20 best movies like Permanent Midnight (1998)

List of the best movies like Permanent Midnight (1998): Lady Sings the Blues, Gia, Young Man with a Horn, Sid & Nancy, Judy, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, Welcome to Marwen, Walk the Line, The Man with the Golden Arm, Piñero.

Tags: movies similar to Permanent Midnight (1998) - full list

Markimdb: 7
Genremelodrama, drama, music, biography
CountryUSA
Duration02:24

Chronicles the rise and fall of legendary blues singer Billie Holiday. Her late childhood, stint as a prostitute, early tours, marriages and drug addiction are featured.

Markimdb: 6.9
Genremelodrama, drama, biography
CountryUSA
Duration02:00

Gia Carangi travels to New York City with dreams of becoming a fashion model. Within minutes of arriving, she meets Wilhelmina Cooper, a wise and high-powered agent who takes Gia under her wing. With Cooper's help and her own natural instincts, Gia quickly shoots to the top of the modeling world. When Cooper dies of lung cancer, however, Gia turns to drugs – and both she and her career begin to spiral out of control.

Markimdb: 7.2
Genremelodrama, drama, music, biography
CountryUSA
Duration01:52

Legendary trumpeter Art Hazzard teaches young Rick Martin everything he knows about playing, so Rick becomes a star musician, but a troubled marriage and the desire to play pure jazz instead of commercial swing songs cause him problems.

Markimdb: 7
Genremelodrama, drama, music, biography
CountryUnited Kingdom
Duration01:52

Following their breakout success in England, flagship punk rock band the Sex Pistols venture out on their first U.S. tour. Temperamental bassist Sid Vicious takes his troubled girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, along for the ride. Along the way, the couple's turbulent relationship strains the patience of bandmate Johnny Rotten and manager Malcolm McLaren, while plunging Sid and Nancy into the depths of drug addiction and co-dependency.

Markimdb: 6.8
Genremelodrama, drama, biography
CountryUnited Kingdom, France, USA
Duration01:03

Winter 1968 and showbiz legend Judy Garland arrives in Swinging London to perform a five-week sold-out run at The Talk of the Town. It is 30 years since she shot to global stardom in The Wizard of Oz, but if her voice has weakened, its dramatic intensity has only grown. As she prepares for the show, battles with management, charms musicians and reminisces with friends and adoring fans, her wit and warmth shine through. Even her dreams of love seem undimmed as she embarks on a whirlwind romance with Mickey Deans, her soon-to-be fifth husband.

Markimdb: 6.9
Genrecomedy, melodrama, drama, biography
CountryUnited Kingdom, USA
Duration02:02

The turbulent personal and professional life of actor Peter Sellers (1925-1980), from his beginnings as a comic performer on BBC Radio to his huge success as one of the greatest film comedians of all time; an obsessive artist so dedicated to his work that neglected his loved ones and sacrificed part of his own personality to convincingly create that of his many memorable characters.

Markimdb: 6.2
Genrefantasy, comedy, melodrama, drama, biography
CountryJapan, USA
Duration01:55

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.

Markimdb: 7.8
Genremelodrama, drama, music, biography
CountryUSA, Germany
Duration02:16

A chronicle of country music legend Johnny Cash's life, from his early days on an Arkansas cotton farm to his rise to fame with Sun Records in Memphis, where he recorded alongside Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins.

Markimdb: 7.3
Genremelodrama, drama, crime
CountryUSA
Duration01:59

A junkie must face his true self to kick his drug addiction.

Markimdb: 6.2
Genredrama, biography
CountryUSA
Duration01:30

"Piñero" tells the story of the explosive life of a Latino icon, the gay poet-playwright-actor Miguel Piñero, whose urban poetry is recognized as a pre-cursor to rap and hip-hop. After doing time in hard-core Sing-Sing for petty thefts and drug dealing, Piñero's prison experiences developed into the 1974 Tony-nominated play Short Eyes. The resulting notoriety and fame was too much for the Latino bad-boy genius who retreated to the darker corners of New York City.

Markimdb: 6.5
Genremelodrama, drama, biography
CountryUnited Kingdom, France, Japan, USA
Duration01:31

Biography of the British painter Francis Bacon. The movie focuses on his relationship with George Dyer, his lover. Dyer was a former small time crook.

Markimdb: 7.3
Genremelodrama, drama, biography, sport
CountryUSA, Germany
Duration02:00

A chance encounter with a stranger changes the life of a college gymnast.

Markimdb: 7.4
Genremelodrama, drama, biography, history
CountryUSA
Duration02:37

The young Austrian princess Marie Antoinette is arranged to marry Louis XVI, future king of France, in a politically advantageous marriage for the rival countries. The opulent Marie indulges in various whims and flirtations. When Louis XV passes and Louis XVI ascends the French throne, his queen's extravagant lifestyle earns the hatred of the French people, who despise her Austrian heritage.

Markimdb: 7.4
Genremelodrama, drama, music, biography
CountryUnited Kingdom, USA
Duration02:01

The life and death of the legendary Ludwig van Beethoven. Beside all the work he is known for, the composer once wrote a famous love letter to a nameless beloved and the movie tries to find out who this beloved was. Not easy as Beethoven has had many women in his life.

Markimdb: 7.2
Genredrama, music, biography
CountryUSA

Deprived of a normal childhood by her ambitious mother, Katie (Jo Van Fleet), Lillian Roth (Susan Hayward) becomes a star of Broadway and Hollywood before she is twenty. Shortly before her marriage to her childhood sweetheart, David Tredman (Ray Danton), he dies and Lillian takes her first drink of many down the road of becoming an alcoholic.

Markimdb: 7.1
Genremelodrama, drama, crime, biography
CountryUSA
Duration02:05

During his 18 years in Folsom Prison, street-gang leader Santana rules over all the drug-and-murder activities behind bars. Upon his release, Santana goes back to his old neighborhood, intending to lead a peaceful, crime-free life. But his old gang buddies force him back into his old habits.

Markimdb: 6.7
Genremelodrama, drama
CountryUSA
Duration01:56

A young woman who has been in and out from rehab for the past 10 years returns home for the weekend for her sister's wedding.

Markimdb: 5.3
Genremelodrama, drama, music
CountryUSA

A dark psychological drama, Shooting Livien explores the inner psyche of John Livien, a disillusioned New York musician who deals with a childhood trauma by claiming an alter ego. His band on the brink of success, fantasy becomes dangerously blurred with reality as Livien struggles with his identity crisis. At the peak of his insanity Livien decides to take his dementia to the furthest reaches...

Markimdb: 6.3
Genrethriller, drama, crime, biography
CountryUSA, Netherlands
Duration01:38

    The New York club scene of the 80s and 90s was a world like no other. Into this candy-colored, mirror ball playground stepped Michael Alig, a wannabe from nowhere special. Under the watchful eye of veteran club kid James St. James, Alig quickly rose to the top... and there was no place to go but down.

    Markimdb: 6.6
    Genreaction, melodrama, drama, adventure, western, military, biography, history
    CountryUSA

    A story of love, friendship, survival and triumph spanning five decades from the Texas Revolution through the Civil War, Reconstruction and beyond.

    Markimdb: 7.7
    Genremelodrama, drama, biography
    CountryUnited Kingdom, Japan, USA
    Duration02:03

      The Theory of Everything is the extraordinary story of one of the world’s greatest living minds, the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who falls deeply in love with fellow Cambridge student Jane Wilde.

      Markimdb: 6.2
      Genremelodrama, drama, biography
      CountryGermany, Canada, USA
      Duration01:44

      Elizabeth is on the verge of losing her grip on life after she leaves her emotionally fraught home to start college. Quickly, her life takes a turn for the worse: She clashes with her roommate and decides her boyfriend, Rafe, is her sole salvation. Her psychiatrist prescribes Prozac … but is that her only choice?

      Markimdb: 5.8
      Genremelodrama, drama, biography
      CountryUSA
      Duration01:36

      Tod Lubitch is born with a deficient immune system. As such, he must spend the rest of his life in a completely sterile environment. His room is completely hermetically sealed against bacteria and virus, his food is specially prepared, and his only human contact comes in the form of gloved hands. The movie follows his life into a teenager.

      Markimdb: 7.2
      Genremelodrama, drama, biography
      CountryUSA
      Duration02:04

      Poor physics student Marie is studying at the Sorbonne in 1890s Paris. One of the few women studying in her field, Marie encounters skepticism concerning her abilities, but is eventually offered a research placement in Pierre Curie's lab. The scientists soon fall in love and embark on a shared quest to extract, from a particular type of rock, a new chemical element they have named radium. However, their research puts them on the brink of professional failure.

      Markimdb: 6.5
      Genremelodrama, drama, biography, history
      CountryUnited Kingdom
      Duration01:33

      As influential Italian artist Caravaggio dies in exile in 1610, he recalls his short life, from his childhood to his initial artistic failures to his later triumphs as he catches the eye of a sympathetic cardinal to his destructive relationship with a dashing gambler.

      Markimdb: 7.3
      Genremelodrama, drama, biography
      CountryUSA
      Duration02:20

      The true story of Frances Farmer's meteoric rise to fame in Hollywood and the tragic turn her life took when she was blacklisted.

      Markimdb: 6.4
      Genrefantasy, drama, music, biography
      CountryUSA
      Duration01:42

      The story follows 19-year-old Renee who has always loved fairy tales: the idea of a princess, a hero and a happily ever after. But Renee’s life is that of a darker tale: she’s a young woman battling addiction, depression and self-injury. In a creative blend of artistic fantasy balanced with harsh reality, the movie follows Renee on her courageous journey towards recovery.

      Markimdb: 6.3
      Genredrama, music, biography
      CountryUSA
      Duration01:56

      In the mid-80s, three women (each with an attorney) arrive at the office of New York entertainment manager, Morris Levy. One is an L.A. singer, formerly of the Platters; one is a petty thief from Philly; one teaches school in a small Georgia town. Each claims to be the widow of long-dead doo-wop singer-songwriter Frankie Lyman, and each wants years of royalties due to his estate, money Levy has never shared. During an ensuing civil trial, flashbacks tell the story of each one's life with Lyman, a boyish, high-pitched, dynamic performer, lost to heroin. Slowly, the three wives establish their own bond.

      Markimdb: 6.4
      Genremelodrama, drama, biography
      CountryUSA

      Five years after Yippie founder Abbie Hoffman goes underground to avoid a drug-related prison sentence, he contacts a reporter to get out the story of the FBI's covert spying, harassment and inciting of violence they then blame on the Left.

      Markimdb: 7.1
      Genremelodrama, drama, biography
      CountryUnited Kingdom, USA, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Japan
      Duration02:35

        When Gerda Wegener asks her husband Einar to fill in as a portrait model, Einar discovers the person she's meant to be and begins living her life as Lili Elbe. Having realized her true self and with Gerda's love and support, Lili embarks on a groundbreaking journey as a transgender pioneer.

        Markimdb: 6.5
        Genremelodrama, drama
        CountryUSA
        Duration02:06

        An airline pilot and his wife are forced to face the consequences of her alcoholism when her addictions threaten her life and their daughter's safety. While the woman enters detox, her husband must face the truth of his enabling behavior.

        Markimdb: 5.7
        Genremelodrama, drama, biography
        CountryUSA

        Errol Flynn, the swashbuckling Hollywood star and notorious ladies man, flouted convention all his life, but never more brazenly than in his last years when, swimming in vodka and unwilling to face his mortality, he undertook a liaison with an aspiring actress, Beverly Aadland. The two had a high-flying affair that spanned the globe and was enabled by the girl's fame-obsessed mother, Florence. It all came crashing to an end in October 1959, when events forced the relationship into the open, sparking an avalanche of publicity castigating Beverly and her mother - which only fed Florence's need to stay in the spotlight.

        Markimdb: 7.6
        Genredrama, biography
        CountryUSA
        Duration01:51

        The story of acerbic 1960s comic Lenny Bruce, whose groundbreaking, no-holds-barred style and social commentary was often deemed by the Establisment as too obscene for the public.

        Markimdb: 6.7
        Genreaction, thriller, melodrama, drama, crime
        CountryUSA
        Duration02:00

        Undercover cop Jim Raynor (Jason Patric) is a seasoned veteran. His partner, Kristen Cates (Jennifer Jason Leigh), is lacking in experience, but he thinks she's tough enough to work his next case with him: a deep cover assignment to bring down the notoriously hard-to-capture drug lord Gaines (Gregg Allman). While their relationship turns romantic during the assignment, they also turn into junkies, and will have to battle their own addictions if they want to bring down Gaines once and for all.

        Markimdb: 6.9
        Genremelodrama, drama, music
        CountryUSA

        Rock-and-roll singer Mary Rose Foster's romantic relationships and mental health are continuously imperilled by the demands of life on the road.

        Markimdb: 5.6
        Genremelodrama, drama
        CountryHong Kong
        Duration01:37

        Openly gay banker Daniel debates whether to return to Australia or stay in Hong Kong when he meets Kafka, a straight swimming instructor. The young men fall in love, believing that their love can bridge anything, despite their difference in sexuality and Kafka's increasing drug use. Daniel does not regret his love for Kafka, who tries to love him back against his nature. But a flashback memory from Kafka's past makes it difficult for their relationship to work.

        Markimdb: 6.7
        Genremelodrama, drama, military, biography
        CountryNetherlands
        Duration02:10

        Waldemar Nods, a young man from Suriname, meets the older Dutch woman Rika van der Lans and they fall in love. In pre-WWII Netherlands they could not be more different. The one black, the other white, 17 years between them and on top of that Rika already has four children with another man. They love each other, but then Rika appears to be pregnant...

        Markimdb: 6.4
        Genrethriller, melodrama, drama, biography
        CountryUnited Kingdom, Germany, Canada, USA
        Duration01:39

          Seduced by the challenge of an impossible case, the driven Dr. Carl Jung takes the unbalanced yet beautiful Sabina Spielrein as his patient. Jung’s weapon is the method of his master, the renowned Sigmund Freud. Both men fall under Sabina’s spell.

          Markimdb: 5.6
          Genremelodrama, drama, biography
          CountryUSA
          Duration02:01

          The controversial true story of a gay activist who rejects his homosexuality and becomes a Christian pastor.

          Markimdb: 6.3
          Genremelodrama, drama, biography, history
          CountryUSA
          Duration01:50

          In Marseilles, France in 1794, Desiree Clary, a young millinery clerk, becomes infatuated with Napoleon Bonaparte, but winds up wedding Genaral Jean-Baptiste Berandotte, an aid to Napoleon who later joins the forces that bring about the Emperor's downfall. Josephine Beauharnais, a worldly courtesan marries Napoleon and becomes Empress of France, but is then cast aside by her spouse when she proves unable to produce an heir to the throne.

          Markimdb: 6.8
          Genredrama, biography
          CountryUSA
          Duration01:40

          A David and Goliath law drama about a drug-addicted lawyer who takes on a health supply corporation while battling his own personal demons.

          Markimdb: 5.1
          Genremelodrama, drama, biography
          CountryUSA

          The true love story of iconic philosopher Ken Wilber and his wife Treya in 1980s California as they fall madly in love and are faced with illness and challenges that threaten to tear them apart.

          Markimdb: 6.5
          Genrethriller, melodrama, drama, biography
          CountryUSA
          Duration01:43

            A murder in 1944 draws together the great poets of the beat generation: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs.

            Markimdb: 6.6
            Genremelodrama, drama, biography
            CountryUSA
            Duration01:24

            It's San Francisco in 1957, and an American masterpiece is put on trial. Howl, the film, recounts this dark moment using three interwoven threads: the tumultuous life events that led a young Allen Ginsberg to find his true voice as an artist, society's reaction (the obscenity trial), and mind-expanding animation that echoes the startling originality of the poem itself. All three coalesce in a genre-bending hybrid that brilliantly captures a pivotal moment-the birth of a counterculture.

            Markimdb: 7.1
            Genredrama, music, biography
            CountryUSA
            Duration02:41

            Saxophone player Charlie Parker comes to New York in 1940. He is quickly noticed for his remarkable way of playing. He becomes a drug addict but his loving wife Chan tries to help him.

            Markimdb: 6.6
            Genremelodrama, drama, biography, history
            CountryUSA, United Kingdom
            Duration01:57

            An aspiring young physician, Robert Merivel found himself in the service of King Charles II and saves the life of someone close to the King. Merivel joins the King's court and lives the high life provided to someone of his position. Merivel is ordered to marry his King's mistress in order to divert the queens suspicions. He is given one order by the king and that is not to fall in love. The situation worsens when Merivel finds himself in love with his new wife. Eventually, the King finds out and relieves Merivel of his position and wealth. His fall from grace leaves Merivel where he first started. And through his travels and reunions with an old friend, he rediscovers his love for true medicine and what it really means to be a physician.

            Markimdb: 7.4
            Genremelodrama, drama, biography, history
            CountryUSA, United Kingdom
            Duration01:58

            The true story of William Wilberforce and his courageous quest to end the British slave trade. Along the way, Wilberforce meets intense opposition, but his minister urges him to see the cause through.

            Markimdb: 6.2
            Genredrama, crime
            CountryUSA
            Duration01:29

            In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.

            Markimdb: 6.4
            Genrecomedy, melodrama, drama, family, biography
            CountryAustralia, USA

            Explores the early events leading up to Red Dog's discovery on the road to Dampier, and his ultimate rise from ordinary dog to Australian legend.

            Markimdb: 6.4
            Genrecomedy, melodrama, drama
            CountryUSA
            Duration01:52

            A romantic comedy that brings together three disparate characters who are learning to face a challenging and often confusing world as they struggle together against a common demon: sex addiction.




            MoviesList