18 best movies like The Girl Who Spelled Freedom (1986)

During a time of robber barons, mills and rising industry, two orphan children meet two unexpected visitors who turn the tide of events and change their lives forever.

A Brooklyn mother finds comic relief from domestic drudgery by inhabiting the world in guises—drag king, pole dancer, Santa Claus—managing to find moments of grace even on thankless days.

Marco, 12, is obsessed with his iPad and hardly leaves the house. But when his grandmother dies and his grandfather moves in, Marco's life is turned upside-down and he's forced...to go play outside. "Nonno" (Grandpa) introduces him to bocce ball and to the neighborhood crew of old Italian men who play daily at the local court. With sport, laughter and love, Marco finds connection to other people and rounds up a team of neighborhood kids to take on Marco's grandfather and his pals.

In the town of Copper Canyon, people are cashing in on an economic housing boom, and the local country club is buzzing about the investment opportunity. Once vivacious couple, Roger (Vincent D'Onofrio) and Georgie (Kyra Sedgwick), have settled into a complacent lifestyle of mediocrity where their marriage is falling apart and their children are turning away from them. Nonetheless, the desperately discontent Georgie pushes Roger into finding a way to invest in the market bubble in the hopes that their family can be saved with the money they are sure to make. When local tennis pro and part-time drug dealer, Pat (Rhys Coiro), comes to Roger for investment advice, Roger sees his opportunity. Torn by the reality that his family could be saved by this dirty money, Roger finds himself staring down the barrel of a moral conundrum.

The film, based on the William Sirls book, follows a small-town pastor, his wife and their sick child as a mysterious man is sent to give them hope. Sirls adapted his book for the screen, writing the screenplay with Aviv Rubinstein and Richard Clark Jr.

Shop owner Alice Chapman is nervous to meet her future in-laws at Christmas, especially because she is arriving ahead of her new fiance Will Mitchum. Alice's trip becomes more stressful when her luggage is lost and her phone is damaged, leaving her no way to find Will's family!

Orphaned and alone except for an uncle, Hugo Cabret lives in the walls of a train station in 1930s Paris. Hugo's job is to oil and maintain the station's clocks, but to him, his more important task is to protect a broken automaton and notebook left to him by his late father. Accompanied by the goddaughter of an embittered toy merchant, Hugo embarks on a quest to solve the mystery of the automaton and find a place he can call home.

The film centers on a fight promoter (Mark Feuerstein) deeply in debt to his crooked rival. Desperate for a new fighter that will help him win back everything he owes, the promoter catches a break when a 450-pound church handyman (Paul "Big Show" Wight) who has spent his entire life in an orphanage agrees to wrestle on behalf of his fellow orphans.

A series of mishaps threaten a recently divorced mom's attempts to make her two kids' first Christmas "without dad" perfect.

Nothing happens until two people fall in love -- and then the whole world changes.

In a hyper-linked social media age, an orphaned teenage girl, Jerrica Jem Benton, becomes an online recording sensation, and she and her sisters embark on a music-driven scavenger hunt - one that sends them on an adventure across Los Angeles - in an attempt to unlock a final message left by her father.

For Love's Sake is a faith-based drama based on a true story. After the tragic death of her husband, Mary Walker falls into a spiral of suicidal depression and subsequently loses custody of her two boys. Through the intervention of her church community and a caring therapist, Mary regains her faith, experiences emotional healing, and finds the strength to fight a skeptical bureaucracy for custody of her children.

Tired of being bullied, Cassandra Evans prays that her nemesis, Katie Sharp, the queen bee of social media, would know what it’s like to walk a day in her shoes. Her prayer is answered in an unexpected way when they get switched.

Two cutting-edge scientists give 'birth' to a Neanderthal—the first to walk the earth for some 35,000 years—in order to attempt to answer these questions. Part 'normal' child, part science experiment, William’s 'parents' struggle with the best way to raise him. As William grows toward adulthood, he is educated in the human experiences of love and intimacy. But his primitive impulses begin to emerge the more he tries to conform to human expectations, leading to tragic consequences for him and his loved ones.

Nancy Drew, a smart high schooler with a penchant for keen observation and deduction, stumbles upon the haunting of a local home. A bit of an outsider struggling to fit into her new surroundings, Nancy and her pals set out to solve the mystery, make new friends, and establish their place in the community

After young Kirra leaves her Australian home to summer with her grandfather in South Africa, she soon discovers a baby orca stranded in the lagoon near her grandfather’s rundown seaside amusement park. She names the lonely whale Willy--and embarks on a great quest to lead the little guy back to his anxious pod.

After her sister and brother-in-law's tragic death, an American woman who is the guardian for her young niece and nephew is invited to a royal European castle for Christmas by her late brother-in-law's father, the Duke of Castlebury. Feeling out of place as a commoner, she is determined to give her family a merry Christmas and surprises herself when she falls for a handsome prince.

A powerful true story about the journey of a troubled teenage girl who finds healing in the most unlikely of places, and who must choose to either invest in her own recovery or succumb to the trauma of her past.