog-eat-dog world. Fortunately, Sharpay also meets Peyton, a handsome student filmmaker who finds Sharpay nearly as fascinating as she finds herself.

Jack Malik is a struggling singer-songwriter in an English seaside town whose dreams of fame are rapidly fading, despite the fierce devotion and support of his childhood best friend, Ellie. After a freak bus accident during a mysterious global blackout, Jack wakes up to discover that he's the only person on Earth who can remember The Beatles.

A dance trophy winning young couple is temporarily split up when a playboy aviator leads the girl to believe he's in love with her.

A modern, punk adaptation of Shakespeare's classic. Told irreverently, this film attempts to impact the viewer in the same way theatre-goers were effected in Shakespeare's time. Bawdy, Violent, Humorous, and Romantic.

Two sailors, Joe and Clarence have four days shore leave in spend their shore leave trying to get a girl for Clarence. Clarence has his eye on a girl with musical aspirations, and before Joe can stop him, promises to get her an audition with José Iturbi. But the trouble really starts when Joe realizes he's falling for his buddy's girl.

Night club singer Nelle Hill has many suitors an escaped convict, a piano player and a newspaper man. One is killed. With musical shorts such as “Murder in Swingtime,” “Black and Tan Fantasy,” “Symphony in Black,” and “Ain’t Misbehaving.”

An Innuit hunter races his sled home with a fresh-caught halibut. This fish pervades the entire film, in real and imaginary form. Meanwhile, Axel tags fish in New York as a naturalist's gofer. He's happy there, but a messenger arrives to bring him to Arizona for his uncle's wedding. It's a ruse to get Axel into the family business. In Arizona, Axel meets two odd women: vivacious, needy, and plagued by neuroses and familial discord. He gets romantically involved with one, while the other, rich but depressed, plays accordion tunes to a gaggle of pet turtles

Johnny, a freewheeling, motorcycle-riding musician, rolls into a small town with his band, and meets Kathy, an honor student who catches his eye. Meanwhile, Kathy's father, after being in the Witness Protection Program, is finally found by the two corrupt cops he escaped from years ago, who claim he owes them a lot of money.

New York girl has a dull boyfriend and seems destined for a dull marriage when she meets a rich playboy who has money to burn and places to go.

In the year before the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, the four Smith daughters learn lessons of life and love, even as they prepare for a reluctant move to New York.

Dan Frazier is a U. S. Border Patrolman on the California-Mexico border whose hot temper and ready-fists keep him in trouble, both of which indirectly lead to the death of a fellow trooper. He resigns from the force in order to find out who was responsible. He believes it was a gang of smugglers, engaged in smuggling illegal aliens into the United States from Mexico, and in order to get inside the gang he fakes smuggling activities.

Victor Bukowski is an out-of-work actor with problems. He's got a lousy agent, he has a habit of falling out with directors and he's still in love with his ex-girlfriend. However, Victor is about to embark on an unexpected emotional journey which will make him confront his future and his past mistakes.

She seems like your ordinary overweight middle-aged wife & mom except her dream of being a rock star still weighs heavy on her soul, "they" say she can't do it, watch her transform and over come life's brutal obstacles to turn her dream into reality.

Dentist, Bertram Pincus is a man whose people skills leave much to be desired. When Pincus dies unexpectedly, but is miraculously revived after seven minutes, he wakes up to discover that he now has the annoying ability to see ghosts.

Shrimp explores the strange, interwoven and often hilarious daily lives of the women and men who work and play in a Los Angeles BDSM den.

Adam and Steve are two gay youths who have a one-night stand that ends embarrassingly. Nearly two decades later, Adam, now a Manhattan tour guide, and Steve, a psychiatrist, meet again -- but neither remembers the other from years before. The two begin dating, even playing matchmaker for their friends Michael and Rhonda, but their promising relationship hits a major snag when Adam and Steve finally recall their past connection.