Ladies in BlackMovies like Ladies in Black
- Key Features:
- Coming-of-age, Female friendship, Department store, 1950s, Social change, Cultural assimilation, Personal growth, Australian setting, Fashion, Comedy-drama, Adaptation
- Tone:
- humorous, earnest, restrained
- Target Audience:
- Fans of feel-good movies, Historical drama enthusiasts, Female-driven stories
- Emotional Arc:
- Innocence → Discovery → Empowerment
Ladies in Black

Adapted from the bestselling novel by Madeleine St John, Ladies in Black is an alluring and tender-hearted comedy drama about the lives of a group of department store employees in 1959 Sydney.
Ladies in Black
A haunting ghost story set against the backdrop of a busy winter sales period in a department store, following the life of a cursed dress as it passes from person to person, with devastating consequences.

A 1950s London cleaning lady falls in love with an haute couture dress by Christian Dior and decides to gamble everything for the sake of this folly.

Sylvia, an industrial scientist, is troubled by strange hallucinations related to the tragic suicide of her mother.

A young social outcast in Australia steals money from her parents to finance a vacation where she hopes to find happiness, and perhaps love.

After running out of money while backpacking in a tiny, male-dominated town in the Australian outback, two friends resort to a working holiday at the Royal Hotel. When the locals' behavior starts crossing the line, the girls find themselves trapped in an unnerving situation that grows rapidly out of their control.

Set in a small English town in 1959, a woman decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop, a decision which becomes a political minefield.

Andrea, a gifted young Polish violinist from Krakow, is bound for America when he is swept overboard by a storm. When the Widdington sisters discover the handsome stranger on the beach below their house, they nurse him back to health. However, the presence of the musically talented young man disrupts the peaceful lives of Ursula and Janet and the community in which they live.

Lucie is in remission and her illness is almost a distant memory. Her family pushes her to live life to the fullest, and in doing so Lucie meets the charming and arrogant Clovis, who is immediately beguiled by her wit and humor. It is Dalila, however, an eccentric and delightful dance teacher, who inspires Lucie to rebuild her life and to grow into the woman she always wanted to be. For her mother, for her daughter, for Clovis.

Four friends are facing problems like infidelity, infertility and disease. But together, they can solve every single problem.

When a friendless old widow dies in the seaside town of Crythin, a young solicitor is sent by his firm to settle the estate. The lawyer finds the townspeople reluctant to talk about or go near the woman's dreary home and no one will explain or even acknowledge the menacing woman in black he keeps seeing.

The story centers on a group of gossipy, high-society women who spend their days at the beauty salon and haunting fashion shows. The sweet, happily-wedded Mary Haines finds her marriage in trouble when shop girl Crystal Allen gets her hooks into Mary's man.

Ella's unique designs inspire publishing mogul Derek to include plussized fashion in his magazine. It's not long before Derek realizes that Ella's influence reaches far beyond the catwalk.

In 1996 Scotland, a group of Catholic schoolgirls get an opportunity to go into Edinburgh for a choir competition, but they're more interested in drinking, partying and hooking up than winning the competition.

A story about 11 girls living in Paris. Each of them has its own problems: career, love life, children. Every girl has their complexes and virtues. They always look elegant, hiding their inner feelings. Will they reach all the goals and overcome all their difficulties?

The true story of the relationship between Alan Bennett and the singular Miss Shepherd, a woman of uncertain origins who ‘temporarily’ parked her van in Bennett’s London driveway and proceeded to live there for 15 years.

Five teenage girls navigate the twists and turns of their complicated emotional lives, and learn the secrets of the heart through their friendship.

Set in the Little Saigon district outside of Sydney, a woman trying to escape her past becomes embroiled in a drug deal.

In 1950s Australia, beautiful, talented dressmaker Tilly returns to her tiny hometown to right wrongs from her past. As she tries to reconcile with her mother, she starts to fall in love while transforming the fashion of the town.

When four best friends try and move forward in their work and personal life, they realize that trying to live their life's dream is more difficult than they imagine -- especially in the high fashion world of Shanghai.

The film is about an old fashioned Italian with moral values of the 1930/40's , who has to find a wife in the modern, woman's liberated society of Australia of the 1960/70's.

A New York writer on sex and love is finally getting married to her Mr. Big. But her three best girlfriends must console her after one of them inadvertently leads Mr. Big to jilt her.

From Jane Austen’s novella, the beautiful and cunning Lady Susan Vernon visits the estate of her in-laws to wait out colorful rumors of her dalliances and to find husbands for herself and her daughter. Two young men, handsome Reginald DeCourcy and wealthy Sir James Martin, severely complicate her plans.

Set in northern Australia before World War II, an English aristocrat who inherits a sprawling ranch reluctantly pacts with a stock-man in order to protect her new property from a takeover plot. As the pair drive 2,000 head of cattle over unforgiving landscape, they experience the bombing of Darwin by Japanese forces firsthand.

40 years after the first haunting at Eel Marsh House, a group of children evacuated from WWII London arrive, awakening the house's darkest inhabitant.

Nazi skinheads in Melbourne take out their anger on local Vietnamese, who are seen as threatening racial purity. Finally the Vietnamese have had enough and confront the skinheads in an all-out confrontation, sending the skinheads running. A woman who is prone to epileptic seizures joins the skins' merry band, and helps them on their run from justice, but is her affliction also a sign of impurity?

Agathe Clery, a marketing manager for a cosmetics company, is snobbish, stubborn and racist. When she is diagnosed with Addison Syndrome, an disorder that darkens the pigmentation of one's skin, she suddenly finds herself resembling a black woman.

An actor's career takes a "Tootsie"-like turn when he lets himself be cast as a woman in a movie.

Four lifelong friends decide that their lives could change by becoming nasty and reading Fifty Shades of Grey in their monthly book club to get inspiration on how to handle sexual pleasure at an elderly age.

Eccentric 70-year-old widow purchases the Windmill Theatre in London as a post-widowhood hobby. After starting an innovative continuous variety review, which is copied by other theaters, they begin to lose money. Mrs. Henderson suggests they add female nudity similar to the Moulin Rouge in Paris.

In 1920s New York City, a Black woman finds her world upended when her life becomes intertwined with a former childhood friend who's passing as white.

A young woman who is determined to maintain her independence finds herself at odds with her family who wants her to tame her wild side and get married.

London bookstore owner William Thacker's quiet life turns upside down when a chance encounter with famous actress Anna Scott sparks an unlikely romance challenged by their vastly different worlds.

An adventurous love story between two young women of different social and economic backgrounds who find themselves going through all the typical struggles of a new romance.

Lovestruck conservatory student Ariane pretends to be just as much a cosmopolitan lover as the worldly mature Frank Flannagan hoping that l’amour will take hold.

It's 1968, and four young, talented Australian Aboriginal girls learn about love, friendship, and war when they entertain the US troops in Vietnam as singing group The Sapphires.

The story follows a young lawyer, Arthur Kipps, who is ordered to travel to a remote village and sort out a recently deceased client’s papers. As he works alone in the client’s isolated house, Kipps begins to uncover tragic secrets, his unease growing when he glimpses a mysterious woman dressed only in black. Receiving only silence from the locals, Kipps is forced to uncover the true identity of the Woman in Black on his own, leading to a desperate race against time when he discovers her true identity.

Middle-class Parisian suburbs: Blanche and Léa, office worker and student, meet and become friends. Léa is going out with Fabien, but is thinking of leaving him. Blanche falls for Léa's handsome and witty friend Alexandre, but is tongue-tied whenever she meets him. Léa goes on holiday and Blanche, still smitten with the dashing Alexandre, begins to get to know Fabien.

In the early 1900s, Miranda attends a girls boarding school in Australia. One Valentine's Day, the school's typically strict headmistress treats the girls to a picnic field trip to an unusual but scenic volcanic formation called Hanging Rock. Despite rules against it, Miranda and several other girls venture off. It's not until the end of the day that the faculty realizes the girls and one of the teachers have disappeared mysteriously.

There comes a point in everyone’s life when you have to make a decision about the direction you’re going to take. For newly-18 American fashion model Cora, that time is now. She’s moved to an Australian coastal town to be with her favourite aunt, after a 'fashion faux pas’ back home.

Andy moves to New York to work in the fashion industry. Her boss is extremely demanding, cruel and won't let her succeed if she doesn't fit into the high class elegant look of their magazine.

An intimate study of two women friends who come to each other because of troubles with everyday life and with men and thus try to enjoy a life based on their ideas.

When a small town woman with southern charm is given a big promotion managing a store in the Big Apple, she tries to adopt a big city personality and it leads to disastrous results.

Racial integration is Elena's profession and passion, not only filling her working day as a cultural mediator assisting immigrants, but spilling over into her home life as well. All too often her husband Carlo must attend charity events where he feels distinctly out of place. During one of these evenings, Carlo meets Nadine, a beautiful black woman.

While Aya has dreams of becoming a doctor, her two best friends, Adjoua and Bintou, just like to hang out and spend their evenings dancing, drinking and flirting with boys. Their ambition is to follow Plan C: Combs, Clothes and Chasing Men! But big trouble comes to town when Adjoua realizes she’s pregnant, and the baby’s father is the spoiled son of one of the richest and most feared men in the whole country.

Mahree Bok lives on a farm in South Africa. Her father is a policeman who cannot hide his joy when activist Steve Biko is caught by the South African authorities. Piper Dellums is the daughter of a US congressman from California and who lives in a nice home in Washington DC. When Mahree is chosen to spend a semester at the Dellums' house, she doesn't expect that her host family would be black. Nor do her hosts suspect that she is not a black South African.

Locked in a school closet during Halloween 1962, young Frank witnesses the ghost of a young girl and the man who murdered her years ago. Shortly afterward he finds himself stalked by the killer and is soon drawn to an old house where a mysterious Lady In White lives. As he discovers the secret of the woman he soon finds that the killer may be someone close to him.

Sparks fly when a fashion blogger in Bali meets a gifted shoemaker, leading her to question her commitment to her fiancé.

Georgia Nicolson is fourteen, lives with nosey parents who don't understand her, an annoying three year old sister and has to wear a beret to school. She would, however, rather be blonde, have a smaller nose and a boyfriend. Revolving around her hilarious journal entries, prepare to be engulfed in the world of the soaring joys and bottomless angst of being a teenager.

Drifting through his gap year with its internships and travel plans, Jack has always suspected there was more to life than this. A chance encounter with the beautiful and ethereal Evelyn swerves his life radically off course.

Two quirky, cynical teenaged girls try to figure out what to do with their lives after high school graduation. After they play a prank on an eccentric, middle aged record collector, one of them befriends him, which causes a rift in the girls’ friendship.

After her husband loses his job, a housewife from a middle-class, conservative family in Calcutta gets a job as a salesperson.

A fiercely independent pilot fighting to keep her family business afloat starts to fall for the man sent by corporate to ground her operation forever.

Every Thursday a group of ladies would gather to play cards and discuss their loves, lives and children while their daughters played in the next room. Thirty years later, the daughters meet at a funeral for one of the mothers. Like their mothers, they discuss their hopes, dreams and fears.

After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meets the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Mr. Rochester. Jane and her employer grow close in friendship and she soon finds herself falling in love with him. Happiness seems to have found Jane at last, but could Mr. Rochester's terrible secret be about to destroy it forever?

Daphne is a young woman negotiating the tricky business of modern life. Caught in the daily rush of her restaurant job and a nightlife kaleidoscope of new faces, she is witty, funny, the life of the party. Too busy to realise that deep down she is not happy. When she saves the life of a shopkeeper stabbed in a failed robbery, the impenetrable armour she wears to protect herself begins to crack, and Daphne is forced to confront the inevitability of a much-needed change in her life.

Josie, the daughter of the town's wealthiest businessman, faces problems at home and wishes to leave town but is disoriented. Her decision is finalized after she falls asleep in a Target dressing room. She awakens to find herself locked in the store overnight with the janitor, Jim, the town "no hoper" and liar.

A lady has her prim and proper life turned upside down after discovering her husband's affair.

Wondering what has happened to herself, now feeling stagnant and in a rut, Shirley Valentine finds herself regularly talking to the wall while preparing her husband's chips and egg. When her best friend wins a trip-for-two to Greece Shirley begins to see the world, and herself, in a different light.

Outside the Australian town of Jindabyne, local man Stuart Kane is on a fishing trip with friends when they discover the body of a murdered girl.

After the Ball, a retail fairy tale set in the world of fashion. Kate's dream is to design for couturier houses. Although she is a bright new talent, Kate can't get a job. No one trusts the daughter of Lee Kassell, a retail guru who markets clothes "inspired" by the very designers Kate wants to work for. Who wants a spy among the sequins and stilettos? Reluctantly, Kate joins the family business where she must navigate around her duplicitous stepmother and two wicked stepsisters. But with the help of a prince of a guy in the shoe department her godmother's vintage clothes and a shocking switch of identities, Kate exposes the evil trio, saves her father's company -- and proves that everyone can wear a fabulous dress.

The Wild Chicks are slowly growing out of their youthful gang years and have to face the worries of growing up on the sidelines of a big class trip before graduation.

Fourteen-year-old Charlie's life changes when Jasper takes his help to dispose of the body of his girlfriend, Laura. He decides to look for the murderer and falls in love with Laura's younger sister.

Brooklyn, New York. After the sudden death of their aunt Isabelle, Vivien and Chloe inherit her historic bakery. Vivien wants to keep up the tradition; Chloe feels that the business needs to be modernized. But when notified that they are about to be evicted, the two do not hesitate to work together to preserve the family legacy.

A young girl, passionate about fashion design, is mysteriously able to enter the 1960s where she encounters her idol, a dazzling wannabe singer. But 1960s London is not what it seems, and time seems to be falling apart with shady consequences.

Alberta, a mousy young woman with the survival skills of a snail, loses cash that isn't hers, so she runs from her small town to Seattle where her old babysitter, Celene, lives - a dominatrix with a classy apartment and a life plan. She lets Alberta stay. Alberta gets a job as a checker at a supermarket and becomes fascinated with Celene's work.

In 1950s Ireland and New York, young Eilis Lacey has to choose between two men and two countries.

When Stuart learns that his British ex-girlfriend is planning to visit Los Angeles with her husband, he sets out to impress them with his glamorous lifestyle, enlisting a flaky Russian model he’s just met to play the role of his beautiful girlfriend. What could go wrong?

A pair of teenagers in Western Australia looking to escape the monotony of life in a small town take up surfing lessons from a guy named Sando.

After a police chase with an otherworldly being, a New York City cop is recruited as an agent in a top-secret organization established to monitor and police alien activity on Earth: the Men in Black. Agent K and new recruit Agent J find themselves in the middle of a deadly plot by an intergalactic terrorist who has arrived on Earth to assassinate two ambassadors from opposing galaxies.

A portrait of the flaws and peculiarities of four type of girls living in different districts of Rome.

Paris, in the early 1960s. Jean-Louis Joubert is a serious but uptight stockbroker, married to Suzanne, a starchy class-conscious woman and father of two arrogant teenage boys, currently in a boarding school. The affluent man lives a steady yet boring life. At least until, due to fortuitous circumstances, Maria, the charming new maid at the service of Jean-Louis' family, makes him discover the servants' quarter on the sixth floor of the luxury building he owns and lives in. There live a crowd of lively Spanish maids who will help Jean-Louis to open to a new civilization and a new approach of life. In their company - and more precisely in the company of beautiful Maria - Jean-Louis will gradually become another man, a better man.

Émilie meets Camille who is attracted to Nora, who crosses paths with Amber. Three girls and a boy – They're friends, sometimes lovers and often both.

Set in 1960s India, Archie and the gang navigate romance, friendship and the future of Riverdale as developers threaten to destroy a beloved park.

A young man, Aren, is recruited into a secret society of magical Black people who dedicate their lives to a cause of utmost importance: making white people’s lives easier.

In an updated contemporary version of the beloved stage play and 1989 film, "Steel Magnolias" chronicles the lives and friendship of six women in Louisiana. Supporting each other through their triumphs and tragedies, they congregate at Truvy’s beauty shop to ponder the mysteries of life and death, husbands and children - and hair and nails - all the important topics that truly unite and celebrate women.

A woman tries to survive the invasion of Berlin by the Soviet troops during the last days of World War II.

The relationship between Lelia, a light-skinned black woman, and Tony, a white man is put in jeopardy when Tony meets Lelia’s darker-skinned jazz singer brother, Hugh, and discovers that her racial heritage is not what he thought it was.

A new student, Manuela, enters a strict girls' boarding school after her mother’s death, where she finds comfort in a kind teacher, stirring complex emotions within her.

Can a girl from Little Rock find happiness with a mature French planter she got to know one enchanted evening away from the military hospital where she is a nurse? Or should she just wash that man out of her hair? Bloody Mary is the philosopher of the island and it's hard to believe she could be the mother of Liat who has captured the heart of Lt. Joseph Cable USMC. While waiting for action in the war in the South Pacific, sailors and nurses put on a musical comedy show. The war gets closer and the saga of Nellie Forbush and Emile de Becque becomes serious drama.

She’s the most beautiful, most short-sighted, most sentimental, most perplexing, most obstinate, most untrustworthy and most troubling of heroines. The lady in the car has never seen the sea. On the run from the police, she keeps telling herself that she’s not crazy… Only...

In 1950s New York, a department-store clerk who dreams of a better life falls for an older, married woman.

A terminally ill teen upsets her parents when she falls in love with a small-time drug dealer.

In 2001, somewhere in rural India, two young brides get accidentally swapped on a train. In the ensuing chaos, they both encounter a host of colourful characters, resulting in hilarious and unexpected consequences.

Jo is chained down in a dead end supermarket job while all her friends are all out on their own separate adventures. But a chance encounter with some diamond thieves sends their separate worlds on a collision course with not only each other, but fate itself.

A homely but vivacious young woman dodges the amorous attentions of her father's middle-aged employer while attempting to please her glamorously stuck-up roommate Meredith.

The love story between a pampered Cocker Spaniel named Lady and a streetwise mongrel named Tramp. Lady finds herself out on the street after her owners have a baby and is saved from a pack by Tramp, who tries to show her to live her life footloose and collar-free.

Indy lives with her aunt and uncle and believes her life is fine until an accident brings a new guy into her life. Bryant Bailey is not Indy's type - she's never been into guys like him. But then again, she's never really known anyone so stubborn and caring that can also help her discover who she is and what she's worth. A modern telling of Cinderella, based on the novel by Jenni James.

An aspiring dancer moves to New York City and becomes caught up in a whirlwind of flighty fair-weather friends, diminishing fortunes and career setbacks.

A London aristocrat (Rupert Everett) rents out rooms in his posh estate to a pair of Italians who are wooing two wealthy British gals (Elle Macpherson, Judith Godrèche).

38-year-old Alice has everything to become the next editor-in-chief of Rebelle magazine except for her uptight image. But when the young and charming Balthazar, barely 20, crosses Alice's path, she realizes that he holds the key to her promotion.

A trio of beautiful girls set out to revolutionize life at a grungy American university: the dynamic leader Violet Wister, principled Rose and sexy Heather. They welcome transfer student Lily into their group which seeks to help severely depressed students with a program of good hygiene and musical dance numbers.

Ellie Hartman is an aspiring crafter working in her small town’s bakery making famous Christmas Kringles. When the new, big-city CEO Nick Carlingson visits the bakery, he arrives filled with modernization ideas destined to lay off many employees.

A series of skits involving customers and store personnel from several departments of the big department store.

Teens P.J. and Goose get their thrills on BMX bikes, performing hair-raising tricks all across Sydney, Australia. Along with their new friend Judy, they discover a box of walkie-talkies -- and find out that a gang of criminals intends to use them to monitor police signals during a bank robbery. When the young trio snatches the devices, it propels them on a hair-raising adventure in which their pedaling skills might just save their necks.

To climb the corporate ladder to success, a businessman agrees to coach his company's all-girl soccer team with the help of his secret weapon: his fiancee's son.

Vincent and Nefeli just moved in together. They're best friends and swore to never fall in love again. That is until Vincent meets Julie.

In late 1940s Los Angeles, Easy Rawlins is an unemployed black World War II veteran with few job prospects. At a bar, Easy meets DeWitt Albright, a mysterious white man looking for someone to investigate the disappearance of a missing white woman named Daphne Monet, who he suspects is hiding out in one of the city's black jazz clubs. Strapped for money and facing house payments, Easy takes the job, but soon finds himself in over his head.

In the Pacific Northwest during the 1950s, two young sisters whose mother has abandoned them wind up living with their Aunt Sylvie, whose views of the world and its conventions don't quite live up to most people's expectations.

